Sylvester Stadler(born 30 December 1910 in Fohnsdorf, Austria-Hungary, † August 23 1995 in Konigsbrunn) was commander of the 9th SS-Panzer-Division “Hohenstaufen” of the Waffen-SS and SS commander of that regiment, which is responsible for the massacre of Oradour-sur-Glane. At the end of the war, at only 34 years old, he wore the rank of SS brigade leader and Major General of the Waffen-SS.

Sylvester Stadler Life

The son of a miner, Styrian learned to folk and country town school in the profession of electrical engineer Jews castle.

In May 1933, he became a member of the Nazi Party and the SS. Since he graduated from military training in SS-Lagerlechfeld, he was deprived of an indictment for high treason. On 31 July 1933, he fled to Germany, where he reported a few months later as a volunteer for SS troops. After completion of the Cadet School in Bad Tolz (April 1935-March 1936), he was promoted to SS-Untersturmführer.

After the beginning of World War II, he led the invasion of Poland, a news company of SS troops available. Then, in 1940, he fought with the SS Division in France, where he was wounded at Arras. 1941, he took part in the Balkan campaign. After another wounded in the Battle of Moscow in 1941, he was employed for a short time as a tactics instructor at the SS Junker School in Brunswick.

From 1 March 1942, he commanded the Second Battalion of the members of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich Panzer Grenadier Regiment “Der Führer.” In May 1943, he was appointed commander of the whole regiment “Der Führer,” with whom he fought in Russia. For the repulse of a burglary of the Red Army in Kharkiv, it was 16 September 1943 awarded the Oak Leaves to the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross.

To refresh, the regiment was decimated in Russia. “The Leader” in early 1944 - as well as the rest of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich - moved to France in the Toulouse area. On 10 June 1944, members of the Regiment “Der Führer,” at the place of Oradour-sur-Glane, murdered 642 men, women, old men, children, and babies.

Soldiers of the 3rd Company of the 1st Battalion under Battalion Commander SS-Sturmbannführer Adolf Diekmann were responsible. Stadler appealed against “protest” and sought court-martial proceedings against Diekmann, too. However, this was shortly after the massacre in the fighting after the Allied landings in Normandy.

Stadler then prepared to take on a new command, so on 14 June 1944, the command of the Regiment “Der Führer” to Otto Weidinger. From the 10th of July 1944, Stadler was then commander of the 9th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen. With this unit, he participated in the fighting in Normandy (see Battle of Caen). Later, he was again wounded. In early May 1945, he was found in Steyr (Austria) with the remnants of his division to the Americans and remained until 1948 in American internment.

To justify the actions of his former regiment, Stadler said after the war, in his testimony before a public prosecutor concerning the massacre of Oradour, that he had on the morning of 10 June 1944 had information indicating that in Oradour install was a partisan and the public burning of the kidnapped Obersturmbannfiihrer Helmut had been planned for the afternoon battles.

Further claimed Stadler, on the morning of 9 June, to have instructed his aide Gerlach to look for parts of the regiment in Nieul's neighborhood. This was then, but they were ambushed by partisans while driving and taken to the place of Oradour-sur-Glane, where he would have perceived an active partisan activity and wanted to have even seen armed women. The partisans had incidentally killed Gerlach’s driver, why Gerlach had managed to escape, then reimburse itself, and Stadler could report them.

The later testimonies of survivors of the massacre of Oradour and, in particular, the defendants refuted themselves in the processes in Bordeaux in 1953 and Berlin Stadler’s statements clearly soon.

Sylvester Stadler Literature

• Wolfgang Graf - Austrian SS generals.Himmler reliable vassals, Hermagoras-Verlag, Klagenfurt / Ljubljana / Vienna, 2012, ISBN 978-3-7086-0578-4, pp. 418 - 426
• Bernd Wegner - Hitler’s Political Soldiers.The Waffen-SS 1933-1945., 6 Edition, Schoningh, Paderborn, 1999.
• Smelser, Syring (ed.) - The SS elite under the skull. Schoningh, Paderborn, 2000.
• Peter Przybylski and Horst Busse - Killer of Oradour. Military Publishing GDR, Berlin 1984.