2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich
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.
Initially formed from regiments of the SS-Verfügungstruppe, Das Reich initially served during the Battle of France in 1940 before seeing combat on the Eastern Front between 1941 and 1944. It was transferred to the Western Front in 1944, where it fought in the Battle of Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge. Toward the end of the war, it was transferred back to the Eastern Front, where it participated in Operation Spring Awakening in Hungary.
The division became notorious for its brutality, committing numerous war crimes during its operations. The division was responsible for several massacres, including the Tulle massacre on 9 June 1944, and the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre on 10 June 1944.
Operational history
In August 1939 Adolf Hitler placed the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, later SS Division Leibstandarte, and the SS-Verfügungstruppe under the operational command of the High Command of the German Army. The units' performance during the Invasion of Poland raised doubts over the combat effectiveness of the SS-VT. Himmler insisted that the SS-VT should be allowed to fight in its own formations under its own commanders, while the OKW tried to have the SS-VT disbanded altogether. Hitler was unwilling to upset either the army or Heinrich Himmler, and chose a third path. He ordered that the SS-VT form its own divisions but that the divisions would be under army command.In October 1939 the SS-Verfügungstruppe regiments Deutschland, Germania and Der Führer were organized into the SS-Verfügungs-Division with Paul Hausser, a former army officer, as commander. Thereafter, the SS-VT and the LSSAH took part in combat training while under army commands in preparation for Fall Gelb, the invasion against the Low Countries and France in 1940.
In May 1940, the Der Führer Regiment was detached from the division and relocated near the Dutch border, with the remainder of the SS-VT Division behind the line in Münster, awaiting the order to invade the Netherlands. The regiment and LSSAH participated in the ground invasion of the Netherlands, which began on 10 May. An NCO in Der Führer's 3rd Battalion, Oberscharführer Ludwig Kepplinger, became the first Waffen-SS recipient of the Knight's Cross, awarded for leading a patrol over the ruined bridge at IJssel and taking Fort Westervoort by surprise.
On the following day, the rest of the SS-VT Division crossed into the Netherlands, participating in the drive for the Dutch central front and Rotterdam, which they reached on 12 May. After that city had been captured, the SS-VT Division, along with other German formations, were sent to "mop up" the remaining French-Dutch force holding out in the area of Zeeland and the islands of Walcheren and South Beveland. On 17 May the Deutschland Regiment successfully made an opposed crossing of the Sloedam from east to west, a feat attempted four years later by elements of the 2nd Canadian Division and the 52nd Division during the Battle of the Scheldt.
After the fighting in the Netherlands ended, the SS-VT Division was transferred to France. On 24 May the LSSAH, along with the SS-VT Division were positioned to hold the perimeter around Dunkirk and reduce the size of the pocket containing the encircled British Expeditionary Force and French forces. A patrol from the SS-VT Division crossed the canal at Saint-Venant, but was destroyed by British armor. A larger force from the SS-VT Division then crossed the canal and formed a bridgehead at Saint-Venant; 30 miles from Dunkirk. On the following day, British forces attacked Saint-Venant, forcing the SS-VT Division to retreat and relinquish ground. On 26 May the German advance resumed. On 27 May, Regiment Deutschland of the SS-VT Division reached the Allied defensive line on the Leie River at Merville. They forced a bridgehead across the river and waited for the SS Division Totenkopf to arrive to cover their flank. What arrived first was a unit of British tanks, which penetrated their position. The SS-VT managed to hold on against the British tank force, which got to within 15 feet of commander Felix Steiner's position. Only the arrival of the Totenkopf Panzerjäger platoon saved the Regiment Deutschland from being destroyed and their bridgehead lost. By 30 May, most of the remaining Allied forces had been pushed back into Dunkirk where they were evacuated by sea to England. The SS-VT Division next took part in the drive towards Paris.
After the Battle of France, the SS-VT was officially renamed the Waffen-SS in July 1940. In December 1940 the Germania Regiment was removed from the Verfügungs-Division and used to form the cadre of a new division, SS Division Germania. By the start of 1941, the division was renamed "Reich", and "Germania" was renamed as SS Division Wiking.
In April 1941, Germany invaded Yugoslavia and Greece. The LSSAH and Das Reich were attached to separate army Panzer Corps. Fritz Klingenberg, a company commander in Das Reich, led his men across Yugoslavia to the capital, Belgrade, where a small group in the vanguard accepted the surrender of the city on 13 April. A few days later Yugoslavia surrendered.
For the invasion of the Soviet Union, Das Reich fought under Army Group Center, taking part in the Battle of Yelnya near Smolensk; it was then in the spearhead of Operation Typhoon aimed at the capture of the Soviet capital. By the time the division took part in the Battle of Moscow, it had lost 60 percent of its combat strength. It was further reduced in the Soviet Winter counter-offensive: for example, the Der Führer Regiment was down to 35 men out of the 2,000 that had started the campaign in June. The division was "mauled". By February 1942, it had lost 10,690 men. By mid-1942, the division was pulled out of the fighting line and sent to the west to refit as a Panzergrenadier division.
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101III-Zschaeckel-206-35, Schlacht um Kursk, Panzer VI.jpg|thumb|Division's Tiger I tank, during the Battle of Kursk
In January 1943, the division was transferred back from France to the Eastern Front. There it participated in the fighting around Kharkov. Here the unit engaged in some heavy fighting against 1st Guards Cavalry Corps, among other units. Thereafter, it was one of three SS divisions which made up the II SS Panzer Corps, which took part in the Battle of Kursk that summer. The division operated in the southern sector of the Kursk bulge during the Battle of Prokhorovka. It was pulled out of the battle along with the other SS divisions when the offensive was discontinued, giving the strategic initiative to the Red Army. The Battle of Kursk was the first time that a German strategic offensive was halted before it could break through enemy defences and penetrate to its strategic depths. In October, the division was redesignated, this time as SS Panzer Division Das Reich to reflect its complement of tanks.
March of Das Reich
In April 1944, Das Reich took up a new base near the city of Montauban in southern France. The location was chosen so that the division could respond quickly to the anticipated Allied invasion of France on either the Atlantic Coast or the Mediterranean Sea. In May the division received 37 Panzer IV and 55 Panther tanks, well below the official complement of 62 of each, but a full complement of 30 Sturmgeschütz III assault guns. Fuel and truck shortages hampered training and movement and many of the more than 15,000 men in the division were recent recruits and inadequately trained.The Allied Normandy landings took place on 6 June 1944. On 7 June Das Reich was ordered to move to Normandy to reinforce the German units contesting the Allied invasion. An unopposed movement of men and equipment by railroad would have taken three or four days over approximately. A rail transfer was froestalled by the Special Operations Executive. The rail cars to be used for transporting the tanks and equipment were unguarded. In the days before 6 June, French operatives of the SOE's Pimento network, headed by Anthony Brooks, sabotaged the rail cars by draining the axle oil and replacing it with an abrasive powder that caused the axles of the cars to seize up. The powder had been parachuted in by SOE. The perpetrators of the sabotage were a 16-year-old girl named Tetty, her boyfriend, her 14-year-old sister and several of their friends.
Das Reich left Montauban on 8 June with 1,400 vehicles and proceeded northwards by road. The steel tracks of the tanks and assault guns wore out; vehicles broke down frequently and fuel was in short supply. Pinprick attacks by groups of resistors, called Maquis, killed 15 Germans on the first two days of the movement. More than 100 French were killed, many of them unarmed civilians. Das Reich was ordered to suppress the Maquis during its journey; "to break the spirit of the population by making examples". The division carried out the order by Bandenbekampfung massacring hundreds of civilians on 9 and 10 June in Tulle and Oradour-sur-Glane. Attacks by resistance forces mostly ended on 12 June as Das Reich moved into less favorable territory for ambushes.
Air attacks hindered the progress of the division in the last phases of its northward journey. On 11 June British bombers attacked and destroyed several railcars full of much-needed fuel at Châtellerault. The airstrike was directed by B Squadron, 1st Special Air Service as Operation Bulbasket. After its advance elements crossed the Loire River on 13 June, the division was under constant air attacks during the day and Das Reich arrived in Normandy piecemeal, between 15 and 30 June, its arrival delayed at least several days by the resistance attacks and air strikes. Rather than going on the offensive to try to push the Allies back into the sea, Das Reich initially found itself mostly plugging gaps in the German defenses. The division was not reunited until 10 July.