Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS), or The Black Hunters (German: Die schwarzen Jäger),[2] was a unit of the Waffen-SS during World War II.

Originally formed from convicted poachers in 1940 and first deployed for counter-insurgency duties against the Polish resistance movement, the brigade saw service in German-occupied Eastern Europe, with an especially active role in the anti-partisan operations in Belarus.

"[9] The unit continuously committed sadistic acts of violence, torture, rape and murder, and enjoyed plundering wherever they went, even killing each other during looting.

[18] After enlisting in the German Army as a machine gunner in 1913, Dirlewanger served in the XIII (Royal Württemberg) Corps rising to the rank of Leutnant (lieutenant) and receiving the Iron Cross first and second class during WWI.

[22][19][20] On 23 March 1940, a department in the Ministry of Justice received a telephone call from Himmler's headquarters informing them that Adolf Hitler had decided to give "suspended sentences to so-called 'honourable poachers' and, depending on their behaviour at the front, to pardon them".

A confirmation of Hitler's order was sent specifying that the poachers should, where possible, be Bavarian and Austrian, not be guilty of crimes involving trap setting, and were to be enrolled in marksmen's rifle corps.

[2] The men were to combine their knowledge of hunting and woodcraft similar to traditional Jäger elite riflemen with the courage and initiative of those who willingly broke the law.

As the unit strength grew, it was placed under the command of the SS-Totenkopfverbände (the formation responsible for the administration of the concentration camps) and redesignated as the SS-Sonderbataillon Dirlewanger.

[28][29] Transcripts of the Nuremberg trials show Soviet prosecutors frequently questioning defendants accused of war crimes on the Eastern Front about their knowledge of the Dirlewanger Brigade.

In Hitler's view Dirlewanger could do the jobs that even the most battle- hardened soldiers could not bring themselves to do.He ended his remembrance of the division by citing a story from a comrade of his that he had witnessed Dirlewanger men doing:A shocked comrade told me they once raped a woman before wrapping her in barbed wire and roasting her alive over a fire, like a hog on a spit.On 1 August 1940, the unit was assigned to guard duties in the region of Lublin (site of a Nazi-established "Jew reservation" established under the Nisko Plan) in the General Government territory of German-occupied Poland.

[20] According to the historian, Matthew Cooper, "wherever the Dirlewanger unit operated, corruption and rape formed an every-day part of life and indiscriminate slaughter, beatings and looting were rife".

Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer (HSSPF) Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger eventually demanded the quick removal of the unit from his territory or he would have the men arrested.

The primary tasks assigned were to combat partisans, confiscate agricultural products and livestock, and secure the labor force in the area west of Minsk.

In a post-war testimony, an anonymous member of the SS-Sonderbataillon Dirlewanger recalled what he witnessed during an anti-partisan operation in Belarus:[44]During a march — and we had driven 200 km close to Smolensk — the villages were encircled.

Each of these villages was leveled down to the ground.According to historian Timothy Snyder: As it inflicted its first fifteen thousand mortal casualties, the Special Commando Dirlewanger lost only ninety-two men—many of them, no doubt, to friendly fire and alcoholic accidents.

[23] According to the historian, Martin Kitchen, the unit "committed such shocking atrocities in the Soviet Union, in the pursuit of partisans, that even an SS court was called upon to investigate".

On late November, Dirlewanger was sent home to Germany in Esslingen am Neckar to recover from his 11th wound after a recent battle, where a bullet grazed across his right arm and chest.

[52] The regiment sustained heavy casualties during several rearguard actions and were detached from Kampfgruppe von Gottberg on 20 July 1944 .At the same time , they were sent to East Prussia for reconstitution at the Arys training center in the town of Lyck.

[54] When the Armia Krajowa began the Warsaw Uprising on 1 August 1944, SS-Sonderregiment Dirlewanger was sent into action under the command of SS-Sturmbannführer Kurt Weisse, as part of the Kampfgruppe formation led by SS-Gruppenführer Heinz Reinefarth; once again serving alongside Bronislav Kaminski's militia (now named SS Sturmbrigade RONA).

so great that they cut off fingers with a single blow, on which they noticed rings, so as not to waste time, they took out gold teeth with bayonets, and while plundering, out of greed, they killed each other.

[67] Polish nurses were repeatedly raped, and in some instances, hand grenades were inserted into their vaginas and detonated, while other times a "shouting and flute concerto" followed with the driving of women to the gallows.

[68] Many otherwise unknown crimes committed by the unit at Wola were later revealed by Mathias Schenck, a Belgian national who was serving in the area as a German Army sapper.

He ordered a battalion of SS military policemen to stand by, in case the Dirlewanger troops turned on their own leaders or on nearby German units.

[75] Before their departure from Warsaw, the strength of the unit was approximately less than 4500 men after receiving the nearly 2000 probationary troops from Wehrmacht prison , detention facilities and punishment cells.

SS-Gruppenführer Richard Glück and SS-Standartenführer Hermann Pister also had adviced Dirlewanger to try form a unit consisting of former political opponent of the Nazi Party.

The proposed criteria were that the commandants of the concentration camps would personally select 250 prisoners who had changed their political views and now desired to prove themselves by fighting for Germany.

On 16 October 1944, elements of the Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger were strafed and bombed by several LaGG-5 plane belonging to the Slovakian Air Force near the train station at Diviaky.

With the outcome of the war no longer in doubt, large numbers of communist and socialist political prisoners began applying to join the unit in the hopes of defecting to the Soviets.

[83] On 3 November 1944, the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office had issued quotas to all primary concentration camps for the suitable selection of political prisoners.

SS-Brigadeführer Fritz Schmedes, former commander of the 4th SS Polizei Panzergrenadier Division, was assigned to the Dirlewanger Brigade by Himmler as punishment for refusing to carry out orders.