EstalianMerchant/sandbox | |
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 Schaufeld in 1945 | |
| Nickname(s) | The Butcher of Nakhov |
| Born | 7 March 1915 Königsberg, Prussia, German Empire |
| Died | c. 22 May 1945 (aged 30) Reutlingen, Baden-Württemberg, Allied-occupied Germany |
| Service | |
| Years of service |
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| Rank | Hauptmann |
| Battles / wars | |
| Awards | |
| Alma mater | University of Königsberg |
| Signature |  |
Emily Sofia Schaufeld (7 March 1915 - c. 22 May 1945) was a German military officer (Hauptmann) in Germany. She played a significant role within the 4th Panzergrenadier Division, and was one of the most highly decorated soldiers of the Division.
Serving in Poland, Ukraine, and Crimea, Schaufeld and much of the 4th were closely linked to many war crimes. She would go on to be captured by United States Army Rangers near Reutlingen, in mid May 1945. Her and the remaining members of the 4th were executed via firing squad following a swift trial. Schaufeld's last words are reported to have been - "I have no regrets , other than not having being able to fulfill Hitler's vision."
Early Life
editSchaufeld was born in Königsberg on 7 March 1915. She was the daughter of the Königsberg City Attorney, and as a result, had a rather stable childhood. Her father's position ensured their family a steady income, and even during the worst of the Great Depression they never struggled any considerable amount. She had attended at the University of Königsberg for 2 years, pursuing a Civil Engineering Degree. In early 1937 however, she dropped out and joined the increasingly popular Wehrmachthelferin. Schaufeld up to this point in her life was described by her parents as being largely politically unconcerned, likely due in large part because of her sheltered upbringing.
Leading up to World War II
editWithin the Wehrmachthelferin, Schaufeld worked for 2 years as an auxiliary civil defense personnel. She was stationed at the town of Elbing, on the border of the Free City of Danzig. Her peers and superiors both noted that she displayed an immense amount of discipline, and never shied in her duties she was assigned regardless of difficulty. As a result, she was among the first to be requested to officially sign up for the first female Wehrmacht formation, the 4th Panzergrenadier Division.
Schaufeld by now was deeply entrenched into Nazi ideology, even going so far as to kill her own Jewish Uncle, who had tried to flee the country. This act of violent dedication had placed a spotlight onto Schaufeld, and she had even been offered a position in the SS-Ordnungspolizei by Alfred Wünnenberg. She refused however, stating that she believed she would better serve the Reich by waging war on its external enemies.
World War II
editWhen the Invasion of Poland began on 1 September 1939, the 4th were tasked with assisting in the capture of Danzig. They secured the surrounding countryside east of the city, before laying siege to it's eastern flank. The 4th had nowhere near the amount of soldiers needed to take, let alone occupy Danzig, this however was not information that the Polish were privy to. False intel had been planted by the Abwehr, indicating that the 4th were backed up by 3 more divisions. Thus the majority of Polish troops within Danzig were stationed on the eastern portion of the city to try and push back the 4th. During the siege, the 4th took heavy casualties, but their efforts had distracted the Polish long enough that Walter Petzel and the Frontier Guard of Army Group North were able to secure much of western Danzig.
Following the successful capture of Danzig, the 4th were attached to the Frontier Guard and sent southwards to take and hold Graudenz. The 4th while still heavily damaged, managed to take the town easily. They would remain there for the remainder of the invasion of Poland.
After the formation of the Generalgouvernement, the 4th were tasked with assisting in counter-insurgency operations against the Polish Resistance. It is around this time that Schaufeld and the 4th began to become infamous for their war crimes. It was not uncommon for entire villages to be burned to the ground when suspected of harboring insurgents.
In late April 1941, the 4th were assigned to the German 11th Army, and transferred to south-eastern Poland. When Operation Barbarossa was launched on June 22 1941, the 4th assisted in taking much of south-western Ukraine. But with the Romanian advance into Ukraine proving much more lackluster than expected, the 4th were sent alongside the 50th and 170th Infantry Corps to assist in capturing Odessa. The Romanian 4th Army sustained cripplingly high casualties and remained incapable of making any further progress into Ukraine for the remainder of 1941. Despite initial setbacks and high Romanian casualties, Odessa fell in late October of 1941.
Immediately after the capture of Odessa, plans were drafted to launch an invasion of the Crimean Peninsula. Being the only German forces in the area still almost wholly intact, the 4th, 50th, and 170th were tasked with assisting in the invasion of Crimea. German intelligence had concluded that these forces would be insufficient to take the peninsula, and that more men would be required before any invasion could be launched. The invasion date was set back by 1 month while more forces could be gathered. In late November, The 42nd and 45th Italian Infantry Divisions, and the Romanian 7th Army Corp, were gathered at Odessa to assist.
The Soviets had not been expecting the Axis to launch a naval invasion during the winter, and were caught off-guard when in mid December of 1941, almost 80,000 combined Axis forces landed on the shores of Sevastopol. Progress into the peninsula continued on in quick fashion as Soviet forces began withdrawing entirely from Crimea. Army Group South had quickly been advancing on Rostov-on-Don, and the southern Soviet front was at risk of being encircled. The Soviets decided to cut their losses and abandon Crimea entirely in February 1942, retreating into the Northern Caucuses and fortifying the area.
The 4th remained in Crimea until the following month, when new orders were given for a fresh wave of counter-insurgency operations. Operation Barbarossa was losing steam due to a large Partisan presence within Belarus and Ukraine.
Over the course of April - August 1942, the 4th killed over 20,000 partisans, and well over 70,000 civilians. The efficiency that the 4th once operated with in Poland had now begun to devolve into barbarism. Once swift counter-insurgency strikes, had now become mindless slaughter. The war crimes of the 4th within Belarus eventually became so infamous that the 4th were likened to the Dirlewanger Brigade on several occasions by German officers. The extent of the atrocities committed had also begun to have diminishing returns, partisans were no longer kept down solely by fear. It is also around this time that Schaufeld acquired her nickname, The Butcher of Nakhov, after participating in a massacre of the town of Nakhov, and chopping up several prominent partisans to then be displayed outside the burned ruins of the village. The complete destruction of over a dozen villages had effectively forced thousands to flock to various partisan movements to take up arms in revenge.
At the end of August 1942, the 4th were once again attached to Army Group North, and given the task of retaking Smolensk which had been liberated by Soviet forces the prior month. This would prove to be the most difficult task so far for the 4th. Smolensk was one of the most contested areas along the Eastern Front. The Soviets had well over 500,000 men in the area, and over 1,500 tanks. The German forces were at a numerical disadvantage, but still had air superiority over the Russians.
Forces from both Army Group North and Army Group Center launched their assault on 14 September 1942, the first 2 weeks of the battle went disastrously for the German forces. Air support could only be called in sparingly as the Soviets had several fortified AA positions dotting the city. The KV-1 had begun to be produced in large enough quantities to require the German High Command to reconsider their anti-armor strategies. Immediately, new anti-tank destroyer designs were called for. Unfortunately for the German forces at Smolensk, effective anti-tank destroyers such as the Marder III and the Jagdpanzer IV would not see widespread deployment until the following year.
What ensued was a 2 month prolonged siege of Smolensk, a meat grinder for both the Germans and Soviets. A situation which would be repeated again at Stalingrad on a much larger scale. The tide began to turn for the Germans when reinforcements in the form of the now replenished Romanian 4th and 7th Armies arrived, equipped with modern AT rifles, based off of Polish and Swiss designs. This in conjunction with the fact that while the Soviets had managed to hold Smolensk, the rest of the frontline was slowly buckling, and the flanks of the Soviets were beginning to become exposed. The Soviet 4th Army was instructed to hold the city to the last man and to buy time for the remaining units of the Red Army within the area retreated east to begin digging in around Moscow.
Smolensk had left the 4th and several other German units effectively combat incapable. These units were all sent back west to recuperate and perform tasks that their units were still capable of. For the 4th, this meant a garrison deployment in Kopervik. The problem with this deployment however was not the possibility of an Allied invasion of Norway, rather, the 4th simply weren't capable of recovering in a timely fashion.
While the Wehrmacht had allowed the formation of female divisions, women were legally exempt from conscription, until 1945 when Germany began running low on capable fighting men. The 4th was far from the only female division as well, meaning that when time came for them to replenish their staggeringly high casualties once again. There were very few in the way of willing volunteers, and with the Allied Bombings of Germany intensifying as Germany began to lose the war in the air, more and more women were kept within Germany proper to crew AA guns or work at munition plants.
Schaufeld and the 4th would remain in Norway until 1945, during their 3 year garrison duty they were redeployed to dozens of different coastal towns and fortifications, but they would never leave Norway itself until mid January 1945.
The Soviets had by this point pushed German forces back to Germany, and were beginning the East Prussian Offensive. Schaufeld wrote in a journal of hers that "For every Aryan that dies in Königsberg, a thousand Slavs will perish.". To Schaufeld's dismay however, she would never get the opportunity to defend Königsberg or any of East Prussia for that matter. The 4th were deployed to Poznan alongside the German 2nd Army, and 2 divisions of recently formed Volkssturm.
Only 2 months later, the Soviets had pushed from Warsaw, to Poznan. Murmurs of dissent began to form within the ranks of the Wehrmacht as the Soviets continued their seemingly unstoppable march into Germany. By now Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels had already proclaimed Germany to be in a state of Total war, and that everyone had to give everything to stop the threat of "Judeo-Bolshevism". Every word from Goebbels stuck with Schaufeld and she was reported to get into physical confrontation often with those she deemed to be lacking "The Aryan Spirit". This was more often than not, members of the Volkssturm that she believed were ill-disciplined and unfit for service.
By this point in the war, it was not uncommon for one to be executed on charges of expressing Defeatism. So for anyone in the Volkssturm to get off with a bloodied nose and a stern warning to strengthen their resolve, was considered a light punishment. For her acts of discipline, Schaufeld was awarded the German Cross by none other than General der Panzertruppe Dietrich von Saucken. Saucken commended her for her unshakable spirit and courage, as well as complimenting her by saying that "Had the Reich 1,000 of you, Schaufeld, we would be in Vladivostok by now."
The defense of Poznan, despite the prior 2 months of preparation and digging in, was ended in quick fashion. 2 Soviet Artillery Divisions and total air superiority left the German Forces at Poznan as little more than target practice. The defeatism that Schaufeld had feared, had fully set in now for the German forces along the Eastern Front. By the thousands now, troops were moving westward, in hopes that the Allied Powers would provide more fair treatment should they be taken as POW's.
The 4th by this point numbered little under 500 women, and was no longer capable of fighting. There was nowhere along the Eastern Front that the Soviets did not number in the upper thousands. German High Command was beginning to break down entirely, on all directions, the Reich's enemies were circling in ever closer. Fuel supplies had dwindled to next to nothing, and in the streets of Berlin, children as young as 12 were being given rifles.
The 4th were no longer capable of receiving orders from High Command by the start of April 1945. Despite only maintaining the rank of Hauptmann, Schaufeld was now the highest ranking member of the 4th, and was now de-facto in charge. While the 4th were not a part of the SS Werwolfs, Schaufeld had heard of them, and agreed that the new best course of action would be to wage a guerilla war in Bavaria. Originally Schaufeld had intended to make a last stand at Berlin, but this was not possible due to the fuel shortage, the 4th would have to walk, and they simply weren't able to get to Berlin in time.
Thus, over the next 2 weeks, the 4th trekked their way across war-torn Germany, and into Bavaria. Over the course of the trip, many of the remaining 4th either deserted, or were executed. By the time they arrived at Reutlingen, they numbered under 100. The German Reich had also now officially surrendered, and called upon the Wehrmacht to disarm and cease fighting. When news of this reached the 4th, Schaufeld proclaimed that anyone that heeded the announcement would be shot.
The 4th and a Company of what was left of the 7th Prinz Eugen SS Division, continued fighting Allied Forces in Bavaria for almost another month. In mid May of 1945 however, as the remains of the 4th began retreating from Reutlingen, over 200 US Army Rangers intercepted them in the Schönbuch Forest, just north of the town. The 4th nearly fought to the death, with only 7 surviving the battle, badly injured, including Schaufeld.
Schaufeld and the remaining 4th were taken into custody as POWs, and were put on trial by the Sergeant Major Ajax Richards. It did not take long however, for Richards to learn the extent of the 4th's war crimes. Without any approval from higher ups, Richards sentenced Schaufeld and the remaining 4th Panzergrenadier Division, to death by firing squad, just outside of Reutlingen.
Legacy
editTo this day, Emily Schaufeld remains as one of the most notorious women of the Wehrmacht, surviving descendants of the Schaufeld family have publicly stated their disapproval of her and her actions. A memorial site in mourning those killed at Nakhov can be found next the town's City Hall.
The skull and rifle symbol of the 4th Panzergrenadier Division has been seen several times during the Russo-Ukrainian War by various far right paramilitaries.