Wehrmacht Waffen SS antipartisan Bandit-warfare Badge Bandenkampfabzeichen Heinrich Himmler
Wehrmacht Waffen SS antipartisan Bandit-warfare Badge Bandenkampfabzeichen Heinrich Himmler
Product
Wehrmacht Waffen SS antipartisan Bandit-warfare Badge Bandenkampfabzeichen Heinrich Himmler
Bandit-warfare Badge (Bandenkampfabzeichen) was a World War II decoration of Nazi Germany awarded to members of the army, Luftwaffe, Order Police, and Waffen-SS for participating in Nazi security warfare (Bandenbekämpfung). The badge was instituted on 30 January 1944 by Adolf Hitler after authorization/recommendation by Heinrich Himmler.
Background
Especially on the Eastern Front, the terms "partisan" and "bandit" were applied by the Nazi security apparatus to Jews, communists, Soviet state officials, Red Army stragglers, and any other persons deemed to pose a security risk. Rear-area security operations against armed irregular fighters ("pacification actions") were often indistinguishable from massacres of civilians, accompanied by burning down villages, destroying crops, stealing livestock, deporting able-bodied population for slave labour to Germany, and leaving parent-less children on their own.
