The SS Division Hitlerjugend or 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitlerjugend" (German: 12. SS-Panzerdivision "Hitlerjugend") was a German armoured division of the Waffen-SS during World War II.[4] The majority of its junior enlisted men were drawn from members of the Hitler Youth, while the senior NCOs and officers were from other Waffen-SS divisions. Most of the enlisted men were teenagers, starting from the ages of 16 or even 15.
The division committed several war crimes while en route to and during the early battles of the Allied Normandy landings, including the Ascq and Normandy massacres, and several massacres, arsons and rapes in the cities of Plomion, Tavaux, Bouillon, Godinne, Hun, Rivere, Warnant and Namur.[5][6] It first saw action on 7 June 1944 as part of the German defensive operations at Caen against Allied Forces, and suffered great casualties during the Battle of the Falaise Pocket.
In December 1944, the division was committed against the US Army in the Ardennes offensive. After the operation's failure, which became known as the Battle of the Bulge, the division was sent to Hungary to participate in fighting around Budapest. The division eventually retreated into Austria and surrendered to the 7th US Army on 8 May 1945. After the war several members of the division, including its former commander Kurt Meyer, were convicted of war crimes.
About 2,000 personnel were transferred from the LSSAH and in September 1943, the division had over 16,000 recruits on its roster, undergoing training in Beverloo Camp in Leopoldsburg, Belgium.[7] The indoctrination was often brutal; while in Allied captivity, an SS man from the division recalled: "In the Waffen-SS you couldn't do anything if an Unterfuhrer hit you during the training. The purpose of the training is to make you just as they are; it's pure sadism".
In March 1944 the 12th SS was attached to the I SS Panzer Corps and transferred to Caen in Normandy.[9] At the beginning of June, the division had over 150 tanks.
The division committed its first massacre while en route to Normandy. The division executed 86 French men on 1 April 1944 in Ascq, France, in a reprisal against the civilian population after the railway they were on was sabotaged. The commander of the convoy, SS-ObersturmführerWalter Hauck, ordered troops to search and arrest all male members of the houses on both sides of the track. Altogether, 70 men were shot beside the railway line and another 16 killed in the village. In 1949, Hauck was put on trial in Lille, France, and was sentenced to death. His sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. He was freed in 1957 after a further sentence reduction.
Normandy
Division's trooper in Erbsenmuster (Pea dot pattern) camouflage, 21 June 1944
On 6 June 1944, the division, along with the 21st Panzer Division, were the closest Panzer divisions to the landing beaches but they were unable to move until ordered by the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW, armed forces high command). The division was ordered to the front at 14:30 hours on 6 June, over twelve hours after the first reports of the landings. Prior to this Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt had ordered over half of the division to deal with a parachute landing on the coast near Lisieux which was found to be dummies from Operation Titanic.[10]
The division's advance to the areas near the British–Canadian landing beaches of Sword and Juno proceeded slowly due to Allied air attacks. The first units of the 12th SS reached their assembly area near Evrecy at 22:00 hours on 6 June but the Panther battalion ran out of fuel east of the Orne River.[11] According to Marc Milner, "[t]his was just the first example of sloppy staff work and command and control that characterized 12th SS Division's experience in the beachhead battles".[12]
12th SS Panzer Loader Crewman, July 1944.British POWs captured by the division, 21 June 1944
At 10:00 hours on 7 June, the 25th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment, along with 50 Panzer IV tanks of the 12th SS Panzer Regiment, arrived and moved into position north-west of Caen.[13] Supported by a battalion of artillery (3rd Battalion, 12th SS Panzer Regiment), this battle group was ordered to stop the Canadian advance and drive through to the coast, a few kilometres away.[14] They failed to break through the Canadians around Buron, a kilometre to the north. Meyer countermanded the divisional commander's order on his own initiative, feeling that objective unrealistic and hoped merely to stop the flow of Canadian units inland until the situation could be stabilized.[15]
The attack by the division was supposed to have been supported by the 21st Panzer Division but they could not disengage from fighting the British 3rd Infantry Division and were still at Couvre.[16] Casualties of the 25th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment amounted to about 300 men, while 15 tanks from the 12th SS Panzer Regiment were also destroyed.[17] Late on 7 June, the 26th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment under command of SS-ObersturmbannfuhrerWilhelm Mohnke arrived on the battlefield. Meyer had pushed back one part of the Canadian advance but to the west, the 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade had occupied a group of small villages three kilometres into the German line. The 26th Panzergrenadier Regiment crossed behind Meyer's regiment and took post to the west. The 1st Battalion launched an attack towards Norrey-en-Bessin, defended by the Regina Rifles, 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade, 3rd Canadian Division. Their orders were to overrun the Canadians and force a deep wedge between them and the British to the west. No reconnaissance of the Canadian positions was done and the infantry met intense defensive fire from firmly established positions.[5]
The attack at 03:30 hours on 8 June had little initial success. The various companies in the attacking battalion failed to coordinate effectively and suffered many casualties. Facing Canadian artillery and the supporting heavy machine guns of the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa, the 1st Battalion of the 12th SS was forced to fall back. Despite their losses, the Regina Rifles stood their ground. The Hitlerjugend division was criticized for performing inadequately in the opening days of the Normandy campaign, with the Canadian Brigadier, Harry Foster, later noting that "no use was made of the fact that the Reginas' flanks were exposed; instead, the enemy flung himself straight against the strongest points and utterly failed to exploit the undoubted weakness of his opponent's position".[14][18]
Soldiers of the 12th SS, most of whom were teenagers.
On the Canadian right, the 2nd Battalion attacked the Royal Winnipeg Rifles defending the village of Putot-en-Bessin at 06:30 hours. The battalion managed to break into the village and surround several companies, pushing the Winnipeg Rifles out of the village by 13:00 hours and inflicting 256 casualties – of which 175 were taken prisoner. Later that day, a counter-attack by the Canadian Scottish Regiment, with artillery, tank and tank-destroyer support, re-took Putot with the SS giving up the struggle for the village and withdrawing around midnight.[19] Oliver Haller concluded that "It is evident that the 12th SS was not capable of conducting successful offensive operations against prepared positions in Normandy. Artillery and anti-tank guns were the key to victory, and the Allies possessed large numbers of these effective weapons. All of the German assaults were checked and defeated in detail. The 3rd Canadian Division had won a decisive victory".[20]
The 3rd Canadian Division ceased major combat operations until July, with only one day of major operations, on 11 June, at the Battle of Le Mesnil-Patry. This saw the 12th SS inflict many casualties on the Queen's Own Rifles of Canada and the 1st Hussars (6th Armoured Regiment) which lost 51 Sherman tanks.[21] Also on 11 June the 46th Royal Marine Commando assaulted Rots. The official historian of Le Régiment de la Chaudière, described the "ferocious battle" including hand-to-hand fighting and "smoldering" tanks, "from each blackened turret hangs the charred corpse of a machine gunner".[22] The following two weeks was a period of relative quiet, as both sides were exhausted. What did not stop was the constant Allied artillery, naval bombardment and air attacks. Major operations for both sides began again in July, including Operation Windsor and Operation Charnwood.
During Charnwood, the division was driven from its positions in Buron and nearby villages of Gruchy and Cussy and the divisional command post in the Ardenne Abbey, which had been occupied since before D-Day, was lost.[23] Witt was killed in action by a Royal Navynaval artillery barrage which hit the divisional command post at Venoix on 14 June 1944 and Kurt Meyer was placed in command of the division.[24] In August, the division was involved in the fighting around Falaise against the Polish 1st Armoured Division battlegroups who were trying to close the Falaise Pocket. The 12th SS, along with several other German units and panzer ace SS-OberscharführerRudolf Roy who destroyed 26 Allied tanks, was instrumental in re-opening the corridor out of the pocket on 20 August, allowing an estimated 10,000 German soldiers to escape encirclement.[25][26][27]
Two men of the division in July 1944 near Normandy
During their retreat from France, members of the LSSAH and the Hitlerjugend division murdered 34 French civilians in the towns of Tavaux and Plomion.[28] The units in the division that were not fit for combat were ordered to return to Germany on 8 September, leaving behind a small Kampfgruppe attached to the SS Division Das Reich.[29] The division losses during the fighting in Normandy, in the three months from June to September, amounted to c.8,000 men,[30] over 80 per cent of its tanks, 70 per cent of its armored vehicles, 60 per cent of its artillery and 50 per cent of its motor vehicles.[31]
Memorial to the murdered Canadian soldiers at the Ardenne Abbey.
Another massacre was committed by the division on its second day of operations during Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of France. During the evening of 7 June, 11 Canadian prisoners of war from the North Nova Scotia Highlanders, the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders and the 27th Armoured Regiment (The Sherbrooke Fusilier Regiment), were shot in the back of the head. After a year of investigations from August 1944 to August 1945, the Canadian War Crimes Commission (CWCC) strove to discover the details of the murders. As commander of the regiment, Kurt Meyer was the prime suspect.[32] At Meyer's war crimes trial in December 1945, he was found guilty of inciting his troops to commit murder and of being responsible as a commander for the killings at the Abbey. He was sentenced to death on 28 December 1945; his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1946. He was released in 1954.
Ardennes offensive
Soldiers of the 12th SS during the Ardennes Offensive, December 23rd 1944.Two boys from the 12th SS Captured by U.S. Forces, December 1944.
In September, SS-ObersturmbannführerHubert Meyer was placed in command of the division.[33] In November 1944, the division was sent to Nienburg in Germany, where it was to be reformed. The majority of reinforcements were transferred from Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine personnel. Hubert Meyer was replaced by SS-ObersturmbannführerHugo Kraas, and the division was attached to the 6th SS Panzer Army of SS-OberstgruppenführerSepp Dietrich, which was forming up for Operation Wacht am Rhein (the Second Battle of the Ardennes, popularly known as the Battle of the Bulge), a large-scale offensive to recapture Antwerp and halt the Allied advance. The operation opened on 16 December 1944, with Kampfgruppe Peiper from the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler breaking through the American lines with some difficulty. After the 12th SS reached the front, it was met with heavy resistance from American troops stationed on the Elsenborn Ridge. Despite repeated efforts, the division could not budge the American defenders. As a result, the division was ordered to swing left and follow the advance line of the remainder of the 1st SS Panzer Division. American troops prevented the division from reaching its objective, and after the destruction of Kampfgruppe Peiper from the LSSAH, the advance of Dietrich's forces was altogether stopped. On 8 January Hitler gave the authorization to withdraw. The attack was ultimately a failure. The 12th SS had been severely mauled, with only 26 tanks and assault guns and an average of 120 men remaining in each battalion.[34] In total during the offensive the division had lost 9,870 men which included 328 officers and 1,698 NCO's.[35] By 28 January 1945, the 12th SS, along with all the German forces, had been pushed back to its starting positions.
1945
On 14 January 1945, Dietrich's 6th SS Panzer Army was ordered to Hungary where it was to take part in an offensive to recapture the Hungarian oilfields and open the way to Budapest, where 45,000 men of the IX SS Mountain Corps had been encircled. While the division was in transit, the IV SS Panzer Corps launched several unsuccessful relief operations. The division, alongside the LSSAH as a part of I SS Panzer Corps arrived in Hungary in early February 1945, a few days before the city fell. The division next took part in Operation Spring Awakening, another operation to retake the Hungarian oilfields. The attack got underway on 6 March 1945; after initial success, the combination of the muddy terrain and strong Soviet resistance ground them to a halt.[36] On 16 March, the Soviet forces counterattacked in strength, driving the entire southern front into a retreat towards Vienna. The Soviet forces took Vienna on 13 April.[37] Retreating through Odenburg and Hirtenberg, the division reached Linz, Austria near the American lines. On 8 May 1945, 10,000 men of the division surrendered near the town of Enns to the troops of the 65th Infantry Division commanded by Major General Stanley Eric Reinhart.[38]
Organization
The organization structure of this SS formation was as follows:[39]
The Waffen-SS was the combat branch of the Nazi Party's paramilitary Schutzstaffel (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with volunteers and conscripts from both German-occupied Europe and unoccupied lands. It was disbanded in May 1945.
Michael Wittmann was a German Waffen-SS tank commander during the Second World War. He is known for his ambush of elements of the British 7th Armoured Division during the Battle of Villers-Bocage on 13 June 1944. While in command of a Tiger I tank, Wittmann destroyed up to 14 tanks, 15 personnel carriers and two anti-tank guns within 15 minutes before the loss of his own tank.
Operation Epsom, also known as the First Battle of the Odon, was a British offensive in the Second World War between 26 and 30 June 1944, during the Battle of Normandy. The offensive was intended to outflank and seize the German-occupied city of Caen from the west, an important Allied objective, in the early stages of Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of north-west Europe.
The Falaise pocket or battle of the Falaise pocket was the decisive engagement of the Battle of Normandy in the Second World War. Allied forces formed a pocket around Falaise, Calvados, in which German Army Group B, consisting of the 7th Army and the Fifth Panzer Army, were encircled by the Western Allies. The battle resulted in the destruction of most of Army Group B west of the Seine, which opened the way to Paris and the Franco-German border.
The 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler or SS Division Leibstandarte, abbreviated as LSSAH, began as Adolf Hitler's personal bodyguard unit, responsible for guarding the Führer's person, offices, and residences. Initially the size of a regiment, the LSSAH eventually grew into an elite division-sized unit during World War II.
The 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich or SS Division Das Reich was an armored division of the Waffen-SS of Nazi Germany during World War II.
Kurt Meyer was an SS commander and convicted war criminal of Nazi Germany. He served in the Waffen-SS and participated in the Battle of France, Operation Barbarossa, and other engagements during World War II. Meyer commanded the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend during the Allied invasion of Normandy, and was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords.
Wilhelm Mohnke was a German military officer who was one of the original members of the SchutzstaffelSS-Stabswache Berlin formed in March 1933. Mohnke, who had joined the Nazi Party in September 1931, rose through the ranks to become one of Adolf Hitler's last remaining general officers at the end of World War II in Europe.
The 9th SS Panzer Division "Hohenstaufen" was a Waffen-SS armoured division of Nazi Germany during World War II. It participated in battles on both the Eastern and Western Fronts. The division was activated in December 1942. Many of the men of the division were young German conscripts, with a cadre of NCOs and staff from the SS Division Leibstandarte and other Waffen SS divisions. Hohenstaufen took part in the relief of German forces in the Kamenets-Podolsky pocket, the Normandy battles, Operation Market Garden, the Ardennes Offensive and Operation Spring Awakening. The division surrendered to the United States Army on 8 May 1945, at Steyr.
Operation Charnwood was an Anglo-Canadian offensive that took place from 8 to 9 July 1944, during the Battle for Caen, part of the larger Operation Overlord in the Second World War. The operation was intended to capture the German-occupied city of Caen, which was an important objective for the Allies during the opening stages of Overlord. It was also hoped that the attack would forestall the transfer of German armoured units from the Anglo-Canadian sector to the American sector to the west, where an offensive was being prepared. The British and Canadians advanced on a broad front and by the evening of the second day had taken Caen up to the Orne and Odon rivers.
The 10th SS Panzer Division "Frundsberg" was a German Waffen-SS armoured division during World War II. The division's first battles were in Ukraine in April 1944. Afterwards, the unit was then transferred to the west, where it fought the Allies in France and at Arnhem. The division was moved to Pomerania, then fought south east of Berlin in the Lusatian area until the end of the war.
The I SS Panzer Corps was a German armoured corps of the Waffen-SS. It saw action on both the Western and Eastern Fronts during World War II.
Fritz Witt was a Waffen-SS commander during the Nazi era. During World War II, he served with the SS Division Leibstandarte before taking command of the SS Division Hitlerjugend. He was killed in action in June 1944.
Hubert Meyer was a German SS commander during the Nazi era and a post-war activist. In World War II, Meyer served in the Waffen-SS and had junior postings with the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler; he briefly commanded the SS Division Hitlerjugend in 1944. After the war, he became active in HIAG, a Waffen-SS negationist lobby group, and was HIAG's last chairman before the group dissolved in 1992.
Operation Perch was a British offensive of the Second World War which took place from 7 to 14 June 1944, during the early stages of the Battle of Normandy. The operation was intended to encircle and seize the German occupied city of Caen, which was a D-Day objective for the British 3rd Infantry Division in the early phases of Operation Overlord. Operation Perch was to begin immediately after the British beach landings with an advance to the south-east of Caen by XXX Corps. Three days after the invasion the city was still in German hands and the operation was amended. The operation was expanded to include I Corps for a pincer attack on Caen.
This is the order of battle for Operation Epsom, a Second World War battle between British and German forces in Normandy, France between 26 June and 30 June 1944.
Operation Windsor(4–5 July 1944), was a Canadian attack of the Battle of Normandy during the Second World War. The attack was undertaken by the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division to take Carpiquet and the adjacent airfield from troops of the 12th SS-Panzer Division Hitler Jugend of Panzergruppe West. The attack was originally intended to take place during the later stages of Operation Epsom, to protect the eastern flank of the main assault but was postponed for a week.
Bernhard Siebken was a German SS commander during World War II and a convicted war criminal. He was sentenced to death for the killing of Canadian prisoners of war and was executed in 1949.
Max Wünsche was a member of the Waffen-SS of Nazi Germany and a regimental commander during World War II. He was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves.
Heinz von Westernhagen was a SS-Obersturmbannführer in the Waffen-SS during World War II. He was a member of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) and commander of the 501st (101st) SS Heavy Panzer Battalion.
References
Citations
↑ Zetterling, N. Normandy 1944: German Military Organization, Combat Power and Organizational Effectiveness. Casemate, 2019, p. 311.
↑ Zetterling, N. Normandy 1944: German Military Organization, Combat Power and Organizational Effectiveness. Casemate, 2019, p. 316.
↑ 12. SS-Panzer-Division "Hitlerjugend", Ia Tgb. Nr. 108/45 g.Kdos. Betr.: Monatliche Zustandsbericht. Stand: 1.2.45. Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv (BA-MA) RH 10/321, fol. 52.
↑ Stacey, C. P. (1960). The Victory Campaign. Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War. Vol.III. Ottawa: The Queen's Printer and Controller of Stationery. p.130.
1 2 Stacey, op. cit., p. 137 and Haller, Oliver: "The Defeat of the 12th SS 7–10 June 1944", in Canadian Military History Quarterly, Volume 3, Issue 1 Available onlineArchived 27 March 2009 at the Wayback Machine . Accessed 6 April 2009. Archived 30 April 2009.
↑ Stacey, ibid. Stacey notes that Meyer's own notes were not explicit on this point.
↑ Haller, The defeat of the 12th SS from 7–10 June 1944 (From: Canadian Military History, Spring 1996)
↑ Copp, Fields of Fire: The Canadians in Normandy, p. 67.
↑ Stacey, C. P. (1959). Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War Volume III. Queen's Printer. p.279.
↑ Zuehlke, Mark (2005). Holding Juno. [Douglas&McIntyre]. ISBN1-55365-102-2.
↑ Martin, Charles Cromwell Battle Diary See also Stacey, op. cit.
↑ Battle of Caen: The Stalingrad of the Hitler Youth by Gerhard Rempel
↑ Stacey, Charles Perry (1960). Vol. III - The Victory Campaign(PDF). Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War. Ottawa: The Queen's Printer and Controller of Stationery. p.161. Archived from the original(PDF) on 21 December 2020. Retrieved 23 October 2015.
↑ Priestman, Karen (2003). The Kurt Meyer Case: The Press and the Canadian People's Response to Canada's First War Crimes Trial. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, pp. 22, 24.
↑ Meyer, Kurt (2001). Grenadiers. JJ Fedorowicz Publishing LTD. p.237.
↑ Mitchum, Samuel (2006). Panzers in Winter; Hitlers Army and the Battle of the Bulge. Greenwood Publishing group. p.158.
↑ Mitchum, Samuel (2006). Panzers in Winter; Hitler's Army and the Battle of the Bulge. Greenwood. p.160.
↑ GORDON WILLIAMSON: "The SS Hitler's Instrument of the power"; published by KAISER; appendix, page 244, "Schlachtordnung der Waffen-SS / Waffen-SS order of battle"; copyright 1994 by Brown Packaging Books Ltd., London.
↑ MILITÄRISCHES STUDIENGLOSAR ENGLISCH Teil II/ Teil III, Deutsch – Englisch, Abkürzung Begriff, Bundessprachenamt (Stand Januar 2001).
Bergström, Christer (2014). The Ardennes, 1944-1945: Hitler's Winter Offensive. Casemate Publishers. ISBN9781612002774.
Számvéber, Norbert (2018). Waffen-SS Armour in Normandy: The Combat History of SS Panzer Regiment 12 and SS Panzerjager Abteilung 12, Normandy 1944, based on their original war diaries. Helion and Company. ISBN978-1912174805.
Fellgiebel, Walther-Peer (1986). Die Träger des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes 1939–1945 – Die Inhaber der höchsten Auszeichnung des Zweiten Weltkrieges aller Wehrmachtsteile. Podzun-Pallas. ISBN978-3-7909-0284-6.
Barbier, Mary (2007). D-day Deception: Operation Fortitude and the Normandy Invasion. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN978-0-275-99479-2.
Zetterling, Niklas (2019). Normandy, 1944: German Military Organization, Combat Power and Organizational Effectiveness. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Casemate. ISBN978-1612008165.
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