The Terrible Story Of Helmuth Von Pannwitz, How He Murdered His Commander 1923.

 

119 years ago today in 1898, the so-called "Last Knight of Europe", Helmuth Von Pannwitz, was born on his father's estate of Botzanowitz, Silesia. He is best remembered for his command as Ataman of a cavalry corps of Don Cossacks during the Second World War. 

Like many of the aristocratic Prussian officers during this era, Pannwitz' family history stretched back to the Middle Ages, his forefathers having ruled as Burgraves of Glatz from the 14th to the 16th century.

 At the age of twelve he entered the Prussian cadet school and was instilled with an appreciation not only for the Prussian military tradition but also for the martial character of the Russian Cossacks units who on occasion would be seen across the border in Congress Poland.

 In 1914 the young Pannwitz answered the Kaiser's call to war and became a lancer. He served with distinction on numerous occasions and was awarded the Iron Cross for his bravery. Following Germany's defeat in 1918 he joined a Freikorps unit and fought against Polish nationalists in Silesia before partaking in the failed right-wing monarchist coup attempt of Wolfgang Kapp in 1920. 

After being suspected of having murdered a Social Democrat in Breslau, he fled to Poland where under an assumed name he became a leader of the Black Reichswehr - a secret paramilitary force of the German army attempting to circumvent the conditions of the Versailles treaty.

 In this capacity he was involved in 1923 with the Feme Murders perpetrated against perceived traitors of Germany before partaking in the Küstrin Putch attempt to overthrow Gustav Stresemann and set up a military dictatorship. With the failure of this endeavour, Pannwitz fled for Poland once again, returning to Germany in 1931 after an amnesty was declared.

 In 1935 he joined the fast expanding Wehrmacht and once again became a cavalry officer. For his courageous conduct during Operation Barbarossa, he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross in 1941 to which oak leaves were added a year later for his successful leadership at Stalingrad.

 During the ceremony in which Pannwitz received this award he told Hitler, straight out, that the policy of treating the Slavs as subhuman inferiors was completely inhuman and morally wrong. Thereafter he began to bring together a unit of Don Cossacks whom had defected to the Germans out of their hatred of Stalin.

 In 1943 his brigade of Cossacks ran down partisans in the Ukraine, Belarus and Yugoslavia. After hearing that his Cossacks had been involved in a series of brutal massacres and rapes, Pannwitz made it clear that any such atrocities would be punishable by death. 

Pannwitz became immensely popular amongst his men due to the great respect he treated them with and his habit of attending Russian Orthodox services with them. Indeed before the war's ending, they named him as their Ataman - the title of the highest renown amongst the Cossacks which historically had been reserved for the Russian Tsar.

 Pannwitz bitterly resisted the attempts of Himmler and the SS hierarchy to take his Cossacks into their ranks, though eventually in 1944 they became part of the Waffen SS. Ataman Pannwitz surrendered to the British in 1945 but on hearing that his Cossacks were being sent back to the Soviet Union to almost certain death, he chose to join them and was executed for war crimes in 1947 by the Soviets.

 Attempts by his family following the collapse of the Soviet Union to have him rehabilitated have been unsuccessful.

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