Conclusion

Abstract

The story of the SS Cavalry Brigade in 1941–2 is not only part of the operational history of the Waffen-SS or the criminal history of the SS as a whole. It is also an attempt to look at the unit from the perspective of the participants. With its ‘dual role’, it became the link between the pre-war SS and the Waffen-SS of the second half of the Second World War, which not only encompassed highly skilled military formations, but also the personnel of the concentration camps. As it was involved in the destruction of the Soviet Jews and the fight against the Red Army on the eastern front, the brigade combined the characteristics of institutions as different from each other as the Totenkopf infantry division and the Einsatzgruppen of the security police and the security service. Even more than other paramilitary and military forces of the Third Reich, the mounted SS and later the SS Cavalry Brigade underwent not only a rapid but also a very complex development. In the time between 1939 and 1942, the composition and the tasks of the units under the command of Hermann Fegelein changed drastically, a process which has only been partially analysed so far.