by J. Lee Ready
More often than not the SS held their positions, but invariably the army formations flanking them retreated. Some SS looked down upon army troops because of this, but to be fair by this date the army divisions were poorly armed, inadequately manned and had to rely on horse-drawn wagons to resupply them with food and ammunition. Sometimes the supplies did not arrive in time. By November the SS Das Reich was forced to withdraw west of the Desna River, abandoning Kiev, and the SS Totenkopf fell back west of the Dnepr River to the Krivoi Rog area. Hausser was happy to hear that the SS LAH was returning to Russia from Italy.
In November the 15th SS Lettische Grenadier Division commanded by Gruppenfuehrer Carl the Count of Pueckler-Burghaus began sending units to the Russian Front around Nevel.
Actually, as many an ordinary landser pointed out, it should no longer be called the Russian Front, for Russia proper had been abandoned and it was unlikely that the Germans would ever go there again, except as prisoners of war. Increasingly the term Eastern Front was used.
In late December 1943 the Soviets launched still another offensive in the Kiev area with their 1st Ukrainian [ex-Voronezh] and 2nd Ukrainian [ex-Steppe] Fronts and within days the German Army was in full retreat. The front was wide open. Oberfuehrer Heinz Lammerding’s SS Das Reich was now ordered to hold the Zhitomir position at all costs. Lammerding was a friend of Himmler and some thought he owed his command to this relationship. Naturally the SSPF of Zhitomir, Oberfuehrer Ernst Hartmann, fled the city with his ‘cops’.
Then the 3rd Ukrainian [ex-South West] Front attacked towards Kirovgrad. At first the line of the German Fourth Panzer and Eighth Armies held. Here the 5th SS Wiking Panzer Division, 5th SS Wallonie Sturmbrigade and Estonian SS Narva Battalion fought well in bitterly cold weather. However, slowly but surely the army units on their flanks began falling back.
To the far south the SS Totenkopf was still holding the Krivoi Rog area facing elements of the 4th Ukrainian [ex-Stalingrad] Front.
Despite Lammerding’s orders to hold, he was also told to send his division to France to refit. Literally ordered to do both at the same time, he made the best of these ridiculous orders and sent most of his division to France as ordered, while he stayed behind with a rearguard to keep the Russians at bay. It greatly impressed his men that instead of rushing to Paris to pick out an apartment, he chose to stay and risk his life with his rearguard.
The 1st SS LAH Panzer Division arrived from Italy to be told to hold the Voroschino area, and as soon as the unit joined the battle its men realized this was a do or die situation. In fact it became so desperate that regimental commander Hugo Kraas rounded up his staff officers and headquarters clerks, sentries and drivers and led them in an infantry charge, more than once. Only wounds put a stop to his hands-on style of leadership. The SS LAH performed miracles, and several men were justly honored. Hauptsturmfuehrer Emil Wiesemann, a StuG company commander, was awarded the Knight’s Cross, but he died earning it. Rottenfuehrer Balthasar Woll, a Tiger gunner, and Untersturmfuehrer Michael Wittman his Tiger commander, both received the Knights Cross. Their tank had knocked out sixteen Soviet tanks in one day!
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In December 1943 Sepp Dietrich was ordered to move his I SS Panzer Corps from Italy to Belgium, where his corps would finally gain some teeth, i.e. an actual fighting formation, the brand new 12th SS HJ – Hitler Jugend Panzer Division.
The 8th SS Florian Geyer Cavalry Division was pulled out of the Eastern Front, a welcome break for the men, but instead of getting downtime in Germany their new destination would be no picnic - Croatia. Ostensibly in a rear area, these SS troops soon realized they had to remain vigilant, keeping their eyes on the lookout for Titoist partisans. To add to their disappointment, the division’s 17th SS Cavalry Regiment was now transferred to a new SS cavalry division. To replace the regiment, the SS Florian Geyer was given a regiment of conscripts and Volksdeutsch volunteers, many of them only seventeen years old. The ‘old hares’ wondered what they were supposed to do with these ‘children’. Of course the ‘old hares’ were not exactly geriatric. Johannes Goehler a battalion commander was only twenty-five. Sturmbannfuehrer Waldemar Fegelein a regimental commander was thirty-one. The divisional CO Brigadefuehrer Rumohr was but thirty-three.
The new SS cavalry division in question was the 22nd SS Maria Theresa, named after a German 18th century princess who became ruler of Hungary. The division was aptly named.
The Germans and Ukrainian Volksdeutsch of the 17th SS Cavalry Regiment would provide not just a unit of veterans to stabilize the new division, but some of them were assigned as cadre for other elements of the division. Fortunately the anti-tank battalion would be commanded by a warrior, Sturmbannfuehrer Wilhelm Burboeck, an Austrian veteran of the Prinz Eugen, Wiking and Nordland. The majority of the division’s troops were Volksdeutsch volunteers from Hungary. One of the artillery commanders was Sturmbannfuehrer Kurt Kaul. The men thought this odd, because this fifty-four year old World War One veteran and [according to current regulations] a Polish Volksdeutsch, was also a member of the Reichstag, a police generalleutnant and a gruppenfuehrer in the SS RSHA, all at the same time!
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Himmler now formed a new corps, the III SS Panzer Corps, and offered it to Gruppenfuehrer Felix Steiner. This veteran of World War One, the Polish War of 1919-23, Poland 1939 and Belgium-France 1940 had led the SS Wiking on the Eastern Front. It was a well-deserved promotion. However, Steiner’s natural euphoria upon learning of his promotion waned somewhat when he found that most of his staff officers would be Volksdeutsch, Danes and Norwegians. His artillery commander would be fifty-two year old Christian Kryssing, a Danish Army officer, who had been soldiering with the Wiking and Totenkopf. Recently promoted to ’general’ rank, he was the first foreign volunteer to reach that rank in the Waffen SS. Steiner’s euphoria really diminished when he realized that the teeth of the corps was just one division, and his morale was depleted further when he saw that it was not a panzer unit but a panzergrenadier division: the 11th SS Nordland. His spirits hit rock bottom when he received his mission - to surround the entire Soviet Second Shock Army that had come ashore at Oranienbaum on the coast of the Gulf of Finland. Naturally he complained that he could not do this with but one division, so he was promised some army divisions. However, his spirits were practically extinguished when he learned his reinforcements consisted of just two divisions and that they weren’t even army, but were the 9th and 10th Field Divisions belonging to the Luftwaffe! These Luftwaffe 'field divisions' were poorly trained, under gunned, and undermanned. Obviously Steiner would have to rely heavily on the battle-tested veterans of the SS Nordland. He knew some of these men, having commanded them when they served in the SS Wiking. Few were Germans. Most were Hungarian Volksdeutsch, Romanian Volksdeutsch, Danes, Norwegians, Dutch, Swiss, Estonians and French. The division even had a platoon of the SS British Free Corps.
Thankfully Steiner’s complaints to several army generals and to Himmler resulted in a further reinforcement, the 4th SS Nederland Panzergrenadier Brigade.
Steiner placed his troops around the Oranienbaum bridgehead as best as possible only just in time, for on 14 January 1944 the Soviet Second Shock Army burst out of the beachhead. The 9th Luftwaffe Field Division was demolished within hours, leaving only the SS Nordland’s pioneer battalion led by Sturmbannfuehrer Fritz Bunse to plug the gap. Incredibly these few engineers did so, and Steiner frantically shifted his reserves to restore the situation.
Yet of more concern to Steiner was the news that the Soviets inside Leningrad, who had been besieged since 1941, had suddenly counterattacked and had broken through the German line. Army Group North began retreating westwards past the rear of Steiner’s corps. Faced with possible encirclement within days, Steiner took it upon himself to authorize a fighting withdrawal from Oranienbaum.
The people of Latvia and Estonia were alarmed when they heard that Army Group North was in retreat. They had been bloodily oppressed by the Soviets
in 1940-41. Now that they had fought alongside the Germans, they knew the Communists would be even more brutal when they returned.
By the end of the month Army Group North had retreated to the Narva River, which connected Lake Peipus to the sea. It was an excellent defensive position. Unfortunately Hitler put his two marks worth in, ordering Steiner’s III SS Panzer Corps to hold the Luga River in front of the Narva position. Steiner’s men would be stuck out like a sore thumb. The Dutch born Hauptsturmfuehrer Walter Seebach, commander of a company of Danes, earned the Knight’s Cross for his bravery here.
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By late January 1944 Army Group South had been pressed backwards by the 1st Ukrainian Front on both sides of the Korsun-Moshny-Cherkassy salient. Among the defenders of the salient were the 5th SS Wiking Panzer Division, 5th SS Wallonie Sturmbrigade and Estonian SS Narva Battalion. If General Stemmermann the commander of this salient chose to retreat in order to straighten his line it would mean his men had to walk at least 50 miles to the southwest or as much as 150 miles to the northwest. In appalling wintry conditions neither of these options was a pleasant thought. Then on the 28th news came that the Soviets were making attacks both north and south of the salient, obviously trying to surround Stemmermann’s forces.
The only armored division within the salient was the SS Wiking, so it fell to these SS veterans to save the day. As a result Hauptsturmfuehrer Eberhard Heder was given an impossible task, namely to take a battlegroup and hold the neck of the salient open. Moreover, he would have to create his own battlegroup. He chose to build it around the SS Narva Battalion and add a supply detachment of the SS Wiking and a company of the SS Wiking’s pioneers. With these paltry few he set up his position at Olschana, where he was soon under attack.
By 4 February Heder’s people were in immediate danger of being overrun, so General Stemmermann permitted Heder to withdraw, but this allowed the Soviets to seal the salient and trap 75,000 Axis troops. Naturally Stemmermann demanded permission from Hitler to break out, but rather than allow Stemmermann’s troops to save themselves, Hitler demanded that they all hold every inch of ground to the death.
The salient [now known as the Cherkassy Pocket] was already shrinking daily. In fact the army generals inside the pocket began discussing surrender. Gruppenfuehrer Herbert Gille, commanding the SS Wiking, was appalled by this attitude. He did not fancy spending the rest of his life inside a Communist prison camp, and in any case the Communists did not always accept the surrender of SS troops. Many times the corpses of SS troops had been found with evidence that they had been tortured and murdered after surrendering. On occasion the Soviets had crucified SS prisoners. Then again Gille had no intention of ordering his men to fight to the death just to please Hitler. He announced his determination to fight his way out, and he wanted to take all the SS with him: Belgians, Estonians, Norwegians, Germans, Volksdeutsch and the many other nationalities that now made up the SS troops in the pocket. Obersturmbannfuehrer Lucien Lippert commanding the SS Wallonie Sturmbrigade was in complete agreement.
Fortunately for Gille, Hitler approved his plan. The SS Wiking and SS Narva would spearhead the assault westwards, with the remainder of the trapped Germans following. But Lippert’s Belgians drew the short straw - they would form the rearguard.
The breakout began with the SS Wiking capturing the villages of Schanderowka and Komarowka, while the German Army 72nd Infantry Division took Novaya Buda. Everyone who could walk or find a vehicle was now ordered to make his way westwards through deep snow, while Lippert’s Walloons dug in at Novaya Buda. Once the Soviets caught on, they charged forward and one of the first Walloons to be killed was Lucien Lippert. Hauptsturmfuehrer Leon Degrelle, the Belgian fanatic Catholic, took command of the rearguard.
The following day the Soviets attacked again and threatened to break into Stemmermann’s moving pocket, but a handful of SS Wiking’s panzergrenadiers and two tanks challenged the Soviets. In fact they repulsed two enemy infantry battalions and more than twenty tanks not once but thrice in two days.
However, unbeknownst to the Germans there were two entire Soviet guards tank armies between them and safety! But Stemmerman’s Germans had more immediate worries when the Soviets broke through between the 57th and 88th Infantry Divisions. Gille knew that the only tanks able to stop them were those of his own division, and it would be suicide. Nonetheless he gave the order and his tankers obeyed, knowing the score. He was correct in his prediction. His tanks stopped the enemy, but at the cost of every last tank.
By 16 February the moving pocket was busting through the two Soviet guards tank armies with the aid of pioneers [army and SS] that ran up to the enemy tanks and placed satchel charges and mines on them, a pretty much suicidal tactic. Luckily for the Germans a snow blizzard arrived and many Germans were able to sneak past the enemy in the poor visibility.
Of course by now many of the troops could not fight owing to their wounds, sickness and/or frostbite and had to be carried. The Axis troops tried their best to bring out every man they could, regardless of his nationality. This even included the hiwis. Others were not allowed to fight because they were female. Hitler consistently refused to allow female soldiers to carry firearms, so they only served in rear-echelon units, but they suffered the hardships of their male counterparts just the same, and when their unit was trapped, as at Cherkassy, they suffered from gunfire. In 1943 he did relent in one aspect. He allowed women to man flak guns. The British had already allowed their women to do this. The USA did not even allow this much. However, many a Soviet tank was crewed by three men and a woman! The Soviets had females in all branches including fighter pilots. Furthermore all partisans used female soldiers.
The escaping troops had almost reached safety when they found a flooded stream blocking their way. The water was freezing with chunks of ice floating by. To add to the horror the Soviets were shelling the river. With no bridges here many sick and wounded had to be abandoned. Some shot themselves. Those who could just jumped in and swam across, but the sudden shock of cold stunned some men into paralysis and they drowned. Others were sliced by shrapnel from the falling shells. Those who made it to the other side were soaking wet, sure candidates for hypothermia and pneumonia. No one was safe here. General Stemmermann was killed here.
But Degrelle and his Walloon rearguard were still east of the stream. That night they abandoned their rearguard defenses and in the dark ran right through a sleeping Soviet horse cavalry unit, and then they charged across the stream, many of them linking arms and literally forcing the water out of their way like a human dam.
Of 75,000 troops originally trapped in the pocket 34,000 had escaped, a high proportion of them wounded, sick or frostbitten. Degrelle’s SS Wallonie Sturmbrigade had suffered 1,400 casualties while acting as the rearguard and was in dire need of rest at home in Belgium, where new recruits could be gained. Hitler approved this.
Hitler sent the remnants of Gille’s SS Wiking to refit at Kowel. Gille was somewhat surprised by the order and wondered if the Fuehrer had noticed that Kowel was on the front line! Gille received a medal for his accomplishment at Cherkassy, but one suspects he would rather have had respite for his men.
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Meanwhile Steiner with his corps [now just the 4th SS Nederland Panzergrenadier Brigade and 11th SS Nordland Panzergrenadier Division] was desperately trying to hold the Luga River in North Russia against ferocious attacks in the snow. Steiner begged to be allowed to withdraw to Narva, and on 1 February he was given permission.
Steiner now set up his defenses at the city of Narva, a well-known fortress town with two castles on either side of the river as it reaches the sea. Even as Steiner’s men were arriving at their new positions they were under artillery fire and air raids. Steiner ordered the SS Nederland to hold the coast west of the river and the northern part of the city, while the SS Nordland would defend the southern outskirts of the city. The Nordland was now led by Brigadefuehrer Friedrich Scholz Edler von Rarancze. Steine
r also commandeered any ‘soldier’ he could find: army, Luftwaffe, NSKK, hiwi, policeman or schuma, and he sent them to his existing units as temporary replacements.
The following day the corps had to fight off an infantry assault. There were Estonians in the SS Nordland and the SS Nederland, and they fought with zeal for Narva was an Estonian city. With so many different nationalities under Steiner’s command it is not surprising that the German newspapers called the conflict at Narva the ‘Battle of the European SS’. Over the next weeks the city would be demolished. Several of Steiner’s troops were awarded well-earned decorations including the Norwegians Untersturmfuehrer Goesta Myhrvold and Surgeon Hauptsturmfuehrer Per Borreson.
In mid-February the Soviet Leningrad Front fought its way over the Narva River upstream from the city [i.e. to the south], but two days later Brigadefuehrer Franz Augsberger’s 20th SS Estnische Grenadier Division counterattacked and drove the Soviets back across the river. Augsberger was fortunate to have some German veterans in key positions, such as Hauptsturmfuehrer Georg Ahlemann. However, his Estonian soldiers proved to be excellent and many earned medals, including Unterscharfuehrer Harald Nugiseks, who was awarded the Knights Cross for outstanding courage, and Sturmbannfuehrer Alfons Rebane who earned the Knights Cross for bravery and leadership.
Estonian schuma battalions were now rushed to this front to help keep the Soviets out of Estonia [29th, 30th, 31st, 32nd, 33rd, 37th, 38th, 40th, 42nd, 288th, 291st and 292nd]. Also arriving was the Talinn SS Regiment of recently conscripted Estonians. Despite its title the men were members of the German Border Police not the SS.
The Soviets changed tactics, trying to outflank Narva by an amphibious invasion on the coast west of the city. Von Rarancze sent a battlegroup from his SS Nordland to destroy the invaders. They did.