Michael Wittmann
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.
Wittmann became a cult figure after the war thanks to his accomplishments as a "panzer ace", part of the portrayal of the Waffen-SS in popular culture. Historians have mixed opinions about his tactical performance in battle. Some praised his actions at Villers-Bocage, while many others found his abilities lacking, and the praise for his tank kills overstated.
Although the number is disputed, he is credited with destroying 135 to 138 enemy tanks. German tank kills were recorded as a unit. When Hitler personally upgraded Wittman's Knight's Cross with oak leaves on 2 February 1944, Wittman's total was 117 tanks.
Early life and World War II
Michael Wittmann was born in the village of Vogelthal, near Dietfurt in Bavaria's Upper Palatinate, on 22 April 1914. He enlisted in the German Army in 1934 after the Nazi seizure of power. Wittmann joined the Schutzstaffel in October 1936 and was assigned to the regiment, later division, Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler on 5 April 1937. In 1938, he participated in the annexation of Austria, the occupation of Sudetenland, and joined the Nazi Party.The Nazi regime pursued a massive armament policy. On 1st September 1939, it began the Invasion of Poland, on 9 April 1940 the invasion of Denmark and Norway and on 10 May 1940 the Battle of France and on 6 April 1941 the Balkans campaign.
Eastern Front
In the spring of 1941, Wittmann's unit was transferred to the Eastern Front for Operation Barbarossa, the planned invasion of the Soviet Union. He was assigned to SS Panzer Regiment 1, a tank unit, where he commanded a StuG III assault gun/tank destroyer and a Panzer III medium tank. By 1943, he commanded a Tiger I tank, and had become a platoon leader in the heavy company by the time Operation Citadel and the Battle of Kursk took place.Attached to the LSSAH, Wittmann's platoon of four Tigers reinforced the division's reconnaissance battalion to screen the division's left flank. On their first day in battle at Kursk, Wittmann and his crew were credited with eight tanks and seven anti-tank guns destroyed. At one point, his tank survived a collision with a burning T-34.
In November 1943, Wittmann, still serving in Leibstandarte’s heavy company, was involved in armored counterattacks against Soviet troops around Zhitomir. On their first day in action against these troops, Wittman’s crew claimed the destruction of ten T-34s and five anti-tank guns. “By early January 1944 his combined total of destroyed tanks would rise to sixty-six.”
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1987-074-33, Michael Wittmann und Adolf Hitler.jpg|thumb|upright|alt=Wittmann, standing on the left, is shown receiving his Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross from Adolf Hitler standing on the right.| Wittmann receiving the Swords to his Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross from Adolf Hitler in 1944
On 14 January 1944, Wittmann was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. The presentation was made by his divisional commander, SS-Oberführer Theodor Wisch, who nominated him for the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves. Wittmann was awarded the Oak Leaves on 30 January for the claimed destruction of 117 tanks, making him the 380th member of the German armed forces to receive it. He received the award from Adolf Hitler, who presented it to him at the Wolf's Lair, his headquarters in Rastenburg, on 2 February 1944.
Normandy
In April 1944, the LSSAH's Tiger Company was transferred to SS Heavy Panzer Battalion 101. This battalion was assigned to the I SS Panzer Corps as a corps asset, and was never permanently attached to any division or regiment. Wittmann was appointed commander of the battalion's second company, and held the rank of SS-Obersturmführer. On 7 June, the day after the Allied Invasion of Normandy began, the battalion was ordered to move from Beauvais to Normandy. The move, covering 165 km, took five days to complete.Due to the Anglo-American advance south from Gold and Omaha Beaches, the German 352nd Infantry Division began to buckle. As the division withdrew south, it opened a 12 km gap in the front line near Caumont-l'Éventé.
Sepp Dietrich, commander of 1st SS Panzer Corps, ordered Heavy SS-Panzer Battalion 101, his only reserve, to position itself behind the Panzer Lehr Division and SS Division Hitlerjugend. From this position, the battalion could protect the developing open left flank.
Anticipating the importance the British would assign to the high ground near Villers-Bocage, Wittmann's company was positioned near the town. It arrived late on 12 June. Nominally composed of 12 tanks, his company was 50 per cent understrength with only six tanks due to losses and mechanical failures on the hundred-mile road march from the assembly area at Beauvais.
The next morning, lead elements of the British 7th Armoured Division entered Villers-Bocage. Their objective was to exploit the gap in the front line, seize Villers-Bocage, and capture the nearby ridge in an attempt to force a German withdrawal.
Wittman had not expected them to arrive so soon and had no time to assemble his company. "Instead I had to act quickly, as I had to assume that the enemy had already spotted me and would destroy me where I stood." Having ordered the rest of the company to hold its ground, he set off with one tank.
At approximately 09:00, Wittmann's Tiger emerged from cover onto the main road, Route Nationale 175, and engaged the rearmost British tanks positioned on Point 213, destroying them.
Wittmann then moved towards Villers-Bocage, shooting several unarmed transport vehicles parked along the roadside. The carriers burst into flames as their fuel tanks were ruptured by machine gun and high explosive fire. Moving into the eastern end of the town, he engaged several light tanks, followed by medium tanks.
Alerted to Wittmann's actions, light tanks in the middle of the town quickly got off the road, while medium tanks were brought forward. Wittmann, meanwhile, had destroyed another British tank and two artillery observation post tanks, followed by a scout car and a half-track.
Accounts differ slightly as to what happened next. Historians record that, after destroying the OP tanks, Wittmann duelled briefly without success with a Sherman Firefly before withdrawing. His Tiger is then reported to have continued eastwards to the outskirts of the town before being disabled by an anti-tank gun. However, Wittmann said his tank was disabled by an anti-tank gun in the town centre.
In less than 15 minutes, 13 or 14 tanks, two anti-tank guns, and 13 to 15 transport vehicles had been destroyed by Heavy SS-Panzer Battalion 101, the majority or all attributed to Wittmann. He played no further role in the Battle of Villers-Bocage. For his actions during the battle, Wittmann was promoted to SS-Hauptsturmführer, and awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords.
The German propaganda machine swiftly credited Wittmann, by then a household name in Germany, with all the British tanks destroyed at Villers-Bocage. He recorded a radio message on the evening of 13 June, describing the battle and claiming that later counter-attacks had destroyed a British armoured regiment and an infantry battalion. Doctored images were produced; three joined-together photographs, published in the German army magazine Signal, gave a false impression of the scale of destruction in the town.
The propaganda campaign was given credence in Germany and abroad, leaving the British convinced that the Battle of Villers-Bocage had been a disaster. In fact, its results were less clear-cut. The Waffen-SS may have fought with distinction during the Battle of Kursk but could not match the army's success, hence Sepp Dietrich's attempts to manufacture a hero out of Wittmann.
Death
On 8 August 1944, Anglo-Canadian forces launched Operation Totalize. Under the cover of darkness, British and Canadian tanks and troops seized the tactically important high ground near the town of Saint-Aignan-de-Cramesnil. Here they paused, awaiting an aerial bombardment that would signal the next phase of the attack. Unaware of the reason the Allied forces had halted, SS Hitlerjugend Division Commander Kurt Meyer ordered a counterattack to recapture the high ground.Wittmann led a group of seven Tiger tanks from Heavy SS-Panzer Battalion 101, supported by additional tanks and infantry. His group of Tigers crossed open terrain towards the high ground. They were ambushed by Allied tanks from two sides. On the right or northeast, British tanks from "A" Squadron 1st Northamptonshire Yeomanry and "B" Squadron 144th Regiment Royal Armoured Corps were positioned in woods. To the left or west, "A" Squadron Sherbrooke Fusilier Regiment was located at a chateau courtyard broadside to the attack, where they had knocked firing positions through the stone walls.
The attack collapsed as the Canadian tanks destroyed two Tiger tanks, two Panzer IVs and two self-propelled guns in Wittman's force, while British tank fire destroyed three other Tigers. During the ambush, anti-tank shells fired from Canadian tanks penetrated the upper hull of Wittmann's tank, igniting the ammunition. The resulting fire engulfed the tank and blew off the turret. The destroyed tank's dead crew members were buried in an unmarked grave. In 1983, the German War Graves Commission located the burial site. Wittmann and his crew were reinterred together at the La Cambe German war cemetery in France.
In 2008 a documentary in the Battlefield Mysteries TV series examined the final battle. A historian, Norm Christie, interviewed participants; Sydney Valpy Radley-Walters, Joe Ekins and Ken Tout, and from their testimony and the two German accounts pieced the final battle together. The Tigers left the cover of a hedge near Cintheaux at 12:30 in two prongs; one in the middle of the field with the other—including Wittman—moving more slowly on the right. The British 75mm armed tanks engaged the lead Tiger hitting it in the transmission, bogies or track and it started going in circles trying to withdraw. Joe Ekins' tank hit the second Tiger on the right side and knocked it out. As the crew escaped and brought out their wounded, they watched another Tiger north of them go up in flames. Iriohn partly withdrew but could not get away and was hit by Ekins—"the one that was mulling around." Wittmann signalled "Pull back!" He did not realize that a group of the Sherbrookes were immediately to his right, and in a volley they knocked out the two Tigers beside the road. The commander of the second Tiger recalled the position of Wittmann's tank and specifically the skewed turret. The tank blew up shortly afterwards. Hans Hoflinger in a following Tiger was also attacked by enfilading fire from Sherman Fireflies with powerful 17-pounder guns, and had to abandon his tank. He saw the fire and explosion in Wittmann's tank, and that the turret was displaced to the right and tilted down to the front somewhat. None of his crew had gotten out. Survivors from Dollinger's tank passed by the wreck of Wittmann's tank shortly afterwards.
In more recent years the 2008 Battlefield Mysteries documentary has been criticized on grounds of inaccuracy and standard of proof. It is largely based on the postulations put forward by Canadian writer Brian Reid's unsubstantiated claims made in 2005. Much of the show is based on speculation and is at odds with the first Investigation conducted by After the Battle military magazine published in 1985. It was After The Battle that were the first to investigate Wittmann's death and had documentary evidence from the War Diary of the 1st Northamptonshire Yeomanry. This only mentions 3 Tigers in the field, numbers 312, 007 and 314 and it does not mention the Sherbrooke Fusiliers who were supposed to be across the field. In a battle this would have been reported. The documentary has comments from Brig. General Radley Walters, which was in one of the Sherwood Fusiliers tanks. While his tank did not destroy any tanks, they saw the tanks passing by. He does remember a tremendous explosion. According to the documentary, there was a fourth tank, the 009 visible from Ekins position. It cannot be ruled out that a sloppy written 009 can be interpreted as 007 forbthe war diary.