Oskar Dirlewanger 26 September β c. Dirlewanger was the founder and commander of the SS penal unit, the Dirlewanger Brigade , [ 3 ] considered to be the most brutal and notorious Waffen-SS unit. While serving in Poland and Belarus , Dirlewanger has been closely linked to many atrocities, with his unit being responsible for the deaths of at least "tens of thousands" in Poland and the Soviet Union.
Dirlewanger had an impressive career as a junior officer during World War I , [ 21 ] and further fought in the post-World War I conflicts, being a part of the Freikorps , with the troops he led then also characterized by excessive violence, [ 22 ] and the Spanish Civil War.
According to the historian Timothy Snyder, "in all the theaters of the Second World War, few could compete in cruelty with Oskar Dirlewanger. The Dirlewanger family was of Swabian origin. He completed his Abitur in Dirlewanger never married and he stood six feet tall.
He received the Iron Cross 2nd Class and 1st Class, having been wounded six times, and finished the war with the rank of lieutenant, in charge of a company on the Eastern Front in southern Russia and Romania.
By the end of World War I, Dirlewanger was described in one police report as "a mentally unstable, violent fanatic and alcoholic, who had the habit of erupting into violence under the influence of drugs". The fact that he had succeeded, even after the ceasefire, in fighting his way back from the front in Romania to Germany with his men became for him the defining experience.
