Can I ask about the Jews in Poland, I know lately a lot has been said about actions against them?

Gustav: I cannot say much, but I will say they gave us problems and therefore received harsh responses. We had Poles actively attack Jews, which we had to step in to protect. In addition, when the borders changed, the new governments removed them by force as punishment for past crimes; Jews had very bad reputations for aiding the Soviets early on. This was one reason why so many became partisans after the attack on Russia. Due to the situation in Germany, Jews all over the world viewed us as their enemy, when all we wanted was to be left alone by their parasitic brethren. We had no hatred of the Polish Jews, or any Jews for that matter, but they always seemed to be driven by a hatred of us and used sneaky ways to attack us. The SS is called the villain in the Jewish story, but in truth, we at first had very limited interaction with them. It was not until 1941, when we attacked their red brethren in the USSR that they rose up and became weaponized. Russia snuck many political officers behind our lines to help organize these people and many were Jews themselves. The area called the Pripet Marshes [which historically has served as a natural boundary between Poland and Russia] were the areas of operations, they had dozens of camps and even more hideouts from where they attacked our rear areas. They killed many innocent people who refused to help them.

If I may ask a sensitive question, your defense, as well as many other men, was that you were only following orders so you cannot be held responsible for killing innocents. Do you still believe this is a correct defense?

Gustav: No young man, if I had to do this all over again, I would demand a defense that laid bare the reasons we had to take such measures. We could not challenge the fact that many of the 'witnesses' were communist partisans themselves and were lying about most everything. We fought a terrible foe, who killed anyone who stood in his or her way, innocent or not. We took legal reprisals designed to show force would be met with force. The victors and their hyenas stripped us of any rights and due process, we were guilty until proven innocent, and our defense was not allowed to challenge many points of 'fact'. So, for me, and thousands like me, our only logical defense could only be 'following orders', and we would have been tried and shot ourselves if we did not. I understand, as in the case of my friend [Joachim] Peiper, that some comrades did successfully prove the acts were misrepresented, or an outright lie by the Allies. This was rare however and very hard, but later as the true nature of partisan warfare became clear, many of our men were pardoned and had sentences vastly reduced.

Do not believe the numbers as claimed either, they are grossly overstated I believe. We would only carry out executions as a last resort, or for very severe acts. To give you another example, my unit was responding to an attack on a train. The track had been blown, and two crew members were killed. Our first task was to look for tracks, or a direction of travel. We would enter the closest village and order everyone out, then conduct a search. We separated everyone and offered money for a reward for information on who did the attack; this was very effective as it always led to the guilty. In this case, it was a family and included a 17-year-old who admitted working with partisans and carrying the British explosives with his father. Since they were guilty of murder, they were both shot, and the wife sent away to a labor camp. Most people who were captured were sent away to camps or Italian prisons, not executed. It was only in extreme cases where a village was uncooperative, or collectively guilty that a large-scale reprisal would be carried out, which would include destroying the village to deny it to partisans. I know of this only happening a couple of times. In my area, the partisans were mostly defeated, and their strength broken, but they had [Josip] Tito helping them with reinforcements so they could regroup.

You fought on the Russian Front, how was it compared to Italy?

Gustav: The Russian Front was much larger than Italy and was more fluid. The early Blitzkrieg left large formations of enemy troops who were left for weeks or months before being engaged. That is what my cavalry units were used for, the marshes were a safe haven for tens of thousands of enemy soldiers who made camp and were given aid by the locals. Like I mentioned earlier, Stavka [the Russian high command] took advantage of this and sent in personnel to help lead these groups. They almost immediately started attacking rear supply areas, bridges, and those who worked with us. They once attacked a road crew of ex-prisoners and killed them all, a witness stated they had welcomed them, and were shot as an example to never surrender. We also had to fight the Soviet soldier as well; my brigade was used to stop breakthroughs, as I said, and the front was immense and hard to defend. Even though we were outnumbered and, many times, out-gunned, we successfully stopped the enemy. It took heavy losses, but we had to show iron will; my men understood this, often times fighting until the ammo ran out.

An SS-Scharführer in my company won the Iron Cross for chasing down a T-34 [Soviet medium tank] with his steed, and climbing on board, opening the hatch and throwing in a grenade. He could have been killed, but jumped off the tank, ran to his horse and back to our position before the infantry could get him. This is one of millions of examples of the heroism of the German soldier. We could not hope to stop massed tank attacks, but we sure tried and made them pay for victory. A Cossack unit impressed me; they all carried Molotov cocktails and would ride into the tanks and throw these bombs to disable them. This brings me to something; men of every nation fought with us against the USSR. Volunteers who hated communism and pledged their lives to stamp it out, filled our ranks. Several historians agree with the Soviets that we killed countless civilians as some racial policy; that is nonsense. We had a very good relationship with almost all Russians. They would feed us, give us intelligence on partisans, and shelter us. We had to be careful, as we learned later, that the partisans would attack these people and kill them. While I was in prison in Russia, I met many people who were sent to prison for aiding us. One woman who was a cleaner in our building, had a son who joined a youth organization like the HJ [Hitler Youth], he was taken away and she never heard from him again.