2nd SS Panzer Division "Das Reich" - the most combat-ready part of the "Waffen-SS"

German tank division

2nd SS Panzer Division "Das Reich"

(German: 2. SS-Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht "Das Reich") [1] was one of 38 divisions of the Waffen-SS in Nazi Germany during World War II.
Das Reich
served during the Invasion of France and took part in several major battles on the Eastern Front, including the Battle of Prokhorovka against the 5th Guards Tank Army in the Battle of Kursk.
It was then transferred to the West and took part in the fighting in Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge, ending the war in Hungary and Austria. Das Reich
carried out the massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane and Tulle.

History of operations[edit]

In August 1939, Adolf Hitler placed the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) and the SS-Verfügungstruppe (SS-VT) under the operational command of the OKH (High Command of the German Army). Events during the invasion of Poland raised doubts about the combat effectiveness of the SS-VT. Himmler insisted that the SS-VT be allowed to fight in its own formations under its command, while OKW tried to disband the SS-VT completely. Hitler did not want to upset either the army or Himmler and chose the third path. He ordered that the SS-VT form its own divisions, but that the divisions be under army command. [2]

In October 1939, the regiments of the SS-Verfügungstruppe Deutschland

,
Germania
and
Der Führer
were combined into the SS-Verfügungs division under the command of Paul Hausser. [2] [3] Following this, SS-VT and LSSAH took part in combat training under Army command in preparation for the Fall Gelb against the Netherlands and France in 1940. [4]

In May 1940, the Der-Führer

was separated from the SS-VT division and relocated near the Dutch border, with the remainder of the division behind the line in Münster awaiting orders to invade the Netherlands.
[5] Der Führer
Regiment and LSSAH participated in the ground invasion of the Netherlands, which began on 10 May. The next day, the rest of the SS-VT division crossed into the Netherlands, participating in the offensive against the Dutch central front and Rotterdam, which they reached on 12 May. [5] [6] After this town was captured, the SS-VT division, along with other German formations, was sent to "clean up" the remaining French-Dutch forces held in the area of ​​Zeeland and the islands of Walcheren and South Beveland. [7]

After the end of the fighting in the Netherlands, the SS-VT division was ordered to France. [8] On 24 May, the LSSAH, along with the SS-VT Division, moved into position to hold the perimeter around Dunkirk and reduce the size of the pocket that contained the encircled British Expeditionary Force and French troops. [9] A patrol from the SS-VT division crossed the canal at Saint-Venant, but was destroyed by British armor. The larger force of the SS-VT division then crossed the canal and formed a bridgehead at Saint-Venant; 30 miles from Dunkirk. [10] The next day, British troops attacked Saint-Venant, forcing the SS-VT division to retreat and abandon the ground. [10]On May 26, the German offensive resumed. 27 May Deutschland

The SS-VT division reached the Allied defense line on the River Ley at Merville.
They forced a bridgehead across the river and awaited the arrival of the SS Division Totenkopf
to cover their flank.
A unit of British tanks arrived first and broke through their positions. SS-VT managed to hold off the British tank force, which came to within 15 feet of commander Felix Steiner's position. Only the arrival of a platoon of Totenkopf
Panzerjäger saved
Deutschland
from destruction and the loss of their beachhead. [11]By 30 May, most of the remaining Allied forces had been driven back to Dunkirk, from where they were evacuated by sea to England. The SS-VT division then took part in the attack on Paris. [12]

2nd SS Panzer Division near Kirovograd, Soviet Union, December 1943

Following the conclusion of the Battle of France, the SS-VT was officially renamed the Waffen-SS in July 1940. [12] In December 1940, the Germania

was withdrawn from
the Verfügungs-Division
and used to form personnel for the new division. , SS Division Germany. [13] It consisted mainly of Danes, Norwegians, Dutch and Flemish volunteers from the occupied territories. [14] By early 1941, the division was renamed "Reich" (in 1942 "Das Reich") and "Germania" was renamed the 5th SS Wiking Panzer Division. [15]

In April 1941, Germany invaded Yugoslavia and Greece. LSSAH and Das Reich

were assigned to separate army tank corps.
Fritz Klingenberg, a company commander at Das Reich
, led his men through Yugoslavia to the capital, Belgrade, where a small group in the van accepted the city's surrender on 13 April. A few days later Yugoslavia surrendered. [16]

For the invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa) Das Reich

fought alongside Army Group Center, participating in the Battle of Yelnya near Smolensk;
it was then at the forefront of Operation Typhoon, aimed at capturing the Soviet capital. By the time Das Reich
took part in the Battle of Moscow, it had lost 60 percent of its combat strength.
During the Soviet winter counter-offensive it was further reduced: for example, the Der-Führer's
was reduced to 35 men from the 2,000 that began the campaign in June.
The division was "torn to pieces." [17]By February 1942, it had lost 10,690 men. [18] By mid-1942, the division now known as Das Reich
was withdrawn from the line of battle and sent west to refit as a
Panzergrenadier Division
. [19]

Soldiers of the 2nd SS Panzer Division, Tiger I tank, during the Battle of Kursk

In 1943 Das Reich

was transferred from France to the Eastern Front.
There he took part in the battles near Kharkov. [20] After this, it was one of three SS divisions that made up the 2nd SS Panzer Corps, which fought in the Battle of Kursk that summer. [21] Das Reich
operated in the southern sector of the Kursk Bulge.
After the offensive ceased, it was withdrawn from the battle along with other SS divisions, transferring the strategic initiative to the Red Army. [22] The Battle of Kursk was the first time that a German strategic offensive was stopped before it could break through enemy defenses and penetrate into its strategic depths. [23] In October, Das Reich
was renamed, this time the
SS Panzer Division "Das Reich",
to reflect its composition. [24]

Beginning on June 6, 1944, the Allied landings in Normandy took place on the coast of France. At that time SS-Das Reich

located in the south of France.
[25] The division was sent north shortly after the Normandy landings, [26] and was one of the few armored formations sent to defeat US rather than British forces in Normandy between June and July. [27] On 4 August, Hitler ordered a counter-offensive (Operation Lütich) from Vire towards Avranches; the operation included Das Reich
.
However, Allied forces were prepared for this offensive, and the air attack on the combined German units proved devastating. [28] Paris was liberated on 25 August, and by the end of August the last German troops had withdrawn across the Seine, ending the Normandy campaign. [29] The US 2nd Panzer Division was encircled by the Reich
and the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division by Götz von Berlichingen around Roncey.
[30] In the process, Das Reich
and the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division lost most of their armored vehicles.
[30] Around Roncey, P-47 Thunderbolts from the 405th Fighter Group destroyed a German column of 122 tanks, 259 vehicles, and 11 artillery pieces. A separate attack by British typhoons near La Baleina destroyed 9 tanks, 8 other armored vehicles and 20 other vehicles. [31] The column around La Chapelle was attacked at point-blank range by the 2nd Armored Division's artillery. In two hours, American artillery fired more than 700 rounds at the column. The division suffered 50 killed, 60 wounded and 197 captured. Material losses amounted to more than 260 destroyed German combat vehicles. [32] Outside the city, another 1,150 German soldiers were killed in action. The division also lost an additional 96 armored fighting vehicles and trucks. [32] On 13 September 1944, Das Reich
reported the presence of 12,357 officers and men, [33] up from 17,283 on 1 July. [27] The division surrendered to the US Army in May 1945.

One of the division's war crimes occurred at Chateau de Laclotte on June 7, 1944. On the right is the place where civilians were shot.

Source: Wolfgang Kunow. SS Division "Reich". 2.SS-Panzer Division "Das Reich". History of the Second SS Panzer Division. 1039-1945 Moscow, "YAUZA", 2006.

The presented passage represents the point of view of the author of the book and has no direct relation to the point of view of the authors of the site. This information is presented as a German point of view on the course of battles on the Mozhaisk defense line. We are not responsible for the actions of site visitors after reading the article. This article was obtained from open sources and published for informational purposes. In case of unknowing copyright infringement, the information will be removed after receiving a corresponding request from the authors or publishers in writing.

We decided to publish this excerpt from Volgang Kunov’s book for several reasons. Firstly, you need to know and understand what a serious enemy in the person of the SS division “Das Reich” the 32nd Infantry Division Polosukhin and the units attached to it had to face on the Borodino field. Secondly, V. Kunov describes the highest intensity of the battles for every village, height, and roadside bunkers. Thirdly, V. Kunov mentions the names of settlements and rivers where and through which the SS men of the Das Reich division broke through, where specifically the Der Fuhrer and Deutschland regiments attacked. We have not yet found sources in which episodes of battles in the area of ​​the Borodino field would be described in detail, in detail, indicating the units of the Red Army and the opposing enemy, as well as the settlements where the battles took place. Even in museums in Moscow and Borodino there are no detailed maps of the location of regiments and battalions of the 32nd division. It seems that this information is of particular interest to reenactors, who every year reenact on the Borodino field the scene of clashes between Red Army units and the advanced units of the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS advancing on Shevardino, Borodino and Gorki.

SS division "Das Reich" storms Borodino

...On October 4, 1941, it was the turn of the Reich division to take part in Operation Typhoon. Its units, as part of the 10th Tank Division, passed through the cities of Krichev and Ladyzhino during the general offensive. Having taken these two cities, the SS division continued its advance in a northwestern direction, capturing the territory between Gzhatsk and Vyazma. This maneuver was part of the plan to encircle enemy troops with the XLVI Tank Corps during the capture of Gzhatsk. Despite delays caused by heavy autumn rains, which turned the ground into a complete swamp, the Reich Division reached the indicated area after a few days...

...In early October, units of the Reich division turned northeast in the direction of Yukhnov and Gzhatsk. In the forests through which the divisional column was moving, partisans had already begun to operate, although during the period described these were small groups of Red Army soldiers who managed to escape from encirclement, joined by prisoners of war who had escaped from the Germans. It was very easy to escape from captivity if desired - the “green SS men” could hardly allocate one guard to guard five hundred prisoners. The advancing units of the division occupied two or three villages out of twenty along the way...

...On the night of October 6-7, 1941, the first snow fell.

In the early morning of October 7, 1941, the Deutschland regiment led an attack on the Red Army positions near Gzhatsk. With the active support of a division of self-propelled howitzers, the 3rd battalion (division) of the artillery regiment, a light anti-aircraft battery and an anti-tank company, the 2nd battalion of the Deutschland regiment drove deep into the enemy defenses and by the evening captured part of the hill northwest of Sharaponov. An hour later, the battalion threw back the enemy troops even further to the north, in the direction of Mikheev, and captured Potovskaya Sloboda.

In Gzhatsk, units of the Reich Division had to fight on two fronts - in the west with Red Army units trying to break out of encirclement, and in the east - with Soviet divisions sent by Marshal Timoshenko to protect the Smolensk-Moscow highway.

On the same day, but somewhat later, the 1st battalion of the Deutschland regiment followed the 2nd battalion and by midnight captured the village of Kamenka. Meanwhile, the 3rd battalion took up combat positions, cutting off the Smolensk-Moscow highway. As a result of these actions of the battalions of the Deutschland regiment, significant forces of the Red Army were surrounded in the Gzhatsk area. On October 9, 1941, the regiment attacked the city in two directions. The 1st battalion advanced on Gzhatsk along the highway, and the 3rd advanced to the left of the highway (which appeared to the SS men, judging by their diaries, as “a wide earthen rampart sprinkled with gravel”).

The first task of the offensive was to capture the railway embankment, after which it was planned to leave it under the protection of the 2nd battalion. Despite the raids of Soviet bombers, the offensive of the assault battalions developed quite successfully. Having reached a wooded area, the 1st battalion came under small fire from the enemy, who had taken refuge in the forest, as a result of which the German offensive on the right flank slowed down somewhat. While the grenadiers continued to carry out their assigned combat mission, the reconnaissance group infiltrated the enemy line of defense, secretly entered the southern suburb of Gzhatsk and, in a surprise attack, destroyed a group of enemy trucks transporting Soviet soldiers. In the afternoon, the main forces of the SS regiment that took part in the offensive entered the city. In Gzhatsk, the SS discovered several civilians hanged by the Red Army before the Soviet garrison retreated from the burning city.

In an effort to drive the Germans out of Gzhatsk again, the Red Army launched a series of counterattacks against the battalions of the Deutschland regiment entrenched in the city. Having received a report of the accumulation of significant enemy forces in the threatened area, the command of the Reich division transferred the Der Fuhrer regiment to the area east of Gzhatsk in order to intercept the movement of Soviet troops. Having captured a vast hill in the Sloboda area, the regiment broke through the Soviet defense line and continued to advance along the highway to Moscow until it came into direct contact with the outer defense line of the Soviet capital in the area of ​​Borodino Field.

The Reich Division advanced on Moscow together with the brigade of General Bruno von Hauenschild, which was part of the 10th Panzer Division, with the 7th Tank Regiment, a battalion (division) of the 90th Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment and the 10th Motorcycle Battalion. Soviet troops mined the fields between the Smolensk-Moscow highway and the old postal route located to the north, erected wire fences, anti-tank ditches and dugouts. These defensive structures were defended, with the support of aviation, by selected Red Army units armed with flamethrowers, mortars and artillery. [261]

On the Borodino field, units of the Reich Division for the first time had to fight with Siberians from the 32nd Infantry Division; according to the recollections of the “green SS men”, these were tall, well-armed soldiers, dressed in wide sheepskin coats and hats, with fur boots (probably high boots or felt boots) on the feet. The Siberians were supported by two Soviet tank brigades, which included T-34 medium tanks and KB heavy tanks (Klim Voroshilov).

[262]

The bloody battle on the Borodino field lasted two days. The Reich Division suffered significant losses. But in the end, German artillery under the command of Colonel Helmut Weidling made a hole in the Soviet defenses. Assault units rushed into the gap, and the first line of Moscow’s defense was completely broken through. On October 19, 1941, units of the Reich division entered Mozhaisk.

To stop the German advance, the Red Army artillerymen used the famous Katyusha Guards rocket mortars for the first time against units of the Reich Division rushing to Moscow. The Germans, by the way, called these multiple launch rocket systems “Stalin’s organ” (stalinorgel). Their own "smoke throwers" - nebelwerfers (and in Red Army terminology - "vanyushas") could simultaneously throw out six smoke or high-explosive fragmentation mines, which, of course, was also quite effective, but could not compare with the effect of the Soviet "Katyushas", each of which she unleashed twenty rocket mines at a time. As they say, “steel - armor - a sea of ​​​​fire”... Moreover, most of the “Stalinist organs” were mounted on trucks, in contrast to the less mobile “smoke throwers” ​​of the Germans. One of the former officers of the tactical headquarters of the Reich division much later recalled [263] the effect produced on the Germans by the “Stalinist organ” in the following terms: “Since there were no trenches nearby, I took cover behind a tree, from where I watched the exploding rockets. It was an unforgettable fireworks display!” From his makeshift “observation post,” he watched the Soviet fire raid, and “the smell of explosives was etched in his memory, as well as the black, red and purple reflections from the explosions of air mines, which, if my memory serves me correctly, took the shape of tulip heads.” During a fire raid by Soviet Katyushas on the Borodino field, “Papa Gausser” was seriously wounded, losing an eye and being replaced as division commander by Willy Bittrich, commander of the Deutschland regiment.

By mid-October 1941, the Reich Division was involved in a full-scale German offensive against the outer line of defense. At the forefront of the offensive were the battalions of the Der Fuhrer regiment (to which the German side, probably, along with a purely military one, also attached symbolic significance).

On October 19, heavy rains began, and not only the Reich Division, but the entire Army Group Center became stuck in the mud. As eyewitnesses recall, their eyes saw a terrible picture: a convoy of equipment stretching for hundreds of kilometers, in which three rows stood trucks stuck in the mud on the highway, often stuck in clay slurry up to the hood. As usual, there was not enough gasoline and ammunition. Supplies (an average of two hundred tons per division) were delivered by air. At the cost of hard, hard labor and incredible efforts, the “green SS men” managed to lay fifteen kilometers of road from round timber. Reflecting counterattacks from Siberian riflemen and T-34 tanks, the Reich SS men crossed the Moscow River above Ruza. They really “wanted to be the first on Red Square.” They even rejoiced at the frost that hit on the night of November 6–7. Transport communications improved, ammunition, fuel, food and cigarettes were delivered to parts of the SS division, the wounded were evacuated, and preparations began for a general offensive on the capital of the Comintern.

The assault battalions of the Der Fuehrer regiment rushed forward, sweeping away road barriers, destroying Soviet tanks buried in the ground and turned into firing points, destroying the crews of the Red Army flamethrowers, destroying pillboxes and dots. In a battle that lasted the whole night, the grenadier shock troops of the “Green SS” clashed in deadly combat, which every now and then turned into hand-to-hand combat with the shock units of the Soviet 32nd Siberian Rifle Division. Fierce fighting lasted two weeks. Although the Germans, subjecting enemy positions to merciless artillery fire, captured Mozhaisk, their forces were undermined by huge losses, diseases and climatic conditions - increasingly severe cold weather set in.

North of the highway to Moscow, the Deutschland regiment, in the battle for Mikhailovka and Pushkin, encountered two Kazakh (the Germans themselves called them “Mongolian”) battalions from the Soviet 82nd Motorized Rifle Division. Under a hail of rocket mines spewed by Soviet Katyushas, ​​SS strikers burst into a village near Mikhailovka, where they were counter-attacked by the Kazakhs, advancing with the support of artillery and tank units. The “Mongols” rolled towards the SS men in waves that continuously replaced one another. In hand-to-hand combat, bayonets, butts, sapper blades and grenades were used. No prisoners were taken, no quarter was given to the wounded. In the end, the grenadiers of the Deutschland Regiment, although with great difficulty and with the help of fire support from SS artillery batteries, managed to repel the counterattack of the “Mongols”.

As we already know, just a few weeks after the start of Operation Barbarossa, the rains came, and “General Mud”1 (a somewhat poetic name given by incorrigible romantic Germans to Russian mud and impassability) came into its own, playing an important role in slowing down the pace German "lightning" attack on Moscow. The excessively extended lines of communication of the Reich Division, which (like other German units that took part in the offensive), as a result of this extension, experienced a constant lack of supply of ammunition, fuel, food and everything necessary, led to the failure of the implementation and completion of Operation Typhoon on schedule . But the end of the period of autumn rains and thaw, despite the fact that the frost had finally hardened the soil so that it was again possible to drive on wheeled and tracked vehicles, did not bring any relief to the armies of the Third Reich, but, on the contrary, led to a further deterioration their already difficult situation. If in the summer of 1940 in France, according to the recollections of participants in Operations Gelb and Roth, “German tanks, with the support of aviation, rushed forward uncontrollably, and the entire German army rushed behind them on trucks,” then in Russia, unfavorable weather conditions did not allowed tank units to advance at the intended speed, in order to provide support to the SS infantry that had rushed forward (that is, tanks, which, according to the plans of Heinz Guderian and other Blitzkrieg theorists, were supposed to move ahead of the motorized infantry, clearing the way for them, and the motorized infantry, which was supposed to follow tanks, building on the success they had achieved, swapped places on the Eastern Front, while the German motorized infantry very often remained [265] “motorized” only in name, turning into ordinary infantry due to the need to abandon their trucks, stuck in the mud due to the lack of fuel due to disrupted communications, and with the onset of winter cold - also due to the breakdown of German synthetic fuel into non-combustible fractions!).

Mindful of the lack of winter uniforms among German soldiers (associated with the extremely short planning period for Operation Barbarossa, as the only opportunity in the eyes of the Fuhrer and Reich Chancellor to prevent Stalin's attack), Hitler and his generals put literally everything on the line to ensure their armies the opportunity to capture Moscow until the end of the year. The thermometer dropped to minus thirty, and in some places even to minus fifty. The number of frostbite cases among German soldiers increased sharply. Frostbitten body parts in many cases led to necrosis, gangrene and the need for urgent amputation, often under enemy fire, in completely unsanitary conditions and without anesthesia, which further increased the number of victims. To escape from their second, no less merciless enemy, “General Winter”1, German soldiers put on everything they could, taking warm clothes from the local population and even putting on themselves, one on top of the other, several uniforms and overcoats taken from the corpses of killed Red Army soldiers and their own fallen comrades. A lucky few replaced their boots, worn out for many months, not taken off for weeks on end, and rotting on their feet, with felt boots. Others had to wrap straw, rags or woolen scarves around their feet. It is no coincidence that the surviving participants in the attack on Moscow, who were later awarded a medal for this winter campaign, in a surge of soldierly black humor, nicknamed it the “Order of Frozen Meat”!2

Due to the reasons stated above (and also, not least, thanks to the lessons learned from the “winter war” with the White Finns of 1939/40, at the initial stage of which a considerable number of Red Army soldiers froze precisely due to the lack of appropriate winter uniform), the Soviet Red Army was prepared for the winter cold incomparably better than the Germans. Not to mention the fact that the majority of the Red Army soldiers were natives of regions with a harsh climate [266] (Siberia, Kazakhstan, etc.), accustomed to cold winters, they were equipped according to the weather (quilted quilted jackets and quilted trousers, sheepskin coats, warm hats- earflaps, mittens, felt boots, white winter camouflage robes and overalls, etc.). Rifle units of Soviet military skiers, who were particularly mobile in snowy terrain, took part in the defense of Moscow. Being fully armed, the Red Army was capable of launching, from mid-October to mid-November 1941, a whole series of sudden counterattacks against the Germans, who were trying just at that time to adapt to the conditions of the winter war and strengthen their control over the conquered territories

Having repelled all these counter-offensives, the armies of the Third Reich continued their attack on Moscow. On November 18, 1941, the XLVI Corps received orders to capture the city of Istra. During this operation, the right flank of the corps advancing on Istra was formed by the Reich SS division, and the left by the 1st Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht. The Germans hoped, having captured Istra and other strategically important areas around Moscow, to encircle the Soviet capital and destroy its garrison, repeating the Kyiv operation on an even larger scale.

Within a week, SS units fought their way to the Istra River and created a bridgehead on its bank. Having crossed the river, the Reich Division attacked the enemy troops opposing it and put them to flight. Two days later, SS troops occupied the city of Istra and attacked a neighboring settlement located on the crest of a tactically important hill. Despite the fierce resistance of the Soviet garrison, the SS men, after a four-day battle, captured the hill, with the support of the tanks of the 10th Panzer Division, which provided truly invaluable support to the SS grenadiers storming the Soviet positions.

After this important node of the Soviet defensive system fell into German hands, November 27? In 1941, a general offensive against Moscow began. At this final stage of Operation Typhoon, the Reich division captured Vysokov within 24 hours, coming very close to the Soviet capital. Despite the continuous and seemingly unstoppable movement of the division forward towards its goal, the ranks of the SS units were very thin due to terrible losses - both combat and non-combat (primarily due to frostbite). On paper, the offensive continued with the forces of regiments and battalions; in reality, pitiful handfuls of extremely tired, exhausted and wounded people moved forward.

By the end of November, Willy Bittrich was forced to disband the 2nd battalion of the Der Fuehrer regiment, which had suffered huge losses, and distribute its remnants to other parts of the regiment. For a similar reason, he also had to disband the 3rd battalion of the Deutschland Regiment. Meanwhile, in the 10th Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht, intended to support the badly battered SS division during further operations against the garrison of the city of Moscow, only seven serviceable tanks remained! It seemed that the division continued to exist as a fighting unit only due to the fact that its surviving fighters relied entirely on fate and on their ability to continue fighting

And only when Luftwaffe bombers flew over the heads of the SS men towards Moscow did the grenadiers experience something like a surge of cheerfulness that made them forget about their desperate situation. But, despite all these incredible difficulties, they did not lose their offensive impulse and hope [267] to capture Moscow. In early December, the vanguard of the German offensive, the 1st company of the motorcycle battalion, captured Lenino, a suburban settlement located just seventeen kilometers from the center of Moscow. From the captured territory, along which the rail tracks of the Moscow city tram system ran, the SS grenadiers could already see the golden shine of the church domes of the Moscow Kremlin.

These days, according to the recollections of old Muscovites (in particular, the author’s grandmother), panic in red Moscow reached its climax. Having met in the area of ​​the Air Force Academy. Zhukovsky, a Red Army unit retreating towards the center of Moscow, the grandmother (then still a young woman) asked the commander where the Germans were, to which she received an answer that struck her with his indifferent tone: “The Germans are in Khimki...”

According to the memoirs of Ober-Sturmführer Otto Skorzeny, the famous “man with scars”, who later went down in the history of World War II as “the liberator of Mussolini” and “Hitler’s king of sabotage”, and at the described time served in the Reich division, parts of the division “were supposed to enter Moscow through Istra - this town was the central bastion of the second line of defense of the capital. I was tasked with preventing the destruction of the local water supply and ensuring its functioning. The church in Istra remained untouched - the shining domes of its bell towers were visible through the fog. Despite the losses, our morale was high. Let's take Moscow! We decisively moved on to the final assault... On December 19, the temperature dropped to -20 degrees C. We did not have winter gun and motor oil, and we had problems starting the engines. But on November 26 and 27, Colonel Helmut von der Chevalier took Istra, with 24 tanks remaining from the 10th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht - V.A.), and a motorcycle battalion of the Reich Division of Hauptsturmführer Klingenberg (the same one who entered Belgrade first) . Istra was defended by a selected unit - the 78th Siberian Rifle Division. The next day, Soviet aviation wiped the city off the face of the earth...

To the left and slightly ahead of our positions were Khimki, a Moscow port located only eight kilometers from the Soviet capital. On November 30, the motor reconnaissance of the 62nd engineer battalion of the tank corps (4th Tank Army) Gepner entered this settlement without firing a single shot, causing panic among the residents ... "

What about Khimki! When a good friend and colleague of the author of this book, Alexander Talanov, at the beginning of his working career served in the police department at the Belorussky station, a veteran of the internal affairs bodies was still finishing his service there, who shot himself at the end of November 1941, being then still a very green guard policeman, far away a German military motorcyclist (most likely from the Reich division) who broke away from his units advancing on Moscow along the Leningradskoye Highway, in broad daylight on the square of the Belorussky railway station... The vigilant guard was awarded the Order of the Red Star for his feat, but did not make a dizzying career in the authorities, having served all my life in the same police department.

On December 2, 1941, units of the Reich Division entered Nikolaev (located only fifteen kilometers from Moscow). In sunny weather, the domes of Moscow churches were visible through binoculars. The batteries of the artillery regiment of the Reich division fired at the Moscow suburbs from Nikolaev, but there was no longer a single gun tractor left in the artillery regiment.

Shortly before the Reich Division and other German formations were able to launch a full-scale final offensive on the capital of the USSR, they found themselves completely paralyzed by another sharp deterioration in weather conditions. SS Obersturmführer Otto Skorzeny made an entry in his diary on December 10, 1941 with the following content: “... Nikolaev, 12/10/41. Soon, even in our unit, it will become clear to everyone: the forward movement is over. Our offensive power has dried up. Our neighbors, the 10th Panzer Division, have only a dozen combat-ready tanks left.” A few days later, a new mournful entry appeared in Skorzeny’s diary: “Since it turned out to be completely impossible to bury our dead in the completely frozen ground, we piled the corpses near the church. It was simply scary to look at them. The frost shackled their arms and legs, twisted in the death agony, and assumed the most incredible positions. To give the dead the so often described expression of peace and tranquility that is supposedly inherent to them, the corpses would have to break out the joints. The glassy eyes of the dead looked blindly into the cold gray sky. Having detonated the tola charge, we placed the corpses of those who had died in the last day or two into the large crater that had formed and hastily covered them with frozen earth...” It still seemed to them that the final offensive was not being cancelled, but was only being postponed, postponed to a later date (as the German proverb says, “Aufgeshoben ist nicht aufgeho-ben”1). However, their hopes of entering Moscow, like Vienna, Prague, The Hague, Paris or Belgrade, were not destined to come true. After a three-day break between battles, a large-scale counter-offensive of Soviet troops began, receiving fresh reinforcements from Siberia (by that time, the last doubts that Japan would not start a war against the USSR had disappeared). The Red Army dealt such a powerful blow that the Germans did not have the slightest chance of organizing a more or less decent rebuff, not to mention resuming their own offensive. In total, the Red Army launched an offensive against the German troops frozen into the ground on the Eastern Front, seventeen armies, numbering more than one and a half million fresh soldiers in their ranks. The Germans were driven back in all directions, and the OKW was forced to order a general withdrawal to positions more suitable for defense.

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War crimes[edit]

Murder of civilians in Yugoslavia[edit]

During the invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, members of Das Reich

committed crimes against the civilian population, as well as against Yugoslav prisoners of war in the Alibunar region (Vojvodina, Serbia), where about 200 people were killed. 51 corpses were discovered in a mass grave in the courtyard of the Serbian Orthodox Church of Alibunara, as well as 54 corpses in the nearby village of Selishte. The crimes were committed as revenge for the participation of armed civilians in the fighting in the area and the murder of the regimental adjutant. [34]

Murder of Jews in Minsk[edit]

Division Support Unit Das Reich

assisted the SS extermination group in the murder of 920 Jews near Minsk in September 1941.[35]

Massacre at Tul[edit]

Main article: Tulle massacre

After the opening of the second Allied front on June 6, 1944, all resistance groups joined "the uprising." Parts of Das Reich

was ordered to attack strongholds of rural guerrilla units of French Resistance fighters as they advanced towards Normandy.
[36] Following the successful FTP offensive on 7 and 8 June 1944, Das Reich
was ordered to move to the Tulle-Limoges area.
[37] The arrival of Das Reich's
"saved the beleaguered" army troops and ended the fighting in the city of Tulle. [37]On June 9, in retaliation for German losses, the SS hanged 99 people in the city, and another 149 were deported back to Germany. [37]

Oradour-sur-Glane[edit]

Further information: Oradour-sur-Glane

Burnt-out cars and buildings still dot the untouched remains of the original village of Oradour-sur-Glane.

The division killed 642 French civilians in the village of Oradour-sur-Glane on 10 June 1944 in the Limousin region. SS- Sturmbannführer

Adolf Diekmann, commander of the 1st Battalion of the 4th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment (
Der Führer
) who committed the massacre, claimed that it was simply revenge due to partisan activity in nearby Tulle and the kidnapping
of Sturmbannführer
Kempfe, commander of the 3rd Battalion, although German authorities had already executed ninety-nine people in the Thul massacre after the killing of about forty German soldiers in Thul by the Maquis resistance movement.

On June 10, Diekmann's battalion blockaded Oradour-sur-Glane and ordered all townspeople to assemble in the village square, ostensibly to check their identity documents. All the women and children were locked in the church. The men were taken to six sheds and sheds. One of the six survivors of the massacre, Robert Hebras, called the killings a deliberate act of mass murder. In 2013, he told the British newspaper The Mirror,

that the SS deliberately burned men, women and children after locking them in a church and machine-gunning it:

It was just an execution. A handful of Nazis in uniform stood in front of us. They simply raised their machine guns and started shooting through us, at our legs, so that we wouldn’t get out. They were shooting, not aiming. The men in front of me just started falling. I was hit by several bullets, but I survived because those in front of me took the full blow. I'm so lucky. The four of us in the barn managed to escape because we remained completely motionless under the pile of bodies. One man tried to escape before they left and was shot. The SS men walked around and shot at everything that moved. They doused the bodies with gasoline and then set them on fire” [38].

Marcel Dartout's experience was similar. His testimony appears in historian Sarah Farmer's 2000 book Village of Martyrs: In Memory of the 1944 Massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane

: [39]

We felt the bullets that hit me. I dove... everyone was on top of me. And they were still shooting. And there was a cry. And cries. I had a friend who lay on top of me and moaned. And then it was all over. No more shots. And they attacked us, stepped on us. And they finished us off with a rifle. They finished off my friend, who was on top of me. I felt it when he died.

The eyewitness accounts of Darthout and Hebras were corroborated by other survivors of the massacre. Another survivor, Roger Godfrin, escaped from the refugee school despite being shot by SS soldiers. Only one woman, Marguerite Rouffenche, survived from the church. She later testified that at about five o'clock in the afternoon, two German soldiers placed a box of explosives on the altar and attached a fuse to it. She, the other women and her child hid behind the sacristy; after the explosion, they climbed onto a stool and jumped out of a window three meters from the ground. They all fell into a burst of machine gun fire, but Rouffanche was able to get into the Presbytery Garden. The woman and baby died. [39]

Diekmann was later killed in the Battle of Normandy in 1944. On January 12, 1953, a military tribunal in Bordeaux tried the case against the surviving sixty-five of the approximately two hundred SS soldiers who took part. Only twenty-one of them were present. Seven of them were Germans, and fourteen were Alsatians (French subjects of Germanic culture). On February 11, twenty of the accused were found guilty, but were released several months later due to lack of evidence. In December 2011, German police searched the homes of six former division members aged 85 or 86 to determine exactly what role the men played that day. [40] SS - Brigadefuehrer

Lammerding, who ordered retaliation against the Resistance, died in 1971 after a successful business career in West Germany. The French government never obtained his extradition from German authorities. [41]

The story of a soldier of the Das Reich division

I was born in Berlin in 1924. My family comes from Prussia, and my father once served in the Kaiser's Guards Regiment and fought on the WWII fronts. At the age of 16, having received permission from my father, I attempted to join the Der Fuhrer regiment. 40 people out of 500, including myself, were selected because they met the requirements for genealogy and physical condition.

After completing basic training in the town of Radolfzell, I was assigned to Holland, to the location of the Der Fuhrer regiment, where I began serving in an engineering platoon, which included a sergeant, a senior corporal and 8 privates. All platoon soldiers were front-line soldiers with at least two years of military experience. I was one of the youngest in the entire regiment. Upon arrival at the regiment, combat training became even more intense than in the training unit. We were trained both as infantrymen and as sappers. We learned to shoot all types of weapons and became experts in demolitions. Our platoon was part of a battalion and was supposed to support the infantry in battle.

The regiment was supposed to have wheeled-tracked all-terrain vehicles and Opel Blitz trucks, but for most of the war only the 1st battalion had all-terrain vehicles - the rest of the units moved by truck. I must note: throughout the war we had to walk a lot. We left everything we could in our trucks, often our bags with gas masks, Brotbeutel (bread pouch - V.K.) and everything that could make noise on the front line remained there.

In June 1941, our regiment was stationed near Lodz (Poland). Rumors about the impending invasion of Russia grew more and more, while military personnel began to receive instructions about the types of uniforms in the Red Army, about Soviet tanks and other military equipment (in the photo on the left are soldiers and officers of the Das Reich division 06/21/1941). I was wary of all this, since my uncle was captured by the Russians during WWII and returned home after escaping through Siberia to China only in 1921.

At the beginning of the war, the best guys in Germany served in our unit, who had to go through a lot to join the ranks of this division. But as the war progressed, people began to come to us who were no longer volunteers, but recruits recruited or transferred from other branches of the military. In 1943 many newcomers came to us from Alsace-Lorraine and from Strasbourg and Vogesen. We tried to staff the 1st companies of the battalions with German veterans, and sent recent recruits to the 2nd and 3rd companies or simply to support battalions. We simply believed that experienced guys would have to go first into battle...

At the beginning of the Russian campaign, I was number two in the machine gun crew, and I had to carry two boxes of belts and two spare barrels. Later, when I became a squad commander, I had an MP40 assault rifle, although my comrades and I often threw away German machine guns and preferred captured PPSh to them. In general, immediately after the start of Operation Barbarossa, my comrades and I were amazed at how much better the Russian equipment and equipment was compared to ours (in the photo on the left are SS men with captured PPSh).

In July 1941 I received the rank of SS Sturmann and, soon after, my first shrapnel wound in the face. In December I was wounded a second time - by shrapnel in the flesh behind my right knee. With this wound, I was sent back to Poland, and the trip took so long that worms appeared in the wound. In a hospital near Warsaw I was lucky enough to have a bath, wash, shave and change my uniform for the first time since October. The orderlies threw it away because it was full of lice... In general, as far as supplies are concerned, we were at the end of the chain in relation to everything, including clothing, equipment and equipment. The new uniform at the front first went to the headquarters, then the distribution went to the armored units, and the motorized infantry received the remnants...

Summer 1941. Division Das Reich on the march through a burning Belarusian village...

In January 1942 I was discharged from the hospital and given leave to visit my family in Berlin. After leave, I ended up in the reserve battalion, and since I was still considered unprepared for health reasons to return to the front, I was sent to a weapons workshop and was partially employed as an instructor for the soldiers of the engineering platoon. Upon returning to the 2nd SS Panzer Division "DAS REICH" I served with my regiment throughout 1942. In February 1943 I received leave when my commander learned of my father's death. At the end of 1943, I received another wound in my right leg, because of which I now walk with a cane. Our ambulance train on the way to Poland was attacked by Russian partisans, as a result of which several wounded were killed, but I was lucky and we managed to get to the hospital... In January 1944, I was able to visit my mother. By this time, the city was already constantly being bombed, and with my help, my mother moved to Silesia to live with relatives. Well, I returned to the convalescent hospital, was still treated and, in the end, was declared fit for the front. However, unexpectedly an order came for my enrollment in the officer school in Joesefstadt (Sudetes), but I managed to decline the offer and was assigned to my unit.

The SS men surrender to Soviet soldiers...

In July 1944, I eventually reached my 2nd SS Division, which was then taking part in the brutal defensive battles in Normandy. The Americans had so many planes that it was impossible to move at all during daylight hours! Well, in August, during the retreat to the Seine, my comrade and I found ourselves surrounded behind the front line in territory occupied by the British. We had to surrender to a British orderly. I remember that, knowing that we belonged to the SS-Waffen, the British behaved nervously, and machine gun barrels were constantly pointed at the back of our heads... However, at the POW collection point they treated us quite normally and even gave us tea with milk and sugar. Next, my path lay in England to a prisoner of war camp, where everything was taken from us - our uniform and even our wristwatches... I was freed from the camp in 1948 and learned that my mother ended up in a Russian concentration camp, because on the wall of her room they saw my photograph in the SS-Waffen uniform. She went missing before I returned to Germany.

In this church in the French town of Oradour, soldiers of the Der Fuhrer regiment of the Das Reich division burned more than 400 women and children in May 1944. The SS-Waffen veteran chose not to remember this...

Here's what else I want to say. After everything I went through on the WWII fronts, I wouldn’t wish my grandson or anyone else’s son to experience the same thing. I am ready to do everything possible so that my grandchildren never know what war is...

Interview taken from the site https://www.panzergrenadier.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11041&p=102733 Translation - Vladimir Krupnik

Post-war apology[edit]

After the war, one of the division's commanders, Otto Weidinger, wrote an apologia for the division under the auspices of HIAG, a negative organization and lobby group of former Waffen-SS members. The unit's narrative was expansive and sought a so-called official presentation of their history, supported by maps and operational orders. "Activities of the 2nd Panzer Division" Das Reich

“No less than 5 volumes and more than 2,000 pages were devoted,” notes military historian S. P. Mackenzie. [42]

Reich

The story was published by Munin in the Verlag SS Mutual Aid Society.
Its explicit purpose was to publish "war stories" by a former member of the Waffen-SS, and these titles were not subject to the rigorous fact-checking typical of traditional historical works; these were revisionist reports, not edited by professional historians, and presented the version of events of former members of the Waffen-SS. [43] Division History Das Reich
, like other HIAG publications, focused on the positive, "heroic" side of National Socialism. French writer Jean-Paul Pikaper, who has studied the Oradour massacre, notes the tendentious nature of Weidinger's narrative: it presents a sanitized version of history without any reference to war crimes.[44]

Commanders [edit]

Walter Kruger, Heinrich Himmler and Paul Hausser near Kharkov, Soviet Union, April 1943

Recipients of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross

Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (72)

• Georg Keppler - August 15, 1940 - SS Oberführer, commander of the SS regiment "Führer"
• Felix Steiner - August 15, 1940 - SS Oberführer, commander of the SS motorized regiment "Deutschland"
• Fritz Witt - September 4, 1940 - SS Sturmbannführer, commander of the 1st battalion of the SS motorized regiment "Deutschland"
• Ludwig Kepplinger - September 4, 1940 - SS Hauptscharführer, platoon and shock group commander of the 11th company of the SS Regiment "Fuhrer"
• Fritz Vogt - September 4, 1940 - SS Obersturmführer, platoon commander of the 2nd company of the reconnaissance battalion of the SS reinforcement division
• Fritz Klingenberg - May 14, 1941 - SS Hauptsturmführer, commander of the 2nd company of the motorcycle battalion of the SS Reich Division
• Paul Hausser - August 8, 1941 - SS Gruppenführer and Lieutenant General of the SS troops, commander of the SS division "Reich"
• Erich Rossner - August 25, 1941 - SS Unterscharführer, gun commander of the 2nd company of the Reich anti-tank battalion
• Werner Ostendorf - September 13, 1941 - SS Sturmbannführer, head of the operations department of the headquarters of the SS division "Reich"
• Fritz Rentrop - October 13, 1941 - SS Obersturmführer, commander of the 2nd battery of the anti-aircraft battalion of the SS Reich division
• Wilhelm Bittrich - December 14, 1941 - SS Oberführer, commander of the SS infantry regiment "Deutschland"
• Otto Kumm - February 16, 1942 - SS Obersturmbannführer, commander of the SS motorized regiment "Führer"
• Matthias Kleinheisterkamp - March 31, 1942 - SS Brigadeführer and Major General of the SS troops, commander of the SS division "Reich"
• Karl-Heinz Wortmann - March 31, 1943 - SS Hauptscharführer, platoon commander of the 6th company of the 2nd SS Panzer Regiment
• Christian Tychsen - March 31, 1943 - SS Sturmbannführer, commander of the 2nd battalion of the 2nd SS Panzer Regiment
• Herbert-Ernst Wahl - March 31, 1943 - SS Oberführer, commander of the SS motorized division "Reich"
• Heinz Harmel - March 31, 1943 - SS Obersturmbannführer, commander of the SS motorized regiment "Deutschland"
• Heinz Maher - April 3, 1943 - SS Untersturmführer, commander of the 16th (sapper) company of the SS motorized regiment "Deutschland"
• Hans Weiss - April 6, 1943 - SS Hauptsturmführer, commander of the 2nd SS reconnaissance battalion
• Vinzenz Kaiser - April 6, 1943 - SS Hauptsturmführer, commander of the 3rd battalion of the SS motorized regiment "Führer"
• Sylvester Stadler - April 6, 1943 - SS Sturmbannführer, commander of the 2nd battalion of the SS motorized regiment "Führer"
• Jacob Fick - April 23, 1943 - SS Sturmbannführer, commander of the 1st (motorcycle) battalion of the SS rifle regiment "Langemarck"
• Karl Kloskowski - July 11, 1943 - SS Hauptscharführer, platoon commander of the 4th company of the 2nd SS Panzer Regiment
• Alois Weber - July 30, 1943 - SS Hauptscharführer, platoon commander of the 16th (sapper) company of the SS motorized regiment "Deutschland"
• Gunther-Eberhard Wisliceny - July 30, 1943 - SS Sturmbannführer, commander of the 3rd battalion of the SS motorized regiment "Deutschland"
• Helmut Schreiber - July 30, 1943 - SS Hauptsturmführer, commander of the 10th company of the SS motorized regiment "Deutschland"
• Simon Grascher - August 14, 1943 - SS Unterscharführer, platoon unit commander of the 9th company of the SS motorized regiment "Führer"
• Walter Kniep - August 14, 1943 - SS Sturmbannführer, commander of the 2nd SS assault artillery division
• Johann Thaler - August 14, 1943 - SS Unterscharführer, tank driver of the 6th company of the 2nd SS Panzer Regiment
• Willy Grime - September 17, 1943 - Obersturmführer of the SS Reserve, commander of the 4th company of the SS motorized regiment "Führer"
• Josef Lainer - October 8, 1943 - SS Oberscharführer, platoon commander of the 1st company of the SS motorized regiment "Führer"
• Dieter Kesten - November 12, 1943 - SS Hauptsturmführer, commander of the 6th company of the 2nd SS Panzer Regiment
• Siegfried Brosow - November 13, 1943 - SS Hauptsturmführer, commander of the 1st company of the 2nd SS engineer battalion
• Albin Freiherr von Reitzenstein - November 13, 1943 - SS Obersturmbannführer, commander of the 2nd SS Panzer Regiment
• Wolfgang Roeder - December 1, 1943 - Obersturmführer of the SS Reserve, commander of the 3rd battery of the 2nd SS assault artillery division
• Alfred Siegling - December 2, 1943 - SS Oberscharführer, commander of the reconnaissance patrol of the 1st company of the 2nd SS reconnaissance battalion
• Helmut Kempfe - December 10, 1943 - Sturmbannführer of the SS Reserve, commander of the 3rd battalion of the 4th SS motorized regiment "Führer"
• Alfred Lex - December 10, 1943 - Hauptsturmführer of the SS Reserve, commander of the 1st battalion of the 4th SS motorized regiment "Führer"
• Friedrich Holzer - December 10, 1943 - SS Hauptsturmführer, commander of the 1st company of the 2nd SS Panzer Regiment
• Karl-Heinz Boschka - December 16, 1943 - SS Obersturmführer, adjutant of the 2nd battalion of the 2nd SS Panzer Regiment
• Willy Zimke - December 16, 1943 - SS Hauptscharführer, platoon commander of the 5th company of the 2nd SS Panzer Regiment
• Herbert Schulze - December 16, 1943 - SS Sturmbannführer, commander of the 2nd battalion of the 4th SS motorized regiment "Führer"
• Heinrich Schmelzer - March 12, 1944 - Obersturmführer of the SS Reserve, commander of the 16th (sapper) company of the 4th SS Motorized Regiment "Führer"
• Heinz Lammerding - April 11, 1944 - SS Oberführer, commander of the tank battle group "Das Reich"
• Otto Weidinger - April 21, 1944 - SS Sturmbannführer, commander of the 2nd SS reconnaissance battalion
• Hans Eckert - May 4, 1944 - Obersturmführer of the SS Reserve, commander of the 2nd battalion of the 3rd SS motorized regiment "Deutschland"
• Wolfgang Gast - June 4, 1944 - SS Obersturmführer, commander of the 1st division of the 2nd SS artillery regiment
• Karl Muhleck - June 4, 1944 - SS Untersturmführer, platoon commander of the 2nd company of the 2nd SS Panzer Regiment
• Joachim Kruger - June 26, 1944 - SS Untersturmführer, commander of the 10th company of the 4th SS motorized regiment "Führer"
• Heinz Werner - August 23, 1944 - SS Hauptsturmführer, commander of the 3rd battalion of the 4th SS motorized regiment "Führer"
• Franz Grohmann - August 23, 1944 - SS Obersturmführer, commander of the 1st company of the 3rd SS motorized regiment "Deutschland"
• Adolf Reeb - August 23, 1944 - SS Untersturmführer, platoon commander of the 7th company of the 2nd SS Panzer Regiment
• Adolf Ryud - August 23, 1944 - SS Oberscharführer, platoon commander of the headquarters company of the 3rd SS Motorized Regiment "Deutschland"
• Rudolf Enseling - August 23, 1944 - SS Sturmbannführer, commander of the 1st battalion of the 2nd SS Panzer Regiment
• Ernst Barkmann - August 27, 1944 - SS Unterscharführer, tank commander of the 4th company of the 2nd SS Panzer Regiment
• Karl Kreutz - August 27, 1944 - SS Standartenführer, commander of the 2nd SS Artillery Regiment
• Fritz Langanke - August 27, 1944 - SS Standardberunker, platoon commander of the 2nd company of the 2nd SS Panzer Regiment
• Hans Schabschneider - August 27, 1944 - SS Unterscharführer, commander of the ammunition supply unit of the 4th battery of the 2nd SS artillery regiment
• Adolf Peichl - October 16, 1944 - SS Hauptscharführer, platoon commander of the 12th company of the 4th SS motorized regiment "Führer"
• Ernst-August Krag - October 23, 1944 - SS Sturmbannführer, commander of the 2nd SS reconnaissance battalion
• Franz Frauscher - December 31, 1944 - SS Hauptscharführer, platoon commander of the 4th company of the 2nd SS Panzer Regiment
• Horst Gresiak - January 25, 1945 - SS Obersturmführer, commander of the 7th company of the 2nd SS Panzer Regiment
• Johann Veit - February 14, 1945 - SS Obersturmführer, commander of the 3rd company of the 2nd SS Panzer Regiment
• Heinrich Bastian - May 6, 1945 - SS Obersturmführer, commander of the 2nd battalion of the 3rd SS motorized regiment "Deutschland"
• Gebhard - May 6, 1945 - SS Oberscharführer, platoon commander of the 2nd company of the 2nd SS engineer battalion
• Franz-Josef Dreike - May 6, 1945 - Hauptsturmführer of the SS Reserve, commander of the 2nd SS Anti-Aircraft Battalion
• Emil Seibold - May 6, 1945 - SS Hauptscharführer, platoon commander of the 8th company of the 2nd SS Panzer Regiment
• Alfred Koch - May 6, 1945 - SS Obersturmführer, commander of the 6th company of the 3rd SS motorized regiment "Deutschland"
• Günther Lange - May 6, 1945 - SS Sturmmann, squad leader of the 16th (sapper) company of the 4th SS Motorized Regiment "Führer"
• Walter Mattusch - May 6, 1945 - SS Hauptsturmführer, commander of the 2nd battalion of the 3rd SS motorized regiment "Deutschland"
• Fritz Rieflin - May 6, 1945 - SS Obersturmführer, commander of the 2nd company of the 2nd SS engineer battalion
• Hans Hauser - May 6, 1945 - SS Sturmbannführer and police major, commander of the 1st battalion of the 4th SS motorized regiment "Führer"

Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves (15)

• Otto Kumm (No. 221) - April 6, 1943 - SS Obersturmbannführer, commander of the SS motorized regiment "Führer"
• Walter Krueger (No. 286) - August 31, 1943 - SS Gruppenführer and Lieutenant General of the SS troops, commander of the SS motorized division "Reich"
• Heinz Harmel (No. 296) - September 7, 1943 - SS Standartenführer, commander of the SS motorized regiment "Deutschland"
• Sylvester Stadler (No. 303) - September 16, 1943 - SS Obersturmbannführer, commander of the SS motorized regiment "Führer"
• Christian Tychsen (No. 353) - December 10, 1943 - SS Sturmbannführer, commander of the 2nd battalion of the 2nd SS Panzer Regiment
• Karl Kloskowski (No. 546) - August 11, 1944 - SS Obersturmführer, commander of the 7th company of the 2nd SS Panzer Regiment
• Heinz Maher (No. 554) - August 19, 1944 - SS Obersturmführer, commander of the 16th (sapper) company of the 3rd SS Motorized Regiment "Deutschland"
• Günther-Eberhard Wisliceny (No. 687) - December 26, 1944 - SS Obersturmbannführer, commander of the 3rd SS Motorized Regiment "Deutschland"
• Otto Weidinger (No. 688) - December 26, 1944 - SS Obersturmbannführer, commander of the 4th SS Motorized Regiment "Führer"
• Ernst-August Krag (No. 755) - February 28, 1945 - SS Sturmbannführer, commander of the 2nd SS reconnaissance battalion
• Heinrich Schmelzer (No. 756) - February 28, 1945 - Hauptsturmführer of the SS Reserve, commander of the 1st company of the 2nd SS engineer battalion
• Werner Ostendorff (No. 861) - May 6, 1945 - SS Gruppenführer and Lieutenant General of the SS troops, commander of the 2nd SS Panzer Division
• Rudolf Lehmann (No. 862) - May 6, 1945 - SS Standartenführer, commander of the 2nd SS Panzer Division
• Karl Kreutz (No. 863) - May 6, 1945 - SS Standartenführer, commander of the 2nd SS Artillery Regiment
• Heinz Werner (No. 864) - May 6, 1945 - SS Sturmbannführer, commander of the 3rd battalion of the 4th SS motorized regiment "Führer"

Organization[edit]

Division composition in 1943: [45] [46]

• Headquarters
• 2nd SS Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion
• 2nd SS Panzer Regiment
• 3rd SS Panzergrenadier Regiment "Germany"
• 4th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment "Der Fuhrer"
• 2nd SS Panzer Reserve Battalion
• 2nd SS Panzer Engineer Battalion
• 2nd SS Panzer Artillery Regiment
• 2nd battalion of SS tank self-propelled guns
• 2nd SS Panzer Anti-Aircraft Battalion
• 2nd SS Tank Grenade Battalion
• 2nd SS Tank Signal Battalion
• 2nd SS Panzer Divisional Supply Group

Links[edit]

Quotes [edit]

1. ↑
   Official designation in German "Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv" in Freiburg im Breisgau, Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS depots.
2. ^ ab Flaherty 2004, p. 149.
3. Jump up
   ↑ Stein 1984, p. 32.
4. Jump up
   ↑ Flaherty 2004, pp. 149–151.
5. ^ ab Flaherty 2004, p. 152.
6. Jump up
   ↑ Stein 1984, pp. 62–64.
7. Jump up
   ↑ Stein 1984, pp. 65–66.
8. Jump up
   ↑ Stein 1984, p. 66.
9. Jump up
   ↑ Stein 1984, pp. 65–69.
10. ^ ab Flaherty 2004, p. 154.
11. Jump up
    ↑ Flaherty 2004, p. 155.
12. ^ ab Flaherty 2004, p. 156.
13. Jump up
    ↑ Stein 1984, p. 103.
14. Jump up
    ↑ Flaherty 2004, p. 160.
15. Jump up
    ↑ Stein 1984, p. 104.
16. Jump up
    ↑ Flaherty 2004, pp. 162, 163.
17. Jump up
    ↑ Flaherty 2004, p. 168.
18. Jump up
    ↑ Stein 1984, p. 167.
19. Jump up
    ↑ Flaherty 2004, p. 173.
20. Jump up
    ↑ Stein 1984, pp. 204, 207.
21. Clark 2012, p. 247.
22. Jump up
    ↑ Glantz 1986, p. 66.
23. Jump up
    ↑ Glantz 2013, p. 184.
24. Jump up
    ↑ Stein 1984, p. 210.
25. Jump up
    ↑ McNab 2013, p. 295.
26. Jump up
    ↑ Hastings 2013, p. ?
27. ^ ab "Normandy 1944: German military organization, combat power and organizational effectiveness" p. 323
28. Jump up
    ↑ Stein 1984, pp. 222–223.
29. Shearer 1960, pp. 1085-1086.
30. ^ab Pledge page 3
31. Zaloga p.65
32. ^ ab Pledge p.67
33. "Normandy 1944: German military organization, combat power and organizational effectiveness" p. 324
34. Bozovic 2004, pp. 66, 81-84.
35. Jump up
    ↑ Hastings 2013, p. 14.
36. ↑
    Farmer, Sarah. Village of Martyrs: commemoration of the 1944 massacre in Oradour-sur-Glane. University of California Press, 2000, pp. 46, 47.
37. ^ abc Farmer, page 49.
38. ↑
    Parry, Tom (2 February 2013).
    "'I played dead when SS beasts destroyed my entire village': The last witness to the Nazi massacre tells his story". mirror.co.uk
    . Retrieved April 1, 2022.
39. ^ ab Farmer, Sarah. Village of Martyrs: commemoration of the 1944 massacre in Oradour-sur-Glane. University of California Press, 2000.
40. "Ex-SS soldiers charged with massacre". independent.co.uk
    . December 6, 2011. Retrieved April 1, 2022.
41. ↑
    Farmer, Sarah.
    Oradour: arrêt sur mémoire
    , Paris, Calmann-Lévy, 1994, pp. 30–34.
42. Jump up
    ↑ MacKenzie 1997, p. 138.
43. Jump up
    ↑ Wilke 2011, p. 379.
44. Picaper 2014.
45. "SS-Division Reich (motorisiert), Waffen-SS, 06/22/1941". niehorster.org
    . Retrieved January 22, 2022.
46. German order of battle, Panzer, Panzergrenadier and Waffen SS divisions in World War II
    . paragraph 68.