Feldkommandantur 642 "Arnheim"

During the occupation by Nazi Germany, the Netherlands were divided into districts, each with a Feldkommandantur (Field Command; FK) leading them. Pending the occupation the layout changed, and with it the number and locations of the Feldkommandanturen. In the summer of 1943 a new Arnhem FK was added to the list. From then on, the Northern and Eastern regions of the Netherlands were led by the FK 642 'Arnheim'.
Generalmajor Friedrich Kussin (1895-1944) became its commander. Under his command was a small, administrative unit of the Heer (Army) consisting of several officers and female Stabshelferinnen (typists, telephone operators, et cetera). The FK was stationed in a villa named Heselbergh on Apeldoornse Weg in the outskirts of Arnhem.
When Operation "Market Garden" started on Sunday 17SEP1944, the staff of the Feldkommandantur remained on its posts. This was in contrast with the local Ortskommandantur, stationed on Nieuwe Plein in downtown Arnhem which was redeployed to the village of Dieren immediately. A Feldkommandantur typically was responsible for the coordination of the available units in its sector. This explains why Generalmajor Kussin went out to check in with the SS training unit under the command of SS-Obersturmbahnführer Sepp Krafft. This unit had moved into position in between Oosterbeek and Wolfheze in the early hours of the start of the operation. Here, they caused the advancing British troops on 'Tiger Route' (Utrechtse Weg) some delay.
 

Generalmajor der Infanterie Friedrich Kussin
Born on the 1st of March 1895
in Aurich, Niedersachsen, Germany

On that Sunday September 17th General Kussin had heard about the airborne landings North West of the city for which he was responsible. He and his driver Gefreiter (corporal) Jozef Willeke , his aide Unteroffizier (NCO) Max Koster and bodyguard Unteroffizier Wilhelm 'Willi' Haupt drove in their staff car, a camouflage painted Citroen, probably confiscated in France, to the Head Quarters of "SS-Haupsturmführer" (Major) Josef 'Sepp' Krafft, commanding the SS-Panzer Grenadier Depot und Reserve Battaljon 16, an armored-infantry battalion. He arrived at Krafft's HQ in the Hotel Wolfheze at 17.15 hours. Krafft gave Kussin the latest intelligence and the Feldkommandant asked of Krafft's Battalion to show all endurance possible for the upcoming battle. Kussin left via the same way he came, much to the reluctance of Krafft's staff.

Coming onto the junction of Wolfhezer Weg and Utrechtse Weg he and his staff ran into advancing British paratroopers.
This is the account of the officer in charge of the leading British platoon, Lieutenant James Arthur Stacey Cleminson
of No.5 Platoon, "B" Company, 3rd Parachute Battalion:

"The platoon had been selected to lead the 3rd Battalion's march to Arnhem, and for the first two hours they made good progress, scouting ahead of the main force. As they approached Battalion Krafft's blocking line east of Wolfheze, a German Citroen staff car suddenly appeared at a junction in between the platoon's positions, prompting these units to open fire with rifles and sten guns, killing all inside. So enthusiastic had been the firing that both vehicle and passengers were riddled with bullets and it took Cleminson's intervention to get his men to cease fire. This prize put the platoon on a high. Cleminson did not discover until after the war that his men had killed General Friedrich Kussin, the German commander of the Arnhem area. He had been visiting Krafft when he unwisely decided to return to the town and his own headquarters."
 

The account of another eye-witness, Staff-Sergeant John Oliver McGeough, a glider pilot with "C" Squadron, No.2 Wing:

"The following morning [Monday, September 18th 1944, Battle Detective.com]we continued towards Oosterbeek and at the junction of Wolfheze Weg and Utrechtseweg saw the first German dead. A staff car (a camouflaged Citroen) had come down the road from Wolfheze and had been shot up by men of the 2nd Parachute Btn at about 1600 hrs on Sunday afternoon. Major General Kussin, German field commander at Arnhem and three others in the car were on a reconnaissance mission and were unlucky to be spotted by the parachutists. Shortly after leaving the scene of the ambush we reached the Hartenstein Hotel at Oosterbeek and there I was to remain for the rest of the battle."
 

The account of Private Thomas Emyr Davies of Mortar Platoon, HQ & Support Company, 1st Parachute Battalion:

"Pushing our way slowly on to the next crossroads, we were confronted with the gruesome picture of an incident which must have happened only minutes previously. A German staff car, obviously caught up, whilst trying to escape back behind their own lines, in the crossfire from the company on our right flank was slewed across the road riddled with machine gun bullets, the windscreen completely shattered. The doors were flung wide open with bodies hanging out on either side, cut down in their in their bid to save themselves. One, with a foot still trapped in the car and dressed in resplendent uniform adorned with the red braid of a high-ranking German officer, was still tightly clutching a revolver. On the other side of the car was the driver, his lips kissing the dust from the road, his arms outstretched from his bullet-ridden body. In the back of the vehicle were two more passengers, their bodies huddled closely together as if frozen in mortal terror of the fate that had befallen them. The shiny patent-leather of the jack boots and the bright red gash on the side of the well-groomed head of the general, whose face was twisted into a devilish grin, gave a macabre feel to the whole scene."

(from: BBC HomeWW2 People's War)

The four staff members of FK 642 killed on the Wolfhezer Weg junction, were registered as missing in action by the Germans. That same evening the command was transferred to the 47 year old Major Ernst Schleiffenbaum who was already on Kussin’s staff.

The next day, Monday 18SEP1944, the shot-up car of the Feldkommandant Arnheim was filmed by members of the Army Film and Photographic Unit (AFPU):

 

AFPU Unit photographer Dennis Smith took the following three photos at the ambush site.
While Smith was there taking his pictures, someone decided to pull the two corpses in the front seat out of the car.

“Karel Margry in Operation Market-Garden Then and Now vol. 1, (publishers: Battle of Britain International Limited, 2002) described how these photos came to be:

"Above left: Later that morning, Smith made an excursion one mile down the road from Wolfheze to the junction of Wolfhezerweg and Utrechtseweg - (2) on the map on page 297 - to photograph the site where Generalmajor Friedrich Kussin had been ambushed in his car the previous day. Kussin, the commander of Feldkommandantur 642 (the military HQ in charge of the Arnhem area), was just returning from a vitit to the command post of SS-Sturmbannführer Sepp Krafft in Hotel Wolfheze when at 17:15 his Citroën staff car bumped into B Company of 3rd Para Battalion leading the advance to Arnhem down Utrechtseweg. As the car started to turn left in the direction of Arnhem, the front men of Lieutenant Jim Cleminson's No. 5 Platoon opened fire with Stens and rifles, riddling the car with bullets and killing the General, his driver, Gefreiter Josef Willeke, and his batman/interpreter, Unteroffizier Max Köster. (Smith, roll 2, frame 4.) Above right: While Smith was there taking his pictures, someone for some reason decided to pull the two corpses in front seats out of the car. Though this picture has been published countless times, no one has ever commented on the ugly image of war which this photo clearly shows, namely that the General has been scalped indian-style. Note also that his badges of rank have been removed from his collar. These were taken off by Dutch commando Lieutenant Maarten Knottenbelt, who passed the car just after the ambush. (They were found in Knottenbelt's pockets when he was hospitalised at Nijmegen after the battle.) On the 18th, Lance-Corporal Harry Wilce of No. 4 Section, 1st Airborne Provost Company, in addition cut thr shoulder epaulettes from the General's uniform, handing them in for identification to a group of officers in a nearby building. Captain Pare, the chaplain of No. 1 Wing of the Glider Pilot Regiment, had two German POWs burry the three dead by the side of the road on Tuesday. Command of Kussin's Feldkommandantur was taken over by his 1a, Major Ernst Schleifenbaum. (Smith, roll 2, frame 5.)”

A closer look at the ambush scene photos
The photos only show general Kussin and his driver Willeke. His aide Koster, a born Dutchman, is nowhere to be seen and bodyguard Haupt had at this time been removed from the scene as he had survived the ambush only to die of his wounds on a later moment
Knowing that both Willeke and Kussin had been removed from the vehicle post-mortem, it is safe to assume that the rifles seen on and under Willeke's legs have been placed there after the incident. We consulted a weapons expert who identified both rifles as Dutch Mannlicher M95 No. 4 bicycle riders carbines produced in the Hembrug factories in Zaandam, the Netherlands.
See the diagram below.
Of interest, aside from the many bullet impacts in the vehicle and the blood stains on the driver's seat and the rifle sling, is the location of the headgear worn by the general and his driver. In the first photo, Willeke is seen still with his M43 Feldmütze (field cap) on his head. In the photo showing him next to the vehicle, this cap is seen on the driver's seat. The skin of Willeke's head shows a ring-shaped indentation were the rim of the Feldmütze had been until just before the photo was taken.
On Willeke's right arm is an object of which we are fairly certain that it is a German officer's Schirmmütze (peaked cap); most likely the general's headgear. It is seen from the top of the cap and it shows an alteration on the top right side consistent with the high velocity impact of a bullet ripping though the outer cloth of the cap and its lining. The damage is similar to the tear in the general's tunic next to his right breast pocket which is also likely to be caused by a bullet.
In light of the "scalp theory" to be described below in the 27AUG2018 update, it is our theory that the general wore his peaked cap when he was hit by one of the British bullets. This projectile tore through the cloth of the cap and subsequently through the flesh on the top right side of the general's head disconnecting ("skinning") a portion of it from the skull up to the rim of his cap where the skin was held in place.
Again see the diagram below.
Our theory leaves no room for a deliberate scalping by Allied servicemen just before the photos were taken.

Location of the incident
This is the junction on a period map:

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Page 14 of After The Battle Magazine, Battle of Arnhem Special Edition

This is what the junction looks like today. The orange pylons in the middle of the junction indicate approximately where General Kussin's car was stopped in a hail of bullets:

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"What was is with that German general?
In the memories of the airborne landing near Wolfheze which you could have read in "Hoog en Laag" of the past weeks, is described how the lieutenant Knottenbelt finds a German general, shot dead, at the corner of Wolfherzerweg and Utrechtseweg. It is interesting how a fact can start leading a life of its own and how certain affairs can be “claimed” by various people. Aside from Mr. Knottenbelt still others have been involved in the shootout and various people are known to me who claimed to have shot and killed the general.
During a visit to Scotland Yard in London I met Chief Inspector Percy Browne who had jumped into Arnhem as an Airborne trooper in 1944. He told me that he had taken part in the shootout.
A young soldier who, on the evening of the day of the landing, had come to my girlfriend on the Buunderkamp told there, that he had helped a German general to Kingdom come.
Meanwhile he showed a small kind of swagger stick decorated with gems that he had taken off the victim.
That adds up to three who has been involved.
Several years later I met an elderly Englishman in Wolfheze, accompanied by his wife.
As an Airborne-officer he had been dropped near Wolfheze, was now writing a book about his wartime
and visited the battlefields where he had fought. He also knew something about the shooting of a German general and liked to go to the place where it had happened. When we set off, his wife whispered to me: "
he doesn’t want to know it, but he has killed that general". That makes four.
With a foreign reporter, who wanted to write a story on crime in the Netherlands, but who made a special study of the Battle of Arnhem as a hobby, I visited the battlefields near Wolfheze, the cemetery and Arnhem Bridge.
In hotel Hartenstein we went for a cup of coffee.
A couple sat there, speaking English with each other, the man apparently of the age of a former Airborne trooper.
I asked him if he was an Airborne trooper and this seemed to be the fact. On my question if he knew about the general and who had etcetera, etcetera,……the story gets boring, he replied: Yes Sir, that was corporal …. (unfortunately I lost the name). He was killed in action and you can find his grave at the Airborne-cemetery”.
And that was the fifth.
It is very well possible, that they were all involved. In all likelihood even, who knows.
But dead he was; that general!

                                                                                                                 C.A. Jongboer"

From the Gelders Archief, Arnhem, Collection 2867 "Collectie L.P.J. Vroemen"
Item B5-324; article "Hoe zat het nou met die Duitse generaal?" in "Hoog en Laag"
of Thursday September 6th 1979, 49th year, number 36.

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UPDATE 16JUL2016:
Most publications have it that General Kussin had only two other passengers in his staff car on that fateful Sunday in 1944.
Historian Scott Revell has, however, established that next to the General, his driver Josef Willeke and interpreter Max Koester (himself born in Arnhem on 20OCT1903), another passenger rode along in the Citroen when it was shot up by British paras.
In "Airborne Magazine", the publication of the Association of Friends of the Airborne Museum Oosterbeek, Volume 3, No. 1, in the accompanying "Ministory 123", Part 2 of Revell's report titled "The death of a German General during the Battle of Arnhem" is published.
In it, Revell describes how he was able to purchase an obituary or "prayer card" of Unteroffiizier (Non Commissioned Officer) Willi Haupt who, according to the text on the card, had been the fourth occupant of the car.

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Front of the obituary card of NCO Willi Haupt

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Gunshot trajectory from upper left to lower right  through face.
Teeth marked red indicate shattering.
Damage to the pink tooth in the upper left jaw by gun shot is tentative
as the record states that only fragments of the root remain in the jaw bone.

General-Major Friedrich Kussin's grave in Ysselsteyn on 22AUG2018.

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Left: traffic signs in Westervoort near Arnhem, along the main route into central Holland from Germany,
One of the German signs shows that the Ortskommandantur is in No. 37 Nieuwe Plein in Arnhem.
Right: The Ortskommandantur in the center of Arnhem.

Explosive ordnance:


 

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“      Major General Kussin (?). Four corpses found riddled in a staff cat at cross roads 679785 on the 18th proved to be Major General Kussin (?), his batman driver and interpreter, all from the Feldkommandantur in Arnhem.”
This suggests that all occupants were still in the vehicle including Unteroffiizier (Non Commissioned Officer) Willi Haupt described in the 16JUL2016 Update.

Apparently some investigation was conducted to establish the identity of the general because in 1 Airborne Division Intelligence Summary No.4 dated 22 Sep 1944. Part I we read:

"            FOOTNOTE.
      The identity of Major General KUSSIN and his appointment as Feldkommandant of ARNHEM, mentioned in Summary No. 1 have now been confirmed by his signature on a court of inquiry on the death of a sentry killed by a train on NIJMEGEN Bridge."

The Footnote erroneously refers to Summary No. 1 instead of No. 2 but it proves that at divisional level Intelligence had an interest in knowing about the Feldkommandant; at least posthumously.

Source: The Paradata website

Information about the Death of General Kussin from the research material for A Bridge Too Far
From the digital Cornelius Ryan Collection of World War II Papers we have studied many of the author’s research material for his book A Bridge Too Far. Most of this material can be retrieved digitally on the Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections, Ohio University Libraries.
It contains questionnaires completed by veterans who were solicited through ads placed in Reader’s Digest magazine during the 1950's and 1960's. Upon returning the completed questionnaires, some were invited to participate in interviews conducted by Ryan and his research team. These submissions were filed in coded, cross-referenced folders, one for each respondent, and organized by nationality and military formation.
The content of several folders sheds light on the incident on the T-Junction of Utrechtseweg and Wolfhezerweg on 17SEP1944.
Seven (7) folders contain information that was new to this agency, which will be presented here.

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