Nazi Germany's Toughest Fighters: SS Totenkopf Division

SS. The name sends shivers down one's spine. The term is associated with brutality and mass killings. This is a mistaken presumption. There were killers in the SS (Allgemeine SS), but the Waffen SS men were warriors. Though some of the SS divisions did commit massacres, there were some divisions like the Nord, Nordland  which were clean.


Not so clean was the Totenkopf Division. It was initially made up of men who were guards at concentration camps (SS Totenkpfverbande). The men  were some of the most dedicated and fierce soldiers of the Third Reich. When things got desperate, the SS men were called in to do near impossible tasks. The fact that  Germany survived for so many years after the hiding its armies got in Russia was because of the tough men of the Waffen SS.  SS Totenkopf topped the list. We will talk about the other elite SS Divisions later. We start with the Totenkopf.

Totenkopf soldiers fire a 88mm mortar shell

TOTENKOPF: THE BAD BOYS

Having missed the Polish campaign, Totenkopf was initially held in reserve during the assault into France and the Low Countries in May 1940. They were committed on 16 May to the Front in Belgium. The Totenkopf soldiers fought fanatically, suffering heavy losses.

Within a week of this initial commitment the division's first war crime had already been committed. At Le Paradis 4th Kompanie, I Abteilung, commanded by SS-Obersturmführer Fritz Knöchlein, machine-gunned 97 out of 99 British officers and members of the Royal Norfolk Regiment after they had surrendered to them; two survived. After the war, Knöchlein was tried by a British Court and convicted for war crimes in 1948. He was sentenced to death and hanged.

The division moves in the Soviet Union in 1941

TOUGH FIGHTERS

During Autumn and Winter of 1941, the Soviets launched a number of operations against the German lines in the Northern sector of the Front. During one of these operations, the Division was encircled for several months near Demjansk in what would come to be known as the Demjansk Pocket. During these kessel battles, Totenkopf suffered so greatly that, due to its reduced size, it was re-designated Kampfgruppe Eicke. The division was involved in ferocious fighting to hold the pocket. SS-Hauptsturmführer Erwin Meierdress of the Sturmgeschütze-Batterie (Assault Gun) Totenkopf formed a Kampfgruppe of about 120 soldiers and held the strategic town of Bjakowo despite repeated determined enemy attempts to capture the town. During these battles, Meierdress personally destroyed several enemy tanks in his StuG III. He was awarded the Iron Cross for his actions during this period. In April 1942, the division broke out of the pocket and managed to reach friendly lines.

In action in France. 1940

In Early February 1943 Totenkopf was transferred back to the Eastern Front as part of Erich von Manstein's Army Group South. The division, as a part of SS-Obergruppenführer Paul Hausser's SS-Panzerkorps, took part in the Third Battle of Kharkov, blunting the Soviet General Konev's offensive. During this campaign, Theodor Eicke was killed when his Fieseler Storch spotter aircraft was shot down while on final approach to a front line unit. The division mounted an assault to secure the crash site and recover their commander's body, and thereafter Eicke's body was buried with full military honours. Hermann Priess succeeded Eicke as commander.

Soldiers of the SS Division Totenkopf with their commander Theodor Eicke during the advance on Demjansk (23 September 1941)

SAD END OF THE SS TOTENKOPF

By the end of 1942 the division had experienced virtually a complete turnover in personnel. The high casualty rates meant by late 1943 virtually none of the original cadre were left. However, while the division's record in the brutal Eastern Front fighting to follow is quite clean, its reputation lingered. The Totenkopf division didn't want to be captured by the Soviets, so they attacked the American 11th Armored Division. The Americans, who suffered heavy losses, were angered by this. When the Totenkopf surrendered (to the Americans) they were turned over to the Soviets Linz in 1945. Those who were wounded or simply too exhausted to make it to Pregarten were executed by the Americans along the way (some 80 in all suffered this fate). Another story in the aforementioned book states, "A convoy of ambulances drove by and picked up the dead and wounded behind the last tank of the long caterpiller. Apparently, the wounded comrades weren't handed over to the Russians. The ambulances turned around and headed back to Linz at high speed,' . The senior officers were executed by the NKVD, others were also executed as they were shipped to Siberia. Only a few of them survived captivity to return to Germany.

In a huddle in Kursk

Directing traffic in Paris, Totenkopf style

Taking a breather

 Himmler inspects in Russia

 A junior officer in the Totenkopf

In Russia

The men during Kursk atop a tank

SS Totenkopf men move in Poland past a burning T-34 tank. (Picture by Grenart. Taken on Aug. 18, 1944) 

Anti-tank unit of the Totenkopf. Russia. September 1941

Soldiers of the 3rd SS Division Totenkopf break for a meal beside the wreck of a Soviet T-34 somewhere in Romania, 1944.

Grenadiers of the 3rd SS-Panzer-Division Totenkopf take cover from incoming artillery. Hungary, March 1945.

 Motorcyclists (German: Kradschützen) from the SS Division Totenkopf during the invasion of Russia in September 1941.

Prisoners from the Totenkopf in France in 1944


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NAZI GERMANY: The SS (Schutzstaffel)

The SS fascinate us till this day not only because of their blind loyalty to Hitler, but also because they were ruthlessly efficient. Below are some snippets about them. Read on.

Political Intimidation in Kassel's Opera Square: "Only a Stubborn Mule Ends Up in a Concentration Camp." (1933)

In the spring of 1933, Himmler, then Munich's chief of police, ordered the opening of the first concentration camp [Konzentrationslager or KZ] in nearby Dachau. The camp was to provide "protective custody" for Communists, Social Democrats, and other political opponents of the regime. Soon a network of camps stretched over all of Germany. After the war began, the network extended into Nazi occupied territories as well. The camp system was one of the most effective instruments of SS and police terror: political as well as racial and social enemies of the regime disappeared into them for days or even years without any form of legal protection. The Nazi leadership made no secret of the existence of the camps. Scenes such as the one shown below were supposed to send a message that inmates were actually to blame for their own fate. The message in this case was: “Only a stubborn mule ends up in a concentration camp.” People who followed the rules supposedly had no cause for concern.

Prisoners during Roll Call at the Oranienburg "Protective Custody Camp" Near Berlin.

Most concentration camp inmates were political opponents, so-called enemies of the race, common criminals, homosexuals, or “asocials” whom the Nazi leadership would not tolerate in the new German national community [Volksgemeinschaft]. The goal was not to rehabilitate prisoners, but rather to punish them by means of daily humiliation, arbitrary violence, and forced labor. Additionally, camps were supposed to have a deterrent effect on the rest of the population. The surveillance, torture, and exploitation of inmates was carried out by special SS units, the so-called SS Death's Head Units [Totenkopfverbände or SSTV] under the leadership of Theodor Eickes.


Prisoners at the Oranienburg "Protective Custody Camp" near Berlin, 1933.

Most concentration camp inmates were political opponents, so-called enemies of the race, common criminals, homosexuals, or “asocials” whom the Nazi leadership would not tolerate in the new German national community [Volksgemeinschaft]. The goal was not to rehabilitate prisoners, but rather to punish them by means of daily humiliation, arbitrary violence, and forced labor. Additionally, camps were supposed to have a deterrent effect on the rest of the population. The surveillance, torture, and exploitation of inmates was carried out by special SS units, the so-called SS Death's Head Units [Totenkopfverbände or SSTV] under the leadership of Theodor Eickes.

Prisoners Doing Leveling Work at the Dachau Concentration Camp (1933) .

In March 1933, Heinrich Himmler (then Munich's chief of police) opened the first concentration camp [Konzentrationslager or KZ] in nearby Dachau. The facility was supposed to provide "protective custody" for Communists, Social Democrats, and other political enemies. Soon hundreds of concentration camps modeled on Dachau were being built throughout the country.

An SS Member Signs the Oath of Loyalty to Hitler

Himmler regarded the SS as the "executive instrument of the Führer's will" and demanded of his men unconditional loyalty both to himself and to Hitler. The SS motto “My honor is loyalty” was drilled into them as soon as they started the admissions and training procedures. This photograph shows an SS member signing the oath of loyalty to Hitler on February 25, 1934, in Berlin's Lustgarten

Heinrich Himmler Views Ancient Germanic Rune Markings in a Palatinate Quarry (1935)

Heinrich Himmler was an advocate of racial myths, occultism, and esoteric ideas. He founded, for example, the German Ancestral Heritage Association [Deutsches Ahnenerbe e.V.], a group that engaged in pseudo-scientific research projects on the descent and characteristics of the “Aryan race.” Himmler also regarded his SS as an ancient Germanic clan, and endowed it with a series of pagan or pseudo-medieval symbols and rituals. This photograph shows Himmler (center), SS Colonel [Standartenführer] Weisthor (at right, above Himmler), and others at a quarry in the Palatinate. At the time, Weisthor was head of the department of early pre-history and early history at the Main Office of Race and Settlement (RuSHA); he was also considered an expert on ancient German runes. Weisthor, whose real name was Karl Maria Wiligut, was later unmasked as a charlatan and an escapee from a mental hospital. He was expelled from the SS in 1939.

Hitler's Bodyguard Regiment [SS-Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler], 1936.

The SS-Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler (LSSAH or LAH) was Hitler’s bodyguard regiment; it was one of the many specialized groups and paramilitary organizations that developed within the SS during the course of the Nazi dictatorship. Hitler founded the LSSAH in March 1933 to protect members of the regime and government buildings; it was a private army under his personal control. Its first major action was "Operation Hummingbird," which saw the elimination of the SA leadership on the evening of June 30, 1934/July 1, 1934. After the war began, the LSSAH was incorporated into the Waffen-SS and deployed under army command on both the Eastern and Western fronts.

Group Photo of an SS Wedding, 1936.

Himmler had pursued the goal of “upbreeding” the SS into a racial-biological elite long before he assumed the lead role in defining Nazi policy on race and population – a position he secured by being the most radical spokesman for state-sponsored eugenics. Himmler not only recruited "pure-blood" men for the SS, he also took complete control over their family and reproductive plans. On December 31, 1931, he issued the so-called Engagement and Marriage Order, which called on SS members to protect their "racial potential" by marrying and producing offspring with women of so-called equal value. The SS's "Main Office for Race and Settlement" (RuSHA) was established at the same time. It was charged with conducting racial investigations into the backgrounds of fiancées and wives of SS members, and if the results were unsatisfactory, it could refuse to permit the marriage. SS members who were married to women of "lesser value" were threatened with expulsion from the organization. This photograph shows Heinrich Himmler (to the right of the bride)

Reinhard Heydrich’s Mercedes after Suffering Heavy Damage in the Ambush (May 27, 1942)

On the morning of May 27, 1942, Reinhard Heydrich, who was then Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, was seriously wounded in an attack by Czech resistance fighters. He died eight days later in a Prague hospital at the age of thirty-eight. Heydrich played an important role in developing the SS into the Nazi dictatorship's most important instrument of terror. He was also a key contributor to the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question." On January 30, 1943, Ernst Kaltenbrunner was named his successor as head of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA).

The Lidice Massacre – SS Members Set the Village Ablaze (July 1, 1942)

The so-called Lidice Massacre is probably the best-known Nazi retaliation measure in connection with Heydrich's assassination. The inhabitants of the village of Lidice, about 500 in number, were falsely accused of having harbored Heydrich's attackers. During the night of June 10, 1942, German police and SS units surrounded the village. All men over age 15 were shot, and the women and children were sent to concentration camps. Then Lidice was burned to the ground.
A worried lot. Female SS Guards after their Arrest in Bergen-Belsen (May 15, 1945)

Formally, the SS was a purely male organization. Women were accepted into the "clan" through marriage with SS-men, but they had no organizational rank or function. Their job was to raise children and manage the household. But that being said, as members of the SS entourage, women were also called on to work as concentration camp guards and in a range of service positions. After the war began, the number of SS female aides – initially as volunteers, later as forced recruits – rose sharply. The photo shows, among others, camp guard Irma Grese (last row, left) after her arrest by British troops. Grese had distinguished herself by her extreme brutality as a guard at Ravensbrück, Auschwitz-Birkenau II, and Bergen-Belsen. In the first Bergen-Belsen Trial, she was sentenced to death for the abuse and murder of camp inmates. She was executed on December 13, 1945, at the age of twenty-two. Also shown are concentration camp guards Magdalene Kessel (second row, left), Irene Haschke (front row, left) and Herta Bothe (front row, right). Both Haschke and Bothe were sentenced to ten-year prison terms.

Source: DGDB