Although the Germans sent outflanking columns on both sides of the pass, a frontal assault was considered necessary if the momentum of the advance was not to be lost. A Kampfgruppe based around Fritz Witt’s I Battalion would make the attack, scheduled for the twelfth.
Witt—recently transferred from Reich to Leibstandarte—was assigned powerful fire support. As well as most of the batteries from the artillery regiment, including the heavy howitzers, his Kampfgruppe could call upon the 3.7cm and 5cm guns of the antitank battalion, as well as the antiaircraft battalion, whose high-velocity 8.8cm guns were ideal for knocking out enemy bunkers and armor at longer ranges. The pioneer battalion was also brought forward to clear the mines laid by the Allies and to repair damage to the roads and paths leading to the pass. Finally, Witt had the use of Leibstandarte’s “heavy battalion.” This included a battery of six Sturmgeschütz III assault guns and the Panzerjäger company, now with nine modified Panzer Mark Is rearmed with Czech 4.7cm antitank guns.
The attack was spearheaded by Leibstandarte’s 1st Company, the six-footers who formed the original SS staff guard that protected Hitler in Berlin. Commanded by Obersturmführer Gerd Pleiss, the 1st Company spent the day edging forward up the rocky slopes of the pass, all the while under intense machine-gun fire. One SS soldier, Johannes Bendixen, described the action: “The battle raged for several hours in the late morning, and never again during the long war did I experience such terrible moments. Everywhere one looked our young comrades were falling to the ground, killed or wounded.”5
Dietrich and other senior Leibstandarte officers closely observed the progress of Witt’s force, impressed by the ability of the tracked vehicles of the heavy battalion to crawl up the steep slopes of the pass and deliver suppressive fire on the enemy positions. All the while, SS pioneers calmly lifted mines amid the deafening barrage from both sides. As the day wore on, the men of 1st Company wrested control of the high ground, ejecting the British from the village of Klidi. A British armored counterattack in the late afternoon was repulsed, the Flak battalion’s 88s knocking out eight tanks in the engagement. The following day Leibstandarte consolidated its position, fending off further enemy counterattacks. Obersturmführer Fend was released by Pleiss’s men.
With Klidi Pass in German hands, the way was open to push on against the Anglo-Greek left flank, although the spirited Allied defense had given Wilson sufficient time to get his troops away from the threat of encirclement.
Dietrich recognized the key role played by 1st Company, as Bendixen recalled: “Gerd Pleiss and a dozen of his men formed up in front of Sepp Dietrich on an open country road. Sepp removed the Knight’s Cross from his uniform and placed it on our company commander for the storming of the Klidi Pass. As well, six men received the Iron Cross, 1st Class. How proud we were in those moments.”6 Witt’s enjoyment of the victory was tempered by news of the death of his younger brother Franz, an officer in the pioneer battalion killed while clearing mines on the road to Klidi.
While the battle for Klidi was still raging, Kurt Meyer and his reconnaissance battalion were ordered due west to take the nearby Klisura Pass. Guarded by Greek troops, the pass was another formidable defensive position, formed by a series of ridges that looked down on any attacking force. Supported by a Flak detachment with their formidable 8.8cm guns and a 15cm howitzer battery, Meyer’s battalion made good progress on 13 April, although the attack came to a halt as darkness fell, leaving the push on the last and best-defended position for the following morning.
After spending a cold night shivering in a forward position, Meyer divided his forces to make a three-pronged attack, personally leading one of the assault groups. Born into a working-class family from Lower Saxony, Meyer had escaped from a succession of laboring jobs by joining the police in 1929, which led to entry into the SS and a commission in Leibstandarte. Of middling height, with a dark, sallow complexion and a piercing stare that was later to impress his Allied interrogators,7 the rough-hewn Meyer was a dedicated Nazi, inspiring fierce devotion from the men under his command.
As Meyer’s group closed with the enemy, heavy machine-gun fire forced him and his lead troops to take cover. In his own account of the action, Meyer realized the dangers of the attack losing momentum in what was a highly exposed position. He apparently adopted the unorthodox expedient of taking out the pin of a hand grenade and, after showing it to his comrades, dropping it into the hollow in which they were sheltering. As one, they all leaped out to escape the blast. “We grinned at each other,” he recalled, “and dashed forward.”8 As Meyer’s infantry neared the summit, the other two groups had begun to outflank the main position, forcing the Greeks to retreat.
In taking the pass, the reconnaissance battalion had captured 600 Greek troops. Reinforced by Leibstandarte’s III Infantry Battalion, Meyer pushed hard toward the nearby town of Kastoria, captured after another hard fight on 15 April. The seizure of Kastoria cut off Greek troops retreating from the Italian front in Albania. Some 12,000 Greek soldiers ended up in captivity as a consequence, along with an impressive haul of weapons, equipment, and fuel, the latter especially welcomed by the gasoline-hungry vehicles of the motorized Leibstandarte.
Without delay, Leibstandarte and the remainder of XL Corps swept southward to transform tactical success into a strategic victory. Both the Greeks and the British were retreating at pace, the latter preparing for evacuation from Greece. On 18 April, Leibstandarte was suddenly diverted to the southeast to harry Greek forces falling back through the Pindus mountains. The II Battalion took the lead, and after an early-morning engagement with Greek troops on 20 April, a Kampfgruppe under the command of Hauptsturmführer Horstmann sent a surprise and rather garbled message to headquarters to the effect that the entire Greek Army wished to surrender.
This was to be Dietrich’s finest hour. He drove along the winding, congested mountain roads, pushing aside German and Greek vehicles as he went. At 4:00 P.M. he saw the swastika flying over Horstmann’s position at the summit of the Katara Pass.9 After Dietrich had congratulated the men of II Battalion, Horstmann led him to the nearby Greek headquarters to meet General Georgios Tsolakoglou, commanding at least fourteen infantry divisions.
Tsolakoglou had decided that further resistance was pointless, and as well as surrendering his own substantial force he took it upon himself to surrender the entire Greek Army to the Germans and bring all hostilities to a close. Dietrich, although just a divisional commander, seized the initiative and instigated negotiations. A provisional document was drawn up and signed in less than two hours, with Dietrich offering generous terms to his defeated opponent: Greek soldiers were allowed to return to their homes, and officers were to keep their sidearms. During the short campaign the Germans had developed a respect for their tough Greek adversaries, while the Greeks, who despised and loathed the Italians, preferred to deal with the Germans. One of the terms of the surrender document was that the German Army would “place itself between the Italian and Greek forces.”10
Dietrich immediately informed Field Marshal List of the surrender, who then relayed the news to OKW and Hitler. The only stumbling block was the Italian dictator, who was enraged at being so obviously sidelined from the proceedings. He immediately demanded Italian participation—it was his war, he insisted—and rescinded some of the terms, so that the long-suffering Greek soldiers were temporarily incarcerated in prison camps (many, however, had already slipped away to civilian life). Hitler was thrilled by Dietrich’s success, although he felt forced to issue a friendly reprimand: “You are a good, brave soldier, but no diplomat, and still less a politician. You forgot that we still have a friend called Mussolini, and he is angry.”11
IF THE WAR was over between Germany and Greece, there was still the possibility of preventing British and Commonwealth forces from escaping the Greek mainland to Crete and North Africa. Meyer and his reconnaissance battalion led the attempt to cut off the enemy evacuation. As Meyer drove his men forward, the previously hostile weath
er was suddenly transformed into a Mediterranean spring, the SS troopers looking enviously at demobilized Greek soldiers enjoying the sunshine. During one brief halt, Meyer allowed his men to fill their helmets with oranges, confirmation that they were at last in southern climes.
On 26 April the reconnaissance battalion reached the Gulf of Corinth, which all but divided the Peloponnese from the rest of Greece. Meyer looked across the five-mile stretch of water to see Stukas bombing the British evacuation from the port of Patras. He commandeered some fishing boats, loaded a patrol of motorcycle-sidecar combinations and a light antitank gun, and sent them across to the far side. As they returned, a relieved Meyer could see they contained British prisoners, proof that his seagoing patrol had been successful.
Meyer joined the next transfer, and on reaching the southern side of the gulf he commandeered any vehicles he could find to rendezvous with the main German assault through the Corinth isthmus. He recalled that “an elegant limousine towed an anti-tank gun and mortars stuck out of a sports car. The combat engineer platoon was in a bus.”12 The convoy of motley vehicles met German paratroopers close to Corinth, but by then the British had departed, leaving the Germans to mop up stragglers who had failed to arrive at the evacuation ports in time.
Leibstandarte enjoyed a few days of leisure. Motoring into Athens, Dietrich and his fellow officers wandered around the Acropolis and mused on what they saw as the legacy of ancient Greece. Medals were handed out and speeches made, while Himmler flew into Athens to congratulate the men of the Waffen-SS in person.
In the Greek campaign Leibstandarte had amply confirmed its status as an elite unit, demonstrating outstanding battlefield aggression and initiative. Meyer aptly summed up the regiment’s tactical philosophy: “Everything we did was governed by speed. We had learned that only the swiftest will gain victory and that only the most agile soldier will survive the fight.”13 It would also appear that the regiment had fought a clean campaign, winning the respect of both Greek and British opponents. George Kennard, a British officer captured by Leibstandarte, left this revealing testimonial: “Over the entire fighting they had been brave, chivalrous and, towards the end, they would go out of their way, at considerable risk to themselves, to take prisoners rather than take lives.”14
On 8 May Leibstandarte began the long drive back through Greece and Yugoslavia to Brno in Czech Moravia. There it would undergo a swift reorganization in preparation for the coming war in the East.
Part Two
THE GREATEST WAR IN HISTORY
We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.
—ADOLF HITLER
Chapter 11
OPERATION BARBAROSSA
AT 3:15 A.M. on 22 June 1941, Hitler launched his invasion of the Soviet Union. Artillery fire flashed across the horizon, German special forces overwhelmed Soviet border posts, and waves of aircraft flew over the frontier to destroy the Red Air Force on the ground. Although Stalin had received good intelligence from a multitude of sources that an invasion was imminent, he refused to believe it and take appropriate countermeasures. When Soviet frontline troops first telephoned news of the attack to their headquarters in the rear, they were openly disbelieved. Accordingly, the Soviet response to the German assault was slow and uncoordinated, allowing the German armies to surge forward into the Soviet Union against only local and confused resistance.
The initial experiences of Karl-Heinz Anold of the Wiking Division suggested an easy victory: “All went very well. Our artillery and air force were magnificent and we rushed into the Soviet zone, meeting very little organized opposition and seeing the first prisoners, who looked terrible. We were very encouraged. We were hot, tired and thirsty and had to wait for our ration trucks to catch up. There was no danger of a Russian attack, their armies were completely destroyed.”1
Throughout the spring of 1941, vast numbers of German troops, tanks, artillery, and aircraft of all types had been covertly dispatched eastward to positions along the border with the Soviet Union. An estimated 17,000 separate trains were required to transport this array of military might to the railheads scattered through East Prussia, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania. Hitler had sent 3.2 million German soldiers in 148 divisions to the East. They were supported by sizable contingents from Romania and Finland, subsequently to be joined by troops from Hungary, Slovakia, Italy, and Spain.
All told, Axis forces for Barbarossa amounted to nearly 4 million men.2 They were stretched along an 800-mile line that ran south from the Baltic to the Black Sea, soon to be stretched farther as the Germans drove deep into the Soviet Union. The Red Army deployed a little less than 3 million troops to face the German onslaught but could call upon substantial reserves once the fighting was underway. In no other theater of war were so many men and weapons engaged across so large a battlefield.
The war on the Eastern Front—nearly four years of unrelenting conflict—would be the greatest and most terrible in history. The dismal superlatives extended to the casualty figures, larger than in any other conflict: 5.5 million German and at least 20 million Soviet military and civilian dead,3 with many more millions maimed and wounded.
The German invasion was the defining event of World War II, the ultimate test for Hitler’s Nazi Germany against its ideological rival. It was a war of annihilation, as Germany sought to destroy Slav culture and carve out a new Teutonic empire in the East. The Waffen-SS would act as a military and political spearhead to guarantee the success of the German conquest.
THE GERMAN ARMY that invaded Russia was still predominantly an infantry force, although its mechanized element had been increased to nineteen panzer and twelve motorized infantry divisions. The army deployed 3,350 tanks, 7,184 artillery pieces, 600,000 trucks, and an equal number of horses. In support of ground operations, the Luftwaffe had more than 2,000 aircraft organized in three air fleets.4
The invasion of the Soviet Union was based around a broad-front strategy to be conducted by three army groups. Army Group North, commanded by Field Marshal von Leeb, comprised two armies and a panzer group, whose task was to advance through the Baltic States of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia and then capture Leningrad. The Waffen-SS would join the advance with the Totenkopf and Polizei Divisions, the latter formation acting in a reserve role. Army Group Center, under Field Marshal von Bock, was to capture Smolensk and then drive forward to Moscow. It was assigned two armies and two panzer groups, among which was the Reich Division. Field Marshal von Rundstedt’s Army Group South had been ordered to advance into the fertile steppes of the Ukraine with a final objective of seizing the oil fields in the Caucasus. Leibstandarte and the Wiking Division were assigned to support Rundstedt.
The Eastern Front, 1941–1942
Kampfgruppe Nord was dispatched to operate alongside the Finnish Army in positions facing the town of Salla in the far North of Finland. Nord’s task was to help sever the supply route to the Soviet port of Murmansk. The SS Infantry Regiment 9, which had been sent to Kirkenes in Norway, was ordered to hold its isolated position someway north of the Arctic Circle.
Central to Germany’s strategy was the destruction of the Red Army to the west of a notional line drawn between the Dvina and Dnieper Rivers in the western part of the Soviet Union. This vital first stage was to be accomplished in a matter of weeks. Once achieved, the second stage of Barbarossa would consist of a grand exploitation, the Germans triumphantly driving eastward to mop up remaining centers of resistance.
The Waffen-SS on the eve of invasion stood at 160,405 men, with a frontline combat strength of just under 100,000.5 As a fighting force it was at its peak. Officers and men had gained valuable experience in the campaigns in Poland, the West, and the Balkans, but its units had not suffered the devastating casualties that would hollow out even the best formations. The troops—90 percent Reich Germans—were confident in their abilities and committed to the Nazi cause. The formations had a full complement of troops and were well armed and equip
ped.
The numerical strengths of the Waffen-SS field formations on 22 June 1941 were as follows:
Leibstandarte SS “Adolf Hitler” 10,796
Reich Division 19,021
Totenkopf Division 18,754
Polizei Division 17,347
Wiking Division 19,377
Kampfgruppe Nord 10,573
Kommandostab Reichsführer-SS 18,438
Leibstandarte and Kampfgruppe Nord would soon be upgraded to divisional status, with an attendant increase in personnel. The Kommandostab Reichsführer-SS organized Himmler’s private army: two motorized SS infantry brigades and a brigade of SS cavalry. They came under his direct control rather than that of the army.
In addition to the field formations were various auxiliary and reserve units that were now an integral part of the Waffen-SS:
Administrative department 4,007
Reserve units 29,809
Inspectorate of Concentration Camps 7,200
SS guard battalions 2,159
SS garrison posts 992
SS officer and NCO schools 1,028
SS Volunteer Battalion “Nordost” 904
In April 1941, Himmler had quietly extended the definition of the term Waffen-SS to include administrative and concentration-camp personnel, thus muddying the waters for the postwar debate as to who was in the Waffen-SS. The “Nordost” battalion consisted of volunteers from Finland, who fought as a separate national unit, although with German NCOs and officers.
HITLER AND THE Wehrmacht justified the invasion of the Soviet Union on the grounds that it was, in fact, a preventative action, that the Red Army was set to invade Germany and enslave Europe under a communist yoke. This specious claim was readily taken up by Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS soldiers after the war. Hans Quassowski, from Leibstandarte’s prestigious 1st Company, even went as far as to chastise those in the West who failed to applaud the German “intervention”: “It does not bear thinking about how the war would have gone if the ‘Russian Steamroller’ had set itself in motion towards the West unhindered. It would surely not have stopped until it reached the Atlantic. Should not all of western Europe be grateful that the actions of the German armed services and their allies prevented the subjugation of all of Europe by the Soviet Union?”6
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