Waffen-SS

by Adrian Gilbert

  On the evening of 17 February the Kampfgruppe broke through several lines (fronts) of antitank guns, one of its actions described by Rottenführer Reinhold Kyriss from the 1st Panzer Regiment’s 7th Company:

  Peiper had five King Tigers drive onto the hill, what a sight! They sat on the crest as on a serving tray and were immediately fired on by Soviet anti-tank guns. One could clearly see the armor-piercing shells bouncing off the fronts of the Tigers. What a shock it must have been to the Ivans, especially since the Tigers for their part now began picking off the enemy anti-tank guns one after the other. The anti-tank fire lessened, and Peiper immediately gave the order: “Panzers forward!” When the battle group drove over the rise en masse there began a fireworks display in the truest sense of the word. Driving at top speed, the tanks and armored troop carriers fired everything they had, and the light trails left by the shells could be seen even better in the failing light; it was an imposing scene. This armored attack, mounted like a cavalry charge, left the Reds only one choice, run away. After overrunning the anti-tank front we halted to regroup.8

  Although Soviet resistance increased in succeeding days, the tempo of the SS armored attack was too much for the Soviet defenders. By February the Gran bridgehead was destroyed, although at a cost of 3,000 SS casualties. I SS Panzer Corps was then transferred back to the start line for the main German offensive, code-named Operation Spring Awakening (Frülingserwachen).

  Sixth Panzer Army—supported by the Army’s III Panzer Corps—would advance from the northeastern side of Lake Balaton toward the Danube. Dietrich’s troops would be supported by subsidiary thrusts from the largely infantry Second Panzer Army on the southwestern side of Lake Balaton and by a mix of formations from Army Group E (including the remnants of the Handschar Division) in southern Hungary. Together they would attempt to encircle the Soviet armies in central Hungary.

  The plan was imaginative but vastly overambitious for the resources available to the Germans, who were outnumbered and outgunned by the Red Army. Moreover, despite the elaborate German efforts to camouflage their intentions, Soviet military intelligence had identified the movement of German armored formations to Hungary, and the Red Army was ready for the impending assault. Multilayered defenses were constructed to entangle the German assault, while a powerful force was already in place to mount what would become a devastating Soviet counteroffensive.

  As the Waffen-SS formations arrived at their assembly areas in western Hungary, they were still receiving reinforcements from Germany. Hans Woltersdorf, an officer in Das Reich’s “Der Führer” Regiment, complained about the quality of the new arrivals:

  One could hardly have called them “fresh.” Most of them could have been my father. They showed me their hernias, their gout, and the photos of their grown up children. Some radical hero had combed the remotest places to find this bunch—an elite that was designed to inspire fear in us rather than in the Russians. When I surveyed the battered ranks of my company I was still unwilling to admit that we had lost the war, but the subliminal feeling rose up in me that we couldn’t possibly win it. At this point I did not want to think about the alternatives there could have been, because we had two or at most three weeks in which to whip this crew into an elite brigade for the Eastern Front.9

  Despite the uncertain quality of the newly arrived rank and file, overall numbers in the SS divisions were impressive for this late stage of the war: in II SS Panzer Corps, Das Reich deployed a total of 19,542 men and Hohenstaufen 17,299 (although not all could be committed to the offensive). But, as ever, there were shortages of fuel, ammunition, and the armored fighting vehicles themselves. One of the better-equipped formations was Brigadeführer Sylvester Stadler’s Hohenstaufen, which fielded ninety panzers, a decent number when compared to other divisions but still half the regulation allotment.10

  Hitler was determined that the offensive should begin without delay, and the formations of Sixth Panzer Army were rushed to their start lines, with no time for reconnaissance of the attack routes, essential for success in armored operations. The weather also conspired against an armored offensive, with temperatures often rising above freezing during the day, turning the Hungarian plain into an almost impenetrable marshland for heavy vehicles. The date of the offensive was set for 6 March at 4:00 A.M. As a result of the poor weather, many SS units had difficulty in reaching their jumping-off points in time. The divisional and corps commanders pleaded to have a twenty-four-hour postponement, but Hitler was insistent that the attack must go ahead as originally scheduled.

  The panzergrenadiers of Bittrich’s II SS Panzer Corps had an especially hard time in reaching their start line. As a result, the guns of the corps fired their opening bombardment on the morning of the sixth as ordered but without any attacking infantry, who only began to arrive later in the day. All element of surprise was lost when the bombardment was repeated the following morning, the panzergrenadiers advancing against alert and prepared Soviet defenses. Not surprisingly, the progress of Bittrichs’s corps was minimal. As the attack began Das Reich’s commander, Gruppenführer Werner Ostendorff, was mortally wounded, just one of many senior officers to be killed in the offensive; he would be replaced by Rudolf Lehmann, from the staff of I SS Panzer Corps.

  The assault by the army’s III Panzer Corps and Priess’s I SS Panzer Corps on 6 March was more successful. On the following day SS troops broke through the second line of the Soviet defense system and then pushed on over relatively open countryside. Much of the fighting took place at night, the panzers following each other by the glow of their exhausts. Hauptsturmführer Hans Siegel described an assault by a mixed Kampfgruppe from Hitlerjugend, just after midnight on 8 March: “During the deployment of the unit into a wide wedge formation, our own artillery shelled the detected blocking position, mostly dug-in antitank guns. The concentrated force of fire and movement, added to which was the din of motors and the rattle of the tracked vehicles firing tracers in front of them, all that happening during total darkness, discouraged probably even the most hardened Red Army man. We overran the anti-tank barrier and the fortified positions without loss.”11 Leibstandarte and Hitlerjugend pushed forward twenty miles beyond their start line to capture Simontornya on 12 March. It was here that they were stopped by the Red Army.

  The poor start made by II SS Panzer Corps was to continue, especially when Soviet reinforcements were sent to their sector. On 8 March Stadler reported on the difficult circumstances faced by his division: “A massed panzer attack is simply impossible. The entire landscape has turned to softened mud in which everything sinks.”12 He sent his panzer regiment commander forward to assess the situation, but after two of his tanks sank into the mud up to their turrets, a cross-country attack was abandoned. Instead, the Hohenstaufen vehicles were confined to surfaced roads—vulnerable to Soviet artillery fire—leaving the panzergrenadiers to cross open terrain with reduced fire support.

  For the best-trained infantry this would be a difficult proposition, but for Hans Woltersdorf ’s aged conscripts in Das Reich, it was a battle too far: “In the uncertain light of dawn I led a charge and, as the noise of ammunition from friend and foe alike rendered communication impossible, I had to show my men how to do it. Jump up, forward march, move eastwards. When I jumped up and ran 15 meters they ran only ten, and when I remained under cover for ten seconds they remained for fifteen, and when I beckoned them forward they waved back in a friendly gesture.” As Woltersdorf tried to inspire his reluctant panzergrenadiers, he was hit in the leg by Soviet machine-gun fire. Initially, his men thought he had been killed and halted in respectful silence, but when he shouted to them to continue the attack, they descended on him: “It seemed as if I was leading a company of medics, because one medic after another came to drag me back to the rear. In the process a real stampede ensued. Shouting curses and abuses I ordered them to press forward.”13 Woltersdorf (who subsequently lost the leg) was carried back to an aid station, his attack stalled.

  BY 14–15 MARCH
the German offensive was floundering. The I SS Panzer Corps had taken the Soviet defensive position at Simontornya but could go no farther. Elsewhere, the Second Panzer Army’s attack had been repulsed, as had the northward drive by parts of Army Group E, which was also having to fend off a resurgent partisan army under Marshal Tito. The Soviet high command now decided that the time was right for their major spring offensive, designed to conquer Hungary and drive the Germans back across the Reich’s borders into Austria. On 16 March an intense artillery bombardment heralded mass attacks by Soviet armor that tore into the Axis lines. The wavering loyalties of the Hungarian Army were put to the test; many formations simply laid down their arms, some even going over to the Soviet side.

  The bulge in the Soviet lines created by Sixth Panzer Army’s offensive now made it vulnerable to Soviet counterattacks, which came from all sides. The II SS Panzer Corps was particularly hard hit, and efforts were made to redirect the other SS panzer corps to come to its aid, but it was all too late. For a while Dietrich’s forces were surrounded, and it was with some difficulty that they managed to fight their way back to their start line.

  The Soviet offensive had always been more than a counter to the German attack, however, and a powerful thrust was made against the section of the German front line held by the Totenkopf and Wiking Divisions of Gille’s IV SS Panzer Corps. It was vital that they hold their positions to allow the withdrawal of Dietrich’s army and the other German forces retreating through Hungary. The Red Army—adopting the blitzkrieg tactics pioneered by their enemy—encouraged armored units to surge forward and leave strongpoints to be dealt with by follow-up troops. German defensive positions were regularly bypassed and isolated.

  Holding a line between Lake Velencersee and the Vértes Mountains, both Totenkopf and Wiking were soon surrounded. Defending the village of Söred, the Germans—desperately short of ammunition—faced the might of a Soviet attack. Hans Geissendorf, an officer in Totenkopf ’s assault-gun (Sturmgeschütz) battalion, described the horrors of the fighting and the inevitable retreat:

  The Russians opened up their attack on Söred at 1600 hours on 19 March 1945 from all sides. The Russians came in massed groups supported by super-heavy tanks. Resistance on our side was mostly through entrenching tools and knives; our ammunition was gone. I can still recall clearly how the Russians stood in the open next to their foxholes and called on us to surrender before the attack. They were about 50 meters away.

  The Danes of SS Panzergrenadier Regiment “Danmark” [a rebuilt I Battalion, detached from Nordland and loaned to Wiking] fought heroically. I was with our Sturmgeschütz at the outskirts of the town with an infantry squad. In the midst of this inferno, a messenger came and yelled out that it was over and we should attempt to escape towards the west. When we moved to the designated assembly area we saw how all the other Sturmgeschütz had become bogged down in the swampy fields west of Söred and could go no further. Shortly thereafter, the same thing happened to us. I blew up our [assault] gun with a Panzerfaust. We ran for our lives between Russians, Germans and the artillery rounds always exploding just in front of us. I saw several of our officers from both our division and SS Panzergrenadier Regiment “Danmark” shoot themselves because they could go no further.14

  The bulk of the Wiking Division and other army units were virtually surrounded in the nearby town of Stuhlweissenburg; just one road to safety was still open, forming part of a narrow corridor a couple of miles wide. Oberführer Karl Ullrich—Wiking’s commander since October 1944—had been ordered to hold firm at all costs. As with many other senior SS officers, Ullrich was increasingly disenchanted with the higher direction of the war and decided to ignore the directive in favor of saving the men trapped in Stuhlweissenburg. He ordered a breakout for dawn on 22 March, his troops divided into two columns that began to battle their way through the ever-narrowing corridor.

  The fighting grew in intensity, and it seemed that the German columns might be destroyed until the timely intervention of Stadler’s Hohenstaufen Division. Stadler was aware of the predicament of the escaping soldiers and ignored a withdrawal order from his superior officer in the Cavalry Corps to keep the corridor open. He later wrote, “The 9th SS Panzer Division fought bitterly against a superior enemy, well aware of its responsibility to the threatened divisions that were still encircled in the Stuhlweissenburg pocket. The 9th Panzer Regiment destroyed 108 tanks on 22 and 23 March. What a great effort in such chaos!”15 Thanks to Hohenstaufen’s actions, Wiking and the other army units were able to escape the Soviet trap, although most of their heavy weapons and vehicles were lost in the process. During the last week of March all those German forces that had escaped the Soviet offensive fell back toward Austria.

  Hitler was dismayed at the performance of his special guard. On 23 March he had ranted to his staff at his evening situation conference, “I now demand one thing: that Leibstandarte, moreover the entire Sixth Panzer Army be sent the last man available anywhere. I mean immediately! Sepp Dietrich must be informed instantly. Immediately!”16 But he was too late: Sixth Panzer Army was in full retreat, regardless of his orders. When Hitler discovered that the Waffen-SS had abandoned the Spring Awakening offensive, he felt personally betrayed. On 27 March a signal was sent to Sixth Panzer Army headquarters: “The Führer believes that the troops have not fought as the situation demanded and orders that the SS divisions Adolf Hitler, Das Reich, Totenkopf and Hohenstaufen be stripped of their armbands.”17 Himmler was ordered to issue a reprimand to Dietrich in person, while all further promotions, due on Hitler’s birthday (20 April), were canceled.

  For soldiers who had given everything to obey the Führer’s orders in nearly six years of combat, and had lost so many comrades in the process, this was a cutting insult. A staff officer at Sixth Panzer Army headquarters handed the message to Sepp Dietrich: “Then he read—turned away slowly, bent over the table, resting on it with both hands in such a way that I could not see his face. He was deeply shocked and moved and it took him a long time to rally again. Then, after a long interval, still bent over the table, he said in an unusually quiet, almost fragile voice, which reflected deepest disappointment and bitterness: ‘This is the thanks for everything.’”18 Dietrich instructed that the message was to be forwarded to the divisional commanders but go no further. Despite this, news of the order spread through the SS units, but by now the troops were fighting not for Hitler but for their comrades and themselves. And, of course, most cuff bands had already been removed prior to the offensive.

  Having fallen back to positions in Austria, the Germans were given no respite as the Red Army drove toward its next objective, Vienna. The loss of Hungary was a grievous blow to Hitler, but by now Nazi Germany was entering its terminal phase. The main Soviet push against Germany toward the Oder was gaining momentum, while in the West Anglo-American armies had crossed the Rhine. It was only a matter of time before the total defeat of Germany, although its leader was determined to fight on, regardless of the destruction raging around him.

  Chapter 30

  THE WAFFEN-SS DESTROYED

  THROUGHOUT HIS CAREER as Reichsführer-SS, Heinrich Himmler had repeatedly made fulsome declarations of his loyalty to the Führer. Himmler both admired and feared Hitler, but from 1943 onward his own developing ambitions began to run counter to those of his master. Himmler had hoped at some point to succeed Hitler as leader of Nazi Germany, but the downturn in German military fortunes caused him understandable concern: Would he have anything left to inherit when the time came?

  Following the successful Allied landings in Normandy, several leading Nazi politicians privately suggested the possibility of seeking a negotiated peace with either the Soviet Union or the Western Allies, but Hitler refused to consider any such proposal. Himmler then decided to take matters into his own hands, and at the end of August 1944 he secretly sent a message—via the Spanish government—to Winston Churchill, making soundings for peace talks. The British prime minister summarily destroyed the not
e.1 In early 1945 Himmler resumed his covert attempts to secure terms with the Western Allies, primarily through Count Folke Bernadotte, head of the Swedish Red Cross. Himmler’s entreaties were rebuffed once again, as the Allies kept to their joint agreement demanding Germany’s unconditional surrender in all theaters of war.

  While Himmler was attempting to secure a negotiated peace, he also ordered the creation of one last round of Waffen-SS divisions in February 1945. They consisted of an upgrading of existing regiments and brigades or the amalgamation of smaller units into slightly larger aggregations (see Appendix A). None of these formations had the manpower or heavy weapons required of a division, and with the exception of the Western European formations, they served no military or political purpose.

  Himmler’s military vocation was also running into trouble. His appointment by Hitler to command Army Group Vistula on 25 January 1945 proved a disaster. He arrived at the front in his special train, which lacked experienced staff officers and a suitable telephone and radio communication system to issue orders to his army group. Himmler was out of his depth, soon to collapse under the strain of command. From 18 February onward, he was “under doctor’s orders” and seemed barely capable of coherent thought. Guderian insisted that he be replaced, a call initially rejected by Hitler. But after the failure of the counteroffensive in Pomerania, Hitler finally turned on his trusted lieutenant, blaming him for the defeat and relieving him of his command on 20 March. By this time Himmler had sought refuge in a sanatorium in Germany. From then on, the relationship between the two men cooled, with Himmler ever more anxious to find some form of accommodation with the Allies.