All About SONDERKOMMANDOS…
At Auschwitz, Treblinka, Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno and Sobibor the Nazis established the Sonderkommando, groups of Jewish male prisoners picked for their youth and relative good health whose job was to dispose of corpses from the gas chambers or crematoria. Some did the work to delay their own deaths; some thought they could protect friends and family, and some acted out of mere greed for extra food and money these men sometimes received. The men were forced into this position, with the only alternative being death in the gas chambers or being shot on the spot by an SS guard.
At Auschwitz, the Sonderkommandos had better physical conditions than other inmates; they had decent food, slept on straw mattresses and could wear normal clothing. Sonderkommandos were divided into several groups, each with a specialized function. Some greeted the new arrivals, telling them that they were going to shower prior to being sent to work. They were obliged to lie, telling the soon-to-be-murdered prisoners that after the delousing process they would be assigned to labor teams and reunited with their families. These were the only Sonderkommandos to have contact with the victims while they were still alive. The SS carried out the gassings, and the Sonderkommandos would enter the chambers afterward, remove the bodies, process them and transport them to the crematorium. Other teams processed the corpses after the gas chambers, extracting gold teeth, and removing clothes and valuables before taking them to the crematoria for final disposal. The remains were ground to dust and mixed with the ashes. When too much ash mounted, the Sonderkommandos, under the watchful eyes of the SS, would throw them into a nearby river.
At Treblinka about 200 men were in charge of removing the corpses from the gas chambers. At Auschwitz the Sonderkommando working in the crematoria initially numbered 400 men, but the number was raised during the mass murder of Hungarians in 1944 to about 1,000 men. At Auschwitz and Birkenau, the Sonderkommando were responsible for sorting the suitcases, packages and other items with which the prisoners arrived on the trains. These items were taken to a storage area of the camp euphemistically called „Canada,” where the „Clearing Commando” would unpack them, sort them, and prepare them for dispatch to Germany.
Despite the better conditions in which the Sonderkommando lived at the camps, most were eventually gassed as they became increasingly weak or sick from camp conditions. The Nazis also did not want any evidence of their horrific acts to remain, and therefore decided to kill those prisoners who witnessed their actions.
In October 1944, the Sonderkommando team at Birkenau learned that the Germans intended to gas them. At the camps, an underground movement had been planning a general uprising for some time, but it never happened. The remaining Sonderkommandos decided to take their fate into their own hands, and, on October 7, the group in charge of the third crematorium at the camp, the Birkenau Three Sonderkommando, rebelled. They attacked the SS with makeshift weapons: stones, axes, hammers, other work tools and homemade grenades. They caught the SS guards by surprise, overpowered them and blew up a crematorium. At this stage they were joined by the Birkenau One Kommando, which also overpowered their guards and broke out of the compound. The revolt ended in failure. There was no mass uprising, and within a short time the Germans succeeded in capturing and killing almost all the escapees.
The Sonderkommandos tend to be regarded very negatively by most survivors, and to a certain extent the Jewish establishment in general. In the camps, the Sonderkommandos were seen as unclean, and the writer Primo Levi described them as being “akin to collaborators.” He said that their testimonies should not be given much credence, „since they had much to atone for and would naturally attempt to rehabilitate themselves at the expense of the truth.” Those who were members of the Sonderkommando, however, state they had no choice in their job, and they were as much victims of Nazi oppression as other prisoners in the concentration camps.
All about 3rd SS PANZER DIVISION TOTENKOPF…
3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf
| 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf. | |
|---|---|
 Insignia of the 3rd SS Panzer Division |
|
| Active | 1939 – 1945 |
| Country |  Nazi Germany |
| Branch |  Waffen-SS |
| Type | Armoured |
| Size | Division |
| Motto | Meine Ehre heißt Treue („My Honor is Loyalty”) |
| Engagements | World War II |
| Commanders | |
| Notable commanders |
Theodor Eicke Matthias Kleinheisterkamp Georg Keppler Hermann Prieß Heinz Lammerding Max Simon Hellmuth Becker |
The SS Division Totenkopf („Death’s Head” or „Skull”), also known as 3. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Totenkopf and 3. SS-Panzer-Division Totenkopf, was one of the 38 divisions fielded by the Waffen-SS during World War II. Prior to achieving division status, the formation was known as Kampfgruppe Eicke. The division is famous due to its insignia and the fact that most of the initial enlisted soldiers were SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS concentration camp guards).
The Totenkopf division was numbered with the „Germanic” divisions of the Waffen-SS. These included also the SS-Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, SS-Panzer Division Das Reich, and SS-Panzer Division Wiking.
Formation and Fall Gelb…
Formation and Fall Gelb…
The SS Division Totenkopf was formed in October 1939. The Totenkopf was initially formed from concentration camp guards of the 1st (Oberbayern), 2nd (Brandenburg) and 3rd (Thüringen) Standarten (regiments) of the SS-Totenkopfverbände, and soldiers from the SS-Heimwehr Danzig. The division had officers from the SS-Verfügungstruppe (SS-VT), of whom many had seen action in Poland. The division was commanded by SS-Obergruppenführer Theodor Eicke. Through the Battle of France the division was generally equipped with ex-Czech weapons.
Having missed the Polish campaign, Totenkopf was initially held in reserve during the assault into France and the Low Countriesin May 1940. They were committed on 16 May to the Front in Belgium. The Totenkopf soldiers fought fanatically, suffering heavy losses.
Within a week of this initial commitment the division’s first war crime had already been committed. At Le Paradis 4th Kompanie, I Abteilung, commanded by SS-Obersturmführer Fritz Knöchlein, machine-gunned 97 out of 99 British officers and members of the Royal Norfolk Regimentafter they had surrendered to them; two survived. After the war, Knöchlein was tried by a British Court and convicted for war crimes in 1948. He was sentenced to death and hanged.
Totenkopf saw action a number of times during the French campaign. To the north-east of Cambrai the division took 16,000 French prisoners. Whilst subsequently trying to drive through to the coast they encountered a major Anglo-French force which they had a great deal of difficulty stopping and came perilously close to panic. Totenkopf had to resort to firing artillery pieces in an anti-tank role, and were saved only by the intervention of Luftwaffe dive-bombers. It then suffered heavy losses during the taking of the La Bassée Canal. Further stiff resistance was then encountered at both Béthune and Le Paradis. The French surrender found the division located near the Spanish border, where it was to stay, resting and refitting, until April 1941. Totenkopf had suffered heavy losses during the campaign, including over 300 officers. Replacement personnel were supplied, this time via regular Waffen-SS recruitment as opposed to coming from the camps. Flak and artillery battalions were added to its strength.
Barbarossa-Demjansk Pocket…
In April 1941, the division was ordered East to join Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb’s Army Group North. Leeb’s Army Group was tasked with advancing on Leningrad and formed the northern wing of Operation Barbarossa. Totenkopf saw action in Lithuania and Latvia, and by July had breached the vaunted Stalin Line. The division then advanced by Demjansk to Leningrad where it was involved in heavy fighting from 31 July to 25 August.
During Autumn and Winter of 1941, the Soviets launched a number of operations against the German lines in the Northern sector of the Front. During one of these operations, the Division was encircled for several months near Demjansk in what would come to be known as theDemjansk Pocket. During these kessel battles, Totenkopf suffered so greatly that, due to its reduced size, it was re-designated KampfgruppeEicke. The division was involved in ferocious fighting to hold the pocket. SS-Hauptsturmführer Erwin Meierdress of the Sturmgeschütze-Batterie (Assault Gun) Totenkopf formed a Kampfgruppe of about 120 soldiers and held the strategic town of Bjakowo despite repeated determined enemy attempts to capture the town. During these battles, Meierdress personally destroyed several enemy tanks in his StuG III. He was awarded the Iron Cross for his actions during this period. In April 1942, the division broke out of the pocket and managed to reach friendly lines.
At Demjansk, about 80% of its soldiers were killed in action. The remnants of the Division were pulled out of action in late October, 1942 and sent to France to be refitted. While in France, the Division took part in Case Anton, the takeover of Vichy France in November 1942. For this operation, the division was supplied with a Panzer regiment and redesignated 3.SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Totenkopf. Thanks to the persuasive efforts of Himmler and SS-Obergruppenführer Paul Hausser, all SS panzergrenadier divisions received a full regiment of panzers, so were full strength panzer divisions in all but name. The division remained in France until February, 1943, when their old commander, Theodor Eicke, resumed control.
Kharkov – Kursk…
In Early February 1943 Totenkopf was transferred back to the Eastern Front as part of Erich von Manstein’s Army Group South. The division, as a part of SS-Obergruppenführer Paul Hausser’s SS-Panzerkorps, took part in the Third Battle of Kharkov, blunting the Soviet GeneralKonev’s offensive. During this campaign, Theodor Eicke was killed when his Fieseler Storch spotter aircraft was shot down while on final approach to a front line unit. The division mounted an assault to secure the crash site and recover their commander’s body, and thereafter Eicke’s body was buried with full military honours. Hermann Priess succeeded Eicke as commander.
SS-Panzerkorps, including Totenkopf, was then shifted north to take part in Operation Citadel, the great offensive to reduce the Kursk salient. It was during this period that The 3.SS-Panzerregiment received a company of Tiger I heavy tanks. (9./SS-Panzerregiment 3).
The attack was launched on 5 July 1943, after a massive Soviet artillery barrage fell on the German assembly areas. The SS-Panzerkorps was to attack the southern flank of the salient as the spearhead for Generaloberst Hermann Hoth’s 4.Panzer-Armee.
The Totenkopf covered the advance on the SS-Panzerkorps left flank, with the Leibstandarte forming the spearhead. SS-Panzer-Regiment 3 advanced in a panzerkeil across the hot and dusty steppe. Despite encountering stiff Soviet resistance and several pakfronts, the Totenkopf’spanzers continued the advance, albeit at a slower pace than had been planned. Hausser ordered his SS-Panzerkorps to split in two, with theTotenkopf crossing the Psel river northwards and then continuing on towards the town of Prokhorovka.
In the early morning of 9 July, SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 6 Theodor Eicke attacked northwards, crossing the Psel and attempted to seize the strategic Hill 226.6, located to the east of the fortified village of Kliuchi. The attack was rebuffed by the defending Soviets. The failure to capture the hill meant that the drive along the north bank of the Psel was temporarily halted, forcing Hausser to also delay the Southern advance. In the afternoon, regiment Eicke managed to redeem itself by capturing the hill, but the northern advance slowed and the majority of the division was still south of the Psel, where elements of SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 5 Thule continued to advance towards Prokhorovka and cover the flank of the Leibstandarte.
By 11 July, SS-Hauptsturmführer Erwin Meierdress had led his I./SS-Panzer-Regiment 3 across the Psel on hastily constructed pontoon bridges, reinforcing the tenuous position. The forces in the bridgehead were subjected to several furious Soviet attacks, but with the support of Meierdress’ panzers they held their ground and slowly expanded the bridgehead, securing the village of Kliuchi. Strong Soviet opposition had severely slowed the division’s advance along the north bank. In the afternoon of 12 July, near the village of Andre’evka on the south bank of the Psel, the Soviets launched a major counterattack against Regiment Thule and the division’s StuG Abteilung.
SS-Brigadeführer Hermann Priess, the Totenkopf’s commander, ordered Meierdress’ abteilung to advance and support the beleaguered forces. The PzKpfw IIIs (Panzer III) and PzKpfw IVs (Panzer IV) of Meierdress’ unit were supported by the Totenkopf’s Tiger I company, 9(schwere)./SS-Panzer-Regiment 3. In ferocious combat with the lead units of the 5th Guards Tank Army, Meierdress managed to halt the Soviet assault, destroying many Soviet T-34s, but at the cost of the majority of the division’s remaining operational panzers.
While the SS-Panzerkorps had halted the Soviet counteroffensive and inflicted heavy casualties, it had exhausted itself and was no longer capable of offensive action. Manstein attempted to commit his reserve, the XXIV.Panzerkorps, but Hitler refused to authorize this. On 14 July, Hitler called off the operation.
Battles on the Mius Front – Retreat to the Dniepr…
Soldiers of the 3rd SS Division Totenkopfbreak for a meal beside the wreck of a Soviet T-34 somewhere in Romania, 1944.
Along with Das Reich, the division was reassigned to General der Infanterie Karl-Adolf Hollidt’s reformed 6.Armee in the Southern Ukraine. The 6.Armee was tasked with eliminating the Soviet bridgehead over the Mius River.
Totenkopf was involved in heavy fighting over the next several weeks. During the July–August battles for Hill 213 and the town of Stepanowka, the division suffered heavy losses, and over the course of the campaign on the Mius-Front it suffered more casualties than it had duringOperation Citadel. By the time the Soviet bridgehead was eliminated, the division had lost 1500 soldiers and the Panzer regiment was reduced to 20 tanks.
The Totenkopf was then moved north, back to Kharkov. Along with Das Reich, Totenkopf, took part in the battles to halt Operation Rumyantsev and to prevent the Soviet capture of the city. Although the two divisions managed to halt the offensive, inflicting heavy casualties and destroying over 800 tanks, the Soviets outflanked the defenders, forcing them to abandon the city on 23 August.
By early September, the Totenkopf reached the Dniepr. Elements of the Soviet 5th Guards Tank Army had forced a crossing at Kremenchugand were soon threatening to break through the Dniepr line. Totenkopf was thrown into action against the bridgehead.
In October 1943, the division was reformed as 3.SS-Panzer-Division Totenkopf. The Panzer abteilung was officially upgraded to a regiment, and the two Panzergrenadier regiments were given the honorary titles Theodor Eicke and Totenkopf.
After holding the Kremenchug bridgehead for several months, the Soviets finally broke out, pushing Totenkopf and the other axis divisions involved back towards the Romanian border. By November, Totenkopf was engaged fighting intense defensive actions against Soviet attacks over the vital town of Krivoi Rog to the west of the Dniepr.
Poland – Warsaw…
In January 1944, Totenkopf was still engaged in heavy defensive fighting east of the Dniepr near Krivoi Rog, where a breakthrough still evaded the Soviets, due in great part to the actions of Totenkopf and the Heer’s Panzergrenadier-Division Großdeutschland. In February 1944, 56,000 German troops were trapped in the Korsun Pocket. Totenkopf was sent towards Cherkassy to assist in the relief attempts. The division attacked towards the city of Korsun, attempting to secure a crossing across the Gniloy-Tilkich river. The 1.Panzer-Division, fighting alongside the Totenkopf, achieved a linkup with the encircled forces.
In the second week of March, after a fierce fight near Kirovograd, the Totenkopf fell back behind the Bug River. Totenkopf immediately began taking up new defensive positions. After two weeks of heavy fighting, again alongside the Panzergrenadier-Division Großdeutschland west of Ivanovka, the Axis lines again fell back, withdrawing to the Dniestr on the Romanian border near Iaşi.
In the first week of April, Totenkopf gained a moment’s respite as it rested in the area near Târgu Frumos in Romania. The division received replacements and new equipment, the division’s panzer regiment receiving a consignment of Panthers to replace some of the outdated PzKpfw IVs. In the second week of April, heavy Soviet attacks towards Târgul Frumosmeant that Totenkopf was back in action, playing a role in the decisive defensive victory. By 7 May, the front had quietened and the Totenkopf went back to the business of reorganizing.
In a battle near Iaşi, Romania, elements of the division, together with elements of the Panzergrenadier-Division Großdeutschland, managed to halt an armoured assault by the Red Army. The assault, which in many aspects had outlines similar to those of the later British Operation Goodwood, was carried out by approximately 500 tanks, but in excellent defensive positions and through a very skillful use of the high-velocity guns of the German panzers, the German forces of only 160 panzers were able to rebuff the attacking forces and inflict a loss of as many as 400 tanks for the price of only 11 panzers, of which a few could later be repaired.
In early July, the division was ordered to the area near Grodno in Poland, where it would form a part of SS-Obergruppenführer Gille’s IV.SS-Panzerkorps, covering the approaches to Warsaw near Modlin.
After The Soviet Operation Bagration and the destruction of Army Group Centre the German lines had been pushed back over 300 miles, to the outskirts of Warsaw. The Totenkopfarrived at the Warsaw front in late July 1944. After the launch of Operation Bagration and the collapse of Army Group Centre, the central-Eastern front was a mess, and the IV. SS-Panzerkorps was one of the only formations standing in the way of the Soviet attacks. On 1 August 1944, the Armia Krajowa (Polish Home Army), rose up in Warsaw itself, sparking theWarsaw Uprising. A column of Totenkopf Tigers was caught up in the fighting, and several were lost. The Totenkopf itself was not involved in the suppression of the revolt, instead guarding the front lines, and fighting off several Soviet probing attacks into the city’s eastern suburbs.
In several furious battles near the town of Modlin in mid August, the Totenkopf, fighting alongside the 5.SS-Panzer-Division Wiking and the 1.Fallschirm-Panzer-Division Hermann Göringvirtually annihilated the Soviet 3rd Tank Corps, which contained a division of communist Poles. The terrain around Modlin is excellent armour terrain, and Totenkopf’s panzers exploited this to their advantage, engaging Soviet tanks from a range where the superiority of the German optics and the 75 mm high-velocity guns gave the Panthers an edge against the T-34s.
Budapest Relief Attempts – Hungary…
The efforts of the Totenkopf, Wiking and Hermann Göring allowed Germans to hold the Vistula line and establish Army Group Vistula. In December 1944, the IX.SS-Gebirgskorps (Alpine Corps-Croatia) was encircled in Budapest. Hitler ordered the IV.SS-Panzerkorps to head south to break through to the 95,000 Germans and Hungarians trapped in the city. The corps arrived late December, and was immediately thrown into action.
The relief attempts were to be codenamed Operation Konrad, the first attack was Konrad I. The plan was for a joint attack by the Wiking and Totenkopf from the town of Tata attacking along the line Bicske-Budapest.
Despite initial gains, Konrad I ran into heavy Soviet opposition near Bicske, and during the battle the I.Battalion, 3rd SS-Panzer-Regiment’s commander, SS-Sturmbannführer Erwin Meierdress was killed.
After the failure of the first operation, Totenkopf and Wiking launched an assault aimed at the city center. Named Operation Konrad II, the attack reached as far as the Budapest Airport, before resistance stiffened. Gille’s corps was ordered to fall back as part of a ruse to encircle Soviet units north of the city.
Operation Konrad III got underway on 18 January 1945. Aimed at encircling ten Soviet divisions, the relief forces could not achieve their goal, despite tearing a 15-mile hole in the Soviets’ line. Although they had been on the verge of rescuing the IX Waffen Mountain Corps of the SS (Croatian), the encircled troops could not be reached and capitulated in early February.
The division was pulled back to the west, executing a fighting withdrawal from Budapest to the area near Lake Balaton, where the 6th SS Panzer Army under SS-Oberstgruppenführer Josef Dietrich was massing for the upcoming Operation Frühlingserwachen (Operation Spring Awakening).
Gille’s corps was too depleted to take part in the Operation, and instead provided flank support to assaulting divisions during the beginning of the Operation.
Totenkopf, together with Wiking, performed a holding operation on the left flank of the offensive, in the area betweenVelenczesee-Stuhlweissenberg. As Frühlingserwachen progressed, the division was heavily engaged preventing Soviet efforts to outflank the advancing German forces.
As the offensive stalled, the Soviets launched a major offensive, the Vienna Operation, on 15 March. Attacking the border between theTotenkopf and the 2.(Hungarian) Panzer Division, contact was soon lost between the two formations. Acting quickly, 6.Armee commander Generaloberst Hermann Balck recommended moving the I SS Panzer Corps north to plug the gap and prevent the encirclement of the IV.SS-Panzerkorps. Despite this quick thinking, a Führer Order authorising this move was slow in coming, and when the divisions finally began moving, it was too late.
On 22 March, the Soviet encirclement of the Totenkopf and Wiking was almost complete. Desperate, Balck threw the veteran 9.SS-Panzer-Division Hohenstaufen (The title Hohenstaufen came from the Hohenstaufen dynasty, a Germanic noble family who produced a number of kings and emperors in the 12th and 13th centuries AD. It is believed that the division was named specifically after Friedrich II, who lived from 1194–1250), into the area to hold open the small corridor. In the battle to hold open the Berhida Corridor, the Hohenstaufen bled itself white, but Gille’s corps managed to escape.
On 24 March, another Soviet attack threw the exhausted IV.SS Panzer Corps back towards Vienna, all contact was lost with the neighbouring I.SS Panzer Corps and any semblance of an organised line of defence was gone. The remnants of the Totenkopf executed a fighting withdrawal into Czechoslovakia. By Early May, they were within reach of the American forces, to whom the division officially surrendered on 9 May. The Americans promptly handed Totenkopf back to the Soviets, and many Totenkopf soldiers died in Soviet Gulags.
Totenkopf End…
By the end of 1942 the division had experienced virtually a complete turnover in personnel. The high casualty rates meant by late 1943 virtually none of the original cadre were left. However, while the division’s record in the brutal Eastern Front fighting to follow is quite clean, its reputation lingered. The Totenkopf division did not want to be captured by the Soviets, so they attacked the American 11th Armored Division. The Americans, who suffered heavy losses, were angered by this. When the Totenkopf surrendered (to the Americans) they were turned over to the Soviets Linz in 1945. Those who were wounded or simply too exhausted to make it to Pregarten were executed by the Americans along the way (some 80 in all suffered this fate). Another story in the aforementioned book states, „A convoy of ambulances drove by and picked up the dead and wounded behind the last tank of the long caterpiller. Apparently, the wounded comrades weren’t handed over to the Russians. The ambulances turned around and headed back to Linz at high speed,’ page 273. The senior officers were executed by the NKVD, others were also executed as they were shipped to Siberia. Only a few of them survived captivity to return to Germany.
Commanders…
- Gruppenführer Theodor Eicke, 1 November 1939 – 7 July 1941
- Oberführer Matthias Kleinheisterkamp, 7 July 1941 – 18 July 1941
- Brigadeführer Georg Keppler, 18 July 1941 – 19 September 1941
- Obergruppenführer Theodor Eicke, 19 September 1941 – 26 February 1943
- Obergruppenführer Hermann Priess, 26 February 1943 – 27 April 1943
- Gruppenführer Heinz Lammerding, 27 April 1943 – 15 May 1943
- Gruppenführer Max Simon, 15 May 1943 – 22 October 1943
- Obergruppenführer Herman Priess, 22 October 1943 – 21 June 1944
- Brigadeführer Hellmuth Becker, 21 June 1944 – 8 May 1945
Order of Battle – As of 1943…
- Regimental Headquarters
- SS Panzergrenadier Regiment 5 Totenkopf (often incorrectly named „Thule”) (Regiment 1 was redesignated Regiment 5 Thule on 22 October 1943, one of several redesignations.
- I.Battalion
- II.Battalion
- III. Battalion
- SS Panzergrenadier Regiment 6 Theodor Eicke (Formerly Regiment 3 Theodor Eicke)
- I. Battalion
- II. Battalion
- III .Battalion
- SS Panzer Regiment 3
- I. Battalion
- II. Battalion
- SS Panzerjäger Battalion 3
- SS Sturmgeschütz Battalion 3
- SS Motorized Artillery Regiment 3
- SS Flak Battalion 3
- SS Motorized Signals Battalion 3
- SS Motorized Reconnaissance Battalion 3
- SS Motorized Pioneer Battalion 3
- SS Dina 3
- SS Field Hospital 3
- SS Combat Reporter Platoon 3
- SS Military Police Troop 3
- SS Reserve Battalion 3
All About German 8.8 cm FlaK 18/36/37/41…
German 8.8 cm FlaK 18/36/37/41
| 8.8 cm FlaK 18-36 | |
|---|---|
 8.8 cm FlaK 18 barrel on a FlaK 36 cruciform |
|
| Type | Anti-aircraft gun |
| Place of origin | Nazi Germany |
| Service history | |
| In service | 1936-1945 |
| Used by | Nazi Germany |
| Wars | Spanish Civil War, World War II |
| Production history | |
| Designer | Krupp |
| Designed | 1928 |
| Manufacturer | Krupp, Rheinmetall |
| Unit cost | 33,600 |
| Produced | 1933-1945 |
| Number built | 18,295 (all variants) |
| Specifications (Flak 36 ) | |
| Weight | 7,407 kg (16,325 lbs) |
| Length | 5.791 m (19 ft) |
| Barrel length | 4.938 m (16.2 ft) (56 calibers) |
|
|
|
| Caliber | 88 mm (3.46 in) |
| Barrels | One, 32 grooves with right-hand increasing twist from 1/45 to 1/30 |
| Breech | Horizontal semi-automatic sliding block |
| Recoil | Independent liquid and hydropneumatic |
| Elevation | -3° to +85° |
| Traverse | 360° |
| Rate of fire | 15-20 rpm |
| Muzzle velocity | 820 m/s (2,690 ft/s) |
| Effective range | 14,810 m (16,200 yds) ground target 7,620 m (25,000 ft) effective ceiling |
| Maximum range | 11,900 m (39,000 ft) maximum ceiling |
| Sights | ZF.20 |
The 88 mm gun (eighty-eight) was a and gun from . They were widely used by Germany throughout the war. It was one of the most recognizable German weapons of the war. Developments of the original models led to a wide variety of guns.
The name applies to a series of anti-aircraft guns officially called the 8,8 cm FlaK 18, 36 or 37. FlaK is a contraction ofFlugzeugabwehr-Kanone or Flugabwehr-Kanone (hence the capital K) meaning anti-aircraft cannon, the original purpose of the eighty-eight. In informal German use, the guns were universally known as the Acht-acht (8-8), a contraction of Acht-komma-acht Zentimeter (German: „8,8 cm” – comma being used as the decimal separator in German).
The name could also describe newer and more powerful models, the FlaK 41 and 43, although these were different weapons. Compared to the British QF 3.7 inch AA gun or United States 90 mm gun models, the 88 was built in very large numbers, and when deployed in the anti-tank role, it was mounted on a versatile base from which it could be fired without unlimbering.
Its success as an improvised anti-tank gun led to a separate line of guns for anti-tank use, the Panzerabwehr-Kanone (PaK) 88 (German: „anti-tank gun”) and as the main armament for tanks such as the Tiger I, the 8.8 cm KwK 36, with the „KwK” abbreviation standing for Kampfwagenkanone („fighting vehicle cannon”).
Background…
German planners worked on guns with high muzzle velocity, allowing the projectiles to reach greater altitudes, and much faster rates of fire. Since Germany had been forbidden to produce new weapons of most types after World War I, the Krupp company developed the new guns in partnership with Bofors of Sweden. The original design that led to the 88 was a 75 mm model. During the prototype phase, the army asked for a gun with considerably greater capability than the 75. The designers started over, using another common German calibre, 88 mm.Most anti-aircraft guns of World War I were adaptations of existing medium-calibre weapons mounted to allow fire at higher angles. These weapons were useful, at least for deterrence, against the vulnerable and slow-moving aircraft of World War I. But when the performance of aircraft increased during the inter-war period, the utility of early AA guns decreased dramatically. They could not reach the higher altitudes at which new aircraft could fly, often flying over 6,000 metres (20,000 ft), nor could they fire rapidly enough to be effective against fast aircraft.
Many military planners concluded that anti-aircraft artillery would no longer be effective, and only limited development was carried out by some countries. Many nations including Germany, the United Kingdom and France, as well Sweden and later the USA and USSR, China, Japan, Spain, Czechoslovakia, Norway and Canada. attempted to respond with more effective weapons.
FlaK 18, 36 and 37…
The FlaK 18 was mounted on a cruciform gun carriage that allowed fire in all directions, as opposed to split-trail designs, which allowed fire within a relatively narrow arc only. This makes sense given its anti-aircraft role. The two „side” members of the carriage could be quickly folded up, allowing the gun to be lifted onto two wheeled chassis for high-speed towing. The weight of the gun meant that only large vehicles could move it, and the SdKfz 7 half-track became a common prime mover. A simple to operate „semi-automatic” loading system ejected fired shells, allowing it to be reloaded by simply inserting a new shell into a tray. The gun would then fire, recoil, and, during the return stroke, the empty casing would be thrown backward by levers, and a cam would engage and recock the gun. This resulted in firing rates of 15 to 20 rounds a minute, which was better than similar weapons of the era. High explosive ammunition was used against aircraft and personnel, and armour-piercing and high-explosive anti-tank against tanks and other armoured vehicles.
Widespread production started with the Nazi rise to power in 1933, and the FlaK 18 was available in small numbers when Germany intervened in the Spanish Civil War. It quickly proved to be the best anti-aircraft weapon then available. Further, the high muzzle velocity and large calibre made it an excellent long-range anti-vehicle weapon. This experience also demonstrated a number of minor problems and potential improvement opportunities.
Many of these were incorporated into the FlaK 36, which had a two-piece barrel for easier replacement of worn liners, and a new, but heavier, trailer that allowed it to be set up much more quickly, simply dropping the base while still mounted on the wheels. This made it much more suitable for fast-moving operations, the basic concept of the blitzkrieg. FlaK 36s were often fitted with an armoured shield that provided limited protection for the gunners.
The eighty-eight was used in two roles: as a mobile heavy anti-aircraft gun, and in a more static role for home defence. In this latter role the guns were arranged into batteries, groups of four directed by a single controller, and were moved only rarely. Targeting indicators were attached from the central controller to each FlaK allowing for coordinated fire. Indeed, with the automatic loading system, the gun layers’ job would keep the gun barrel trained on the target area based on the signals from the controller. The loaders would keep the FlaK fed with live ammunition which would fire immediately upon insertion—all while the gun layer aimed the weapon according to the data.
The later FlaK 37, included updated instrumentation to allow the gun layers to follow directions from the single director more easily. The parts of the various versions of the guns were interchangeable, and it was not uncommon for various parts to be „mixed and matched” on a particular example. Some sources mistakenly cite that the FlaK 37 was not equipped for anti-armour purposes. The fact is all 8.8 cm FlaKs were capable of the dual role.
During the initial phases of the Battle of France, when the French and British counter-attacked, the eighty-eight was pressed into service against their heavily armored tanks such as the Char B1 bis and Matilda II, whose frontal armour could not be penetrated by the light anti-tank guns then available. Anti-tank usage became even more common during battles in North Africa and the Soviet Union. The 88 was powerful enough to penetrate over 150 mm of armour at ranges of 2 km or more, making it an unparalleled anti-tank weapon during the early war, and still formidable against all but the heaviest tanks at the end of the war. It was arguably most effective in the flat and open terrains of the North African campaign and the Eastern Front.
By August 1944, there were 10,704 FlaK 18, 36 and 37 guns in service. Owing to the increase in U.S. and British bombing raids during 1943 and 1944, the majority of these guns were used in their original anti-aircraft role, now complemented with the formidable 12.8 cm FlaK 40 and 10.5 cm FlaK 39. There were complaints that, due to the apparent ineffectiveness of anti-aircraft defenses as a whole, the guns should be transferred from air defense units to anti-tank duties, but this politically unpopular move was never made.
FlaK 41…
The altitude problems were known to their operators and, as early as 1939 the Luftwaffe, now in charge of anti-aircraft defences instead of thearmy, asked for newer weapons with even better performance. Rheinmetall responded with a new 88 mm L/71 design with a longer cartridge. It fired a 9.4-kilogram (20 lb) shell at a muzzle velocity of 1000 m/s (3,280 ft/s), giving it an effective ceiling of 11,300 meters (37,073 ft) (maximum was 15,000 meters (49,213 ft)). It also featured a lower silhouette on its turntable mounting than did the 8.8-cm FlaK 18/36/37 on itspedestal mounting. Because of the high cost and complexity of this FlaK gun, the Germans manufactured relatively few of them (556 in all) and, in February 1944, fielded only 279. Improvements in reloading further raised the firing rate, with 20 to 25 rounds a minute being quoted. Two types of gun barrel were used, with three or four sections. Krupp’s proposal was the 8.8 cm Gerät 42, but it was not accepted for production as an anti-aircraft gun. However, Krupp continued development, resulting in the dreaded PaK 43 anti-tank gun.
The FlaK 41 had the disadvantage of complexity, and was prone to problems with ammunition, cases often jamming on extraction. The first guns produced were used in Tunisia, but because of problems in service they were afterwards used almost exclusively in Germany where they could be properly maintained and serviced. Only 157 FlaK 41 guns were in use as of August 1944, and 318 in January 1945. A final adaptation, known as the FlaK 37/41, mounted the FlaK 41 on the FlaK 37 carriage, but only 13 were produced.
Production numbers…
| 1939 | 1940 | 1941 | 1942 | 1943 | 1944 | 1945 | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Army | 0 | 0 | 126 | 176 | 296 | 549 | 23 | 1,170 |
| Luftwaffe | 183 | 1,130 | 1,872 | 2,876 | 4,416 | 5,933 | 715 | 17,125 |
| Total | 183 | 1,130 | 1,998 | 3,052 | 4,712 | 6,482 | 738 | 18,295 |
PaK 43 and KwK 43…
Comparison to other anti-aircraft guns…
The 88 was not as powerful as its Italian or Allied counterparts. As an anti-aircraft gun it fired a 9.2 kilogram (20 lb) shell at a muzzle velocity of 790 m/s (2,600 ft/s) to an effective ceiling of 7,900 meters (26,000 ft) (at maximum 10,600 meters (35,000 ft)). Although this was useful during the U.S. daylight raids, which typically took place at 7,600 meters (25,000 ft), many aircraft could fly higher than its maximum effective ceiling. In comparison, the British 3.7-inch (94 mm) Mark 3 fired a 13 kg (29 lb) projectile at 790 m/s (2,600 ft/s) to an effective ceiling of 10,600 meters (35,000 ft), and the American 90 mm Mark 1 fired a 10 kg (22 lb) shell at 820 m/s (2,700 ft/s) to the same height, while the Italian Cannone da 90/53 fired a 10.33 kg projectile at 830 m/s to an effective ceiling of 12,000 meters (39,000 ft). The Allied weapons also had the advantage of a higher rate of fire, because of their automated fuse-setters that raised the rate of fire to about 20 rpm, as opposed to the original 88 which could generally reach only 15 rpm. Their capabilities were augmented by the introduction of proximity fuses, which allowed them to remain effective even with the introduction of jet engined aircraft. The Allies’ and Italian weapons were heavier and less mobile, with the Allied weapons being almost useless for ground fire until numerous modifications were carried out. While the U.S. and Italian 90 mm would go on to serve as powerful anti-tank guns, they were by no means as universally deployed as tank-killers as was the German 88.
Combat history…
The German forces employed the 88 extensively in World War II, not only in its original role as an anti-aircraft gun, where it performed well, but also as a superb anti-tank gun. Its success was due to its versatility: Its standard anti-aircraft platform allowed gunners to depress the muzzle below horizontal, unlike most other anti-aircraft guns. During the initial stages of the war, as it was becoming increasingly clear that existing anti-tank weapons were unable to pierce the armour of heavier enemy tanks, gunners increasingly put the weapon to use against enemy tanks, a situation that was aided by the prevalence of the 88 among German forces. Thousands of 88mm guns would be produced throughout the war in various models and mounts, serving in more numerous capacity as either an anti-tank or anti-aircraft gun than its equivalents.
The German Condor Legion made extensive use of the 88 in the Spanish Civil War, where its usefulness as an anti-tank weapon and a general artillery piece exceeded its role as an anti-aircraft weapon. Erwin Rommel also used the 88 as an anti-tank weapon, first in France and later in North Africa. His timely use of the gun to blunt the British counterattack at Arras ended any hope of a breakout from the blitzkrieg encirclement of May 1940. In Libya and Egypt, he lured British tanks into traps by baiting them with apparently retreating panzers. When the British pursued, concealed 88s picked them off at ranges far beyond those of the 2-pdr and 6-pdr guns of the British tanks. The British 8th Armyeventually learned to coordinate their heavy artillery with their ground advances, destroying the relatively immobile 88s in their emplacements once they revealed their positions. Also the arrival of Sherman tanks with 75mm guns meant their emplacements were no longer out of range.
The weapon saw continuous use on the Soviet Front. The appearance of the outstanding T-34 and KV1 tanks shocked the German tank crews and antitank teams, whose 37 mm and 50 mm guns could only penetrate the Soviet tank’s armour at extremely close range.
The less open terrain in Italy and Northern France was less suitable for the 88. The success of the 88 caused the Allies to take steps to defend against it in new tank design. Stopgap measures included adding more armour, or even using sandbags, to try to defeat the 88’s projectiles. The Germans took advantage of this effective design in the armament of vehicles such as the Tiger I, Jagdtiger and the Elefant tank destroyer (with an 88 mm Pak 43/2 anti-tank gun).
The FlaK 36 guns were briefly issued in late 1944 to the American 7th Army as captured weapons. The 79th Field Artillery Battalion (Provisional) was formed from personnel of the 79th and 179th Field Artillery Groups to fire captured German artillery pieces during the height of the ammunition shortage. Similarly, the 244th Field Artillery Battalion was temporarily equipped with a miscellany of captured German 88mm guns and 105mm and 150mm howitzers.
During the civil war in Yugoslavia in the 1990s various FlaK guns were used mainly by the naval artillery of the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA). The Serbian Army (VJ) also used Flak carriages mounted with double 262mm launch tubes from M-87 Orkan MLRS, instead of the 88mm gun. It was capable of deploying cluster bombs, as well as anti personnel and anti tank mines up to 50 km. However, only a few were made during the summer of 1993, and the entire project was generally regarded as unsuccessful.
The 88 „family”…
- 8.8 cm FlaK 18 New semi-automatic breech, high velocity gun. Entered production in Germany in 1933. Used the Sonderanhänger 201 trailer. Weight 7 tonnes. Rate of fire 15 to 20 rounds per minute. Later, fitted with a gun shield to protect the crew when engaging ground targets. Produced by Krupp.
- Mod 1938 II: Approximately 50 guns modified so a single man could adjust elevation and traverse.
- 8.8 cm FlaK 36 Entered service 1936–37. It used the redesigned trailer Sonderanhänger 202 enabling faster time to action from the move. The SdAnh 202 had twin wheels on two similar carriages. Could engage ground targets from its traveling position. Weight 7 tonnes. Rate of fire 15 to 20 rounds per minute. Produced by Krupp. Later, fitted with a shield to protect the crew when engaging ground targets.
- 8.8 cm KwK 36: Main gun of the PzKw VI Ausf. E (Tiger I) tank. Despite its designation, some classify it as a parallel development with very similar specifications rather than a derivative of the FlaK 36.
- 8.8 cm FlaK 37: An updated version of the FlaK 36, the main difference being Übertragungser 37 (a data transmission system). Produced by Krupp. Last of the versions with the shorter 571 mm cartridge case.
- 8.8 cm FlaK 41: Entered service 1943. Improved development, longer barrel and cartridge case. Fitted to the Sonderanhänger 202 as standard. Produced by Rheinmetall-Borsig.
- 8.8 cm Gerät 42: Krupp design to fill the same role as the FlaK 41; did not enter service as an anti-aircraft gun. Further development of the weapon led to the PaK 43 anti-tank gun.
- 8.8 cm PaK 43: Anti-tank model developed from Krupp’s 8.8 cm Gerät 42. New gun carriage the Sonderanhänger 204. Developed by Krupp and manufactured in its different versions, including KwK 43, by at least Dortmund Hoerder-Hüttenverein, Henschel, Weserhütte and Fr. Garny. A 71 caliber barrel and a 822 mm cartridge case.
- 8.8 cm PaK 43/41: Pak 43 mounted on single axle split-trail field gun carriage produced as a stop-gap measure due to scarcity of materials. Weight 4.9 tonnes.
- 8.8 cm PaK 43/1: Pak 43 as mounted in the Nashorn tank destroyer.
- 8.8 cm PaK 43/2 Pak 43 as mounted in the Ferdinand/Elefant tank destroyer. On occasion referred to as „StuK 43/1”.
- 8.8 cm PaK 43/3 and 43/4: Pak 43 as mounted in the Jagdpanther tank destroyer. Falling wedge breech block.
- 8.8 cm KwK 43: Pak 43 modified as a tank gun. Main gun of the Tiger II heavy tank. Falling wedge breech block.
Colours of War…
Colours of War…
All about Invasion of Poland – (06)…
Aftermath…
Poland’s defeat was the inevitable outcome of the Warsaw government’s illusions about the actions its allies would take, as well as of its over-estimation of the Polish Army’s ability to offer lengthy resistance.
Poland was divided among Germany, the Soviet Union, and Slovakia. Lithuania received the city of Wilno and its environs on 28 October 1939 from the Soviet Union. On 8 and 13 September 1939, the German military districts of „Posen” (Poznan), commanded by general Alfred von Vollard-Bockelberg, and „Westpreußen” (West Prussia), commanded by general Walter Heitz, were established in conquered Greater Poland and Pomerelia, respectively. Based on laws of 21 May 1935 and 1 June 1938, the German military, Wehrmacht, shared its administrative powers with civilian „chief civil administrators” (Chefs der Zivilverwaltung, CdZ). German dictator Adolf Hitler appointed Arthur Greiser to become the CdZ of the Posen military district, and Danzig’s Gauleiter Albert Forster to become the CdZ of the West Prussian military district. On 3 October 1939, the military districts „Lodz” and „Krakau” (Cracow) were set up under command of colonel-generals (generalobersten)Gerd von Rundstedt and Wilhelm List, and Hitler appointed Hans Frank and Arthur Seyß-Inquart as civil heads, respectively. Frank was at the same time appointed „supreme chief administrator” for all occupied territories. On 28 September another secret German-Soviet protocol modified the arrangements of August: all Lithuania was to be a Soviet sphere of influence, not a German one; but the dividing line in Poland was moved in Germany’s favour, to the Bug River. On 8 October Germany formally annexed the western parts of Poland with Greiser and Forster as Reichsstatthalter, while the south-central parts were administered as the so-called General Government led by Frank.
Even though water barriers separated most of the spheres of interest, the Soviet and German troops met on numerous occasions. The most remarkable event of this kind occurred at Brest-Litovsk on 22 September. The German 19th Panzer Corps under the command of Heinz Guderian had occupied the city, which lay within the Soviet sphere of interest. When the Soviet 29th Tank Brigade under the command of S. M. Krivoshein approached, the commanders negotiated that the German troops would withdraw and the Soviet troops would enter the city saluting each other. At Brest-Litovsk, Soviet and German commanders held a joint victory parade before German forces withdrew westward behind a new demarcation line. Just three days earlier, however, the parties had a more hostile encounter near Lwow (Lviv, Lemberg), when the German 137th Gebirgsjägerregimenter (mountain infantry regiment) attacked a reconnaissance detachment of the Soviet 24th Tank Brigade; after a few casualties on both sides, the parties turned to negotiations. The German troops left the area, and the Red Army troops entered Lviv on 22 September.
About 65,000 Polish troops were killed in the fighting, with 420,000 others being captured by the Germans and 240,000 more by the Soviets (for a total of 660,000 prisoners). Up to 120,000 Polish troops escaped to neutral Romania (through the Romanian Bridgehead and Hungary), and another 20,000 to Latvia and Lithuania, with the majority eventually making their way to France or Britain. Most of the Polish Navy succeeded in evacuating to Britain as well. German personnel losses were less than their enemies (~16,000 KIA).
Neither side—Germany, the Western Allies or the Soviet Union—expected that the German invasion of Poland would lead to a war that would surpass World War I in its scale and cost. It would be months before Hitler would see the futility of his peace negotiation attempts with Great Britain and France, but the culmination of combined European and Pacific conflicts would result in what was truly a „world war”. Thus, what was not seen by most politicians and generals in 1939 is clear from the historical perspective: The Polish September Campaign marked the beginning of the Second World War in Europe, which combined with the Japanese invasion of China in 1937 and the Pacific War in 1941, formed the cataclysm known as World War II.
The invasion of Poland led to Britain and France to declare war on Germany on 3 September. However, they did little to affect the outcome of the September Campaign. This lack of direct help led many Poles to believe that they had been betrayed by their Western allies.
On 23 May 1939, Adolf Hitler explained to his officers that the object of the aggression was not Danzig, but the need to obtain German Lebensraum and details of this concept would be later formulated in the infamous Generalplan Ost. The invasion decimated urban residential areas, civilians soon became indistinguishable from combatants, and the forthcoming German occupation (both on the annexed territories and in the General Government) was one of the most brutal episodes of World War II, resulting in between 5.47 million and 5.67 million Polish deaths (about 20 % of the country’stotal population, and over 90 % of its Jewish minority) – including the mass murder of 3 million Poles in extermination camps like Auschwitz, in concentration camps, and in numerous ad hoc massacres, where civilians were rounded up, taken to a nearby forest, machine-gunned, and then buried, whether they were dead or not.
According to the Polish Institute of National Remembrance, Soviet occupation between 1939 and 1941 resulted in the death of 150,000 and deportationof 320,000 of Polish citizens, when all who were deemed dangerous to the Soviet regime were subject to sovietization, forced resettlement, imprisonment in labour camps (the Gulags) or murdered, like the Polish officers in the Katyn massacre.
Misconceptions…
There are several common misconceptions regarding the Polish September Campaign.
- Myth: The Polish Army fought German tanks with horse-mounted cavalry wielding lances and swords.
- In 1939, 10% of the Polish army was made up of cavalry units.Polish cavalry never charged German tanks or entrenched infantry or artillery, but usually acted as mobile infantry (like dragoons) and reconnaissance units and executed cavalry charges only in rare situations against foot soldiers. Other armies (including German and Soviet) also fielded and extensively used elite horse cavalry units at that time. Polish cavalry consisted of eleven brigades, as emphasized by its military doctrine, equipped with anti tank rifles „UR”and light artillery such as the highly effective Bofors 37 mm antitank gun. The myth originated from war correspondents reports of theBattle of Krojanty, where a Polish cavalry brigade was fired upon in ambush by hidden armored vehicles, after it had mounted a sabre-charge against German infantry.
- Myth: The Polish air force was destroyed on the ground in the first days of the war.
- The Polish Air Force, though numerically inferior, had been moved from air bases to small camouflaged airfields shortly before the war. Only some trainers and auxiliary aircraft were destroyed on the ground. The Polish Air Force, significantly outnumbered and with its fighters outmatched by more advanced German fighters, remained active up to the second week of the campaign, inflicting significant damage on the Luftwaffe.The Luftwaffelost, to all operational causes, 285 aircraft, with 279 more damaged, while the Poles lost 333 aircraft.
- Myth: Poland offered little resistance and surrendered quickly.
- Germany sustained relatively heavy losses, especially in vehicles and planes: Poland cost the Germans approximately the equipment of an entire armored division and 25% of its air strength. As for duration, the September Campaign lasted only about one week less than the Battle of France in 1940, even though the Anglo-French forces were much closer to parity with the Germans in numerical strength and equipment.[Note 8] Furthermore, the Polish Army was preparing the Romanian Bridgehead, which would have prolonged Polish defence, but this plan was cancelled due to the Soviet invasion of Poland on 17 September 1939. Poland also never officially surrendered to the Germans. Under German occupation, the Polish army continued to fight underground, as Armia Krajowa and forest partisans – Leśni. The Polish resistance movement in World War II in German-occupied Poland was one of the largest resistance movements in all of occupied Europe.
- Myth: Blitzkrieg was first used in Poland.
- It is often assumed that blitzkrieg is the strategy that Germany first used in Poland. Many early postwar histories, such as Barrie Pitt’s inThe Second World War (BPC Publishing 1966), attribute German victory to „enormous development in military technique which occurred between 1918 and 1940”, citing that „Germany, who translated (British inter-war) theories into action… called the result Blitzkrieg.” This idea has been repudiated by some authors. Matthew Cooper writes: „Throughout the Polish Campaign, the employment of the mechanized units revealed the idea that they were intended solely to ease the advance and to support the activities of the infantry…. Thus, any strategic exploitation of the armoured idea was still-born. The paralysis of command and the breakdown of morale were not made the ultimate aim of the … German ground and air forces, and were only incidental by-products of the traditional manoeuvers of rapid encirclement and of the supporting activities of the flying artillery of the Luftwaffe, both of which had as their purpose the physical destruction of the enemy troops. Such was the Vernichtungsgedanke of the Polish campaign.” Vernichtungsgedanke was a strategy dating back to Frederick the Great, and was applied in the Polish Campaign little changed from the French campaigns in 1870 or 1914. The use of tanks „left much to be desired…Fear of enemy action against the flanks of the advance, fear which was to prove so disastrous to German prospects in the west in 1940 and in the Soviet Union in 1941, was present from the beginning of the war.”” John Ellis, writing in Brute Force asserted that „…there is considerable justice in Matthew Cooper’s assertion that the panzer divisions were not given the kind of strategic (emphasis in original) mission that was to characterize authentic armoured blitzkrieg, and were almost always closely subordinated to the various mass infantry armies.” Zaloga and Madej, in The Polish Campaign 1939, also address the subject of mythical interpretations of Blitzkrieg and the importance of other arms in the campaign. „Whilst Western accounts of the September campaign have stressed the shock value of the panzers and Stuka attacks, they have tended to underestimate the punishing effect of German artillery (emphasis added) on Polish units. Mobile and available in significant quantity, artillery shattered as many units as any other branch of the Wehrmacht.”
All about Invasion of Poland – (05)…
Phase 2: Soviet invasion…
From the beginning, the German government repeatedly asked Vyacheslav Molotov whether the Soviet Union would keep to its side of the partition bargain. Soviet forces attacked Poland on 17 September. It was agreed that the USSR would relinquish its interest in the territories between the new border and Warsaw in exchange for inclusion of Lithuania in the Soviet „zone of interest”.
By 17 September 1939, the Polish defence was already broken and the only hope was to retreat and reorganize along the Romanian Bridgehead. However, these plans were rendered obsolete nearly overnight, when the over 800,000 strong Soviet Red Army entered and created the Belarussian and Ukrainian fronts after invading the eastern regions of Poland in violation of the Riga Peace Treaty, the Soviet-Polish Non-Aggression Pact, and other international treaties, both bilateral and multilateral. Soviet diplomacy claimed that they were „protecting the Ukrainian and Belarusian minorities of eastern Poland since the Polish government had abandoned the country and the Polish state ceased to exist”.
Polish border defence forces in the east, known as the Korpus Ochrony Pogranicza, consisted of about 25 battalions. Edward Rydz-Śmigły ordered them to fall back and not engage the Soviets. This, however, did not prevent some clashes and small battles, such as the Battle of Grodno, as soldiers and local population attempted to defend the city. The Soviets murdered numerous Polish officers, including prisoners of war like General Józef Olszyna-Wilczyński. The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists rose against the Poles, and communist partisans organized local revolts, robbing and murdering Poles. Those movements were quickly disciplined by the NKVD. The Soviet invasion was one of the decisive factors that convinced the Polish government that the war in Poland was lost. Prior to the Soviet attack from the east, the Polish military’s fall-back plan had called for long-term defence against Germany in the south-eastern part of Poland, while awaiting relief from a Western Allies attack on Germany’s western border. However, the Polish government refused to surrender or negotiate a peace with Germany. Instead, it ordered all units to evacuate Poland and reorganize in France.
Meanwhile, Polish forces tried to move towards the Romanian Bridgehead area, still actively resisting the German invasion. From 17 September to 20 September Polish armies Kraków and Lublin were crippled at the Battle of Tomaszów Lubelski, the second largest battle of the campaign. The city of Lwów capitulated on 22 September because of Soviet intervention; the city had been attacked by the Germans over a week earlier, and in the middle of the siege, the German troops handed operations over to their Soviet allies. Despite a series of intensifying German attacks, Warsaw—defended by quickly reorganized retreating units, civilian volunteers and militia—held out until 28 September. TheModlin Fortress north of Warsaw capitulated on 29 September after an intense 16-day battle. Some isolated Polish garrisons managed to hold their positions long after being surrounded by German forces. Westerplatte enclave’s tiny garrison capitulated on 7 September and the Oksywiegarrison held until 19 September; Hel Fortified Area was defended until 2 October. In the last week of September, Hitler made a speech in the city of Danzig in which he said:
Poland never will rise again in the form of the Versailles treaty. That is guaranteed not only by Germany, but also… Russia.
Despite a Polish victory at the Battle of Szack, after which the Soviets executed all the officers and NCOs they had captured, the Red Army reached the line of rivers Narew, Western Bug, Vistula and San by 28 September in many cases meeting German units advancing from the other direction. Polish defenders on the Hel peninsula on the shore of the Baltic Sea held out until 2 October. The last operational unit of the Polish Army, General Franciszek Kleeberg’s Samodzielna Grupa Operacyjna „Polesie”, surrendered after the four-day Battle of Kock near Lublin on 6 October marking the end of the September Campaign.
Civilian losses…
The Polish September Campaign was an instance of total war. Consequently, civilian casualties were high during and after combat. From the start, the Luftwaffe attacked civilian targets and columns of refugees along the roads to wreak havoc, disrupt communications, and target Polish morale. Apart from the victims of the battles, it is alleged that the German forces (both SS and the regular Wehrmacht) murdered several thousand Polish civilians. Also, during Operation Tannenberg, nearly 20,000 Poles were shot at 760 mass execution sites by theEinsatzgruppen.
Altogether, the civilian losses of Polish population amounted to about 150,000–200,000 while German civilian losses amounted to roughly 3,250 (including 2,000 who died fighting Polish troops as members of a fifth column).
All about Invasion of Poland – (04)…
Details of the campaign…
German plan…
The German plan for what became known as the September Campaign was devised by General Franz Halder, chief of the general staff, and directed by General Walther von Brauchitsch, the commander in chief of the upcoming campaign. It called for the start of hostilities before a declaration of war, and pursued a doctrine of mass encirclement and destruction of enemy forces. The infantry – far from completely mechanized but fitted with fast moving artillery and logistic support – was to be supported by German tanks and small numbers of truck-mounted infantry (the Schützen regiments, forerunners of the panzergrenadiers) to assist the rapid movement of troops and concentrate on localized parts of the enemy front, eventually isolating segments of the enemy, surrounding, and destroying them. The pre-war armored idea (which an American journalist in 1939 dubbed Blitzkrieg), which was advocated by some generals, including Heinz Guderian, would have had the armor punching holes in the enemy’s front and ranging deep into rear areas, but in actuality, the campaign in Poland would be fought along more traditional lines. This stemmed from conservatism on the part of the German high command, who mainly restricted the role of armor and mechanized forces to supporting the conventional infantry divisions.
Poland’s terrain was well suited for mobile operations when the weather cooperated – the country had flat plains with long frontiers totalling almost 5,600 kilometres (3,500 mi), Poland’s long border with Germany on the west and north (facing East Prussia) extended 2,000 kilometres (1,250 mi). Those had been lengthened by another 300 kilometres (180 mi) on the southern side in the aftermath of the Munich Agreement of 1938; the German incorporation of Bohemia and Moravia and creation of the German puppet state of Slovakia meant that Poland’s southern flank was exposed.
German planners intended to fully exploit their long border with the great enveloping manoeuvre of Fall Weiss. German units were to invade Poland from three directions:
- A main attack over the western Polish border. This was to be carried out by Army Group South commanded by General Gerd von Rundstedt, attacking from German Silesia and from the Moravian and Slovak border: General Johannes Blaskowitz’s 8th Army was to drive eastward against Łódź; General Wilhelm List’s 14th Army was to push on toward Kraków and to turn the Poles’ Carpathian flank; and General Walter von Reichenau’s 10th Army, in the centre with Army Group South’s armour, was to deliver the decisive blow with a northeastward thrust into the heart of Poland.
- A second route of attack from northern Prussia. General Fedor von Bock commanded Army Group North, comprising General Georg von Küchler’s 3rd Army, which was to strike southward from East Prussia, and General Günther von Kluge’s 4th Army, which was to attack eastward across the base of the Polish Corridor.
- A tertiary attack by part of Army Group South’s allied Slovak units from Slovakia.
- From within Poland, the German minority would assist by engaging in diversion and sabotage operations through Selbstschutz units prepared before the war.
All three assaults were to converge on Warsaw, while the main Polish army was to be encircled and destroyed west of the Vistula. Fall Weiss was initiated on 1 September 1939, and was the first operation of the Second World War in Europe.
Polish defence plan…
The Polish political determination to deploy forces directly at the German-Polish border, based on the British Government’s promise to come to Poland’s aid in the event of invasion, shaped the country’s defence plan, Plan West. Poland’s most valuable natural resources, industry and population were located along the western border in Eastern Upper Silesia. Polish policy centred on their protection especially since many politicians feared that if Poland were to retreat from the regions disputed by Germany, Britain and France would sign a separate peace treaty with Germany similar to the Munich Agreement of 1938. The fact that none of Poland’s allies had specifically guaranteed Polish borders orterritorial integrity certainly did not help in easing Polish concerns. For these reasons, Poland disregarded French advice to deploy the bulk of their forces behind the natural barriers such as the Vistula and San rivers, even though some Polish generals supported it as a better strategy. The West Plan did permit the Polish armies to retreat inside the country, but it was supposed to be a slow retreat behind prepared positions and was intended to give the armed forces time to complete its mobilization and execute a general counteroffensive with the support of theWestern Allies.
The British and French estimated that Poland should be able to defend itself for two to three months, while Poland estimated it could do so for at least six months. Poland drafted its estimates based upon the expectation that the Western Allies honor their treaty obligations and quickly start an offensive of their own. In addition, the French and British expected the war to develop into trench warfare much like World War I. The Polish government was not notified of this strategy and based all of its defence plans on promises of quick relief by their Western allies.
Polish forces were stretched thinly along the Polish-German border and lacked compact defence lines and good defence positions along disadvantageous terrain. This strategy also left supply lines poorly protected. Approximately one-third of Poland’s forces were concentrated in or near the Polish Corridor, leaving them perilously exposed to a double envelopment from East Prussia and the west. Another third were massed in the north-central part of the country, between the major cities of Łódź and Warsaw. The Poles’ forward concentration largely forfeited their chance of fighting a series of delaying actions since their army, unlike some of Germany’s, traveled largely on foot and lacked the ability to retreat to their defensive positions before being overrun by German mechanized formations.
As the prospect of conflict increased, the British government pressed Marshal Edward Rydz-Śmigły, to evacuate the most modern elements of the Polish Navy from the Baltic Sea. In the event of war the Polish military leaders realized that the ships which remained in the Baltic were likely to be quickly sunk by the Germans. Furthermore, the Danish straits were well within operating range of the German Kriegsmarine andLuftwaffe, so there was little chance of an evacuation plan succeeding if implemented after hostilities began. Four days after the signing of thePolish-British Common Defence Pact, three destroyers of the Polish Navy executed the Peking Plan and consequently evacuated to Great Britain.
Although the Polish military had prepared for conflict, the civilian population remained largely unprepared. Polish pre-war propagandaemphasized that any German invasion would be easily repelled. Consequently, Polish defeats during the German invasion came as a shock to the civilian population, who were largely unprepared. Lacking training for such a disaster the civilian population panicked and retreated east, spreading chaos, lowering troop morale and making road transportation for Polish troops very difficult.
Phase 1: German invasion…
Following several German-staged incidents (like the Gleiwitz incident, a part of Operation Himmler), which German propaganda used as an excuse to claim that German forces were acting in self-defence, the first regular act of war took place on 1 September 1939, at 04:40, when the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) attacked the Polish town of Wieluń, destroying 75% of the city and killing close to 1,200 people, most of them civilians. This invasion subsequently began the Second World War. Five minutes later, the old German pre-dreadnought battleship Schleswig-Holstein opened fire on the Polish military transit depot at Westerplatte in the Free City of Danzig on the Baltic Sea. At 08:00, German troops, still without a formal declaration of war issued, attacked near the Polish town of Mokra. The Battle of the Borderhad begun. Later that day, the Germans attacked on Poland’s western, southern and northern borders, while German aircraft began raids on Polish cities. The main axis of attack led eastwards from Germany proper through the western Polish border. Supporting attacks came from East Prussia in the north, and a co-operative German-Slovak tertiary attack by units (Field Army „Bernolák”) from German-alliedSlovakia in the south. All three assaults converged on the Polish capital of Warsaw.
The Allied governments declared war on Germany on 3 September; however, they failed to provide any meaningful support. The German-French border saw only a few minor skirmishes, although the majority of German forces, including eighty-five percent of their armoured forces, were engaged in Poland. Despite some Polish successes in minor border battles, German technical, operational and numerical superiority forced the Polish armies to retreat from the borders towards Warsaw and Lwów. The Luftwaffegained air superiority early in the campaign. By destroying communications, the Luftwaffe increased the pace of the advance which overran Polish airstrips and early warning sites, causing logistical problems for the Poles. Many Polish Air Force units ran low on supplies, 98 of their number withdrew into then-neutral Romania. The Polish initial strength of 400 was reduced to just 54 by 14 September and air opposition virtually ceased.
By 3 September when Günther von Kluge in the north had reached the Vistula river (some 10 kilometres from the German border at that time) and Georg von Küchler was approaching the Narew River, Walther von Reichenau’s armour was already beyond the Warta river; two days later, his left wing was well to the rear of Łódź and his right wing at the town of Kielce; and by 8 September one of his armoured corps was on the outskirts of Warsaw, having advanced 225 kilometres (140 miles) in the first week of war. Light divisions on Reichenau’s right were on the Vistula between Warsaw and the town of Sandomierz by 9 September while List, in the south, was on the river San above and below the town of Przemyśl. At the same time, Guderian led his 3rd Army tanks across the Narew, attacking the line of the Bug River, already encircling Warsaw. All the German armies made progress in fulfilling their parts of the Fall Weiss plan. The Polish armies were splitting up into uncoordinated fragments, some of which were retreating while others were launching disjointed attacks on the nearest German columns.
Polish forces abandoned the regions of Pomerelia (the Polish Corridor), Greater Poland and Polish Upper Silesia in the first week. The Polish plan for border defence was proven a dismal failure. The German advance as a whole was not slowed. On 10 September the Polish commander-in-chief, Marshal Edward Rydz-Śmigły, ordered a general retreat to the southeast, towards the so-called Romanian Bridgehead.Meanwhile, the Germans were tightening their encirclement of the Polish forces west of the Vistula (in the Łódź area and, still farther west, around Poznań) and also penetrating deeply into eastern Poland. Warsaw, under heavy aerial bombardment since the first hours of the war, was attacked on 9 September and was put under siege on 13 September. Around that time, advanced German forces also reached the city of Lwów, a major metropolis in eastern Poland. 1,150 German aircraft bombed Warsaw on 24 September.
The largest battle during this campaign, the Battle of Bzura, took place near the Bzura river west of Warsaw and lasted from 9 September to 19 September. Polish armies Poznań and Pomorze, retreating from the border area of the Polish Corridor, attacked the flank of the advancing German 8th Army, but the counterattack failed after initial success. After the defeat, Poland lost its ability to take the initiative and counterattack on a large scale. German air power was instrumental during the battle. The Luftwaffe’s offensive broke what remained of Polish resistance in an „awesome demonstration of air power”. The Luftwaffe quickly destroyed the bridges across the Bzura River. Afterward, the Polish forces were trapped out in the open, and were attacked by wave after wave of Stukas, dropping 50 kg „light bombs” which caused huge numbers of casualties. The Polish flak positions ran out of ammunition and retreated to the forests, but were then „smoked out” by the Heinkel He 111 and Dornier Do 17s dropping 100 kg incendiaries. The Luftwaffe left the army with the easy task of mopping up survivors. The Stukageschwaders alone dropped 388 tonnes of bombs during this battle.
The Polish government (of President Ignacy Mościcki) and the high command (of Marshal Edward Rydz-Śmigły) left Warsaw in the first days of the campaign and headed southeast, reaching Lublin on 6 September. From there it moved on 9 September to Kremenez, and on 13 September to Zaleshiki on the Romanian border. Rydz-Śmigły ordered the Polish forces to retreat in the same direction, behind the Vistula and San rivers, beginning the preparations for the long defence of the Romanian Bridgehead area.
All about Invasion of Poland – (03)…
Opposing forces…
Poland was attacked by German, Slovak and Russian forces.
Germany…
Germany had a substantial numerical advantage over Poland and had developed a significant military prior to the conflict. The Heer (army) had some 2,400 tanks organized into sixpanzer divisions, utilizing a new operational doctrine. It held that these divisions should act in coordination with other elements of the military, punching holes in the enemy line and isolating selected units, which would be encircled and destroyed. This would be followed up by less-mobile mechanized infantry and foot soldiers. The Luftwaffe (air force) provided both tactical and strategic air power, particularly dive bombers that disrupted lines of supply and communications. Together, the so-called „new” methods, were nicknamed „Blitzkrieg” (lightning war). Historian Basil Liddell Hart claimed „Poland was a full demonstration of the Blitzkrieg theory.” Other historians, however, disagree.
Aircraft played a major role in the campaign. Bombers also attacked cities, causing huge losses amongst the civilian population through terror bombing. The Luftwaffe forces consisted of 1,180 fighter aircraft, 290 Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers, 1,100 conventional bombers (mainly He 111s and Dornier Do 17s), and an assortment of 550 transport and 350 reconnaissance aircraft. In total, Germany had close to 4,000 aircraft, most of them modern. A force of 2,315 aircraft was assigned to Weiss. Due to its prior participation in the Spanish Civil War, the Luftwaffe was probably the most experienced, best trained and best equipped air force in the world in 1939.
Poland…
Between 1936 and 1939, Poland invested heavily in the Central Industrial Region. Preparations for a defensive war with Germany were ongoing for many years, but most plans assumed fighting would not begin before 1942. To raise funds for industrial development, Poland sold much of the modern equipment it produced. In 1936, a National Defence Fund was set up to collect funds necessary for strengthening the Polish Armed forces. ThePolish Army had approximately a million soldiers, but less than half of them were mobilized by 1 September. Latecomers sustained significant casualties when public transport became targets of the Luftwaffe. The Polish military had fewer armored forces than the Germans, and these units, dispersed within the infantry, were unable to effectively engage the enemy.
Experiences in the Polish-Soviet War shaped Polish Army organizational and operational doctrine. Unlike the trench warfare of the First World War, the Polish-Soviet War was a conflict in which the cavalry’s mobility played a decisive role. Poland acknowledged the benefits of mobility but was unable to invest heavily in many of the expensive, unproven inventions since then. In spite of this, Polish cavalry brigades were used as a mobile mounted infantry and had some successes against both German infantry and cavalry.
The Polish Air Force (Lotnictwo Wojskowe) was at a severe disadvantage against the German Luftwaffe, although it was not destroyed on the ground early on, as is commonly believed. The Polish Air Force lacked modern fighter aircraft, but its pilots were among the world’s best trained, as proven a year later in the Battle of Britain, in which the Poles played a major part.
Overall, the Germans enjoyed numerical and qualitative aircraft superiority. Poland had only about 600 aircraft of which only 37 36 P-37 Łoś bombers were modern and comparable to its German counterparts. The Polish Air Force had roughly 185 PZL P.11 and some 95 PZL P.7fighters, 175 PZL.23 Karaś B, 35 Karaś A, and by September, over 100 PZL.37 Łoś were produced.[Note 5]. However, for the September Campaign, only some 70% of those aircraft were mobilized. Only 36 PZL.37 Łoś bombers were deployed. All those aircraft were of indigenous Polish design, with the bombers being more modern than fighters, according to the Ludomił Rayski air force expansion plan, which relied on a strong bomber force. The Polish fighters were a generation older than their German counterparts. The Polish PZL P.11 fighter, produced in the early 1930s, was capable of only 365 km/h (approximately 220 mi/h), far less than German bombers; to compensate, the pilots relied on its maneuverability and high diving speed.
The tank force consisted of two armored brigades, four independent tank battalions and some 30 companies of TKS tankettes attached to infantry divisions and cavalry brigades. A standard tank of the Polish Army during the Polish Defensive War of 1939 was 7TP light tank. It was the first tank in the world with diesel engine and 360-degree Gundlach periscope. 7TP was significantly better armed than its most common opponents, the German Panzer I and Panzer II but only 140 tanks were produced between 1935 and the outbreak of the war. Poland had also a few relatively modern imported designs, such as 50 Renault R35 tanks and 38 Vickers E tanks.
The Polish Navy was a small fleet of destroyers, submarines and smaller support vessels. Most Polish surface units followed Operation Peking, leaving Polish ports on 20 August and escaping by way of the North Sea to join with the British Royal Navy. Submarine forces participated in Operation Worek, with the goal of engaging and damaging German shipping in the Baltic Sea, but they had much less success. In addition, many merchant marine ships joined the British merchant fleet and took part in wartime convoys.
All about Invasion of Poland – (02)…
Prelude to the campaign…
In addition to Soviet territory, the National-Socialists were also interested in establishing a new border with Poland because the German exclave of East Prussia was separated from the rest of the Reich by the „Polish Corridor”. The Corridor constituted land long disputed by Poland and Germany, and inhabited by both groups. The Corridor became a part of Poland after the Treaty of Versailles. Many Germans also wanted the city of Danzig and its environs (together the Free City of Danzig) to be reincorporated into Germany. Danzig was an important port city with more than 95% of the population German speakers. It had been separated from Germany after Versailles and made into a nominally independent Free City of Danzig. Hitler sought to reverse these territorial losses, and on many occasions made an appeal to German nationalism, promising to „liberate” theGerman minority still in the Corridor, as well as Danzig.
Poland participated in the partition of Czechoslovakia that followed the Munich Agreement, although they were not part of the agreement. It coerced Czechoslovakia to surrender the city of Český Těšín by issuing an ultimatum to that effect on 30 September 1938, which was accepted by Czechoslovakia on 1 October.
By 1937, Germany began to increase its demands for Danzig, while proposing that a roadway be built in order to connect East Prussia with Germany proper, running through the Polish Corridor. Poland rejected this proposal, fearing that after accepting these demands, it would become increasingly subject to the will of Germany and eventually lose its independence as the Czechs had. Polish leaders also distrusted Hitler Furthermore, Germany’s collaboration with anti-Polish Ukrainian nationalists from the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, which was seen as an effort to isolate and weaken Poland, weakened Hitler’s credibility from the Polish point of view. The British were also aware of the situation between Germany and Poland. On 31 March, Poland was backed by a guarantee from Britain and France which stated that Polish territorial integrity would be defended with their support. On the other hand, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and his Foreign Secretary,Lord Halifax, still hoped to strike a deal with Hitler regarding Danzig (and possibly the Polish Corridor), and Hitler hoped for the same. Chamberlain and his supporters believed war could be avoided and hoped Germany would agree to leave the rest of Poland alone. German hegemony over Central Europe was also at stake.
With tensions mounting, Germany turned to aggressive diplomacy as well. On 28 April 1939, it unilaterally withdrew from both the German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact of 1934 and the London Naval Agreement of 1935. Nevertheless, talks over Danzig and the Corridor broke down and months passed without diplomatic interaction between Germany and Poland. During this interim, the Germans learned that France and Britain had failed to secure an alliance with the Soviet Union against Germany and the Soviet Union was interested in an alliance with Germany against Poland. Hitler had already issued orders to prepare for a possible „solution of the Polish problem by military means” – a Case White scenario.
However, with the surprise signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on 23 August, the denouement of secret Nazi-Soviet talks held in Moscow, Germany neutralized the possibility of Soviet opposition to a campaign against Poland and war became imminent. In fact, the Soviets agreed to aid Germany in the event of France or the United Kingdom going to war with Germany over Poland and, in a secret protocol of the pact, the Germans and the Soviets agreed to divide Eastern Europe, including Poland, into two spheres of influence; the western third of the country was to go to Germany and the eastern two-thirds to the Soviet Union.
According to the Armenian quote, on 22 August 1939, the day before the signing of the pact, Hitler gathered the Wehrmacht generals and explained his view of the upcoming war:
Our strength is our speed and our brutality. Genghis Khan chased millions of women and children to death, consciously and with a happy heart. History sees him only as a great founder of states. It is of no concern, what the weak Western European civilisation is saying about me. I issued the command – and I will have everybody executed, who will only utter a single word of criticism – that it is not the aim of the war to reach particular lines, but to physically annihilate the enemy. Therefore I have mobilised my Skull Squads, for the time being only in the East, with the command to unpityingly and mercilessly send men, women and children of Polish descent and language to death. This is the only way to gain the Lebensraum, which we need. Who is still talking today about theextinction of the Armenians?”
The German assault was originally scheduled to begin at 04:00 on 26 August. However, on 25 August the Polish-British Common Defence Pact was signed as an annex to the Franco-Polish Military Alliance. In this accord, Britain committed itself to the defence of Poland, guaranteeing to preserve Polish independence. At the same time, the British and the Poles were hinting to Berlin that they were willing to resume discussions – not at all how Hitler hoped to frame the conflict. Thus, he wavered and postponed his attack until 1 September, managing to in effect halt the entire invasion „in mid-leap”.
However, there was one exception: in the night of 25/26 August, a German sabotage group which had not heard anything about a delay of the invasion made an attack on the Jablunkov Pass and Mosty railway station in Silesia. In the morning of 26 August this group was repelled by Polish troops. The German side described all this as an incident „caused by an insane individual”.(see Jabłonków Incident)
On 26 August Hitler tried to dissuade the British and the French from interfering in the upcoming conflict, even pledging that the Wehrmacht forces would be made available to Britain’s empire in the future. The negotiations convinced Hitler that there was little chance the Western Allies would declare war on Germany, and even if they did, because of the lack of territorial guarantees to Poland, they would be willing to negotiate a compromise favourable to Germany after its conquest of Poland. Meanwhile, the number of increased overflights by high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft and cross border troop movements signalled that war was imminent.
On 29 August prompted by the British, Germany issued one last diplomatic offer, with Case White yet to be rescheduled. On the evening of August 29 the German government responded in a communication that it aimed not only for the restoration of Danzig but also the Polish Corridor (which had not previously been part of Hitler’s demands) in addition to the safeguarding of the German minority in Poland. It said that they were willing to commence negotiations, but indicated that a Polish representative with the power to sign an agreement had to arrive in Berlin the next day while in the meantime it would draw up a set of proposals. The British Cabinet was pleased that negotiations had been agreed to but, mindful of how Emil Hacha had been forced to sign his country away under similar circumstances just months earlier, regarded the requirement for an immediate arrival of a Polish representative with full signing powers as an unacceptable ultimatum. On the night of August 30/31 German Foreign MinisterJoachim von Ribbentrop read a 16 point German proposal to the British ambassador. When the ambassador requested a copy of the proposals for transmission to the Polish government Ribbentrop refused on the grounds that the requested Polish representative had failed to arrive by midnight. When Polish Ambassador Lipski went to see Ribbentrop later on 31 August to indicate that Poland was favorably disposed to negotiations, he announced that he did not have the full power to sign, and Ribbentrop dismissed him. It was then broadcast that Poland had rejected Germany’s offer, and negotiations with Poland came to an end. Hitler issued orders for the invasion to commence soon afterwards.
On 29 August German saboteurs planted a bomb at the railway station in Tarnów and killed 21 passengers, leaving 35 wounded.
On 30 August the Polish Navy sent its destroyer flotilla to Britain, executing Operation Peking. On the same day, Marshal of Poland Edward Rydz-Śmigły announced the mobilization of Polish troops. However, he was pressured into revoking the order by the French, who apparently still hoped for a diplomatic settlement, failing to realize that the Germans were fully mobilized and concentrated at the Polish border.[30] During the night of 31 August the Gleiwitz incident, a false flag attack on the radio station, was staged near the border city of Gleiwitzby German units posing as Polish troops, in Upper Silesia as part of the wider Operation Himmler. On 31 August 1939, Hitler ordered hostilities against Poland to start at 4:45 the next morning. Because of the prior stoppage, Poland managed to mobilize only 70% of its planned forces, and many units were still forming or moving to their designated frontline positions.
All about Invasion of Poland – (01)…
All about Invasion of Poland…
The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War (Polish: Kampania wrześniowa orWojna obronna 1939 roku) in Poland and the Poland Campaign (German: Polenfeldzug) in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II in Europe. The invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week after the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, and ended 6 October 1939 with Germany and the Soviet Union dividing and annexing the whole of Poland. |
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Slovakia
Soviet Union (details)
Poland
The morning after the Gleiwitz incident, German forces invaded Poland from the north, south, and west. As the Germans advanced, Polish forces withdrew from their forward bases of operation close to the Polish-German border to more established lines of defence to the east. After the mid-September Polish defeat in the Battle of the Bzura, the Germans gained an undisputed advantage. Polish forces then withdrew to the southeast where they prepared for a long defence of the Romanian Bridgehead and awaited expected French and British support and relief.
The Soviet Red Army’s invasion of the Kresy on 17 September, in accordance with a secret protocol of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, rendered the Polish plan of defence obsolete. Facing a second front, the Polish government concluded the defence of the Romanian Bridgehead was no longer feasible and ordered an emergency evacuation of all troops to neutral Romania. On 6 October, following the Polish defeat at the Battle of Kock, German and Soviet Union forces gained full control over Poland. The success of the invasion marked the end of the Second Polish Republic, though Poland never formally surrendered.
On 8 October, Germany directly annexed western Poland and the former Free City of Danzig and placed the remaining block of territory under administration of the newly established General Government. The Soviet Union immediately started a campaign ofsovietization of the newly acquired areas. This included staged elections, the results of which were used to legitimize the Soviet Union’s annexation of eastern Poland. In the aftermath of the invasion, a collective of underground resistance organizationsformed the Polish Underground State within the territory of the former Polish state. Many of the military exiles that managed to escape Poland subsequently joined the Polish Armed Forces in the West, an armed force loyal to the Polish government in exile.
LIST of GERMAN DIVISIONS in WORLD WAR II – (G.13th.P.D)
German 13th Infantry Division
|
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 |
|
| Active | 1 October 1934 – 11 October 1940 |
|---|---|
| Country | Nazi Germany |
| Branch | Army |
| Type | Infantry |
| Role | Motorized Infantry |
| Size | Division |
| Garrison/HQ | Magdeburg |
|
||
| German 13th Panzer Division 13. Panzer-Division |
|
|---|---|
|
|
| Active | 11 October 1940 — January 1945 |
| Country | Nazi Germany |
| Branch | Army |
| Type | Division |
| Role | Panzer |
| Size | Division |
| Engagements | World War II |
|
||
The 13th Panzer Division was originally created in 1934 under the cover name Infanterieführer IV; it was unveiled as the 13th Infantry Division in 1935 when the creation of the Wehrmacht was announced. In 1937 it was motorized and subsequently renamed as the 13th Motorized Infantry Division, as which it participated in the campaigns against Poland (1939) and western Europe (1940). Following the Fall of France in June 1940, the division was reorganized as 13th Panzer Division. It participated in Operation Barbarossa in 1941 and the advance on the Caucasus in 1942. The division suffered heavy losses in the withdrawal of 1943 and subsequent defensive actions in the south through 1944. It was partially refitted in Hungary, where it was encircled and destroyed by Allied forces in the winter of 1944-1945; fighting occurred primarily in Budapest. The unit was re-created as Panzer Division Feldherrnhalle 2 in the spring of 1945, before surrendering in Austria at the end of the war.
History…Highlights… |
- 1940 Training in Romania
- 1941 Eastern Front: Lublin, Kiev, Rostov
- 1942 Eastern Front: Mius, Kaucasus
- 1943 Kuban, Kriwoi-Rog
- 1944 Romania (destroyed), Hungary, Budapest (destroyed)
- 1945 Western Hungary, Austria
Barbarossa…
The 13th Panzer Division was formed in Vienna in October 1940 from the German 13th Motorized Infantry Division and was immediately sent to Romania for training. It serviced in Operation Barbarossa as part of Panzer Group 1 (Army Group South), and it contributed to the successful encirclements of the Soviet forces at Lublin and Kiev. At the end of 1941, it was positioned at Rostov; however, it was forced to retreat due to fierce Soviet counterattacks.
Caucasus and Kuban…
In 1942 and 1943, the division formed part of the First Panzer Army (Army Group A); it was involved in the battles for theCaucasus oil fields and in the desperate defense of the Kuban Peninsula after the Battle of Stalingrad. In the autumn of 1943, it was withdrawn to Western Ukraine, where it fought defensive battles near the river Dniepr.
Romania…
The offensive of the Soviet Army pushed the Germans to their starting positions of June 1941. The 13th Panzer Division was attached to Army Group South Ukraine, which had orders to stop the Soviets from capturing the Romanian oil fields. The Red Army offensive of August 1944 resulted in the deaths or imprisonment of most of the division.
First reforming and the battles for Hungary…
The division was reformed in July and it received modern equipment, including the Mark V Panther G tank and the Jagdpanzer IV Tank Destroyer. In the Battle of Debrecen, the division helped to annihilate three Soviet tank corps; however, it was encircled in Budapest at the end of 1944 and destroyed in January 1945.
End of war…
In the spring of 1945, the division was reformed under the name Feldherrnhalle 2. The last engagements with the Soviets were fought at the Austro-Hungarian border. The 13th Panzer Division surrendered in Austria in May 1945.
War Crimes…
During the invasion of Poland, soldiers from the division took part in massacres in the village of Drzewica on September 8 and 9. Medical columns marked with Red Crosssigns were also attacked. Soldiers from the division used civilians as human shields.
Order of Battle, October 1944…
- Panzer-Regiment 4
- Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 66
- Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 93
- Panzer-Artillerie-Regiment 13
- Feldersatz-Battalion 13
- Panzer-Aufklärungs-Abteilung 13
- Heeres-Flak-Artillerie-Abteilung 271
- Panzerjäger-Abteilung 13
- Panzer-Pionier-Battalion 4
- Panzer-Nachrichten-Abteilung 13
- Panzer-Versorgungstruppen 13
Commanders
- Generalleutnant Friedrich-Wilhelm von Rotkirch und Panthen (11 October 1940 – 25 June 1941
- Generalleutnant Walther Düvert (25 June 1941 – 30 November 1941)
- General der Panzertruppen Traugott Herr (1 December 1941 – 1 November 1942)
- Generalleutnant Hellmut von der Chevallerie (1 November 1942 – 1 December 1942)
- Generalmajor Wilhelm Crisolli (1 December 1942 – 15 May 1943)
- Generalleutnant Hellmut von der Chevallerie (15 May 1943 – 1 September 1943)
- Generalleutnant Eduard Hauser (1 September 1943 – 26 December 1943)
- Generalleutnant Hans Mikosch (26 December 1943 – 18 May 1944)
- Oberst Friedrich von Hake (18 May 1944 – 25 May 1944)
- Generalleutnant Hans Tröger (25 May 1944 – 9 September 1944)
- Generalmajor Gerhard Schmidhuber (9 September 1944 – 11 February 1945)
References…
- ^ „Zbrodnie niemieckie na terenie powiatu opoczyńskiego 1939 – 1945”. Archived from the original on 2009-10-19.
- Pipes, Jason. „13.Panzer-Division”. Retrieved April 1, 2005.
- Wendel, Marcus (2005). „13. Panzer-Division”. Retrieved April 1, 2005.
- „13. Panzerdivision”. German language article at http://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de. Retrieved April 1, 2005.
- Burkhard Müller-Hillebrand: Das Heer 1933-1945. Entwicklung des organisatorischen Aufbaues. Vol.III: Der Zweifrontenkrieg. Das Heer vom Beginn des Feldzuges gegen die Sowjetunion bis zum Kriegsende. Mittler: Frankfurt am Main 1969, p. 285.
- Georg Tessin: Verbände und Truppen der deutschen Wehrmacht und Waffen-SS im Zweiten Weltkrieg, 1939 – 1945. Vol. III: Die Landstreitkräfte 6 – 14. Mittler: Frankfurt am Main 1967.
LIST of GERMAN DIVISIONS in WORLD WAR II – (G.5th.P.D)
German 5th Panzer Division…
| German 5th Panzer Division | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Active | 24 November 1938 – 8 May 1945 1 October 1956 – 30 September 2001 |
| Country | Nazi Germany Germany |
| Branch | Heer |
| Type | Division |
| Role | Panzer |
| Engagements | World War II |
| Insignia | |
| 1940 |  |
| 1941–1945 |  |
| at Kursk |  |
The 5th Panzer Division was a formation title used by the Wehrmacht from 1938 to 1945 and by the German Bundeswehr from 1956 to 2001 (see: 5th Armoured Division (Germany)).
Contents |
5th Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht…
The 5th Panzer Division (5. Panzer-Division) was created in 1938. It fought in Poland (1939), France (1940), the Balkans (1941), and the Russian Front, first with Army Group Center (1941 – 1944) and later with Army Group North. It surrendered to the Soviets near Danzig at war’s end.
Commanding officers…
- Generaloberst Heinrich von Vietinghoff-Scheel, 2 September 1939 – 8 October 1939
- Generalleutnant Max von Hartlieb-Walsporn, 8 October 1939 – 29 May 1940
- General der Panzertruppen Joachim Lemelsen, 29 May 1940 – 25 November 1940
- General der Panzertruppen Gustav Fehn, 25 November 1940 – 10 August 1942
- Generalleutnant Eduard Metz, 10 August 1942 – 1 February 1943
- Generalmajor Johannes Nedtwig, 1 February 1943 – 20 June 1943
- Generalleutnant Ernst Felix Fäckenstedt, 20 June 1943 – 7 September 1943
- General der Panzertruppen Karl Decker, 7 September 1943 – 16 October 1944
- Generalmajor Rolf Lippert, 16 October 1944 – 5 February 1945
- Generalmajor Günther Hoffmann-Schönborn, 5 February 1945 – April 1945
- Oberst der Reserve Hans-Georg Herzog, April 1945
All About 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS „Adolf Hitler”…
| 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler | |
|---|---|
 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler |
|
| Active | 9 November 1923 – 8 May 1945 |
| Country | Nazi Germany |
| Allegiance | Adolf Hitler |
| Branch | Waffen-SS |
| Type | Armoured |
| Size | Division |
| Patron | Adolf Hitler |
| Motto | Meine Ehre heißt Treue („Loyalty is my Honor”) |
| Engagements | Saar/Rhineland Occupation 1935 Austrian Occupation 1938 Czechoslovak Occupation 1939 World War II
|
| Commanders | |
| Notable commanders |
Oberstgruppenführer Josef „Sepp” Dietrich 15 August 1938 – 7 April 1943 Brigadeführer Theodor Wisch 7 April 1943 – 20 August 1944 Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke 20 August 1944 – 6 February 1945 Brigadeführer Otto Kumm 6 February 1945 – 8 May 1945 |
The Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) was Adolf Hitler’s personal Bodyguard Regiment („Leibstandarte” being a somewhat archaic German expression for the personal bodyguard of a military leader). The LSSAH independently participated in combat during the Invasion of Poland. The LSSAH was amalgamated into the Waffen-SS together with the SS-VT and the combat units of the SS-TV prior to Operation Barbarossa in 1941. By the end of World War II it had been increased in size from a regiment to a Panzer division. The elite division was a component of the Waffen-SS which was found guilty of war crimes in theNuremberg Trials.
In the earliest days of the NSDAP, it was realized by the leaders that bodyguard units composed of trustworthy and loyal men would be a wise development. Ernst Röhm formed a guard formation from the 19.Granatwerfer-Kompanie, and from this formation the Sturmabteilung (SA) soon evolved. Adolf Hitler, realizing the potential threat that the SA had presented, in early 1923 ordered the formation of a bodyguard for himself. The tiny unit, originally formed by only eight men (and commanded by Julius Schreckand Joseph Berchtold), was designated the Stabswache (Staff Guard). The guards of the Stabswache were issued badges that showed their difference from the SA (despite the fact that at this stage the Stabswache still was under overall SA control): Schreck resurrected the use of the Totenkopf (Deaths head-skull) as insignia, which had been a symbol used by various élite forces throughout the Prussian kingdom and the later German Empire.
Early history (1923–1933)…
Soon after its formation, the unit was renamed Stoßtrupp (Shock Troop) Adolf Hitler. On 9 November 1923, the Stoßtrupp, along with the SA and several other NSDAP paramilitary units, took part in the abortive Beer Hall Putsch in Munich. In the aftermath of the putsch, Hitler was imprisoned and the NSDAP and all associated formations, including the Stoßtrupp, were officially disbanded.
Shortly after Hitler’s release, in April 1925, he ordered a new bodyguard unit formed, called theSchutzkommando (protection command) which shortly after was renamed the Sturmstaffel(assault squadron) and then in November the Schutzstaffel, abbreviated SS. By March 1933, the SS had grown from a tiny personal bodyguard unit to a formation of over 50,000 men. The decision was made to form a new bodyguard unit, again called the Stabswache, picking the most capable and trustworthy SS men to form its cadre. By 1933 this unit was under the command of Josef „Sepp” Dietrich who had selected 117 men for the SS-Stabswache Berlin, out of these initial 117 men, three would become divisional commanders, at least eight would become regimental commanders, fifteen became battalion commanders and over thirty would become company commanders, all within the Waffen SS. Eleven men from the first company of 117 originals also went on to win the Knights Cross, and forty of them were awarded the German Cross in gold for bravery. Later in 1933, two further training units would be formed designated SS-Sonderkommando Zossen and a second unit, designatedSS-Sonderkommando Jüterbog was raised.
In September 1933, the two Sonderkommandos were merged into the SS-Sonderkommando Berlin. In November 1933, on the 10th anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch, the Sonderkommando took part in the rally and memorial service at the Feldherrnhalle, erected in the place where many NSDAP members had fallen during the putsch. All members of the Sonderkommando then swore personal allegiance to Hitler himself. To conclude this ceremony, the Sonderkommando received a new title, Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler (LAH).
Trial by fire—Leibstandarte expands…
On 13 April 1934, Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsführer-SS, ordered the Leibstandarte (LAH) to be renamed Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler(LSSAH). In late June, the LSSAH was called into action for the first time. Ernst Röhm, the Stabschef-SA, began to push for greater power for his already powerful SA. Hitler decided that the SA had to be put in its place, and ordered Himmler and Hermann Göring to prepare their elite units, Himmler’s Leibstandarte and Göring’s Landespolizeigruppe General Göring, for immediate action. The LSSAH formed two companies under the control of Jürgen Wagner and Otto Reich, and these formations were moved to Munich on 30 June.
Hitler ordered all SA leaders to attend a meeting at the Hanselbauer Hotel in Bad Wiessee, near Munich. On 30 June, Hitler joined Sepp Dietrich and a unit from the Leibstandarte and travelled to Bad Wiessee to personally command Röhm’s arrest. Later, Hitler ordered Röhm’s execution. In what the Nazis called the Röhm Putsch to give their action an appearance of legitimacy, but otherwise came to be known as theNight of the Long Knives, the execution companies of the LSSAH, together with Göring’s Landespolizeigruppe, performed Death Squad actions, carrying out many executions without trials over the next few days. By 13 July 1934, at least 177 people had been executed.
The actions of the SS, Gestapo, Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, and Göring’s unit succeeded in effectively decapitating the SA and removing Röhm’s threat to Hitler’s leadership. Following the ‘success’ of the Night of the Long Knives, in recognition of their actions, both the LSSAH and the Landespolizeigruppe General Göring were expanded to regimental size and motorized. In addition, the SS became an independent organization from under the SA.
As the SS began to swell with new recruits, the LSSAH remained the pinnacle of Hitler’s Aryan ideal. Strict recruitment regulations meant that only those deemed sufficiently Aryan, as well as being physically fit and National Socialists, would be admitted.
The LSSAH provided the honour guard at many of the Nuremberg Rallies and in 1935 took part in the reoccupation of the Saarland.
The Leibstandarte was also in the vanguard of the March into Austria as part of the Anschluss and in 1938 the LSSAH took part in the occupation of the Sudetenland. By 1939 the LSSAH was a full infantry regiment with three infantry battalions, an artillery battalion and anti-tank, reconnaissance and engineer subunits, it was involved in the annexation of Bohemia and Moravia. Soon after this action, the LSSAHwas redesignated Infanterie-Regiment Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (mot.). When Hitler ordered the formation of an SS division in mid 1939, the Leibstandarte was designated to form its own unit, unlike the other Standarten of the SS-Verfügungstruppe (SS-VT) (SS-StandarteDeutschland, SS-Standarte Germania, and SS-Standarte Der Führer). The Polish crisis of August 1939 put these plans on hold, and theLSSAH was ordered to join XIII. Armeekorps, a part of Army Group South which was preparing for the attack on Poland.
Early war campaigns…
During the initial stages of the Invasion of Poland, the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler was attached to the 17.Infanterie-Division and tasked with providing flank protection for the southern pincer. The regiment was involved in several ferocious battles against Polish cavalry brigades attempting to hit the flanks of the German advance. At Pabianice, a town near Łódź, the LSSAH fought off elements of the Polish 28th Infantry Division and the Wołyńska Cavalry Brigadein close combat. Throughout the campaign the unit was notorious for torching villages.
After the success at Pabianice, the LSSAH was shifted to the area near Warsaw and attached to the 4.Panzer-Division under Generaloberst Georg-Hans Reinhardt, where it saw action preventing encircled Polish units from escaping, and repelling several desperate attempts by other Polish troops to break through. The LSSAH had proved itself an effective fighting unit during the campaign, though several Heer Generals had reservations about the high casualties which the LSSAH and the SS-VT units had sustained in combat.
In early 1940 the LSSAH was expanded into a full independent motorized infantry regiment and a Sturmgeschutz (Assault Gun) battery was added to their establishment. The regiment was shifted to the Dutch border for the launch of Fall Gelb, and was to form the vanguard of the ground advance into the Netherlands, tasked with capturing a vital bridge over theIJssel and linking up with the Fallschirmjäger of Generaloberst Kurt Student’s airborne forces, the 7.Flieger-Division and the 22.Luftlande-Infanterie-Division.
The invasion of France and the Netherlands was launched on 10 May 1940. On that day, the LSSAH crossed the Dutch border covered over 75 kilometres (47 mi), securing a crossing over the IJssel near Zutphen after discovering that their target bridge had been destroyed. Over the next four days’ fighting, the LSSAH covered over 215 kilometres (134 mi), and earned itself dubious fame by accidentally shooting at and seriously wounding Generaloberst Student at Rotterdam. After the surrender of the Netherlands on 15 May, the regiment was used to form part of the reserve for Army Group B.
After the British armoured counterattack at Arras, the LSSAH, along with the SS-Verfügungs-Division was moved to the front lines to hold the perimeter around Dunkirk and reduce the size of the pocket containing the encircled British Expeditionary Force and French forces. NearWormhoudt, the LSSAH ignored Hitler’s orders for the advance to halt and continued the attack, suppressing the British artillery positions on the Wattenberg Heights. During this battle the regiment suffered heavy casualties.
After the attack, elements of LSSAH’s II.Battalion, under the command of SS-Hauptsturmführer Wilhelm Mohnke, were mistakenly informed that their divisional commander Sepp Dietrich had been killed in the fighting. In what is known as the Wormhoudt massacre, about 80 BritishPOWs of 2nd Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment were murdered in retaliation for the supposed death of Dietrich. Although it is unarguable that the massacre occurred, Mohnke’s level of involvement is impossible to know, and as such he was never brought to trial to face the allegations.
Brigade status—Balkans…
After the conclusion of the Western campaign on 22 June 1940, the LSSAH spent six months in Metz (Moselle). The LSSAH was expanded to brigadesize (6 500 soldiers). Despite this, it retained the designation ‘regiment’. A ‘Flak battalion’ and a StuG Batterie were among the formations added to theLSSAH. A new flag was presented to the LSSAH in Metz, on September 1940, by Heinrich Himmler. During the later months of 1940, the regiment trained on the Moselle River in amphibious assaults in preparation for Operation Seelöwe. After the failure of the Battle of Britain and the cancellation of the operation, the LSSAH was shifted in February 1941 to Bulgaria in preparation for Operation Marita, part of the planned invasion of Greece andYugoslavia.
The operation was launched on 6 April 1941. The LSSAH was to follow the route of the 9.Panzer-Division, part of General der Panzertruppen Georg Stumme’s XL Panzer Corps. The regiment crossed the border near Prilep and was soon deep in Greek territory.
The LSSAH captured Vevi on 10 April. Sturmbannführer Kurt Meyer’s reinforced Aufklärungs-Abt (reconnaissance unit) LSSAH was tasked with clearing resistance from the Kleisoura Pass, south-west of Vevi and driving through to the Kastoria area to cut off retreating Greek and British Commonwealthforces. Resistance from the Greek 20th Division was fierce. According to some accounts, the SS were inspired to capture the Kleisoura Pass only after Meyer threw a live grenade at the feet of some of his soldiers.
Sturmbannführer Fritz Witt’s I.Battalion was tasked with clearing the Klidi Pass, just south of Vevi and strongly defended by Australian, British and New Zealand troops. Witt’s Battalion was reinforced and renamed Kampfgruppe Witt. An Australian officer wrote of the Germans’ „insolence” in driving „trucks down the main road — to within 3,000 yards (2,700 m) of our infantry” and there unloading the SS troops.
The Germans were forced off the road and faced fierce resistance for more than two days. On the morning of 12 April, the Germans launched a frontal assault, and by late afternoon the pass was cleared.
With the fall of the two passes, the main line of resistance of the Greek First Army was broken, and the campaign became a battle to prevent the escape of the enemy. On 20 April, following a pitched battle in the 5,000-foot (1,500 m)-high Metsovon Pass in the Pindus Mountains, the commander of the Greek First Army surrendered the entire Hellenic Army to Dietrich. British Commonwealth troops were now the only Allied forces remaining in Greece, and they were falling back across the Corinth Canal to the Peloponnesos. By 26 April, the LSSAH had reached theGulf of Patras, and in an effort to cut off the retreating British Commonwealth forces, Dietrich ordered that his regiment cross the Gulf and secure the town of Patras in the Peloponnesos. Since no transport vessels were available, the LSSAH commandeered fishing boats and successfully completed the crossing, despite being forced to leave much of their heavy equipment behind. By 30 April, the last British Commonwealth troops had either been captured or escaped. The LSSAH occupied a position of honour in the victory parade through Athens.
Following Operation Marita, the LSSAH was ordered north, to join the forces of Army Group South massing for the launch of Operation Barbarossa.
Division status and Operation Barbarossa…
Following Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler’s outstanding performance during Marita, Himmler ordered that it should be upgraded to divisional status.[1]:8 As such, the regiment, already the size of a reinforced brigade, was redesignated SS-Division (mot.) Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. Despite this, there was no time to refit the division to full divisional status before the launch of Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, and so the new ‘Division’ remained the size of a reinforced brigade.
The LSSAH was attached to the LIV.Armee-Korps and held in reserve during the opening stages of the attack. In August, it was transferred to III.Panzer-Korps, part ofGeneralfeldmarschall Ewald von Kleist’s Panzergruppe 1. During this time, the LSSAH was involved in the Battle of Uman and the subsequent capture of Kiev. During this time, the division was involved in heavy fighting, with Meyer’s Abteilung particularly distinguishing itself. After finding 6 dead members of the division in Taganrog the Division murdered 4,000 Soviet prisoners in reprisal.
In early September, the division was transferred back to LIV.Armee-Korps, preparing to launch an offensive to clear the Crimean peninsula. The operation was launched on 17 September 1941. The LSSAH was involved in heavy fighting for the town of Perekop, before advancing across the Perekop Isthmus to assault the Soviet defensive positions near the Tartar Ditch.
In November, the LSSAH was transferred back to Panzergruppe 1 and took part in the heavy fighting for the city of Rostov-on-Don, which was captured in late November. During Operation Barbarossa, the division had penetrated 960 kilometers into Soviet territory.
Heavy Soviet counterattacks during the winter meant that Army Group South had to fall back from Rostov-on-Don to defensive lines on the river Mius. The LSSAH spent the winter fighting ferocious defensive battles in temperatures of down to −40°C, with minimal winter clothing and only 150 grams of rations per man per day. Despite this, the division held. After the springrasputitsa had cleared, the exhausted division joined in Fall Blau, participating in the fighting to retake Rostov-on-Don, which was recaptured in late July, 1942. Severely understrength and completely exhausted, the LSSAH was pulled out of the line. The division was ordered to the Normandy region of occupied France to join the newly formed SS-Panzer-Korps and to be reformed as a Panzergrenadier division.
Kharkov…
The Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler spent the remainder of 1942 refitting as a panzergrenadier division. Thanks to the efforts of the Heinrich Himmler Reichsführer-SS, along with SS-Obergruppenführer Paul Hausser, the SS Panzer Corps commander, the four SS Panzer Grenadier divisions (LSSAH,Wiking, Das Reich and Totenkopf were to be formed with a full regiment of tanks rather than only a Battalion. This meant that the SS Panzer Grenadier divisions were full-strength Panzer divisions in all but name. Also, the division received nine Tiger 1 tanks, and these were formed into 13.(schwere)Company/1st SS Panzer Regiment. The collapse of the front around Stalingrad and the encirclement of the German Sixth Army meant that the entire eastern front was close to collapse. General Feldmarschall Erich von Manstein, commander of Army Group Don, requested reinforcements to halt the Soviet attack near Kharkov. The SS Panzer Corps was ordered east to join Manstein’s forces.
Arriving at the front in late January 1943, the LSSAH was thrown into the line defending Kharkov itself as a part of Hausser’s SS Panzer Corps.[1]:9Facing them were the hundreds of T-34s of Mobile Group Popov, a Soviet armoured Army sized formation [citation needed] which formed the spearhead of the Soviet advance. On 8–9 February 1943, the LSSAH’s 1st SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment under SS-Sturmbannführer Fritz Witt, fighting alongside SS-Sturmbannführer Max Wünsche’s I/1st SS Panzer Regiment, fought a bitter delaying action near the town of Merefa, halting a major Soviet attack. The division fought in many desperate defensive battles over the next few weeks, gradually being pushed back into the city of Kharkov itself.
Despite inflicting heavy losses on the Soviets, and rebuffing all enemy attacks, the Soviets succeeded in outflanking the corps. On 15 February, Hausser ignored Hitler’s orders to hold the city at all costs and ordered the SS-Panzer-Korps to abandon the city and withdraw towards Krasnograd. Over the next week, the SS-Panzer-Korps annihilated Mobile Group Popov in a series of hard fought battles. The LSSAH was a major participant in these battles, destroying several Soviet divisions and inflicting heavy losses.
Hausser now ordered that Kharkov should be recaptured. The LSSAH, Das Reich and Totenkopf were to form the spearhead of the attack. The attack got underway on 2 March. The LSSAH was formed into three Kampfgruppen which would attack towards and capture Kharkov. Over the next weeks, the LSSAH would take part in the battles to take the city. Kampfgruppe Meyer, under Panzermeyer’s command, penetrated to Red Square before being cut off. Kampfgruppe Witt saw heavy fighting against a Soviet blocking force near Dergatschi before it also broke through into the city.
Both Kampfgruppen were repeatedly cut off during the confused fighting, and it was not until Kampfgruppe Peiper, under Joachim Peiper, broke through that the defenders were finally overwhelmed. By 21 March, the battle was over and Kharkov was back in German hands, with Peiper’s Kampfgruppe having penetrated as far as Belgorod.
In honour of the 4,500 casualties suffered by the Leibstandarte in the fighting, Kharkov’s Red Square was renamed Platz der Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler by the Germans. The division was pulled back for much needed rest and refit.
One major change in the LSSAH now occurred their commander Sepp Dietrich after ten years in command was promoted to form a new Corps the 1st SS Panzer Corps Leibstandarte and the LSSAH was to supply all the senior officers for the new headquarters. At the same time a new SS division would be formed from members of the Hitler Youth and the LSSAH would supply all of the Regimental, Battalion and most of the Company commanders. In time this new division would become the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend.
Kursk…
The spring rasputitsa halted offensive operations, giving the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler time to rest and refit. By early June 1943, the division had been fully refitted and now under the command of Brigadeführer, Theodor Wisch. Its armour strength was 12 Tiger Is, 72 Panzer IVs, 16 Panzer III and Panzer IIs, and 31 StuGs. In late June 1943, the formation of 1st SS Panzer Corps meant that Hausser’s SS Panzer Corps was renamed 2nd SS Panzer Corps.
The 2nd SS Panzer Corps was moved north to Belgorod in preparation for the upcoming Summer offensive, Operation Citadel. The LSSAH, along with the Totenkopf and Das Reich, was to form the spearhead of Generaloberst Hoth’s 4.Panzer-Armee, tasked with breaching the southern flank of the Kursk salient. Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model’s 9.Armee was to breach the northern flank, and the two forces were to meet near the city of Kursk, thereby encircling a large Soviet force.
The 2nd SS Panzer Corps reached its assembly areas on 28 June and began preparing for the assault. The attack was set for 5 July, and on 4 July the 2nd SS Panzer Corps, as well as the XLVIII.Panzerkorps on its left and the III Panzer Corps on the right, began minor attacks to secure observation posts. Fighting lasted throughout the day, with the LSSAH Pionier-Bataillon seeing heavy action clearing out the entrenched Soviets.
The LSSAH panzers, advancing in Panzerkeils, soon ran into the Soviet Pakfronts. The elaborate system of Soviet defences slowed the attack, but unlike in Model’s sector, the 4.Panzer-Armee, spearheaded by the SS Panzer Corps and the LSSAH, was not halted, and eventually broke through.
By 9 July, the SS Panzer Corps had advanced 30 miles (48 km) north, and were nearing the small town of Prokhorovka. The LSSAH again took the lead, by now its armour strength reduced to just 77 armoured vehicles. 2nd SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment, supported by several panzers, advanced straight up the road to Prokhorovka against heavy resistance. By midday, the grenadiers had cleared the Komsomolets State Farm and the began the attack on Hill 241.6, which they secured shortly after nightfall on 10 July.
On 11 July, the advance resumed. With the division capturing Oktiabr’skii State Farm and Hill 252.2 in heavy fighting against Soviet Paratroops of the 9th Guards Airborne Division. On 12 July, the Soviets threw the 5th Guards Tank Army into a counterattack near Prokhorovka. Two tank corps faced the LSSAH hitting the advancing Germans around Oktiabr’skii State Farm and Hill 252.2. In the ensuing fighting, the outnumbered Germans inflicted heavy casualties on the Soviets, knocking out many tanks. In the process, the LSSAH also suffered relatively light casualties, however the Soviet counterattack had stalled the German advance, and the division was forced to fall back to Oktiabr’skii. The soviet 5th Guards Tank Army lost 300 tanks destroyed and further 300 damaged at the 12 july. Fighting continued on the 13 July, but the focus of the Soviet attack had shifted to the Totenkopf, to the left of the LSSAH.
With the Battle of Prokhorovka still in the balance, a massive Soviet counteroffensive near Orel, caused Hitler to order the cancellation of Citadel. The SS Panzer Corps was pulled back.LSSAH was ordered out of the line having suffered 2,753 casualties including 474 killed.. 11 tanks were lost during Operation Zitadelle. The Division was then sent to Italy to help stabilise the situation caused by the deposal of Benito Mussolini by the Badoglio Government and the Allied Landings in Sicily on 10 July. The division left its armour and equipment, which was given to Das Reich and Totenkopf, and entrained for the trip to Italy.
Italy…
The division travelled back from the front, stopping at Innsbruck in Austria, where it disembarked. The division was re-equipped with vehicles and continued the journey by road, travelling across the Alps and into Northern Italy. The division arrived on the Po River Plain on 8 August 1943.
The Leibstandarte was given the task of guarding several vital road and rail junctions in the area of Trento-Verona. After several weeks operating in this area, the division was moved to the Parma-Reggio area. During this period, the Leibstandarte was involved in several skirmishes with partisans. With theItalian collapse of 8 September 1943, the division was ordered to begin disarming nearby Italian units. This went smoothly, with the exception of a brief skirmish with Italian troops stationed in Parma on 9 September. By 19 September, all Italian forces in the Po River Plain had been disarmed, but OKW was concerned by reports that elements of the Italian Fourteenth Army were regrouping in Piedmont, near the French border. SturmbannführerPeiper’s mechanised III/2nd SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment was sent to disarm these units. Upon arriving in the Province of Cuneo, Peiper was met by an Italian officer who warned that his forces would attack unless Peiper’s unit vacated the province immediately. Peiper refused, which goaded the Italians into attacking. The veterans of Peiper’s battalion defeated the Italians in a fierce battle, and then proceeded to disarm the remaining Italian forces in the area.
Following the disintegration and capitulation of Italy, the activities of partisan groups increased all across the area. The Leibstandarte was sent to theIstria Peninsula and was engaged in several major anti-partisan operations. During its period in Italy, the Leibstandarte was reformed as a full panzer division, and redesignated 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. In early November, the deteriorating situation in the east meant that the division was ordered back to the Russian Front, arriving in the Zhitomir area in mid November.
Eastern Front…
The division was posted to XLVIII.Panzer-Korps, a part of 4.Panzer-Armee, which was struggling to hold the line near Zhitomir. The division was broken up into several Kampfgruppe and thrown into action.[1]:16 On 18 November, Kampfgruppe Frey halted the advance of the Fifth Guards Tank Army near the town of Kotscherovo. Over the next two months, the division’s Kampfgruppen saw very heavy fighting in the Zhitomir area, performing fire-brigade actions and enabling XLVIII.Panzer Corps to hold the line.
In January 1944, one of the Leibstandarte’s 101 SS Heavy Panzer Battalion Tiger commanders, Michael Wittmann, was awarded the Oakleaves to theKnight’s Cross of the Iron Cross for his actions in halting the attack of an entire Soviet armoured brigade. The division was transferred to the Cherkassyarea at the end of January, where it was assigned to German III Panzer Corps, a part of German First Panzer Army.
When the 56,000 men of Gruppe Stemmermann were trapped in the Korsun Pocket in February 1944, the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, along with the remainder of III.Panzer Corps and German XLVII Panzer Corps were ordered to attempt to break the Soviet cordon and rescue the trapped forces. Hitler intervened, and ordered the relief attempt be transformed into an impossible attempt to counter-encircle two Soviet fronts. The LSSAH, along army panzer units including Oberstleutnant Dr. Franz Bäke’s German 503rd Heavy Panzer Detachment spearheaded the attack. Despite initial gains, the attack soon stalled due to a combination of the resistance of four Soviet tank corps and the thick mud of the rasputitsa. The exhausted Germans managed to reach the Gniloy Tikich River, where a small bridgehead was established. The survivors of the encirclement fought their way through to the bridgehead and by late February the battle was over.
The majority of the LSSAH which amounted to 41 officers and 1,188 men was withdrawn to Belgium for rest and refit, however a Kampfgruppe was left behind. On 22 March, the entire 1.Panzer Army was encircled in the Kamenets-Podolsky Pocket. The LSSAH Kampfgruppe took part in the desperate fighting to escape the encirclement, forming a part of the spearhead which linked up with the 2nd SS Panzer Corps near Buczacz on 6 April 1944. The shattered remnant of the Kampfgruppe was ordered to Belgium where it was to rest, refit and rejoin the remainder of the division. The new LSSAH Division was reformed in Belgium and at full strength by 25 April.
Western Front Normandy…
It was again part of the 1st SS Panzer Corps which at this time consisted of the 101 SS Heavy Panzer Battalion, 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend, 17th SS Panzergrenadier DivisionGötz von Berlichingen and the Panzer-Lehr-Division. The Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler had been positioned north of the River Seine to counter any possible landing in the Pas de Calais so the first units did not arrive in Normandy until the night of the 27–28 June with the whole division taking another week to arrive. By 4 July the 1st SS Panzer Corps was reformed and now consisted of the SS Divisions bearing Hitler’s name 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler and the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend. The first action they were involved in was the defence of Carpiquet village and aerodrome in what was known to the Allies as Operation Windsor. Next followed a number of Allied attacksOperation Charnwood and Operation Jupiter and on 12 July the LSSAH were in charge of the Caen south sector from Maltot in the west to the Caen – Falaise road in the east.During the night 14 – 15 July LSSAH was relieved by the 272nd Infantry Division and pulled back to a concentration area astride the Caen – Falaise road between Ifs and Cintheaux.
Operation Goodwood…
The Division strength prior to Goodwood was reported as fifty nine Panzer IV, forty six Panther and thirty five Stug.
Operation Goodwood launched 18 July, pitted three British armoured divisions, with infantry support on their flanks. They were to swing through the gap between Caen and the eastern heights. There they would have to get across the hills at Bourguébus and break through towards open ground. The operation was preceded by a three hour bombing assault by 2,500 aircraft.
Immediately afterwards the British tanks came rumbling on and seized all their primary objectives. II/1st SS Panzer Regiment, located by the woods near Garcelles, received orders to attack the British at Soliers. SS-Obersturmführer Malkomes drove in the direction of Bourguébus with his 13 Panthers and discovered 60 British tanks South South East of the town. He attacked them, destroying 20, and capturing Soliers. Around 12:00 hours the Panther Battalion, I/1st SS Panzer regiment, was engaged in combat with the British 29th Armoured Brigade of theBritish 11th Armoured Division. The body of the Leibstandarte was rushed to the front from Falaise, where it was being held in reserve. Counterattacked immediately at 17:00, together with the 21st Panzer Division, they halted the British offensive on the left front.
At first, 19 July seemed to bring an end to Operation Goodwood, as only some individual tank assaults were carried out. But by 13:00 the British charged again, having brought up reinforcements to continue the attack. They quickly overran the forward German units and pressed on hard, a wave of tanks spearheading the attack. But when the leading Sherman/Fireflies and Cromwells approached Bourguébus Ridge at 16:00 hours, they came under fire and were blown up; the Panthers of the Leibstandarte had taken up positions on the hill itself. Around 15:00 hours the first of the 12th SS Panzer Division arrived, which relieved the right flank. The Canadians next attack was the Battle of Verrières Ridge andOperation Spring (see map), where the LSSAH came up against a number of allied divisions including the Guards Armoured Division, 7th Armoured, 2nd Canadian and the 3rd Canadian.
Operation Bluecoat was next this time the LSSAH was up against the British and the 11th Armoured Division.
Operation Lüttich…
On 25 July 1944, following six weeks of attritional warfare along a stalemated front, American forces under General Omar Bradley succeeded in breaking through German defenses as part of Operation Cobra. On 1 August, American forces captured Avranches. Simultaneously, General George Patton’s Third United States Army was activated. With the capture of Avranches, American forces were able to „turn the corner” of Normandy, pushing through into Brittany and the coastal ports. As a result, German defensive operations could no longer be anchored against the coast on both flanks. By 4 August, seven divisions of the 3rd US Army had entered Brittany.
With the American breakthrough, in spite of this costly victory, the Allied forces remained vastly superior in numbers. Five days later the Americans saw the chance to break out of their beachhead. The weakened German defense could not keep up with the savage battle of attrition as little or no reinforcements had arrived, supplies were shot up, and movement by day was made impossible. They stormed into the open, one column headed towards Avranches, and another column making an encircling movement towards St. Lô. Hitler however forbade any retreat and, instead, ordered an assault to be made. According to Hitler, three qualifications had to be met for the attack to proceed. „Von Kluge must believe in it. He must be able to detach enough armour from the main front in Normandy to create an effective striking force, and he must achieve surprise”. For his counteroffensive, Von Kluge would have the XLVII Panzer Corps, comprising the 2nd Panzer Division, part of the 1st SS Panzer Division, the 2nd SS Panzer Division and the 116th Panzer Division. The Panzer Korps was supported by two Infantry Divisions and five Kampfgruppen, formed from the remnants of the Panzer Lehr Division and four equally battered infantry divisions. Although Hitler promised more reinforcements, von Kluge was skeptical of the chance of their arrival.Aware of the increasing number of American troops moving to his south—creating the potential of being outflanked—von Kluge elected to begin the offensive earlier than originally planned, with the attack commencing at midnight on 6 August 1944.
To avoid alerting American forces to the imminence of a German attack, Operation Lüttich would not use artillery bombardments to precede the attack. The initial attacks, comprising some 300 tanks, would hit the US 30th Infantry Division, under the command of Major-General Leland S. Hobbs, east of Mortain, then cut through American defenses to reach the coast. Had surprise been achieved, the attack likely would have succeeded.However, Allied-decoders at Ultra had intercepted the codes for Operation Lüttich by 4 August. As a result, General Omar Bradley was able to obtain air support from both the US 9th Air Force and the RAF.
LSSAH, together with the other Divisions went on the attack on 7 August after moving to the assembly areas on 5 and 6 August. The 1st SS Panzer regiment along with two Panzer Grenadier Battalionss, one Pionier Compamy and the Flak Battalion, were used. The weather wasn’t suited for flying that morning, which only disadvantaged the Allies. That is why the attack went smoothly at first, despite the fact that the Allies knew the attack was coming. 2nd SS Division Das Reich managed to recapture Mortain, and an armoured Kampfgruppe under Joachim Peiper managed to go as far as Bourlopin, but was stopped by massive swarms of Allied aircraft. Another attempt was mounted the next day, but failed.
A report from SS-Obersturmführer Preuss, 10.Co/2nd SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment describes the impossible situation:
It is true that one fighter bomber we shot down landed on a Panzer and destroyed it. Most other Panzer and Schützenpanzer, however, fell victim to this intensive air bombardment, which lasted hours. Those Grenadiere still able to fight had spread themselves out to the left and right through the terrain’s many hedges. They were happy to see that the bombers swarming like bees over our heads were finding more rewarding targets than individual men. I agreed with them. I heard that Peiper had suffered a heart attack. Diefenthal (the commander of the III./2nd) lost his hearing when a bomb fell right next to him. Kuhlmann was unable to get the attack moving forward again. My brave messenger, Sturmmann Horst Reinicken, was killed as he tried to reach the command post of the Heer Panzerabteilung to which we were subordinated. He was trying to bring the Panzerabteilung the news that its commander and Adjutant lay dead not far from our hedge.
This marked the end of the campaign in Normandy; Leibstandarte got encircled by the Americans and Canadians supported by the 1st Polish Armoured Division in what would be called the Falaise pocket, but by then the unit was reduced to several small Kampfgruppen. Leibstandarte withdrew from the pocket with Unterführers and Führers each taking the lead of a small Kampfgruppe and smashing through the ring, on 22 August, after which no combat ready tanks or artillery pieces were reported. The whole campaign caused some 5,000 casualties to the LSSAH.
Ardennes Offensive…
The Ardennes Offensive (16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945) was a major German offensive launched towards the end of World War IIthrough the forested Ardennes Mountains region of Belgium, France and Luxembourg on the Western Front. The offensive was calledUnternehmen Wacht am Rhein (Translated as Operation The Guard on the Rhine or Operation „Watch on the Rhine.”) by the German armed forces. The “bulge” was the initial incursion the Germans put into the Allies’ line of advance, as seen in maps presented in contemporary newspapers.
Wacht am Rhein…
Operation Wacht am Rhein was the final major offensive and last gamble Hitler was to make. Wilhelm Mohnke, now in command of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, was to lead his formation as the spearhead of the entire operation in the Ardennes. Attached to the I SS Panzer Corps, the LSSAH, one of the most elite and highly trained units in the entire German military. However, the divisions high casualties had forced it to take in a large number of inexperienced replacements to add to the core of battle-hardened and experienced veterans. The crisis in the Reich meant that the LSSAH had dangerously low amounts of fuel for the vehicles in the upcoming campaign. On 16 December 1944 the operation began, with Mohnke designating his best colonel, Standartenführer Joachim Peiper, and his regiment to lead the push to Antwerp.
In the north, the main armored spearhead of the Sixth SS Panzer Army was Kampfgruppe Peiper, consisting of 4,800 men and 600 vehicles of the 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler under the command of Joachim Peiper. Bypassing the Elsenborn ridge, at 07:00 on 17 December, they seized a U.S. fuel depot at Büllingen, where they paused to refuel before continuing westward. At 12:30, near the hamlet of Baugnez, on the height halfway between the town of Malmedy and Ligneuville, they encountered elements of the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion, U.S. 7th Armored Division. After a brief battle the Americans surrendered. They were disarmed and, with some other Americans captured earlier (approximately 150 men), sent to stand in a field near the crossroads where most were shot. It is not known what caused the shooting and there is no record of an SS officer giving an execution order; such shootings of prisoners of war (POWs), however, were common by both the Germans and the Soviets on the Eastern Front. News of the killings raced through Allied lines. Captured SS soldiers who were part ofKampfgruppe Peiper were tried following the war for this massacre and several others during the Malmedy massacre trial.
Peiper entered Stavelot on 18 December but encountered fierce resistance from the American defenders. Unable to defeat them, he left a smaller support force in town and headed for the bridge at Trois-Ponts with the bulk of his strength, but by the time he reached it, retreating U.S. engineers had already destroyed it. Peiper pulled off and headed for the village of La Gleize and from there on to Stoumont. There, as Peiper approached, engineers blew up the bridge, and the American troops were entrenched and ready. Peiper’s troops were cut off from the main German force and supplies when the Americans recaptured the poorly defended Stavelot on 19 December. As their situation in Stoumont was becoming hopeless, Peiper decided to pull back to La Gleize where he set up his defences waiting for the German relief force. Since no relief force was able to penetrate the Allied line, on 23 December Peiper decided to break through back to the German lines. The men of the Kampfgruppe were forced to abandon their vehicles and heavy equipment, although most of the unit was able to escape.
With each passing day, enemy resistance stiffened and the advance was eventually halted on all fronts. Desperate to keep the assault going, the German High Command ordered that a renewed attack begin on 1 January 1945. Yet this time, the Allies had regrouped their forces and were ready to repulse any attacks launched by the Germans. The operation formally ended on 27 January 1945, and three days later Mohnke was promoted to SS-Brigadeführer. A short while later LSSAH and the ‘I SS Panzer Korps’ were transferred to Hungary to bolster the crumbling situation there. Mohnke was injured in an air raid where he suffered, among other things, ear damage. He was removed from front-line service and put on the Führer reserve. In his place, SS-Brigadeführer Otto Kumm was appointed the new Division Commander as of 15 February 1945.
Eastern Front 1945…
Operation Spring Awakening (Frühlingserwachen) (6 March 1945 – 16 March 1945) was the last major German offensive launched during World War II and was an offensive launched by the Germans in great secrecy on 6 March 1945. The Germans launched attacks in Hungary near the Lake Balaton area on the Eastern Front. This area included some of the last oil reserves still available to the Germans. The Operation involved many German units withdrawn from the failed Ardennes Offensive on the Western Front including the 6th SS Panzer Armyand the LSSAH. Almost inevitably, Operation Spring Awakening was a failure for the German Army. Despite early gains, the operation was a perfect example of Hitler’s increasingly poor military judgement toward the end of the war. Its chief flaw was that the offensive was far too ambitious in scope.
After the failure of Operation Spring Awakening, Sepp Dietrich’s 6th SS Panzer Army retreated in stages to the Vienna area. The Germans desperately prepared defensive positions in an attempt to guard the city against the fast arriving Soviets, in what become known as the Vienna Offensive.
Armband Order…
This debacle is famous for the notorious Armelstreifen (Cuff Titles Order) or „armband order” which followed. The order was issued by Hitler to the commander of German 6th SS Panzer Army, Sepp Dietrich. It was issued when it was evident that the 6th SS Panzer Army and, more importantly, the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler Division had failed him. Although one must remember this so-called failure was in the face of superior forces of the Soviet Army. Hitler claimed that the troops „did not fight as the situation demanded.” As a mark of disgrace, the units involved were ordered to remove their „Adolf Hitler” cuff titles (German: Armbänder). In the field Sepp Dietrich was disgusted by Hitler’s order. Dietrich told Obersturmbannführer Maier that the armbands „…would stay on.” Further that the telegram was not to be passed on to the troops. A myth arose that a pile of medals was returned in a chamber pot to Hitler, in the same manner as found in the Goethe play Götz von Berlichingen. In actuality, most organisational cuff titles had already been removed to camouflage the operation „Frühlingserwachen”.
Final days…
After Vienna the LSSAH was recorded by the German Army High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, or OKW), from 20 April to 2 May, to have moved from Zossen (near Berlin) to the area of Mürwik (part of Flensburg in northern Germany, near Denmark), where they surrendered to the advancing British forces.
The rest of the LSSAH ended its days fighting in Berlin. On 23 April 1945, Brigadeführer Mohnke was appointed by Hitler the Battle Commander for the centre government quarter/district (Zitadelle sector) that included the Reich Chancellery and Führerbunker. Mohnke’s command post was under the Reich Chancellery in the bunkers therein. The core group of his fighting men were the 800 of the Leibstandarte (LSSAH) Guard Battalion (assigned to guard the Führer). After Hitler’s suicide, a break out was ordered. Prior to the break out Mohnke briefed all commanders (who could be reached) within the Zitadelle sector about the events as to Hitler’s death and the planned break out. The break out started at 2300 hours on 1 May. It was a „fateful moment” for Brigadeführer Mohnke as he made his way out of the Reich Chancellery. He had been the first duty officer of the LSSAH at the building and now was leaving as the last battle commander there. He led the first of ten main groups and attempted to head northwest towards Mecklenburg. Several very small groups managed to reach the Americans at the Elbe’s west bank, but most including Mohnke’s group could not make it through the Soviet rings. Many were taken prisoner and some committed suicide. On 2 May hostilities officially ended by order of Helmuth Weidling, Kommandant of the Defense Area Berlin.
Lineage of the unit…
- Stabswache (SA controlled)
- Stoßtrupp Adolf Hitler (SA controlled)
- Stabswache (not under SA control)
- SS-Stabswache Berlin
- SS-Sonderkommando Zossen
- SS-Sonderkommando Jüterbog
- SS-Sonderkommando Berlin
- Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler
- Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler
- Infanterie-Regiment (mot.) Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler
- SS-Division (mot.) Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler
- SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler
- 1.SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler
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