Hans Otto Georg Hermann Fegelein (30 October 1906 – 28 April 1945) was a high-ranking commander in the Waffen-SS of Nazi Germany. He was Adolf Hitler's liaison officer to Heinrich Himmler and brother-in-law to Eva Braun through his marriage to her sister Gretl.
Fegelein joined a cavalry regiment of the Reichswehr in 1925 and transferred to the SS on 10 April 1933. He became a leader of an SS equestrian group, and was in charge of preparation for the equestrian events of the Berlin Olympic Games in 1936. He tried out for the Olympic equestrian team himself but was eliminated in the qualifying rounds.
In September 1939, after the invasion of Poland, Fegelein commanded the SS Totenkopf Reiterstandarte (Death's-Head Horse Regiment). They were garrisoned in Warsaw until December. In May and June 1940, he participated in the Battle of Belgium and France as a member of the SS-Verfügungstruppe (later renamed the Waffen-SS). For his service in these campaigns, he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class on 15 December 1940. Units under his command on the Eastern Front in 1941 were responsible for the deaths of over 17,000 civilians during the Pripyat Marshes massacres in the Byelorussian SSR. As commander of the 8th SS Cavalry Division Florian Geyer in 1943, he was involved in operations against partisans as well as defensive operations against the Red Army, for which he was awarded the Close Combat Clasp in bronze.
After being seriously wounded in September 1943, Fegelein was reassigned by Heinrich Himmler to Hitler's headquarters staff as his liaison officer and representative of the SS. Fegelein was present at the failed attempt on Hitler's life on 20 July 1944. He was on duty at Hitler's Führerbunker in Berlin in the closing months of the war, and was shot for desertion on 28 April 1945, two days before Hitler and Eva Braun died by suicide. Historian Michael D. Miller describes Fegelein as an opportunist and careerist who ingratiated himself with Himmler, who granted him the best assignments and rapid promotions. Journalist William L. Shirer and historian Ian Kershaw characterise him as cynical and disreputable. Albert Speer called him "one of the most disgusting people in Hitler's circle".
Career Fegelein was born in Ansbach, Bavaria, to the retired Oberleutnant Hans Fegelein. As a boy working at his father's equestrian school in Munich, he became a proficient rider and participated in jumping events. During this period he met Christian Weber, an original member of the Nazi Party. Weber later sponsored Fegelein's entry into the Schutzstaffel (SS).
In 1925, after studying for two terms at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Fegelein joined the Reiter-Regiment 17 (Cavalry Regiment 17). On 20 April 1927, he joined the Bavarian State Police in Munich as an officer cadet. In 1929 he left the police service when he was caught stealing examination solutions from a teaching superior's office. The official communication at the time was that he resigned for "family reasons". Fegelein later stated that he had left the police on "his own account" to better serve the Nazi Party and SS. His father had started the Reitinstitut Fegelein (Fegelein Riding Institute) in 1926. In Munich, Fegelein came into contact with Nazism and the SS. His father had made the institute available to the SS as a meeting place, and the training facilities and horses were used by equestrian units of the Sturmabteilung (SA) and SS.
Fegelein joined the Nazi Party (membership number 1,200,158) and the SA in 1930. He transferred to the SS on 10 April 1933, with membership number 66,680. He worked as an instructor at the Reitinstitut Fegelein and became the leader of the SS-Reitersturm, the SS equestrian group based at the facility. By the mid-1930s he took over administration of the school from his father. He was promoted to the Allgemeine-SS rank of SS-Untersturmführer that year and to SS-Obersturmführer on 20 April 1934 and to SS-Hauptsturmführer on 9 November 1934. Beginning in November 1935, Fegelein oversaw the preparation of the courses and facilities for the equestrian events of the Berlin Olympic Games. He was promoted to the rank of SS-Sturmbannführer on 30 January 1936. He tried out for the German equestrian team, but was unable to prevail against the strong competition from the Kavallerieschule Hannover (Hanover cavalry school), who went on to win all the equestrian gold medals.
Fegelein won the Deutsches Spring- und Dressurderby international tournament in 1937, as did his brother Waldemar, in 1939. He was promoted to the rank of SS-Obersturmbannführer on 30 January. On 25 July 1937, Reichsführer-SS Himmler, by special order of the SS-Oberabschnitt Süd, created the Haupt-Reitschule München (SS Main Riding School) in Munich. The school was started from his father's stud farm. Fegelein was named its commander and promoted to SS-Standartenführer the same day. Funding for the very expensive horses came in part from then SS-Brigadeführer Weber, who supported the school with more than annually. Fegelein won the "Braunes Band von Deutschland" (Brown Ribbon of Germany), an annual horse race which in 1938 was held on the premises of the riding school in Munich. Fegelein at the time had strong ambitions to participate in the 1940 Summer Olympics. With the help of his friend (HSSPF; Higher SS and Police Leader) Karl von Eberstein, he arranged the transfer of all the Bavarian State Police horses to the SS riding school in case of mobilization. His fear was that the horses would be handed to the Wehrmacht.
World War II In September 1939, Fegelein commanded the SS Totenkopf Reiterstandarte (Death's-Head Horse Regiment), which arrived in Poland shortly after the end of the Polish Campaign. The unit was placed under the command of the Ordnungspolizei (Orpo; order police) and was split into small groups assigned to support police activities at posts throughout the Poznań district. On 15 November, Himmler ordered the expansion of the regiment from four to thirteen squadrons and renamed it as 1. SS-Totenkopf-Reiterstandarte (1st Death's Head Cavalry Regiment). Additional men were recruited from ethnic Germans living in the General Government and further afield. As many of the officers, including Fegelein, had never attended officer training school, much of the training provided to new recruits was rudimentary. However, it was rigorous, and the men developed a strong camaraderie. Fegelein's unit was involved alongside the Orpo in the extermination, ordered by Hitler, of members of the Polish elite such as intellectuals, aristocrats, and clergy, in an action called Intelligenzaktion. On 7 December 1939, Fegelein's unit was involved in the mass shooting of 1,700 such people in the Kampinos Forest.
On 15 December, the unit was split into two Standarten (regiments), with Fegelein commanding the 1. Standarte under the overall command of Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer-Ost Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger. The unit was short of basic supplies such as weapons, food, and uniforms, which led to deteriorating morale and ill health. Incidents of corruption and theft took place, particularly among members of the regimental staff in Warsaw. On 23 April 1941, Fegelein faced court-martial charges for an incident in 1940 where he and his unit had been caught stealing money and luxury goods for transportation back to Germany. Fegelein's court-martial was quashed by direct order of Himmler. The allegations brought forward against Fegelein had included "murder motivated by greed". Apparently he had ordered arrests and executions in the Gestapo prison in Warsaw. In addition to this, Fegelein was charged with having had an unlawful sexual relationship with a Polish woman. The woman had become pregnant and Fegelein forced her to have an abortion. Reinhard Heydrich tried several times to investigate the accusations against Fegelein, but each time Himmler quashed the attempt.
Fegelein's unit took part in anti-partisan fighting against a group of about 100 former Polish soldiers in the area of Kammienna–Konsky–Kielce in March and April 1940. They killed about half the partisans and the remainder escaped. On 8 April, Fegelein's unit killed 250 Polish men in villages in the area. While in his report he described the behaviour of his troops as "clean and decent", there were many incidents in this period where his men behaved in an undisciplined way, killing and robbing civilians without being ordered to do so.
In May and June 1940, Fegelein, who had been promoted to SS-Obersturmbannführer of the Reserves in the Waffen-SS on 1 March 1940, participated in the Battle of Belgium and France as a member of the SS-Verfügungstruppe. For his service in these campaigns, he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class on 15 December 1940. In March 1941, the SS Totenkopf Reiterstandarte 1 was renamed to 1st SS Cavalry Regiment.
War against the Soviet Union
With the start of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, which began on 22 June 1941, Fegelein saw active service on the Eastern Front. His unit was assigned on the 87th Infantry Division on 23 June to cover a gap in the lines of the 9th Army near Białystok. The motorized elements of the 1st SS Cavalry reached the right flank of the operational area on 24 June, but the mounted elements were unable to keep up. The exhausted horses had to be left behind and the men transported to the combat zone in lorries, while the horse-drawn artillery pieces were towed using any available vehicles. The first units to arrive crossed the Narew near Wizna and engaged the Soviets but were unable to break through. They were ordered to retreat and move further north. Infantry elements of the 87th Division captured Osowiec Fortress on 26 June, and Fegelein's cavalry was sent on a reconnaissance mission to the south-east. Himmler, unwilling to have his SS units under Wehrmacht control or used in combat other than as reserves, withdrew the SS cavalry from control of the 87th Division on 27 June. The ambitious Fegelein stressed in his reports that he believed his unit was combat ready and exaggerated its contribution to the operation. Ten of his men received the Iron Cross, Second Class for their efforts, and Fegelein was awarded the Iron Cross, First Class.
The engagement demonstrated the shortcomings of the cavalry units in modern mobile warfare, which requires quick redeployments in ever-changing conditions. Fegelein sought to improve this by asking Himmler to combine the 1st and 2nd SS cavalry regiments into a brigade, with additional support units. As a temporary measure, Himmler assigned Fegelein to be in charge of both regiments. Fegelein's unit was one of several that undertook field training and political indoctrination in the coming weeks. Himmler addressed the 1st Cavalry on 5 July, offering the opportunity for any men unwilling to participate in the upcoming "special tasks" to transfer to another unit. Nobody took advantage of this offer, at least partly because Himmler did not say that the upcoming assignment included the mass shooting of unarmed civilians.