Oskar Dirlewanger is invariably described as an extremely cruel man by historians and researchers. As such, he has been called "a psychopathic killer and child molester" by
Steven Zaloga,
[95] "a professional killer, fully malefic" by Rhodes,
[71] "a sadist and necrophiliac" by
Bryan Mark Rigg,
[96] "an expert in extermination and a devotee of sadism and necrophilia" by
J. Bowyer Bell,
[97] and a "sadistic, amoral alcoholic" by Stang.
Samuel W. Mitcham Jr described Dirlewanger as "a sexually perverted drunkard who enjoyed performing unnatural acts with the dead bodies of his victims, especially the younger ones."
[103] Alan Clark wrote that Dirlewanger's crimes against "Polish girls are hardly printable even today [i.e. 1965], combining as they did the indulgence of both sadism and necrophilia."
[104] According to Heath, "Dirlewanger was without any doubt one of the most evil, sadistic and sexually depraved individuals in the Third Reich. His appetite for alcohol, rape, sadism and violence shocked even the most hardline Nazis."
[105] Heath, however, expressed skepticism towards the accusations of
necrophilia, saying that despite Dirlewanger's career being characterized by "child rape, murder, perversion, sadism and alcoholism," there has been no proven evidence of necrophilia and that "one can only assume that such assumptions are the result of literary fabrication."
[106]Nevertheless, he declared Dirlewanger was "a living embodiment of evil and depravity and all the proof that anyone could need that monsters do exist