Battles of the Waffen-SS E-Book

Gordon Williamson

• Herausgeber: Amber Books Ltd
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Seitenzahl: 327

Beschreibung

No military organisation has fought as well against such overwhelming odds as the Waffen-SS, but few have earned such an infamous reputation in the process. Waffen- SS soldiers embraced the concept of hardness, which meant that they showed no pity towards Germany’s enemies. They were soldiers of destruction par excellence.
Battles of the Waffen-SS is a detailed summary of the Waffen-SS’s greatest battles between 1939 and 1945. Featured are how the Das Reich Division conquered Yugoslavia almost single-handedly, how the dreaded Totenkopf Division held out for 73 days against impossible odds in the Demyansk Pocket, how the foreign volunteer units halted the Red Army at Narva for six months, and much more.
With the aid of 120 rarely seen photographs and 10 full-page maps, Battles of the Waffen-SS tells the full, dramatic story of the Waffen-SS in action: the stunning victories, the savagery of the Eastern Front, the atrocities both on and off the battlefield, and the grim battles of attrition fought in the final years of the war. This is the story of Hitler’s Praetorian Guard at war.

Leseprobe

BATTLES OF THE WAFFEN-SS

Hitler’s Fighting Elite, 1939–45

GORDON WILLIAMSON

This digital edition first published in 2016

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Copyright © 2016 Amber Books Ltd

ISBN: 978-1-78274-397-2

All rights reserved. With the exception of quoting brief passages for the purpose of review no part of this publication may be reproduced without prior written permission from the publisher. The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. All recommendations are made without any guarantee on the part of the author or publisher, who also disclaim any liability incurred in connection with the use of this data or specific details.

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CONTENTS

Birth to First Blood 1925–40

Balkan Blitzkrieg

Operation ‘Barbarossa’

The Demyansk Pocket

The Battles for Kharkov

The Battle of Kursk

The Cherkassy Pocket

The Defence of Narva

Normandy and Arnhem

The Ardennes Offensive

Operation ‘Spring Awakening’

Order of Battle of the Waffen-SS

Bibliography

Index

Birth to First Blood 1925–40

SS in Poland. ‘I suppose it is inevitable that military men desire to see their creations in action, so we were not averse to having the SS troops enter the Polish conflict.’ (‘Sepp’ Dietrich).

In almost every campaign in which the German armed forces fought during World War II, the armed SS made a significant contribution. The armed SS, officially titled the Waffen-SS from spring 1940, was one of the four main components making up the German Wehrmacht, or Armed Forces, with the Army (Heer), Air Force (Luftwaffe), and Navy (Kriegsmarine). Initially viewed with distrust, it later proved itself to be a fearsome fighting machine.

In their baptism of fire in Poland, the SS had a somewhat mixed reception from senior Army personnel, suspicious of what they considered ‘political soldiers’ fighting alongside ‘real’ troops. By the later stages of the war, however, the top fighting divisions of the Waffen-SS had gained such a reputation for dependability and steadfastness in the worst possible situations that they were sometimes the only troops who could be relied upon to fight on while those around them retreated. Waffen-SS units often formed the rearguard to protect the withdrawal of their Army colleagues.

Later in the war Waffen-SS units were known as the ‘Führer’s Fire Brigade’, being rushed from crisis point to crisis point as the German armies struggled to hold back the overwhelming weight of numbers on the Allied side. Waffen-SS units found themselves not only hurried from one sector of a front to another, but often all the way across Europe as situations on other fronts worsened.

The mere arrival of one of the premier Waffen-SS divisions was often enough to boost the morale of other troops in the area and help to stiffen resistance to the enemy. The Allies, too, would usually proceed with more caution knowing they were up against soldiers of the Waffen-SS.

That Waffen-SS formations often fought with almost unbelievable determination is not disputed, and is confirmed by the number of Waffen-SS soldiers who were among those awarded Germany’s highest decorations for bravery. There was another side to the Waffen-SS, though: a total disregard for human life, partly stemming from their belief in themselves as elite troops who put a low value on their own lives, and also because they were the military standard bearers of National Socialism, an ideology that preached Germanic racial superiority. The result was atrocities both on and off the battlefield.

The Waffen-SS can trace its origins back to 1923, when a special guard element was formed within the Nazi Party with the specific task of protecting Adolf Hitler personally. Political gatherings during these stormy times, 10 years before Hitler came to power, would often degenerate into violence as the Nazis fought their political opponents and tried to break up their meetings. This guard element was selected from reliable men of the Sturmabteilung (SA) – Storm Troops – an existing Party body, and was known as the Stabswache or Staff Guard.

The Stosstrupp Adolf Hitler was comprised of Party members whose loyalty was foremost to Hitler

Infighting and intrigue within the Party was rife and the Stabswache was rather short lived, being replaced later that same year with a new section known as the Stosstrupp Adolf Hitler, or Adolf Hitler Shocktroop, comprised of Party members whose loyalty was first and foremost to Hitler himself. This new unit included such men as Josef ‘Sepp’ Dietrich and Rudolf Hess. The Stosstrupp Adolf Hitler served as Hitler’s personal bodyguard until his arrest and imprisonment following the abortive Munich Beer Hall Putsch in November 1923.

Hitler had been impressed by the performance of his bodyguard during the Putsch, several of them having immediately placed themselves in front of Hitler to shield him when the shooting began. When he was released from Landsberg Prison he appointed his trusted chauffeur, Julius Schreck, to form a permanent bodyguard element of eight hand-picked men whose loyalty to their Fiihrer was unquestionable. This ‘praetorian guard’ was to be known as the Schutzstaffel (SS) or Protection Squad, reportedly at the suggestion of Hermann Göring. From this small beginning, SS units began to be formed in every district, though to retain their elite status, only 10 men and one officer were permitted to join each unit.

Hitler and, to his left, Ernst Rohm at a Nazi rally in 1931. Rohm’s SA brownshirts kept order at Party meetings and fought leftists on the street. However, they were unruly and not totally loyal to Hitler, whereas the SS was both loyal and disciplined.

Hitler came to trust his SS guards absolutely, while at the same time the SA was increasingly falling out of favour. The SA was becoming far too powerful for Hitler’s liking (it numbered three million in 1933), and its loyalty was suspect. The SS was permitted to grow in both size and influence and, soon after Hitler came to power as chancellor in 1933, a new personal guard was formed, the SS having outgrown its original purpose. This new unit, the SS-Stabswache became, a few months later, the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, based at the Lichterfelde Barracks in Berlin. Soon, other fully-armed, company-strength SS units known as Politische Bereitschaften (Political Readiness) units were being formed, their purpose to support the National Socialist regime in times of unrest.

The SS, and in particular the Leibstandarte, proved its loyalty to Hitler when, in June 1934, it helped to assert Hitler’s power over the SA, led up until then by Ernst Rohm, a move which was intended as much to appease the military establishment who were worried at the explosive expansion in size of the SA, as it was to put down any real danger of a putsch against Hitler. The SS carried out many of the murders undertaken on the so-called ‘Night of the Long Knives’, the emasculation of the SA, during which the SS executed around 1000 brownshirts and their leaders, including Rohm himself.

There was no shortage of applicants for service in this new branch of the SS

The SS was soon to be rewarded for its loyalty. In September 1934 the SS-Verfugungstruppe (SS-VT) was formed. This was to be composed of three regimental-sized formations, organised on military lines. The SS-VT was formally announced to the German Parliament in March 1935, at the same time that Adolf Hitler announced the reintroduction of conscription. The SS-VT was commanded by Heinrich Himmler in his position as Rcichsfuhrer-SS, but Hitler made it clear that it was to be at his personal disposal. In times of war it would be available to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. In case of internal revolt, it would come under Hitler’s direct orders via Heinrich Himmler as Reichsfuhrer-SS.

The three regiments of the SS-VT were the Leibstandarte, SS-Standarte Deutschland based in Munich, and SS-Standarte Germania based in Hamburg. In addition, support units in the form of a signals battalion, the SS-Nachrichten-sturmbann, and an engineer unit, the SS-Pioniersturmbann, were formed, as well as two SS officer training schools: SS-Junkerschule Tolz and SS-Junkerschule Braunschweig.

There was no shortage of applicants for service in this new branch of the SS. The SS already had a very high profile in Germany. Each time the newsreel films showed the visit of some important dignitary to the Reich, for example, or Hitler himself at sonic ceremonial function, there would inevitably be seen in the background, a phalanx of tall, strong SS troops in their black parade uniforms. No one could have failed to realise that these young men were the elite of the Third Reich, and it is no surprise that when recruitment for the SS-VT began the SS was overwhelmed with applicants. At the time of its formation, the SS-VT consisted of around 2600 men in the Leibstandarte with a further 5000 or so enrolled in the Deutschland and Germania Regiments.

SS recruits clean their weapons after a day at the ranges. The training at the various SS schools put the emphasis on physical fitness and aggressive battlefield tactics, allied to comradeship between all ranks and indoctrination that stressed SS superiority in all things and the faith of National Socialism. The result was highly trained and motivated soldiers who believed themselves to be better than anyone.

Following the absorption of Austria into the Reich in the Anschluss in 1938, a new resource was available to the recruitment teams of the SS and a new SS-VT Regiment, entitled Der Führer, was established in Vienna.

It was always the intention that the soldiers of the SS-VT would be trained to the highest possible standards, and to that end, two highly regarded former Army officers were recruited. Both were ultimately to become among the finest of the field commanders of the Waffen-SS: Paul Hausser and Felix Steiner. Both were in full agreement that the fighting doctrine of the SS-VT would centre around aggression and mobility on the battlefield. Both had seen the carnage of World War I and abhorred the prospect of static trench warfare. They wanted the SS-VT to be trained like the Shock Troops introduced by the German Army in the later stages of World War I. The SS-VT was to be light infantry, the emphasis being on speed, aggression and adaptability. SS-VT units were intended to be fully motorised at a time when most infantry units of the German and other armies still relied on movement by foot and on horse-drawn transport. Hausser was appointed to command the training inspectorate of the SS-VT.

It was always the intention that the soldiers of the SS-VT would be trained to the highest standards

MOTIVATION OF SS RECRUITS

What motivated young German men to volunteer for service in the armed SS? Most of the recruits were very young, recruitment in the early days of the SS-VT being restricted to those between the ages of 17 and a half and 22. They had seen the National Socialist regime seemingly pick Germany up from the gutter and restore the pride and self respect of the German people. It is hardly surprising, then, that they supported the ideals of the regime, believed in their Führer and failed to see the darker side of Nazism.

What motivated these men most of all was the desire to serve their country in what was clearly perceived to be a very selective, elite formation. Military service had always enjoyed a high status in German society and it had always been deemed highly honourable and respectable to pursue a career in the military. How much greater then would the rewards be, for one who had carried out his military service in the nation’s most select, elite formation? The young recruit would emerge not only having fulfilled his duty to his Fatherland but would enjoy the enhanced social standing which came with being a soldier of the SS.

Recruitment into the SS-VT was on the basis of a four-year service contract for other ranks, 12 years for NCOs and 25 years for officers. Selection criteria imposed were among the toughest in existence at that time. Applicants had to be tall, in perfect physical health, have no criminal record and be racially ‘pure’. It is said that so many volunteers came forward that the SS was able to be so selective that in some cases even having a single tooth filling could be a sufficient imperfection for the candidate to be rejected. The Leibstandarte recruited only the tallest men, and attracted some real giants, many over two metres (6 feet 6 inches) tall. Those who were selected immediately felt themselves part of an elite merely for having passed the selection procedures. In one intake of over 500 potential recruits, only 28 were found to be of sufficiently high standard.

From the beginning the SS-VT had no intention of being constrained by outdated ideas on military training. Every SS man had first to serve as an SS-Anwarter (candidate), and all had to complete the same extremely rigorous and physically challenging training programme whether they had elected for a career as a common soldier or aspired to officer status. Those who were chosen as potential officers (the SS preferred the term ‘Führer’ or ‘leader’ to Offizier, as was shown in the SS rank terminology), first had to serve two years in the ranks before proceeding to officer training school. Officers of vision and foresight were put in charge of the training of the future officers of the SS-VT and Waffen-SS. In particular this training emphasised the importance of comradeship and respect between all ranks.

Those whose nerve broke and who stood and ran were liable to be killed or wounded

WAFFEN-SS TRAINING

The recruits’ day began around 0600 with a full hour of strenuous physical training. Then would follow concentrated classroom work where they would be taught all aspects of weapon handling, infantry tactics etc. The recruits would then be taken out into the field to put their theoretical teachings into practice in battle training of a degree of realism never seen before. The emphasis was always on speed, aggression and ferocity in the attack. The SS-VT were to be shock-troops, light infantry carrying only the minimum of kit to allow them greater flexibility of movement.

Considerable importance was placed on fitness training and sporting activities, with contact sports such as boxing being encouraged. Regular endurance marches were carried out to ensure that once trained, the SS-VT soldier was kept at a peak of physical fitness. Recruits were worked hard, even when not actually carrying out military duties, and for them, like the recruits in all armies of the world, there was the interminable round of barrack room fatigues, scrubbing floors, cleaning and polishing kit. Facilities, however, were of a very high standard, with first-class accommodation, good food and mess rooms and sports equipment of every conceivable type.

Much has been said about SS training standards, and they were indeed tough. Recruits carried out much of their combat training under live fire. The soldier was trained to keep his head down by the simple expedient of having machine guns on a fixed traverse firing at a level just a few centimetres above his heads. Those who kept calm and kept low were perfectly safe. Those whose nerve broke and who stood and ran were liable to be killed or injured.

It has also been reported that SS troops were trained in the art of digging foxholes fast, by allocating them a certain time to do so, then driving tanks across the training grounds at them. If the foxhole had not been dug properly, or not dug deep enough, the chances of injury were great. This form of training was, of course, dangerous, and fatalities were not unknown, but troops trained under these methods learned fast and the lessons learned on the training grounds saved many lives when they went into combat for the first time.

Horse-drawn SS artillery moves into Poland in early September 1939. Though the Leibstandarte was fully motorised by the time the war with Poland broke out, many SS units still relied on horses for transport. In fact, the German Army as a whole depended on horses for over 80 per cent of its motive power. The only army in the world that was fully motorised in 1939 was the British.

There is an oft repeated, apocryphal story about SS recruits being trained to have nerves of steel by having to balance a hand grenade on the top of their helmets and stand stock still while it exploded. If they kept their nerve, the blast from the exploding grenade would be deflected away by the helmet, leaving the recruit with nothing worse than a ringing in his ears. If, however, he shook from fear and the grenade fell and landed beside him, the resultant explosion would certainly maim or kill him.

The author asked many former Waffen-SS soldiers if they had ever experienced this particular training ‘lesson’. None had ever been asked to perform this trick, and none knew of any other soldier who had. It seemed as if the story was one of those legends which grow up where everyone has heard of such things but no one knows anyone who actually did it. However, one former Waffen-SS soldier, an SS-Standartenoberjunker who served in the Westland Regiment of the Wiking Division, did recall performing such a stunt, but only after having a few drinks, to show off to his younger comrades!

It has been suggested that, since a large percentage of SS recruits were from rural areas rather than from cities, they were more likely to feel at home when their unit was in the field. In addition, in the SS-VT academic standards were not held to be so important as they seemed to be in the other armed services. The SS-VT had realised that academic qualifications did not necessarily make a good infantry soldier or officer. That said, games such as chess were encouraged as they promoted logical thought and the making of tactical decisions.

The SS-VT was also one of the earliest exponents of camouflaged combat clothing. Virtually every form of dress – trousers, tunics, headgear, coveralls, helmet covers, even face veils – was produced in a camouflaged pattern. Organisation of SS units, too, often differed from their Army equivalent, with a greater proportion of automatic weapons found in the SS infantry section than its Army equivalent. The greater firepower this gave to SS-VT units no doubt contributed to some degree to their aggression in the attack.

Like all German citizens, the young recruits to the SS-VT were subject to a constant flow of indoctrination from the Propaganda Ministry of Dr Josef Goebbels. Not that the typical recruit needed much persuasion to support Hitler and the Nazi Party – most had joined because they agreed with the aims of the Nazis. The aftermath of World War I, the myth of the ‘stab in the back’ by socialists and Jews and the success of the Bolsheviks in the USSR had combined to intensify already existing nationalist sentiments and the anti-semitism that lay near the surface of many European nations. These feelings were codified by Nazi racial theories about Jews and Slavs, justified by Nazi political warnings from the East, and given a quasi-religious aspect by the concept of lebensraum and a new crusade against barbarism in the East.

No SS officer was to ask his men to do anything that he would not willingly do himself

IDEOLOGICAL INDOCTRINATION

Young SS recruits, disposed to sympathise with these ideas anyway, were encouraged to regard Jews and Slavs as Untermensch (sub-humans); and also taught that they should be sufficiently hard to show no pity towards these enemies of Germany – for showing pity would lead to defeat. Such beliefs were later to result in many atrocities, both on and off the battlefield.

One particular aspect of their training, which contributed in no small measure to the phenomenal esprit de corps engendered in SS-VT and Waffen-SS units, was the quite deliberately fostered spirit of comradeship between all ranks. Officers were expected to show their men respect. No SS officer was to ask his men to do anything that he would not willingly do himself, and during the war SS officer combat casualties were high, due principally to their tendency to ‘lead from the front’.

In the months before the outbreak of war, these young men honed their military skills to a peak of perfection, impressing many previously sceptical Army commanders who were invited to inspect the SS troops. The Anschluss with Austria in March 1938 and the take-over of the Sudetenland district of Czechoslovakia in October gave the SS-VT the opportunity to put its training into practice in full-scale mobilisation exercises and perfect its organisational structures. When war broke out in September 1939, the SS-VT was as highly trained and motivated. All that was lacking was combat experience, something that the SS would find in abundance in the next five and a half years.

Both Hitler and Himmler were keen to allow the SS its baptism of fire in the Polish campaign, much to the discomfiture of the Army, which still regarded the SS with considerable suspicion and was by no means impressed with the military potential of Himmler’s elite. Himmler and his SS-VT commanders had hoped that the SS-VT would be used as a single formation during the attack on Poland, but to Himmler’s irritation, in an attempt to appease the Army somewhat, Hitler decided to split the SS force and allocate it piecemeal among Army units to which it would be subordinated.

Deutschland, the SS-Nachrichtensturmbann and the SS-Aufklärungsabteilung (Reconnaissance Detachment) were allocated to Panzer Division Kempf under the command of Major General Werner Kempf as part of I Corps in General Fedor von Bock’s Army Group North. The Leibstandarte, and the SS-Pionier-Sturmbann were allocated to Tenth Army under General Walther von Reichenau. Germania was retained in reserve in East Prussia as part of Fourteenth Army, and Der Führer took no part in the Polish campaign.

Mention should also be made of SS-Heimwehr Danzig, an SS home defence regiment located in the free city of Danzig, and affiliated to the SS-Totenkopfverbände. Although the SS-Totenkopfverbände did not play any part in the Polish campaign, SS-Heimwehr Danzig was used to help secure the port of Danzig and its environs. It was later to be absorbed into the Totenkopf Division.

The German plan for the invasion of Poland, codenamed Fall Weiss, or ‘Case White’, involved two army groups comprising five armies totalling some one and a half million soldiers. The main push was to involve Third Army and Tenth Army, which together would form the arms of a massive pincer movement with its target the Polish capital, Warsaw. Third Army would form the upper arm of the pincer, driving down from its launch point in East Prussia, while Tenth Army would drive eastwards, then turn north to approach Warsaw from the southwest of the city. Panzer Division Kempf was part of Third Army in the north and would launch its attack from Niedenburg in East Prussia, with its initial target the tough Polish defensive positions at Mlava to the northwest of Warsaw. The attack on Poland began at 0445 on 1 September 1939.

SS-Standartenführer Felix Steiner, commander of the Deutschland motorised infantry regiment, surveys the front during the first few days of the Polish campaign. Steiner was one of the most gifted Waffen-SS commanders, and a major influence on training and tactics. Among his innovative ideas was that all men, irrespective of rank, should be trained to take over from their immediate superior if the latter was killed.

Leibstandarte personnel engage Polish forces on the outskirts of Pabianice. The SS soldiers encountered fierce Polish opposition here, as one SS trooper noted: ‘Through the trodden-down vegetation they stormed; across the bodies of their fallen comrades. They did not come forward with their heads bowed like men in heavy rain, but they came with their heads held high like as if they were swimmers breasting the waves.’

Deutschland, led by Felix Steiner, struck south towards Mlava and initially made good progress despite difficult conditions and fuel shortages that meant the SS-VT units could not make full use of their motorised capabilities. The Polish terrain through which the Germans marched was dusty and baked by a searingly hot sun by day and as often as not lashed by rain at night.

Deutschland’s first important engagement was at the approaches to Mlava, where Polish resistance began to stiffen quite considerably. The Polish positions were strongly built and defended by determined troops. The momentum of the German advance began to falter, and so Kempf decided to prepare a formal attack with artillery and air support.

Deutschland, supported by tanks from 7 Panzer Regiment, was ordered to make a two-pronged thrust against the Polish hill defences after a heavy and prolonged softening-up barrage by German artillery. In the event, the artillery barrage was much less effective than had been hoped for, and the Polish bunker system was not severely damaged.

No sooner had the tanks began their attack than they began to run into well prepared anti-tank obstacles. The tank attack faltered almost immediately and the panzers began to take heavy casualties as Polish artillery zeroed in on them. The German tanks, mostly light Panzer I and Panzer II models, were not sufficiently powerful to smash through the Polish defences and the Polish artillery was able to wreak havoc among them. Some 39 tanks were either destroyed, damaged or broke down. Clearly the attack could not proceed, and so the remaining panzers were pulled back. To make matters worse, promised dive-bombing attacks by the Luftwaffe’s Stukas failed to materialise.

The Deutschland infantry were now more or less alone and despite their determination to drive out the Poles, the attack could not succeed, though SS troops got to within around 100 metres of the enemy bunkers before being pulled back.

SS troops got to within 100 metres of the enemy bunkers before being pulled back

THE DRIVE TO WAR SAW

On the next day word was received that German forces had broken the Polish defences at Chorzele and an entire Polish corps was in full retreat. Panzer Division Kempf was rushed eastwards to Chorzele to help exploit this success and pursue the fleeing Poles. In this new advance SS battle groups, commanded by Felix Steiner and Matthais Kleinheisterkamp, were supported by a battle group from 7 Panzer Regiment. The Poles were driven swiftly back all the way to the River Narew, where they formed new defence lines at the old Czarist Russian forts at Rozan. A network of four forts was located there and they were defended vigorously by the Poles. While the German attackers inflicted many casualties, their own losses were considerable and the weakened infantry battalions from Deutschland were simply not strong enough to winkle the remaining Poles out of their positions. Around 20 German tanks had been rendered unserviceable through mechanical breakdown and 11 had been lost to enemy gunfire. The appearance of Polish cavalry decided the matter and the Germans were forced to withdraw. The Polish success was short lived, however, as German forces had crossed the Narew farther to the south and the Poles were forced to evacuate Rozan to avoid encirclement.

Deutschland continued to pursue the retreating Poles towards the River Bug, capturing Czervin and Nadbory, but was once again temporarily put on the defensive by a strong Polish counterattack launched from Lomza to the north. These attacks were beaten off with the help of 7 Panzer Regiment.

By 10 September Panzer Division Kempf had crossed the River Bug. Here the division was ordered to drive south in an attempt to prevent Polish units withdrawing into Warsaw and thus strengthening the defences around the capital. Panzer Division Kempf’s route took it ever farther south, capturing Kaloszym, Siedlce and Zelechow before turning eastwards towards Najicjowice. Closely following the German columns came the SS death squads, tasked by Heydrich, head of the SS’s security service (the SD), to search out and annihilate all ‘undesirables’ (Jews, communists and intelligentsia). Kleinheisterkamp and his battle group reached the Vistula on 16 September, closing the ring around Warsaw. The Polish capital was now completely encircled. It had been a successful but costly advance, the German forces being constantly harried by determined Polish units, desperate to prevent the fall of their capital city.

Deutschland then found itself moved to the northwest of Warsaw, where it took part in the attack on the Polish forts at Modlin and Zacrozym. Modlin was a powerful fortress containing around 35,000 troops who could be expected to put up a fanatical defence. Patrols sent in to reconnoitre the Polish positions suffered heavy losses. Several days of concentrated dive-bombing attacks by the Luftwaffe’s Stukas, however, seriously weakened the defenders’ positions. On 29 September SS troops began a final assault on the battered Polish defences. After a concentrated artillery barrage they stormed Zacrozym and captured the fort within 90 minutes. Several thousand Polish prisoners were taken. At 1450 on 29 September, General Zehak, commander of the Polish forces at Modlin, signed the capitulation order for the Polish forces in the fortress there. General Kempf, in recognition of the part played by the SS troops in the successes of his Division said: ‘If the infantry is Queen of the Battle, then you from the Deutschland Regiment were Empress of the motorised infantry’.

In a secret report to Army High Command, Kempf was asked to comment on the performance of the SS troops under his command. In view of the rather antagonistic attitude of some senior Army officers to the armed SS, even after it had undergone its baptism of fire, Kempf s comments are illuminating. Deutschland was described as ‘in all respects, a fully capable Infantry Regiment’, and SS-Standartenführer Steiner was said to have commanded it ‘with great circumspection’. The SS Artillery Regiment produced ‘outstanding results’ and displayed ‘great combat spirit’. The SS Reconnaissance Detachment, led ‘by its extraordinarily fresh and adventurous commander’, made ‘exemplary achievements’. Every man in the battalion was said to be ‘trained to an exceptional level’. The SS Signals Unit came in for special praise. Kempf reported that its achievements were ‘at an exemplary level I have never before experienced’.

Polish prisoners are escorted from the post office in Danzig after their valiant but hopeless attempts to hold the building during the German assault on the city. Their escorts are men of the SS-Heimwehr Danzig, a Totenkopf home defence force, which took the building by storm.

Meanwhile, SS Regiment Germania had been tasked with protecting the flank of XXII Army Corps in its drive towards Chelm, as part of Tenth Army attacking from Silesia. In the event, the regiment was fragmented, with sub-units being allocated to various Army units. The 2nd Battalion was attached to VIII Army Corps, the Armoured Reconnaissance Platoon was attached to the 5th Panzer Division, and 2 and 3 Companies were held in reserve.

In the central sector, the Leibstandarte was attached to Tenth Army under General von Reichenau

GERMANIA’S CAMPAIGN

In fact, the elements of Germania guarding the flanks of XXII Army Corps were far too weak and thinly spread for the amount of area they were obliged to cover. Nevertheless, 15 Company, tasked with blocking the Przemysl–Lemberg road, surprised a Polish column of approximately battalion size. Despite being vastly outnumbered, the SS infantrymen took over 500 prisoners. On the evening of the same day, however, a powerful Polish unit comprised of cadets and officers from the Polish War Academy at Kracow who were attempting to fight their way through to Lemberg, ran into the small SS unit and inflicted heavy casualties on the Germans, who were forced to withdraw to the north to link up with 1 Company. Despite their perilous position, the SS troops were ordered to hold their positions and succeeded, preventing any Polish troops escaping from Przemysl, which was under attack from the 7th Infantry Division.

The 2nd Battalion of the Regiment, attached to the 8th Infantry Division of VIII Army Corps, advanced towards the line Brzoza-Stadnice-Linica. Its initial task was to capture the vital bridge over the River San at Kreszov. This meant a punishing march of around 80km (130 miles) over just two days to keep to the timetable of the attack. En route the battalion met up with elements of the 5th Panzer Division and, thus reinforced, pushed its way forward, reaching the west bank of the San opposite Kreszov on the afternoon of 12 September. Just as the Germans were preparing to cross, however, the bridge was blown.

During the night of 12/13 September, one platoon each from 3 Company and 5 Company crossed the river, only to find the Poles had withdrawn under cover of darkness. A third company, 6 Company, set off in pursuit of the fleeing Poles, sometimes coming so close that they were in danger of being hit by the Stuka dive-bombers harrying the retreat. By the time the 8th Infantry Division arrived, the eastern banks of the San had been secured.

In the central sector, the Leibstandarte was attached to the Tenth Army under General Walther von Reichenau, together with elements of the SS-Pionier-sturmbann. As a fully motorised regiment, the Leibstandarte was particularly suited to its task of protecting the exposed flanks of the Wehrmacht units that were racing ahead, in particular the 17th Infantry Division, as the latter drove towards the area west of the Polish capital.

The Leibstandarte next found itself transferred to support the 4th Panzer Division in an advance towards Lodz. At first it swept aside everything in its path but, the farther it moved into Poland, the stiffer the opposition became, and the regiment often became bogged down in vicious street fighting in built-up areas of the larger towns. In Pabianice in particular, the SS men found themselves surrounded by determined Polish units and it took the intervention of Army troops to relieve the beleaguered Leibstandarte.

As the pincer movement being executed by Fourth Army and Tenth Army began inexorably to close in on Warsaw, vast numbers of Polish troops were cut off to the west of the capital. The natural assumption of the Germans was that these Polish units would attempt to withdraw eastwards. In fact they struck south on 10 September, straight into the exposed flanks of Eighth Army, to which the Leibstandarte was now attached. For two days the Poles battered at Eighth Army’s flanks, but then their attacks began to run out of steam and they had to turn east in an attempt to reach Warsaw. Finally the Leibstandarte was moved westward and took part in the encirclement of Polish forces on the River Bzura.

The SS-VT insisted that its troops had been given particularly difficult and dangerous tasks

THE POLISH CAMPAIGN IN RETROSPECT

Recriminations between the Army and the SS-VT began almost immediately the campaign in Poland had been successfully concluded. Worse, the Army was disgusted with regard to SS atrocities, especially those committed by the Death’s Head units. Jews and other so-called ‘insurgents’ had been systematically killed, and their property looted and destroyed, to the horror of Army commanders on the ground. As Himmler himself stated to officers of the Leibstandarte some months later: ‘we had to drag away thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands – to shoot thousands of leading Poles.’ More Poles had been rounded up and were on their way to concentration camps, where most would die.

It is clear from the opinions expressed by General Kempf that by no means all Army commanders were prejudiced against the SS. What was more important to the SS-VT was that both Himmler and Hitler were particularly well pleased by the performance of their elite troops. Himmler subsequently persuaded Hitler that the effectiveness of the SS would have been greatly improved if its units had been allowed to operate as a single SS division instead of being distributed among Army formations. Hitler agreed that in the forthcoming campaign in the West, the SS-VT regiments (with the exception of the Leibstandarte, which would remain an independent formation) and their support battalions – pioneers, signals, artillery and so on – would be grouped together as a single division, the SS-Verfügungsdivision. Hitler also authorised the formation of two new SS divisions, the Totenkopf Division and the Polizei Division.

SS soldiers checking the papers of civilians in eastern Poland. Even before the campaign in Poland had ended, the SS began to implement its racial policies. For example, the Totenkopf regiment Brandenburg arrested and shot 800 civilians at Bydgoszcz in an ‘intelligentsia action’.

The Army strenuously opposed the growth of the armed SS and Hitler was not yet willing to antagonise his military leadership to too great a degree. He accordingly ordered that, although the SS units were to operate as divisions, rather than being split up, they would still come under overall Army command in the field. The Army also objected to the expansion of the SS on the grounds that the personnel required for the armed SS were being taken from the Army’s allocation of the manpower pool. To the Army, every recruit taken into the armed SS was one less real soldier. Himmler was forced to accept that he would have to find the manpower for his new divisions from his own sources. The Army would certainly not tolerate him ‘poaching’ their men. It should also be noted that, in the course of these reforms, the name Waffen-SS (armed SS) became officially recognised.

A word of explanation may be required here in relation to the Totenkopf Division. The Totenkopf units were not initially part of the SS-Verfügungstruppe. They had first been raised to provide guard elements at the concentration camps in which those perceived as being enemies of the state were kept. A Totenkopf unit was co-located with each camp, all under the overall charge of Theodor Eicke. A brutal man who was determined to wipe out all those he considered enemies of National Socialism, Eicke had great ambitions for his command. Initially his units were used as a dumping ground for men considered to be of low quality by the SS administration. Eicke was determined to turn this motley crew into a disciplined force and he was quick to weed out those who did not meet his standards. Gradually, the Totenkopf troops improved somewhat and Eicke was infuriated that his Totenkopfverbände was not considered the equal of the SS-VT.

A field kitchen of the Polizei Division in France, May 1940. Essentially composed of policemen, the division performed poorly in France. In Paul Hausser’s words the new division was ‘unselected by our process and totally without military experience or training.’

Service in the SS-VT was counted as fulfilling a man’s obligation for military service, but this was not the case for Totenkopf personnel. All Totenkopf men were still obliged to carry out their two years of military service, cither with the SS-VT or with the other armed forces. Eicke feared that his best men would be poached from him during their national service.

In 1939 authority for the formation of the Totenkopf Division was given. Eicke selected the best of his personnel and these were initially reinforced by police reservists to bring the division up to strength. Despite now being formally constituted as a military formation, Eicke’s Totenkopf