This Date in History: May 9

Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger, SS-Obergruppenführer, born May 8, 1894 in Strasbourg, Higher SS and Police Leader East, commander 6th SS Mountain Division “Nord,” commander 5th SS Mountain Corps, winner of the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, committed suicide by gunshot on May 9, 1945 in Austria, said in January 1942 of SS-Oberführer Oskar Dirlewanger and his SS unit of criminals: “[Unless] this bunch of criminals disappears from the Government General within a week I will go myself and lock them up.”  (2000 Quotations from Hitler’s Thousand Year Reich)

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Benno Hackbarth was born in Marienthal, in the district of Schlawe, Pomerania, Germany on May 30, 1922.  He joined the Waffen-SS on May 9, 1940 and was promoted to SS-Rottenführer on November 11, 1942.  Hackbarth served in the 8^th (Heavy) Company in the Kursk Offensive in an unknown crew position on a Tiger.  SS-Rottenführer Benno Hackbarth received the Iron Cross Second Class on August 4, 1943.  (Waffen-SS Tiger Crews at Kursk: The Men of SS Panzer Regiments 1, 2 & 3 in Operation Citadel, July 5-15, 1943)