The Waffen SS combat record in the East has given them a deserved place as an elite fighting force in the history of the Second World War. However, the reputation of the Waffen SS, the armed political wing of the Schutzstaffel or Nazi party, will always be tainted by the war crimes they committed in the East including the killing of what the Nazi’s termed untermenschen or sub humans – Slavs, Jews and Marxists. How did a small force designed to protect Adolf Hitler which numbered just 120 men in 1933 turn into one of the largest, most feared and efficient military machines the world has ever seen?
The answer lies in a speech Hitler gave to Waffen SS troops just three weeks before the start of Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi code name for the attack on the Soviet Union. He said “This is an ideological battle and a struggle of races. Here stands a world as we conceived it – beautiful, decent, socially equal and full of culture; this is what our Germany is like. On the other side stands a population of 180,000,000, a mixture of races, whose very names are unpronounceable and whose physique is such that one can only shoot them down without mercy or compassion. When you fight over there in the east, you are carrying on the same struggle against the same sub-humanity, the same inferior races, that at one time appeared under the name of Huns, another time of Magyars, another time of Tartars, and still another time under the name of Genghis Khan and the Mongols. Today they appear as Russians under the political banner of Bolshevism.”
When he launched operation Barbarossa Hitler ordered the Wehrmacht or German Army to conquer the Soviet Union and the Waffen SS to Nazisfy it. It was the biggest invasion in the history of human conflict. On one side were over three million well trained, equipped and battle hardened German troops including the Waffen SS and half a million of their Axis allies. In total the Germans had 153 divisions including 21 Panzer and 14 motorised divisions containing over 3400 tanks and 3000 aircraft. On the other side was a Soviet army of over five million men in 180 divisions with over 10,000 tanks and 20,000 aircraft. However, while on paper the Soviets seemed more than a match for the Germans, in reality their troops were badly organised and ill equipped and many of their tanks and aircraft were obsolete. Perhaps most importantly the Soviet army had lost many of its best commanders due to Stalin’s purges.
To the Wehrmacht Hitler ordered the job of “kicking in the front door so the whole rotten Russian edifice will come tumbling down”. To the Waffen SS fell not just the job of combat but also waging a race war to create Hitler’s long cherished dream of lebensraum or living space for the German people in the East, a theory first mooted in his 1926 political testimony, Mein Kampf. Barbarossa was therefore always more than just a military campaign, it was a battle of ideologies between National Socialism and Communism to establish a new world order in Europe.
During operations in the East the Waffen SS grew from just six divisions comprising 160,000 men at the start of Barbarossa to a huge force of 38 combat divisions comprising over 950,000 men by the end of the war. With their distinctive uniforms, strict Germanic racial requirements and under the command of Heinrich Himmler, one of the post powerful men in the Third Reich, the Waffen SS earned a fearsome reputation for fighting. As a consequence they attracted only the most committed recruits who were willing to fight and die for the cause.
Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer of the SS.
In the East Waffen SS divisions were placed under the operational control of the Oberkommando des Heeres or the Supreme High Command of the Army although in practice they often acted independently. While initially numerically insignificant when compared to the Wehrmacht or the Germany Army, the Waffen SS soon brought to Barbarossa an ideological fanaticism out of all proportion to their numbers.
For the over stretched German Army, with its history steeped in the old Imperial and Prussian traditions of solidarity and soldiering, indulging in any activities like racial cleansing which did not progress their war aims was regarded as a waste of resources. For the Waffen SS the regular army lacked the ideological zeal and fighting spirit to beat an opponent who would often rather die than be captured. The result was a severely strained relationship between the two who often disagreed on tactics at a time when they should have been combining forces to fight the Russians.
This sense of racial and military superiority, encouraged by Himmler through better pay, food and equipment, was central to the Waffen SS philosophy. It was combined with a fanatical loyalty to Hilter, best expressed in their motto “Meine Ehre heisst Treue” or “My honour is loyalty”. It meant that at the start of Barbarossa the divisions which comprised the Waffen SS, the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, Das Reich, Totenkopf, Polizei and Nord were all recruited from the toughest and most ideological ethnic Germans. The exception was the Wiking division which was recruited from Scandinavian, Finish, Estonian, Dutch and Belgian volunteers but served under German officers.
The Wehrmacht launched its surprise attack on Russia at 3.15 am on 22nd June 1941, bombing positions in Soviet occupied Poland. Attached to the three huge army groups were the six Waffen SS divisions. Army Group North advanced through the Baltic States and on to Leningrad, accompanied by Totenkopf , Polizei and Nord. Army Group Centre headed towards Moscow with the Das Reich. Leibstandarte and Wiking were with Army Group South and marched towards the Ukraine and Kiev.
During the first six months of Barbarossa the sheer scale of the Soviet rout in the East surprised even the German generals. On the opening day alone the Luftwaffe destroyed over 2000 Soviet aircraft, many on the ground and Army Group North penetrated over 50 miles into Russian territory. By the end of the first week Army Group Centre had captured Minsk and by the end of June they had advanced over 200 miles towards Moscow. By the end of September Army Group South had captured nearly half a million Soviet troops during the Battle of Kiev and Army Group North had lay siege to Leningrad. At the spearhead of all these successful advances in the East was the Waffen SS.
Yet just three months later the offensive ground to a shuddering halt on 1 December 1941 in temperatures of minus 40 Fahrenheit on the outskirts of Moscow. Five days later the Red Army counter attacked driving the Germans back 40 miles. During Operation Typhoon or the attack on Moscow Das Reich suffered big losses and of the 2000 soldiers who had started out with the regiment that June only 35 were left alive by the end of December. While the defeat was a crushing defeat for Germany, it was to prove the making of the Waffen SS.
By the end of 1941 the Waffen SS had suffered over 43,000 casualties across the Eastern Front. One in four troops had either been killed or wounded. However, it was widely recognised even by the Wehrmacht that they had fought with great tenacity and without them the German army would not have got to the gates of Moscow. Eberhard von Macksensen, commander of III Army Corps in Army Group South, writing to Himmler said the Leibstandarte had demonstrated “inner discipline, cool daredevilry, cheerful enterprise, unshakeable firmness in a crisis, exemplary toughness and camaraderie”. The legend of the fanatical fighting spirit of the Waffen SS had been born.
By the beginning of 1942 the Soviet Union was bloodied but unbowed. The changing fortunes of the campaign were shown by the encirclement of 100,000 Germans troops from Army Group North in the Demyansk pocket, south of Leningrad in February. They included the SS Division Totenkopf who again were at the forefront of the fighting and led the breakout in April. However, they paid a high price with 15,000 troops either killed or wounded. After this the Waffen SS were never again to regain the initiative in the East but were to fight with distinction at Stalingrad and later at Kharkov and Kursk.
Operation Barbarossa was to bestow many honours on Waffen SS soldiers for outstanding bravery included Jospeh “Sepp” Dietrich, Paul “Pappa” Hausser, Helmuth Becker, Max Simon, Christian Tyschen and Karl-Heinz Boska, all pictured in this book. Also shown is Gerardus Mooyman who as a Dutch national was the first non German to receive the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross, the highest honour that Germany could award a soldier for outstanding bravery.
When historians review the campaign in the East the fighting record of the Waffen SS is rightly seen in the context of Hitler’s ideological war against the Soviet Union. As a result there is an indelible stain on their combat record and after the war many Waffen SS veterans were deprived of pension rights. While some were involved in atrocities, others fought honourably given the fog of war which afflicted both sides. As these pictures show many Waffen SS troops distinguished themselves in combat and showed incredible bravery, often against overwhelming odds.