# Dirlewanger Brigade

The Dirlewanger Brigade, also known as the SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger (1944), or the 36th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (German: 36. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS), or The Black Hunters (German: Die schwarzen Jäger), was a unit of the Waffen-SS during World War II. The unit, named after its commander Oskar Dirlewanger, consisted of convicted criminals. 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. The unit is regarded as the most brutal and notorious Waffen-SS unit, with its soldiers described as "The ideal genocidal killers who neither gave nor expected quarter". The unit is regarded as the most infamous Waffen-SS unit in Poland and Belarus, and arguably the worst military unit in modern European history in terms of criminality and cruelty.
During its operations, the unit participated in the mass murder of civilians and committed other atrocities in German-occupied Eastern Europe. It gained a reputation among Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS officers for its brutality. It epitomized the "anti-partisan activity on the Eastern front that emerged from the image of the hunt and the animalization of the enemy", with the unit also described as "a very formidable and effective fighting unit. It may well have been the best anti-partisan troop to ever fight in any war at any time." The unit continuously committed sadistic acts of violence, torture, rape and murder, and enjoyed plundering wherever they went, even killing each other during looting. Dirlewanger himself often beat and killed his own troops as well, especially when they displeased him.
According to French historian Christian Ingrao, Dirlewanger's unit committed the worst atrocities of the Second World War, while the American historian Timothy Snyder noted they committed more atrocities than any other. The unit killed at least 30,000 civilians in Belarus alone, with up to over 120,000 killed and 200 villages destroyed by Dirlewanger's unit in Belarus. Several members such as Hans von Cullen were put to death after the war by ad-hoc tribunals. Several commanders attempted to remove Dirlewanger from command and to dissolve the unit, but powerful patrons within the Nazi apparatus protected Dirlewanger and intervened on his behalf. Amongst other actions, the unit took part in the destruction of Warsaw in late 1944 and in the Wola massacre of more than 50,000 of Warsaw's inhabitants in August 1944 during the Warsaw Uprising – as well as in the brutal suppression of the Slovak National Uprising of August to October 1944.

## Oskar Dirlewanger

The eponymous Dirlewanger Brigade was led by World War I veteran and habitual offender, Oskar Dirlewanger, considered an amoral violent alcoholic who was claimed to have possessed a sadistic sexual fetish and a barbaric nature; he has been described as "the most evil man" in the SS and possibly the most sadistic commander of the Second World War.
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. He joined the Freikorps and took part in crushing the German Revolution of 1918–19. After graduating from Frankfurt's Goethe University with a doctorate in political science in 1922, he worked at a bank and at a knitwear factory. By 1923 he had joined the Nazi Party. In 1934 he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment for "contributing to the delinquency of a minor with whom he was sexually involved", and for stealing government property. The conviction led to him being expelled from the Nazi Party (but he was permitted to reapply for membership). Soon after his release, Dirlewanger was rearrested for sexual assault and sent to a concentration camp at Welzheim. In desperation, he contacted his old WWI comrade Gottlob Berger who was now a senior Nazi working closely with Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. Berger used his influence to help Dirlewanger join the Condor Legion, a German unit which fought in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939).
On his return to Germany in 1939, Berger helped Dirlewanger join the Allgemeine SS (General SS) with the rank of SS-Untersturmführer. In mid-1940, after the invasion of Poland, Berger arranged for Dirlewanger to command and train a military unit of convicted poachers for partisan-hunting (Bandenbekämpfung).

## Composition

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. 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. In late May 1940, Dirlewanger was sent to Oranienburg to take charge of 80 selected men convicted of poaching crimes who were temporarily released from their sentences. After two months of training, 55 men were selected with the rest sent back to prison. On 14 June 1940, the Wilddiebkommando Oranienburg ("Oranienburg Poacher's Unit") was formed as part of the Waffen-SS. Himmler made Dirlewanger its commander. The unit was sent to Poland where it was joined by four Waffen-SS NCOs selected for their previous disciplinary records and twenty other recruits. By September 1940, the formation numbered over 300 men. Dirlewanger was promoted to SS-Obersturmführer by Himmler. With the influx of criminals, the emphasis on poachers was now lost, though many of the former poachers rose to NCO ranks to train the unit. Those convicted of other crimes, including the criminally insane and homosexuals,$^{:394}$ also joined the unit.
From the beginning, the formation attracted criticism from both the Nazi Party and the SS for the idea that convicted criminals who were forbidden to carry arms, therefore then exempt from conscription in the Wehrmacht, could be a part of the elite SS. A solution was found where it was proclaimed that the formation was not part of the SS, but under the control of the SS. Accordingly, the unit name was changed to Sonderkommando Dirlewanger ("Special Unit Dirlewanger"). 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. In January 1942, to rebuild its strength, the unit was authorised to recruit Russian and Ukrainian volunteers. By February 1943, the number of men in the battalion doubled to 700 (half of them Volksdeutsche). It became a Waffen-SS unit again in late 1944. In May 1944, the 550 men (Turkestanis, Volga Tartars, Azerbaijanis, Kirghiz, Uzbek, and Tadjiks) from the Ostmuselmanische SS-Regiment were attached to the Dirlewanger Brigade.
Although other Strafbataillons were raised as the war proceeded and the need for further manpower grew, these penal military units were for those convicted of military offences, whereas the recruits sent to the unit were convicted of major crimes such as premeditated murder, rape, arson, and burglary. Dirlewanger provided them with an opportunity to commit atrocities on such a scale that it even raised complaints within the brutal SS. Historian Martin Windrow described them as a "terrifying rabble" of "cut-throats, renegades, sadistic morons, and cashiered rejects from other units". Some Nazi officials romanticized the unit, viewing the men as "pure primitive German men" who were "resisting the law".

## Operational history

During the organization's time in the Soviet Union, the unit burned women and children alive, let packs of starved dogs feed on them, and injected Jewish women with strychnine. 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. Heinrich Himmler noted the brutality of Dirlewanger, noting that "The tone in the regiment is, I may say, in many cases a medieval one with cudgels and such things. If anyone expresses doubts about winning the war he is likely to fall dead from the table."
The deputy commander, Kurt Weisse, has been described as the soldier in Dirlewanger that came closest to matching Dirlewanger in "brutality, cruelty, and outright sadism", and if "there was anyone in the unit who matched the classic profile of a psychopath, it was he."
Peter Buchner, who had been a part of the 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf noted the brutality of Dirlewanger and his men, stating:
   Dirlewanger, yes, he was definitely one of those mental cases, a man not at all sound of mind, quite insane in many respects. He was a man you could quite easily imagine standing at the edge of a mass burial pit, full of fresh corpses, masturbating over them. He enjoyed killing; to most of us soldiers killing was a job, a task we were expected to carry out in the course of our duty, to engage other soldiers in battle. We didn't revel in it like he did; he enjoyed the act of killing and almost all of those under his command were the same, they were a division of psychopaths who enjoyed raping men and women, girls and boys and even the elderly were not spared their sexual perversion, and when they had their fun, they then went on a rampage of murder and bingeing on alcohol.
Buchner further noted that Dirlewanger accepted practically any task given to them, ones that even the most battle-hardened soldiers could not do:
   They were a law unto themselves and often given the worst tasks, because Dirlewanger was crazy enough to do anything he was ordered to do, without any hesitation or question – he would just go and do it. Hitler liked him for that reason. 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.

### Poland

On 1 August 1940, the unit was formally transferred to the 5. SS-Totenkopf Regiment. One month later, the unit was retitled to Sonderkommando Dirlewanger. On 1 September 1940 , they were informed that they would not be sent to any frontlines but instead 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. The unit was reinforced with hundred of additional volunteers from Sachsenhausen which contained mixture of poachers, SS men or both element. On September 1940, the Sonderkommando now with the strength of approximately 280-300 men began their movement from Sachsenhausen to Lublin by railway take around 10-14 hours Upon arrival, the Sonderkommando was subordinated to SS-Brigadeführer Odilo Globocnik, who served as the Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer-Ost's representative for Lublin. Even thought they received additional training, they were tasked with guarding the ghetto in Lublin, where they often abused the population.
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". Even within the brutal regime of the General Government concerns were raised about the unit's conduct. (HSSPF) Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger eventually demanded the quick removal of the unit from his territory or he would have the men arrested.
The unit's crimes continued when it returned to Poland to help suppress the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. Crimes included the mass rape and murder of 15 Red Cross nurses and the killing of thousands of civilians. After troops entered a makeshift military hospital, they first killed the wounded with bayonets and rifle butts before gang-raping the women. The naked bleeding nurses were then taken outside, hanged by their feet and shot in their stomachs. The unit would carry out atrocities during the Wola massacre in which more than 40,000 Polish civilians were killed in reprisal on the orders of Himmler.

### Belarus

The territory of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (modern Belarus) was occupied in 1941 and formed part of Reichskommissariat Ostland. In this region, Dirlewanger came under the command of local HSSPF Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski. Dirlewanger gained the reputation of "exceeding all others", even amongst the SS, in "brutality and depravity". The unit resumed its so- called anti-partisan activities (Bandenbekämpfung). Dirlewanger's preferred method of operation was to gather civilians in a barn, set it on fire, and shoot at anyone who tried to escape; the victims of his unit numbered about 30,000. Some estimate around 200 villages were destroyed and around 120,000 were killed. Dirlewanger also had another tactic to determine which village would be targeted next. He would fly a light reconnaissance plane over any village suspected of harboring partisans. If the plane was hit by gunfire, he would mark the village's location on the map. Later, he would return to the ground and lead an attack, setting the targeted village on fire and killing all its inhabitants as usual.
Not long after their arrival in Belarus, they soon found themselves in action. From 2 to 10 March 1942, the unit encountered a strong band of partisans northeast of Osipovichi. They managed to rout the partisans and capture a large stockpile of weapons. On 12 March 1944, they were attacked once again but successfully defeated a large group of partisans near Tscherwakow. They were later attacked by a larger group of partisans at Klicev. Dirlewanger then initiated an operation in the forest area southwest of Mogilev.
In April, the Sonderkommando fell under the command of Police Regiment "Mitte" led by Oberst der Schutzpolizei Leo von Braunschweig. They were tasked with clearing the area near the Drut and Beresina Rivers. On April 2, 1942, the unit, along with Police Battalions 32 and 307, was sent to the northern area of the road connecting Mogilev and Bobrujsk. It was believed that this area was infested with heavily armed partisans, numbering over 600. During their operation, Dirlewanger's unit successfully rescued an encircled Heer unit near Illisowa. They launched a decisive assault on the heavily occupied villages of Selleri and Lushiza, relentlessly pursuing the partisans into the treacherous swamplands north of Batsevichi. From 8 to 15 April 1942, Dirlewanger's forces encircled and annihilated several well-entrenched partisan groups.
Impressed by the unit's performance in its first anti-partisan mission, Dirlewanger's superiors expressed their satisfaction. On 24 April 1942, Dirlewanger wrote to the SS-Main Office, asserting that the Sonderkommando was uniquely suited for combating partisans in difficult terrain. He also formally requested an increase in the unit's strength to 250 men.
In early May 1942, Dirlewanger and his men conducted extensive searches for partisan activity but found little success. On 12 May, they burned the village of Sucha to the ground, suspecting its inhabitants of harboring partisans. On 25 May, a Ford command car belonging to the unit was ambushed by a group of 30 partisans, 10 kilometers from Cecevici. The attack resulted in the deaths of three SS NCOs and three Wehrmacht soldiers, while another SS NCO was seriously wounded. On 29 May, Dirlewanger’s men captured a partisan and executed five others near the village of Dolgoje. Another partisan was killed at Raswada near Babruysk. In response, the village was set ablaze, followed by the destruction of another village near Podgor'e at the end of the month.
Operation Cottbus began on 20 May 1943 as part of the German effort to suppress partisan activity in the Vitebsk region. The operation involved Police, SS, and collaborationist units operating under the command of the Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer (HSSPF) Russland-Mitte und Weißruthenien. Among the participating forces was SS-Sonderbataillon Dirlewanger. On 28 May 1943, Dirlewanger and his unit took part in the operation and advanced toward a heavily fortified position at Hill 119.1, located 5 km west of Paliksee. Under intense enemy fire, Dirlewanger led a group of pioneers in a direct assault on the fortified area.
On 1 June 1943, while en route to the front lines, Dirlewanger and his staff were suddenly ambushed by partisans hidden in the surrounding swamplands. Forced into brutal close combat, they managed to break through the encirclement. The same swampy area later became the site of a decisive counterattack, resulting in the destruction of the partisan force. The operation was one of the largest anti-partisan campaigns conducted by the Germans in Belarus. At least 20,000 victims were killed, while German losses remained minimal, with fewer than 60 soldiers killed in action. Not everyone was impressed with Dirlewanger's actions. A civilian propaganda officer who toured the Operation Cottbus area reported witnessing horrific scenes—some partisans had been burned alive, and their charred remains were being eaten by roaming pigs. Wilhelm Kube, the Generalkommissar of Generalbezirk Weißruthenien, protested Dirlewanger’s actions, raising his concerns through Alfred Rosenberg to Heinrich Himmler. In response, Gottlob Berger dismissed the accusations as nonsense, insisting that Dirlewanger’s battalion was not as described.
On 7 July 1943, the battalion received an operational order from Kampfgruppe von Gottberg , led by SS-Gruppenführer Curt von Gottberg to participate in Operation Hermann. The primary tasks assigned were to combat partisans, confiscate agricultural products and livestock, and secure the labor force in the area west of Minsk.
From 19 July to 21 July 1943, the first company led by acting commander Kurt Weisse reported killing a confirmed partisan and executing 301 suspects. A total of 1,025 work-capable people were taken for labor, and 57 horses were seized. Two villages were attacked—one was burned down, and the other was liquidated. Only seven members of the company were wounded, and two died of their wounds. On 27 July 1944, the battalion reported capturing 314 work-capable people for labor and seizing 62 cattle. The following day, the battalion engaged in combat against partisans, successfully killing 26 of them while losing only two soldiers.
For August, the battalion captured 26 civilians, including 8 children, and killed 19 partisans along with 20 Jews. Four individuals were taken prisoner during this period. On 7 August, a hand grenade incident occurred during a roundup of over 300 people, resulting in the death of one soldier and injuries to eight others. Additionally, 11 villages were burned down.
In a post-war testimony, an anonymous member of the SS-Sonderbataillon Dirlewanger recalled what he witnessed during an anti-partisan operation in Belarus:
   During a march — and we had driven 200 km close to Smolensk — the villages were encircled. Nobody was allowed to leave or enter. The fields were searched and the people were sent back to the village. The next morning around 6:00 AM. all these people — it was a larger village with approximately 2,500 people — children, women, the elderly were pushed into four or five barns. Then Dirlewanger appeared with 10 men, officers, etc. and said: “Shoot them all immediately.” In front of the barn, he positioned four SD-men with machine pistols. The barn was opened and Dirlewanger said, “Fire freely.” Then there was indiscriminate shooting into the crowd of humans with the machine pistols, without distinction whether children, women, etc. were hit. It was a most horrendous action. The magazines were taken out, new ones were inserted. Then new aiming started. After that, the barn was closed again. The SD-men removed straw from the roofs and set the barns on fire. This was the most horrible spectacle which I have ever seen in my life. The barns were burning brightly. Nobody could escape until the barns fell down. Meanwhile, Dirlewanger and his staff positioned themselves with the Russian rapid fire guns about 50 meters away from the barn. Then from the barns some lightly wounded, some heavily wounded and others who had not yet been hit stormed out, burning all over their bodies. Now these bastards shot these people who tried to escape, with Dirlewanger in front, until there was nobody left. I have witnessed this example which I have described in at least four or five other cases. 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. A ratio such as that was possible only when the victims were unarmed civilians.
In September 1942, the unit murdered 8,350 Jews in Baranovichi ghetto and then a further 389 people labelled "bandits" and 1,274 "bandit suspects". 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". A witness reported Dirlewanger men roasting captured partisans alive and then throwing their bodies to a herd of hungry pigs. Women were raped and then kept as "sexual cattle", in which they would be traded amongst the men for "two bottles of vodka", with even children being raped and tortured to death.
On 10 August 1943, the expansion of the battalion to regimental size was authorized by SS-Führungshauptamt under Hans Jüttner. However, the order faced delays due to a shortage of soldiers to fill the newly planned regiment and a lack of weapons to equip them. To overcome this problem, Dirlewanger armed his troops with captured Soviet weapons stocks. The actual expansion of the Sonderbattalion into a regiment did not begin until May 1944, when two battalions were formed from the original 1st company and 2nd company. The formation of a third battalion was delayed due to a shortage of men and did not occur until August 1944. Recruits were to come from criminals, Eastern volunteers (Osttruppen), and military delinquents. On 19 February 1944, permission to take volunteers from concentration camps was granted by Himmler in order to fill the battalion before it could be expanded to a regiment. Over 700 men signed up as volunteers for the battalion, and most of them arrived in June 1944. Additionally, the battalion included 300 anti-communists from Soviet territory. In March 1943, together with the Schutzmannschaft Battalion 118, carried out operations against partisans and civilians in the Smalyavichy and Lahoysk districts. It participated in the Khatyn Massacre, which was perpetrated on 22 March. In November 1943, the battalion went into action with Army Group Centre to halt the Soviet advance, and suffered extreme casualties due to ineptitude.
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. While Dirlewanger was absent, the battalion's adjutant, SS-Hauptsturmführer Erwin Walser, took the position of acting battalion commander, while SS-Hauptsturmführer Kurt Weisse assumed the role of adjutant, which he held until the end of the war. Dirlewanger received the German Cross in gold on 5 December 1943 in recognition of his earnestness, but by 30 December 1943, the unit consisted of only 259 men. On January 1944, Dirlewanger came back to Belarus to take the command back and put Walser in the position of Personnel Officer. Large numbers of amnestied criminals were sent to rebuild the battalion and by late February 1944, the battalion was back to full strength. It was decided that Eastern volunteers would no longer be admitted to the unit, as the Russians had proven to be particularly unreliable in combat.
Until April 24, 1944, their communications relied on the attached Wehrmacht units available. This changed when a 16-man platoon was transferred to the regiment from the SS-administered Postschutz in Berlin. None of these transferred troops had a criminal record nor were assigned any probationary tasks.
On 26 June 1944, an attachment of German Ordnungspolizei artillerymen led by Hauptmann der Schutzpolizei Josef Steinhauer was assigned to the second battalion. Steinhauer was later appointed by Dirlewanger as the second battalion's commander. On March 1944, Hauptmann der Schutzpolizei Herbert Meyer volunteered to serve in the battalion and was assigned as the commander of the first company. Meyer had been convicted of petty theft and embezzlement in November 1942 and was sent to the Danzig-Matzkau prison. He later served as the commander of the first battalion in Warsaw in August 1944 and remained in this position until the end of the war.
On 30 June 1944, the regiment reported a total strength of 17 officers and 954 men, including non-commissioned officers. This strength does not included the 769 upcoming volunteers from several concentration camps that will be sent to the SS-Ersatzkompanie Dirlewanger stationed in Minsk.
Anti-partisan operations continued until June 1944, when the Soviets launched Operation Bagration, which was aimed at the destruction of the Army Group Centre. The unit was caught up in the retreat and began falling back to the town of Lida. Under the Kampfgruppe von Gottberg, the unit held their position against the Soviet so that the remaining retreating Germans have the time to fall back to safety. 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. The Sonderregiment arrived on 21 July 1944 and used their time to re-organised its regiment and received replacement. In late July 1944, Dirlewanger left the regiment and flew to Berlin to lobby Gottlob Berger for more troops and equipment. The command of the regiment was given temporarily to SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Kurt Weisse. The command was returned back to Dirlewanger when he flew back from Germany in August 1944.

### Return to Poland

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 Waffen-Sturmbrigade RONA).
On 3 August 1944, the regiment was informed to form a battalion-sized Kampfgruppen to support the suppression of the uprising. The first Kampfgruppe was formed out of the 1st Battalion and was named Kampfgruppe Meyer, with a strength of 356 men (excluding additional support troops). It was commanded by SS-Obersturmführer Herbert Meyer, who had now been fully rehabilitated. The next morning, they departed for Warsaw by truck and arrived that night at the western outskirts of the city. The second Kampfgruppe was formed from the regiment's 2nd Battalion and was named Kampfgruppe Steinhauer, led by SS-Sturmbannführer Josef Steinhauer, with a strength of 350 men. They arrived on 6 August 1944, and both Kampfgruppen were placed under the command of Reinefarth.
On 5 August 1944, under the leadership of Weisse, Kampfgruppe Meyer began their assault on the Wola district, advancing along the Litzmannstadt-Strasse, while the Posen Police Group advanced north of the street. The assault was delayed and continued into the night due to the street being heavily defended.
On 6 August 1944, Kampfgruppe Steinhauer arrived in Warsaw and, along with Kampfgruppe Meyer, immediately began their attack to reach the Brühl Palace.They eventually had advanced through Chlodna and Elektoralna streets. On the evening of 7 August 1944, after receiving orders from Himmler to return to his regiment, Dirlewanger flew back from Germany and united the two Kampfgruppen to form Kampfgruppe Dirlewanger. By August 7 Dirlewanger had occupied the Saxon Gardens and had linked with other German troops on the Kierbedzia Brigde. The next day, they reached the palace and also captured the Theatre Square. During the assault, several hospitals were burned down, except for St. Stanisław Hospital, which was later used as the regiment's headquarters.
On 8 August 1944, SS-Untersturmführer Max Schreiner, an experienced member of the regiment, led a group of troops in an assault on the Market Hall. This decisive action led to the complete defeat of the retreating Polish insurgents. Schreiner’s assault played a crucial role in the immediate capture of the Brühl Palace.
When most of its units—including headquarters, the heavy machine-gun company, heavy mortar company, and antitank gun platoon—finally arrived in Warsaw, the Sonderregiment submitted its first combat strength report on 8 August. It recorded 881 men present for duty, including 16 officers. This was three days after Kampfgruppe Meyer had begun fighting.After retaking the Brühl Palace and rescuing Warsaw battle commander Generalleutnant Reiner Stahel, the regiment regrouped that evening as Kampfgruppe Dirlewanger.
Dirlewanger, with the Waffen-Sturm-Brigade RONA, are notorious for being the two units which committed the worst crimes during the Warsaw Uprising. Dirlewanger had a reputation for burying women and children alive. A witness reported "drunken soldiers practicing Caesarean sections with bayonets".
During the massacres, Dirlewanger was notorious for plundering, with it being noted that:
   The desire to plunder . . . 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.
In what became known as the Wola massacre, Dirlewanger personnel, along with police units under command of Heinz Reinefarth, massacred Polish combatants along with civilian men, women and children, in the Wola District of Warsaw. However, the role of Dirlewanger in the Wola massacre itself may have been limited in the beginning days, and Dirlewanger may not have arrived himself until the 7th of August. Up to 40,000 civilians were murdered in Wola in less than two weeks of August, including all hospital patients and staff. According to the historian Alex J. Kay, Dirlewanger murdered some 12,500 people on 5 August. Dirlewanger "burned prisoners alive with gasoline, impaled babies on bayonets and stuck them out of windows and hung women upside down from balconies". 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.
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. Regarding an incident in which hundreds of Polish children were murdered, Schenck stated:
   We blew up the doors, I think of a school. Children were standing in the hall and on the stairs. Lots of children. All with their small hands up. We looked at them for a few moments until Dirlewanger ran in. He ordered to kill them all. They shot them and then they were walking over their bodies and breaking their little heads with butt ends. Blood and brain matter streamed down the stairs. There is a memorial plaque in that place stating that 350 children were killed. I think there were many more, maybe 500.
Schenck noted the often mass rape of female civilians in cellars and basement, and noted an incident where the men of the brigade raided a cellar and noted the brutal death of a Polish girl:
   Every time, when we stormed the cellars and women were inside the Dirlewanger soldiers raped them. Many times a group raped the same woman, quickly, still holding weapons in their hands. Then after one of the fights, I was standing shaking by the wall and couldn't calm my nerves. Dirlewanger soldiers burst in. One of them took a woman. She was pretty. She wasn't screaming. Then he was raping her, pushing her head strongly against the table, holding a bayonet in the other hand. First he cut open her blouse. Then one cut from stomach to throat. Blood gushed.
The regiment arrived in Warsaw with only 865 enlisted personnel and 16 officers but it soon received 2,500 replacements. These included 1,900 German convicts from the SS military camp at Danzig-Matzkau. Extremely high casualties were inflicted on the unit during fighting in Warsaw by the Polish resistance. During the course of the two-month urban warfare Dirlewanger's regiment lost 2,733 men, 315% of the unit's initial strength. While some of the regiment's actions were criticized by Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski (who after the war described them as "a herd of pigs") and the sector commander, Generalmajor Günter Rohr, Dirlewanger was promoted to SS-Oberführer der Reserve on 12 August 1944 and was recommended for the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 30 September 1944 by Reinefarth . He actually received the medal on 16 October 1944 at a reception hall of the Wawel Royal Castle in Krakow and was presented by Hans Frank. In gratitude for the presentation of the award, Dirlewanger wrote to Hitler’s SS Adjutant, Hauptsturmführer Otto Günsche, three weeks later and told him:
   [Y]ou know as well as I do that I received this high award for the soldierly achievements of my regiment, among other things. With this, the last unwelcome voices from “higher places” about my unit should have faded away! My men have achieved superhuman things in this fight to the death and destruction and have earned themselves a place in the honor book of the German soldier by their sweat, blood, and heroic sacrificial commitment!
During one fierce fight on 6 August 1944, Dirlewanger's men used civilians as body shields:
   Dirlewanger's men spread out along the square and with armor support, rooted out several insurgent positions. Then the Sonderkommando attempted to advance further using a shield of Polish women and children in front of them — but the Poles fired anyway and drove the Germans back.
By 3 October 1944, the remaining Polish insurgents had surrendered and the remnants of the regiment spent the next month guarding the line along the Vistula. During this time, the regiment was unofficially referred as a "brigade" in the message traffic. Though, in a memorandum issued by the SS-Fuhrunghauptamt on 11 October 1944, the unit still officially titled as SS-Sonderregiment Dirlewanger. In early October, it was decided to turn the unit into a Waffen-SS combat brigade and it was renamed 2. SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger (2nd SS Assault Brigade Dirlewanger) in December 1944, and had soon reached its complement of 4,000 men.
The journalist and history writer Nigel Cawthorne noted how Dirlewanger committed worse atrocities than the Kaminski Brigade, and how they enjoyed committing them:
   Encouraged by their commander SS-Oberführer Oskar Dirlewanger, who told them to take no prisoners, the Dirlewanger troops looted, gang-raped women and children, played 'bayonet catch' with live babies and tortured captives by hacking off their arms, dousing them with petrol and setting them alight to run flaming down the street. The soldiers' behaviour was so bad that even Himmler became alarmed. 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.

### Slovakia and Hungary

When the Slovak National Uprising began in late August 1944, the regiment was committed to action. The brigade played a large part in putting down the rebellion by 30 October. After the total capitulation of the Warsaw Uprising, SS-Sonderregiment Dirlewanger expanded significantly, growing into a four-battalion force with the addition of new officers and troops. Before or after arriving in Slovakia , the fourth battalion was formed in order to make up spaces for the newly arrivals until the second regiment could be made.
The unit was equipped with a few artillery pieces, primarily ex-Czech and ex-Soviet guns. However, the unit was still considered understrength, prompting Dirlewanger to seek additional manpower. 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. Even after receiving more than 3000 men from the SS, Police and Wermacht , the unit still hadn’t reached their targeted strength of 6500 men.
On 7 October, Dirlewanger toured several concentration camps in search of recruits for his understrength unit. During his visit to the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp, he met with the camp’s commandant, SS-Sturmbannführer Egon Zill. Zill proposed an idea to Dirlewanger: to recruit Communist and Socialist prisoners into his ranks. These prisoners were not ordinary inmates; they were deeply committed to their political ideologies. Zill suggested that Dirlewanger could exploit their loyalty to Germany. Unspoken, however, Zill likely saw this as an opportunity to rid his camp of troublesome prisoners who were notorious for causing unrest. 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. That same day, Dirlewanger wrote a letter to Heinrich Himmler, requesting approval for the idea of recruiting political prisoners into his unit. 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. The age range would be flexible, with a maximum age of 45 years old, and exceptional cases could extend to 50 years old. On 15 October 1944 , Himmler approved the request.
With the Slovak National Uprising still ongoing, the regiment was deployed to Slovakia. Around this time, the regiment was redesignated as SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger though the exact date of this redesignation occurred is unknown.
On 10 October 1944, they began its rail movement toward Slovakia. They reached Krakow, and by 12 October, they had arrived in Nitra. Their arrival wasn't met without any resistance. On 16 October 1944, elements of the Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger were strafed and bombed by several LaGG-5 planes belonging to the Slovakian Air Force near the train station at Diviaky. On the same day, SS-Oberfuhrer Dirlewanger received his long-awaited Knight's Cross in Krakow. On 18 October 1944, the brigade launched an assault to capture the area near Ostro Mountain. However, the offensive was met with fierce resistance, forcing them to retreat. Two days later, they renewed the attack but made little to no progress against the determined defenders. On 25 October, the brigade finally succeeded in capturing the towns of Biely Potok and Necpaly after intense fighting. Between 27 and 30 October, the brigade continued its operations, engaging in relentless combat against Slovakian partisans in the surrounding areas. By 30 October, Banská Bystrica had been fully taken, and the resistance had been completely crushed, allowing the brigade to continue their formation in the town of Revúca. As part of their usual anti-partisan duties, the brigade proceeded to eliminate any remaining small elements of partisans who had fled into the surrounding areas.
At the end of October, Dirlewanger appointed Weisse as the acting Brigade commander while he traveled to various concentration camps to recruit new political prisoners. Simultaneously, SS-Sturmbannführer Josef Steinhauer assumed the role of acting commander of the first regiment, temporarily delegating command of his battalion to another officer. Steinhauer was tasked with forming the regimental staff and staff company; however, due to a critical manpower shortage, the regiment's headquarters could not be deployed to the frontline. The Brigade's three battalions now operated under the structure of SS-Sturmregiment 1 with SS-Untersturmführer der Reserve Siegfried Polack as the third battalion's new commander. Before the end of October or in early November, the IV. Battalion was renumbered as the II. Battalion of the newly established Sturmregiment 2, commanded by SS-Hauptsturmführer Ewald Ehlers, who had joined the unit in September 1944. The regiment's First Battalion was also formed in late October, led by former Nazi politician SS-Obersturmführer Wilhelm Stegmann, who had been drafted into the SS on 1 October 1944. The third battalion of the Sturmregiment-2 are the last to ber formed in November and it was the unit with the largest amount of political prisoners with the number of 400. The battalion was commanded by a former Luftwaffe officer named Kurt Nitzkowski.
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.
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. The quota for political prisoner volunteers , that totalled up to 1910 men are as follows:
| Concentration camp | Quota |
| Auschwitz | 400 |
| Buchenwald | 150 |
| Dachau | 300 |
| Flossenbürg | 45 |
| Gross-Rosen | 30 |
| Mauthausen | 10 |
| Neuengamme | 130 |
| Ravensbrück | 80 |
| Sachsenhausen | 750 |
| Stutthof | 15 |
The recruitment process underwent for first two weeks of November. Unfortunately, Only 770 volunteers from all of the camps are accepted as recruited. To make up the missing 1,140 men, Dirlewanger recruited a mix of asocial elements and career criminals, bringing the total number of recruits to the targeted 1,910. The political prisoners received their training in either Krakow or Mošovce.
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. With his extensive combat experience, Schmedes became the unofficial advisor to Dirlewanger on front-line combat.
In December, the brigade was sent to the front in Hungary. While fighting there, several new battalions made up of communist and socialist volunteers fell apart. During a month of fighting, the brigade suffered many casualties and was pulled back to Slovakia to refit and reorganize.

### Germany

In February 1945, orders were given to expand the brigade to a division but before this could begin it was sent north to the Oder-Neisse line to halt the Soviet advance. On 14 February 1945, the brigade was renamed the 36th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS. With its expansion to a division of 4,000 men, regular army units were attached to the formation, a Grenadier regiment, a Pionier brigade, and a Panzerjäger battalion. Individual Sturmpionier demolition engineers had already been attached to the force during the fighting in Warsaw. The next day, Dirlewanger was seriously wounded in combat for the twelfth time during the counterattack to recapture the town of Sommerfeld. He was sent to the rear and Schmedes took command; Dirlewanger would not return to the division.
The division was pushed back to the northeast when the final Soviet offensive began on 16 April 1945. Desertion became more and more common, and when Schmedes attempted to reorganize the division on 25 April, he found that it had virtually ceased to exist. On 28 April 1945, SS-Sturmbannführer Ewald Ehlers, who now command the 73rd Waffen Grenadier Regiment, was severely wounded and lost an arm during the battle in Halbe, according to former Oberst SS-Hauptsturmführer Harald Momm who commanded the II.battalion in Ehlers's regiment. Ehlers joined the unit on 15 September 1944 . Ehlers served in the SS-Totenkopfverbände as a company commander in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Some account had him hung by his own troops and disemboweled. On 1 May 1945, the Soviets wiped out all that was left of the unit in the Halbe pocket. Only a small remnant of the division managed an escape attempt to reach the US Army lines on the Elbe river. SS-Obersturmbannführer Kurt Weisse led a large group of around 400 men escaping from Halbe Pocket . He was later put in British captivity and escaped on 5 March 1946. His later fate is unknown. Schmedes and his staff(excluding Kurt Weisse) were taken prisoner in Soviet captivity. Schmedes was not charged with any crime and discharged shortly due to poor health. Only about 700 men of the division survived the war. In June 1945, Dirlewanger was captured by French forces in Germany and died in their custody by 8 June, allegedly beaten to death by Polish soldiers in Altshausen.

## Orders of battle

SS Assault Brigade Dirlewanger (October 1944)
* Brigade staff
* SS Regiment 1
* SS Regiment 2
* Artillery battalion
* Fusilier company
* Engineer company
* Signals company
36th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (March 1945)
* Division staff
* 72nd Waffen Grenadier Regiment of the SS
* 73rd Waffen Grenadier Regiment of the SS
* Panzer Battalion Stansdorf 1
* 36th Artillery Battalion
* 36th Fusilier Company
* 1244th Volksgrenadier Regiment
* 687th Engineer Brigade (Heer)
* 681st Heavy Panzerjäger Battalion (Heer)

## Legacy

The cross-grenades emblem of the division is still used by Neo-Nazis, such as the Wolfsbrigade 44, and troops in Ukraine.
A Swedish neo-Nazi rock band named "Dirlewanger" rose to infamy in the 1990's as they reportedly were one of the Swedish neo-Nazi scene's most popular groups.