Signed Photograph of Waffen SS General Otto Kumm
Otto Kumm
From
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born 1
October 1909
Hamburg,
German Empire
Died 23 March
2004 (aged 94)
Germany
Allegiance
Nazi Germany
Service/branch
Flag
Schutzstaffel.svg Waffen-SS
Years of
service
1934–45
Rank
SS-Brigadeführer and Generalmajor of the Waffen-SS
Commands
held
SS Division
Prinz Eugen
SS Division
Leibstandarte
Battles/Wars
World War II
Operation
Spring Awakening
Awards
Knight's
Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords
Other
work
Founder of
HIAG
SS-Brigadeführer
and Generalmajor of the Waffen-SS Otto Kumm (1 October 1909 – 23 March
2004) commanded two Waffen-SS divisions in the latter stages of World
War II and was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with
Oak Leaves and Swords. At the post-war Nuremberg trials, the Waffen-SS
– of which Kumm was a senior officer – was declared to be a criminal
organisation due to its major involvement in war crimes and crimes
against humanity. After the war, Kumm became one of the founders of
HIAG, a lobby group and a revisionist organization of former Waffen-SS
members.
SS career
Born
in 1909 into a family of a merchant in Hamburg, Kumm trained as a
typesetter and worked at a newspaper. On 1 June 1934, Kumm joined the
SS-Verfügungstruppe (SS Dispositional Troops) and on 1 July received
his first training with the SS-Standarte "Germania" in Hamburg.
Kumm
commanded the Der Führer Regiment of the SS Division Das Reich from
July 1941 to April 1943. This regiment was nearly destroyed in the
Soviet offensive of January 1942, when it was reduced to 35 men out of
the 2,000 that had started the campaign in June 1941. Kumm was a
commander of the SS Division Prinz Eugen from 30 January 1944 until 20
January 1945 and then was appointed the new division commander of the
SS Division Leibstandarte (LSSAH) as of 15 February 1945, after the
division's commander Wilhelm Mohnke was wounded.
As
the division commander, Kumm and the LSSAH took part in Operation
Spring Awakening (6 March 1945 – 16 March 1945), the last major German
offensive launched during World War II. The Germans launched attacks in
Hungary near the Lake Balaton area on the Eastern Front. Soviet
intelligence identified large German tank formations in western Hungary
and developed a successful counterattack strategy. After the failure of
Operation Spring Awakening, Sepp Dietrich's 6th SS Panzer Army and the
LSSAH retreated to the Vienna area.
After
Vienna fell to the Red Army in the Vienna Offensive, the bulk of the
LSSAH division surrendered to U.S. forces in the Steyr area on 8 May
1945. Kumm was held at the Dachau internment camp administered by the
US Army. Kumm avoided extradition to Yugoslavia to stand trial for war
crimes by fleeing over the wall of the camp.
Activities within HIAG
Otto
Kumm (front row, left), Heinrich Himmler with other SS officers and
Nazi Party leaders during a tour of Mauthausen-Gusen concentration
camp, June 1941
After
the war, Otto Kumm was denazified and became a businessman. Kumm was a
founder and the first head of the Waffen-SS veterans' organization
HIAG, established in 1951 to lobby for the cause of the Waffen-SS
historical rehabilitation and restoration of their rights to post-war
pensions.
As
the organization's chairman and its first spokesperson, Kumm set the
tone for the rhetoric that was reflected in its publications and public
discourse. In 1952, Otto Kumm published an editorial in the in-house
magazine Wiking-Ruf ("Viking Call") outlining the organization's
grievances:
Even
during the war, and especially after the war, infamous and lying
propagandists have been able to make use of all the unfortunate events
connected to the Third Reich and also with the SS to destroy and drag
through the mud all of what was and is sacred to us. [...] Let us be
clear about it: the [Allied] battle was directed not only against the
authoritarian regime of the Third Reich, but, above all, against the
resurgence of the strength of the German people.
At
least through the 1970s, Kumm remained "the ever unreformed Nazi
enthusiast" according to researcher Danny S. Parker, who was given
access to the previously closed HIAG archives. Perceived by the West
German government to be a Nazi organization, HIAG was disbanded in
1992.
Kumm died on
23 March 2004.