The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945

The Wehrmacht established FStGA 18 in early 1943 (probably in March) in Armed Forces Prison (Wehrmachtgefängnis, WG) Germersheim through the commander of Defense District (Wehrkreis) XII.¹ The Army High Command (Oberkommando des Heeres, OKH) deployed the unit to the eastern front with Army Group South (Heeresgruppe Süd). Convicts from the front and rear areas of Army Group South were transferred to FStGA 17; if they could not be sent directly to the unit, they were transferred primarily via Wartime Armed Forces Prison (Kriegswehrmachtgefängnis, KWG) Dubno and its subordinate Reception Center (Auffangstelle) Kiev. [End Page 631]

The Armed Forces High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, OKW) guidelines of April 14 and 15, 1942—which were expanded by the General for Special Tasks responsible for the FStGAs at the OKH on October 28, based on the initial experiences with the FStGAs—dictated the organization and strength of the unit, the selection of the prisoners, their treatment, and their deployment. These guidelines are discussed in detail in FStGA 1.

The OKW order of April 15, 1942, stated that FStGA prisoners were to work 10 hours a day, even on Sundays and holidays. However, on May 2, 1943, the XXXXII Army Corps, to which FStGA 18 was subordinate, decided that the prisoners would be allowed 24 work-free hours per week, in which the men were to be “educated and cared for.”² Nonetheless, the prisoners were quickly deployed (in the OKW’s words) “to the hardest labor, under the most perilous circumstances … possible in the deployment area of the fighting troops.”³ The implementation of this order is indicated by a casualty report from July 25, 1943. That day, prisoner Josef Meier was shot by a guard “in a disciplinary action resulting from his own behavior,” as the notification form sent to the prisoner’s next of kin read. The location of Meier’s death was reported only as “at the front line (location unknown).”⁴

By that time, court-martial executions were already being carried out in FStGA 18. Fritz Liebisch (b. September 28, 1918) and Max Schwabl (b. May 29, 1921) of the 2nd Company of FStGA 18 were executed for desertion in the village of Zarozhnoe, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) east of Kharkiv, on July 22, 1943.⁵ The next day, Otto Behringer (b. December 8, 1922), Robert Löhrengel (b. July 8, 1921), Willi Sarg (b. July 19, 1921), and Robert Schäffauer (b. January 20, 1922) were executed by firing squad for the same offense.⁶ All of these death sentences were handed down by the court of the 39th Infantry Division—to which FStGA had been subordinated in July 1943—which was at that time engaged with the Red Army along a static front east of Kharkiv.

FStGA 18 withdrew westward in response to the Soviet offensive around Kharkiv in August 1943. During the withdrawal, on September 18, 1943, two members of the unit—Waldemar Knappe (b. June 1, 1921) and Paul Knott (b. November 21, 1919)—were executed for desertion at KWG Dubno.⁷ These verdicts were also issued by the court of the 39th Infantry Division. Another escapee managed to get all the way back to Germany before he was recaptured. He was beheaded in Vienna on October 8, 1943, after being sentenced to death by the court of the 39th Infantry Division.⁸ The records of the court also included a 10th death sentence for a member of FStGA 18 during the period from July 15 to October 15, 1943, which was commuted to 12 years in prison.⁹

The (presumably complete) list of 10 known death sentences (9 carried out) during this period offers a point of comparison with a “normal” military unit, revealing the extent of the judicial terror within the FStGAs. For example, the 253rd Infantry Division—which was sent to the eastern front after the campaign in France, serving there from June 1941 to May 1945—kept quite thorough records of its death sentences. Despite the fact that the 253rd Infantry Division had more than 10 times more men than FStGA 18, it only passed 14 death sentences in all of 1943, only 8 of which were carried out.¹⁰

FStGA 18’s subordination to the 39th Infantry Division ended when the latter was dissolved in the fall of 1943. In the first half of 1944, FStGA 18 was subordinate to different divisions of the Sixth and Eighth Armies along the southern section of the front. The deployment locations of the unit for this period can be reconstructed from the death sentences issued during this period. The surviving court documents indicate that the retreat movements of FStGA 18 took it from Kirovohrad (today Kropyvnyts’kyi, Ukraine) across the Bug River in the direction of Tiraspol, then to Kishinev (today Chişinău, Moldova), and finally to Iaşi (German: Jassy), in Romania.

On January 31, 1944, the court of the 282nd Infantry Division sentenced the prisoner Franz Schmied (b. April 15, 1915) to death for absence without leave. This verdict, confirmed by the commander of the Eighth Army on February 20, was later commuted to 12 years in prison. However, Albert Grabowski (b. July 2, 1924) sentenced to death for desertion by the same court on May 6, 1944, was not so fortunate. The verdict was subsequently confirmed by the commander of the Sixth Army on May 22, and Grabowski was executed on May 30, in Kishinev. The commander also declined to extend clemency to Willi Grzegoreck (b. May 20, 1923), who was sentenced to death for desertion by the same court on June 15, 1944. He was executed on July 7, in Kishinev.¹¹ Erich Hawlick was sentenced to death on June 2, 1944, for desertion and looting by the court of the 79th Infantry Division. Following confirmation by the commander of the Eighth Army, the execution took place on June 22.¹²

The court of the 376th Infantry Division handed down death sentences against Ernst Dörfler and Matthias Gassner for absence without leave on June 5, 1944. However, their sentences were commuted to probation by the commander of Army Group Wöhler (formerly part of the Eighth Army).¹³ The same court sentenced Walter Kubis of the 1st Company FStGA 18 to death for desertion on August 9, 1944. Unlike Dörfler and Gassner, Kubis’s sentence was confirmed by the commander of the 376th Infantry Division and carried out on the same day.¹⁴ It is unclear whether the death sentence handed down against Willi Kampschulte by the court of the 376th Infantry Division for subversion of fighting power on August 9, 1944, was carried out.¹⁵ Another member of FStGA 18, 19-year-old Horst Henze was beheaded on June 19, 1944, in Brandenburg-Görden Prison. He had been sentenced to death by the court of the Armed Forces Command (Wehrmachtkommandantur) Berlin for desertion and other offenses on May 5, 1944.¹⁶

FStGA 18 sustained heavy losses in the summer of 1944 as a result of the Soviet offensive that began on August 20, 1944 (the Jassy-Kishinev Offensive), which destroyed Army Group South Ukraine. The majority of the 262 prisoners from FStGA 18 who were recorded missing by the German Red Cross went [End Page 632] missing in eastern Romania, in locations including Iaşi, Bârlad, and others.¹⁷ Unlike FStGAs 7 and 10, which were in the same area, FStGA 18 was not completely destroyed; it absorbed the remaining prisoners from those units.¹⁸

After the destruction of Army Group South Ukraine, FStGA 18 was once again subordinated to Army Group South. During this period, Georg Ermentraut joined the unit. His 10-year prison sentence for desertion was commuted to a 10-year jail sentence. According to his words, the internees of FStGA 18 were treated like “the scum of the earth on bread and water” and sent to construct defensive positions, where they were “pushed back and forth across the Hungarian-Yugoslavian border.”¹⁹

Additional death sentences were recorded in this last period of FStGA 18’s existence. Anton Boos (b. October 1, 1921) was shot on December 11, 1944, on the Deuthen parade ground, after he was sentenced to death for desertion by the court of the 461st Division, Zweigstelle Allenstein. Richard Stemmle (or Stemmler), 22 years old, met the same fate in Ulm on March 21, 1945, after he was convicted of desertion by the 465th Division.²⁰

In the deployment area of FStGA 18, Richard Storch was sentenced to death on December 1, 1944, by the court of the commander of Army Area Hungary (Befehlshaber im Heeresgebiet Ungarn) for “cowardice before the enemy.” In his case, the execution was stayed and he was transferred “to Gestapo Vienna.”²¹ This phrase referred euphemistically to his transfer to Transitional Custody (Zwischenhaft) I—war-related forced labor in the Mauthausen concentration camp. This unit, established by the Luftwaffe on June 1, 1944, and taken over by the army six weeks later, was intended to preserve valuable manpower, especially those who were skilled in technical jobs.²²

FStGA 18 operated until the end of the war and continued its assignment of transferring potentially useful soldiers back to the front. Georg Ermentraut was deployed for four months digging trenches at the front and was sent to a four-week operational assignment with Probationary Unit (Bewährungstruppe) 500 at Olmütz (today Olomouc, Czech Republic). Ermentraut, serving with the last remaining troops of Probationary Unit 500, was involved in the final skirmishes of the war at Olmütz between May 6 and May 8, 1945.²³ Information is not available about the final days of FStGA 18’s operation.