I returned to Voroshilovsk as our forces were taking Mozdok, an important Russian military center; the front now followed the Terek and Baksan rivers, and the 111th Infantry Division was getting ready to cross the Terek toward Groznyi. Our Kommandos were getting active: in Krasnodar, Sk 10a had liquidated the three hundred patients of the regional psychiatric hospital as well as those of a psychiatric clinic for children; in the KMV, Dr. Müller was preparing a large-scale Aktion, and had already formed Jewish Councils in every city; the Jews of Kislovodsk, headed by a dentist, had shown themselves to be so eager that they had come to hand over their carpets, jewelry, and warm clothes before they had even received the order. The HSSPF, Korsemann, had just arrived in Voroshilovsk with his staff and invited us, the night of my return, to his introductory speech. I had already heard about Korsemann, in the Ukraine: he had been a member of the Freikorps and the SA, had worked mostly with the Hauptamt Orpo and hadn’t joined the SS until late, just before the war. Heydrich, they said, didn’t want him and called him an SA agitator; but he was supported by Daluege and von dem Bach-Zelewski, and the Reichsführer had decided to make him an HSSPF, raising him up step-by-step. In the Ukraine, he was already serving as HSSPF z.b.V., that is, “for special tasks,” but he had remained largely in the shadow of Prützmann, who had succeeded Jeckeln as HSSPF Russland-Süd in November 1941. So Korsemann still hadn’t proven himself; the offensive in the Caucasus offered him the chance to demonstrate his capabilities. That seemed to have stimulated an enthusiasm in him that bubbled over in his speech. The SS, he hammered out, had to carry out not only negative tasks, of security and repression, but also positive tasks, to which the Einsatzgruppe could and should contribute: positive propaganda for the natives; fighting infectious diseases; renovating sanatoriums for the Waffen-SS wounded; and economic production, especially in the oil industry, but also in other mining assets still to be allocated, which the SS could assume control of for its businesses. He also urgently stressed the subject of relations with the Wehrmacht: “You’re all certainly aware of the problems related to this that severely affected the work of the Einsatzgruppe at the beginning of the campaign. From now on, to avoid any incident, relations of the SS with the OKHG and the AOK will be centralized by my office. Beyond the usual liaisons and working relations, no SS officer under my command is authorized to negotiate questions of importance directly with the Wehrmacht. In case of any inopportune initiative in this domain, I will be ruthless, believe me.” But despite this unusual stiffness, which seemed to stem from the lack of confidence of a newcomer still ill at ease in his functions, Korsemann spoke eloquently, and showed great personal charm; the general impression was mostly positive. Later that night, during a small informal meeting of subaltern officers, Remmer offered an explanation for Korsemann’s pettifogging attitude: what worried him was still having almost no actual authority. According to the principle of double subordination, the Einsatzgruppe reported directly to the RSHA, and therefore Bierkamp could countermand any order from Korsemann that didn’t suit him: the same was true for the SS economists from the WVHA, and of course for the Waffen-SS, which in any case was subordinated to the Wehrmacht. Ordinarily, to establish his authority and dispose of his own troops, an HSSPF had a few Orpo battalions; but Korsemann hadn’t yet received such forces, and so in fact remained an HSSPF “without special tasks”: he could make suggestions, but if Bierkamp didn’t like them, he wasn’t obliged to follow them.
