Although the Waffen-SS still enjoyed enormous prestige in Germany, many parents were understandably reluctant to send their children to join an organization where heavy casualties were the norm. Gottlob Berger and his SS recruiters dealt with this problem by pressuring the boys into joining when away from their homes during labor service and then simply ignoring any subsequent parental protests. German writer Günter Grass, while performing his labor service, had volunteered to join the submarine arm of the Kriegsmarine but was forcefully persuaded to join the Waffen-SS. He was inducted into the 10th SS Panzer Division as a tank gunner in the summer of 1944, although he proved a reluctant warrior for the Führer.14
Berger was able to recruit 27,000 individuals, of whom 13,100 were volunteers. More recruits would be required to furnish two full-strength panzer divisions of just under 20,000 men each, and this shortfall was remedied, as usual, by drawing from the reservoir of Volksdeutsche. The officers and NCOs who would provide the divisional cadre were drawn from across the existing Waffen-SS divisions. Training began in February 1943, both divisions stationed in France in the expectation that at some point they might be used to thwart an Allied invasion. Originally designated as panzergrenadier divisions, they were upgraded as full panzer divisions during the latter part of 1943. In all, there would be seven SS panzer divisions—1st Leibstandarte, 2nd Das Reich, 3rd Totenkopf, 5th Wiking, 9th Frundsberg, 10th Hohenstaufen, and 12th Hitlerjugend—the military elite of the Waffen-SS.
The 9th SS Panzer Division received the name “Hohenstaufen” after the medieval German royal dynasty and was commanded by the veteran Brigadeführer Wilhelm Bittrich. He had commanded Das Reich until wounded and on recovery was sent to lead the SS Cavalry Division engaged in antipartisan operations.
The title “Frundsberg”—from the sixteenth-century German Landsknecht Georg von Frundsberg—was assigned to the 10th SS Panzer Division, and in November 1943 it came under the command of Gruppenführer Karl von Treuenfeld. By early March 1944 both divisions were considered combat ready, and given the parlous military situation on the Eastern Front, rather than be stationed in France they entrained for the Ukraine from the twenty-fourth onward.15
Advance units of II SS Panzer Corps were committed to battle on 4 April. Meanwhile, the pocket containing the 200,000 men of the First Panzer Army steadily shuffled westward. Hube and his subordinate commanders did their utmost to ensure there was no panic, and good order was maintained in what the Germans called the “traveling pocket.” The First Panzer Army included both Das Reich Kampfgruppe and Leibstandarte, the latter so reduced by 14 March that its 1,400 officers and men (plus a handful of tanks) were effectively downgraded to Kampfgruppe status.16
A further SS formation was also trapped in the pocket: 6th SS Volunteer Assault Brigade Langemarck. The brigade—drawing its recruits from Belgian Flanders—had been sent to reinforce Das Reich Kampfgruppe in December 1943. The soldiers of the brigade—just over 2,000 strong on arrival in Ukraine—had established themselves as reliable comrades alongside Das Reich since initial deployment in March 1944.
The escape from the Kamenets-Podolsky pocket took its toll on the troops, who were forced to fight defensive battles during the day before disengaging as darkness fell and then marching through the night only to resume battle the next morning. The history of Das Reich’s “Der Führer” Regiment gave an indication of the conditions experienced by the ordinary soldier:
Casualties grew daily. The winter clothing of many men hung down in tatters and in many places the red stuffing of the insulated vests was visible. The state of the men’s footwear deteriorated. The last haircuts and last shaves lay in the past. On the other hand they were still being relatively well supplied with ammunition and food. Increasingly the units replaced their lost vehicles with the brave and hardy panje ponies, and soon we were jokingly calling our panzer battle group the “panje battle group.”17
Contact between Hausser’s SS troops and the First Panzer Army was made on 6 April and the following day a corridor was established to allow the escape of the trapped Germans. Given the scale of the enterprise, the approximately 12,000 casualties suffered by the Germans were surprisingly light, considerably less than those of their opponent. Once out of the pocket the First Panzer Army took up new positions on the front line.
As had been the case at Korsun-Cherkassy, heavy equipment and weapons had been abandoned during the panzer army’s breakout, losses the Germans could ill afford when set against superior Soviet rates of weapons production. The Red Army was also beginning to receive qualitative improvements in battlefield equipment from early 1944 onward, which included an upgraded T-34 with a more powerful 85mm gun, increasing numbers of SU-85 assault guns, and the first production models of the Josef Stalin heavy tank, complete with a formidable 122mm main armament.
By April 1944 the Soviet Union had liberated almost all of the Ukraine, and in May the Crimea was recaptured and the Germans pressed back to the Carpathian Mountains with both Romania and Hungary vulnerable to renewed Soviet attacks. During May, however, the Red Army called its offensive to the south to a halt as it shifted its strategic focus farther north.
The II SS Panzer Corps was redeployed in Poland as a strategic reserve. Totenkopf and Wiking were taken out of the line to refit but remained in the East, while Leibstandarte and Das Reich Kampfgruppe were withdrawn to Western Europe to rebuild and to prepare for the long-awaited Allied invasion of France. The Flemish Langemarck Brigade—with just 400 combat-ready troops—was transferred to Bohemia in late April, although following a rapid rebuilding program it was ready for action by the end of June with a strength of more than 1,700 men.18
SINCE THEIR LAST triumph at Kharkov in February–March 1943, the Waffen-SS divisions had experienced more than twelve months of military setbacks. No matter how much damage was inflicted on the Red Army at a tactical level, the elite German formations had been forced to retreat or be overwhelmed. While morale remained surprisingly high among the troops, senior commanders, with a greater knowledge of the overall military situation, began to guardedly mutter their doubts about the war’s future. Sepp Dietrich went so far as to openly express his misgivings, and his complaint made in early 1943 that “we can no longer beat the Russians” eventually came to Himmler’s ears.19 Dietrich was let off with a mild rebuke, not least because Himmler was also concerned by Germany’s deteriorating fortunes, which might well lead to the destruction of his grand project for an SS-led Germanic Europe.
Dietrich apart, Himmler was informed of the growing sense of disillusion within the Waffen-SS at higher levels, how the savage and relentless combat of the Eastern Front had drawn senior Waffen-SS officers to a closer association with their counterparts in the army. Veteran commanders, such as Steiner and Bittrich, did little to hide their disregard for the niceties of the SS order. Gottlob Berger reported back to his boss on the ribald comments of Wiking officers toward the Nazi Party and the Reichsführer-SS himself, while a Wehrmacht lieutenant briefly serving with Leibstandarte was shocked to hear open and repeated criticisms of Nazi officials from the division’s officers.20
Himmler, however, realized that this was not the first step in treasonous insubordination but the almost inevitable outbursts of men under extreme pressure. Revealing considerable prescience, he had been aware of the dangers of the alienation of the “front fighters” even before the outbreak of war, noting that “sooner or later” the armed units of the SS “would at some point become a division of the Army which just happened to wear a black uniform.”21 Himmler nonetheless worked hard to keep the Waffen-SS loyal to his vision of a radical Nazi Germany and not allow it to backslide toward what he considered the old, reactionary attitudes of the German Army.
Berger demonstrated similar attitudes to those of his master. He was alarmed when he read a report in early 1944 celebrating changes in army attitudes that brought them closer to those held by the Waffen-SS. At first sight, it would appear natural that such a development would be welc
omed by the SS, but as Berger explained, “If we continue in this fashion we will lose our leading position, just as our troops will lose it if the Wehrmacht succeeds in aligning its officer corps along the same lines we have chosen.”22
Consequently, both Berger and Himmler were assiduous in trying to maintain the separateness of the Waffen-SS from the Wehrmacht. In their view, the special SS ideological indoctrination must not be allowed to slip despite wartime pressures. When Brigadeführer Peter Hansen, Das Reich’s original artillery commander, suggested a reduction in ideological training at the Waffen-SS officer schools, he was severely reprimanded by Himmler.23
How successful Himmler was in maintaining the ideological distinctiveness of the Waffen-SS remains hard to assess. In the formations led by older officers such as Steiner and Bittrich, increasingly cynical at the prospect of ultimate victory, Himmler appears to have made little headway. In his history of the SS, Heinz Höhne wrote of “Himmler’s suspicion that he was surrounded by ungrateful generals who already had a foot in the other camp—that of the Wehrmacht. One after another he saw his generals as apostates from the SS Order.”24
Höhne exaggerated the situation, as many senior SS officers were fully in accord with the most extreme Nazi views, especially those of the younger generation—such as Kurt Meyer and Max Wünsche—who had entered the SS at an early age and were now assuming positions of responsibility. And for every disrespectful Steiner and Bittrich, there were plenty of older officers who were enthusiastic Nazis. Among these, Frundsberg commander Gruppenführer Treuenfeld (born in 1885) insisted that his young soldiers were to be inculcated with the Führer’s messianic call for the “historic unity of all Germans.” And in a directive issued to his troops on 3 December 1943, he made it clear that “every man should be trained to be a fanatical hater. It doesn’t matter on which front our divisions engage in combat, the unyielding hate toward every opponent, Englishman, American, Jew or Bolshevik, must make every one of our men capable of the highest deeds.”25
Officers like Treuenfeld would be influential in providing the inspiration for SS soldiers not to waver on the battlefield, even when the tide of war had so obviously turned against Germany. They repeatedly demanded “fanatical” resistance from their men regardless of the outcome. Meanwhile, the doubters and cynics within the Waffen-SS would also continue to fight on, partly in the hope of some sort of political settlement but also in the sober realization that as professional soldiers who had given their oath to Adolf Hitler they were bound to their master.
Chapter 21
BATTLE IN THE NORTH
LENINGRAD HAD BECOME a quiet sector on the Eastern Front after the German failure to capture the city in 1941. German and Soviet soldiers faced each other from fixed positions in conditions reminiscent of World War I, and when offensive action did take place it was limited in scope and easily contained. This was all to change on 14 January 1944 when the Soviet Union launched an offensive with overwhelming force, raising the siege of Leningrad and pushing the Germans back into the Baltic States.
As the Red Army broke out of the Leningrad lines and the nearby Oranienbaum pocket, the weakened German Army Group North was forced into an immediate retreat, relying on a few experienced armored formations to help stem the Soviet tide. Among these was Felix Steiner’s III SS (Germanic) Panzer Corps, comprising the 11th SS Panzergrenadier Division Nordland and 4th SS Panzergrenadier Brigade Nederland.1 A number of Wehrmacht formations had been subordinated to Steiner’s command—including 9th and 10th Luftwaffe Field Divisions—but they were swept away in the Soviet advance.
Forced to rely on his own troops, Steiner was still able to inflict a number of sharp reverses on advancing Soviet armored columns. One such encounter took place at Gubanitzy on 26 January when Nordland’s armored reconnaissance battalion—containing most of the division’s contingent of Swedish volunteers—was assigned to defend the village. The antitank platoon in the battalion’s 5th Company had already repelled an attack by a Soviet reconnaissance patrol, when a second, larger, assault was made. The action was described by platoon commander Alfred Weiss:
Just behind the crown of a hill, a widely spread formation of heavy tanks thundered towards the village. As soon as the heavy tanks went over the crown of the hill’s front slope, they were fired on by all four of our 7.5cm anti-tank guns. The distance was well within our range and every shot hit its target. The tank formation was immediately thrown into enormous confusion. When the command tank, made apparent by the profusion of antennas on its turret, was hit, the enemy was apparently reduced to panic. No one dared continue the advance. They drove back and forth, from right to left and back again. This tactic eventually caused them to ram into each other, and crash.2
After the company commander, Untersturmführer Langendorf, arrived at the scene, he mobilized all available forces to focus their fire on the helpless Soviet tanks; out of an estimated sixty enemy armored vehicles, the SS gunners claimed forty-five destroyed.
Rearguard actions of this sort helped the Germans withdraw with minimal losses to the Narva River, the border between the Soviet Union and Estonia. The newly established Narva Line stretched along the river from the Baltic Sea past the city of Narva to Lake Peipus, forming a strip of territory approximately thirty miles long that acted as a natural choke point, one that the Germans could defend against a numerically superior enemy without their flanks being turned. The German defensive force—Army Detachment “Narwa”—comprised III SS Panzer Corps and two infantry corps from the army, plus various support units. Steiner’s corps was assigned the key defense of the city of Narva, complete with its medieval castle from the Teutonic Crusades that overlooked the Narva River and the Russian fort on the opposite bank.
The Red Army gave the Germans little rest and in early February managed to establish a number of small bridgeheads over the Narva. Throughout February and into March, Army Detachment “Narwa” fought to eliminate the bridgeheads and repel further attacks across the river. Steiner, wearing his trademark civilian coat and field cap with motorcycle goggles, was a familiar and reassuring sight to his SS troops.
On 20 February the III SS Panzer Corps was bolstered by the arrival of the Estonian 20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS. The division was thrown into battle without delay and on the twenty-ninth set about destroying the Soviet bridgehead at Siivertsi. The position was defended with minefields and machine-gun strongpoints, supported by artillery firing from the far bank of the river. The Estonians fought the Soviets with all the resolve of men defending their country against a hated oppressor.
The I Battalion of the Estonian 2nd Panzergrenadier Regiment had managed to cross the Soviet minefield but, in the process, had lost most of its officers, and with ammunition running low the attack was on the point of stalling. Unterscharführer Harald Nugiseks took control of the situation, using sledges to haul the necessary ammunition over the minefield to the soldiers on the front line. Then, well armed with hand grenades, Nugiseks and his Estonian troops broke into the Soviet trenches, setting in motion a wider attack that eliminated the bridgehead by 6 March. For his inspired leadership, Nugiseks was awarded the Knight’s Cross.
Soviet artillery and aerial bombardments turned Narva into a pile of rubble, but nothing could dislodge the SS troops from their defenses. Brigadeführer von Scholz adopted a civilian bus as a mobile headquarters, enabling him to travel around his command to deploy reserves where needed and raise the troops’ morale.3 Operating as a mobile heavy-weapons team were the Panthers of Nordland’s panzer battalion and the Tigers of the army’s crack 502nd Heavy Tank Battalion. By the end of March the Germans had stabilized the line, the Red Army forced to regroup and lick its wounds.
III SS Panzer Corps listed more than 7,500 casualties, with the Nederland Brigade especially hard hit. On the credit side, a modest contribution of 1,336 soldiers from the broken 9th and 10th Luftwaffe Field Divisions were redistributed among the SS units.4
Army Detachment “Narwa” was
able to relax during April and May, although in June increasing Soviet activity suggested the likelihood of renewed action. The German position was made more tenuous when several army divisions were withdrawn in June as a result of Soviet successes in Finland and Belorussia (Belarus). With this in mind, Steiner conferred with the overall “Narwa” commander, General Friessner, to organize a withdrawal to the more defensible Tannenberg Line, a few miles to the west. As the Germans prepared for their withdrawal in July, the Flemish and Walloon SS Assault Brigades each dispatched a battalion to reinforce the German positions.
THE GREAT SOVIET summer offensive of 1944 in Belorussia led to the total collapse of Army Group Center. As a consequence, German forces to the north were forced to fall back or be surrounded. Among these were the two Latvian SS divisions. The 15th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS had originally been deployed around Staraya Russa—scene of fierce fighting by the Totenkopf Division during 1941–1942—but had retreated to the Velikaya River during February 1944, where it joined the newly formed 19th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS. They were then briefly combined as the VI Waffen Army Corps of the SS (Latvian) under Karl Pfeffer-Wildenbruch, the former commander of 4th Polizei Division. This corps was a paper organization only, without a proper staff and the usual support units. The Latvian soldiers were certainly unaware of their corps status as they slowly fell back toward their home country, sustaining heavy casualties in the process.
Toward the end of the summer of 1944, the two battered and understrength divisions were briefly incorporated into Kampfgruppe Jeckeln in defense of Latvia itself. The fighting was relentless, the Latvian troops ground down by the advancing Red Army. The Latvians’ did have occasional successes, however. Mintauts Blosfelds, a machine gunner from the 15th Division, provided this account of repelling a Soviet infantry attack:
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