Among the Sinti who were deported from Germany to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp starting in the spring of 1943 were some men who had previously served as soldiers in the Wehrmacht. Some of them had been discharged from the Wehrmacht in 1941 for ‘racial’ reasons, while others had been brought to the camp directly from the front. When camp section BIIe in Auschwitz-Birkenau was liquidated, former members of the Wehrmacht, some of them with their families, were selected and transferred to Ravensbrück concentration camp. After forced sterilisation and transfer to Sachsenhausen, around 150 of them were sent to the front in the final days of World War II. An unknown number died or were taken prisoner of war.
History of the SS Special Unit
In scholarly and memorial literature, the troop to which the Sinti were assigned is usually referred to as the ‘Dirlewanger Unit’. This designation is incorrect, as it was actually the 36th Waffen-Grenadier-Division of the Schutzstaffel (SS). However, this special SS unit was closely connected with the person of its commander, SS-Oberführer Oskar Paul Dirlewanger (1895–1945).
Dirlewanger was born in Würzburg on 26 September 1895. After taking part in World War I, he served in various Freikorps units and joined the NSDAP in 1922. He studied economics in Mannheim and Frankfurt am Main, where he was awarded a doctorate in political science in 1922. He was stripped of his doctorate and military ranks in 1934 following a conviction for sexual abuse of an underage girl. After three years of service in the Condor Legion in the Spanish Civil War, he fought to have the conviction overturned. He was accepted into the SS in May 1940.
In the same month, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) set up a ‘poaching squad Oranienburg’ made up of convicted poachers, whose leadership was assigned to Oskar Dirlewanger. The ‘Sonderkommando Dirlewanger’ was involved in war crimes in Poland and Belarus from September 1940. Having reached regimental strength, the unit took part in the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising from August 1944. Two months later, now expanded into an ‘Assault Brigade’, it was deployed to fight the Slovak National Uprising. After fighting near Budapest in December 1944, the unit was renamed the ‘36th Waffen-Grenadier Division of the SS’ in February 1945 and deployed to the Neisse, a river in Lusatia on what is now the German-Polish border. In mid-February 1945, Dirlewanger was relieved as commander after being wounded in combat.
Forced Deployment of Sinti to the Front
The Sinti transferred from Auschwitz-Birkenau to Ravensbrück were sent to the men’s camp there. Many of them were coerced into undergoing sterilisation on the promise that they would be released from concentration camp internment. On 3 March 1945, at least 183 Sinti were transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp in a group of around 2,000 prisoners (to the best of our knowledge, there were no Roma in this group).1Author‘s calculations based on the number book of the Ravensbrück men‘s camp, which is available online at https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/de/archive/1-1-35-1_2492000 [accessed: 10/12/2025].
The need for personnel for the German armed forces increased enormously in the spring of 1945 as the military situation deteriorated dramatically for the German Reich. On 12 April 1945, the camp administration in Sachsenhausen therefore ordered all Sinti who already had military experience to report for duty. These people were dressed in uniforms and separated from their family members. The figures for the number of forced recruits given in the scholarly and memorial literature vary between 100 and 200.2Awosusi, Vater, 56; Klausch, Antifaschisten, 311; Winter, Winter Time, 105; Neander, Deutsche als Opfer, 346. Not all of the forcibly recruited Sinti had previously served in the Wehrmacht or been interned in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The following day, the Sinti were transported towards the Neisse. Since the end of 1944, there had been an increasing number of desertions from the Wehrmacht by soldiers who had similarly been recruited as political concentration camp inmates for deployment at the front. In order to deter desertion attempts, the Sinti were forced to witness the execution of a deserter at a stopover. On 13 April, they arrived at their positions near Forst (Lausitz) and were divided into different companies.
End of the War and Captivity
On the morning of 16 April 1945, the Red Army began its final offensive to capture Berlin. Soviet troops crossed the Neisse and overran the division’s positions. Several of the Sinti who had been forcibly recruited for the front line probably died there. Others were wounded in the fighting. They were taken to military hospitals or returned to their home regions after the end of the war.
Numerous Sinti were taken into Soviet custody. Although most of them identified themselves as former concentration camp prisoners, only a few individuals were released from captivity after a few days.3Awosusi, Vater, 57–69; Engbring-Romang, Verfolgung, 233; Klausch, Antifaschisten, 314. Those who deserted across the Neisse before 16 April 1945 or were captured immediately at the start of the Soviet offensive against Berlin were taken to a Soviet transit camp in Elsterwerda. A Sinto who fell into the custody of the Red Army in the ‘Halbe Pocket’ at the end of April 1945 was transported to the prisoner-of-war camp in Poznań. As prisoners of war, the Sinti were transferred to camps in the Soviet Union and generally remained there for several years.
Dirlewanger’s Death
Oskar Dirlewanger tried to go into hiding at the end of the war, but was taken prisoner by the French. He was so badly mistreated by survivors, about whose identity there are different versions, that he died on 7 June 1945 in Altshausen, Ravensburg district.
Reappraisal and Remembrance
The history of the Sinti forced into the SS division has not yet been researched in detail. It can be assumed that many of them were trapped in the ‘Halbe Pocket’ that formed during the battle for Berlin and that the Sinti who died there were buried at the war cemetery in Halbe4For the cemetery see https://kriegsgraeberstaetten.volksbund.de/friedhof/halbe [accessed: 10/12/2025]., like other soldiers. Reports on the deployment in the final days of the war have been published by Walter ‘Stanoski’ Winter (1919–2012), Hermann Weiß (1925–2010) and Gustav Steinbach (1916–2004), among others. Walter ‘Stanoski’ Winter described in the greatest detail the cynicism of being forced into the uniform of the SS murderers and being thrown to the front as cannon fodder with virtually no equipment to fight for a country that was engaged in the extermination of Sinti and Roma. Winter also describes the survival strategies of the Sinti, many of whom, according to his recollection, were able to cross over to the other side of the front despite the constant surveillance and danger of death.5Guth, Z 3105, 142–156.
