The Cruel Hunters: SS-Sonderkommando Dirlewanger Hitler's Most Notorious Anti-Partisan Unit

This is a brutal story – but, from the safety of fifty years distance in time – it is an extremely compelling one. It is also an enduring lesson that a military unit, formed under an evil ideology, led by a social outcast and composed of vicious criminals, will sink to its lowest common denominator – hate.

The Dirlewanger Battalion, also known as “Sonderkommando (special commando) Dirlewanger” was perhaps the least understood, but at the same time the most notorious German SS anti-partisa...