12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend
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| 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend | |
|---|---|
  Unit insignia of 12.SS-Panzer-Division Hitlerjugend. The symbol was the result of a competition. |
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| Active | 1943 - 1945 |
| Country | Nazi Germany |
| Branch | Waffen-SS |
| Type | Armoured |
| Commanders | |
| Notable commanders |
Fritz Witt Kurt Meyer Hugo Kraas |
The 12.SS-Panzer-Division Hitlerjugend ("Hitler Youth") was a German Waffen SS armoured division which saw action on the Western fronts during World War II. As part of the Waffen-SS, it was found to be a criminal organization by the Nuremberg Trials. The 12th SS Panzer-Division established a reputation for being very effective during its short life. This military reputation has been damaged by proven and alleged war crimes committed by Hitlerjugend soldiers during the first days the division was in combat in Normandy.
The Hitlerjugend was unique because the majority of its junior enlisted men were drawn from members of the Hitler Youth born in 1926, while the senior NCOs and officers were generally veterans of the Eastern Front.
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[edit] Formation and training
The idea of a Waffen-SS division composed of Hitlerjugend (HJ) members was first proposed by SS-Gruppenführer Gottlob Berger in January 1943. Berger approached Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler with the proposition, and Himmler soon became an enthusiastic advocate.
The plan for a combat division made up of all HJ members born in 1926 was passed on to Adolf Hitler for his approval. Hitler was also enthusiastic about the idea, and on 10 February 1943, the official order for the creation of an HJ division was issued. Berger nominated himself as the divisional commander, but Himmler instead chose 1.SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) veteran, SS-Oberführer Fritz Witt.
A competition was held to design insignia for the new unit. The winning design, picked from thousands of entries, depicted the Hitlerjugend sigrune crossing a key from the 1.SS-Panzergrenadier-Division LSSAH's insignia.
By 1 September 1943 over 16,000 HJ recruits had completed their six-week basic training and were listed on the rosters of the SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Hitlerjugend. As training continued in Beverloo, Belgium, the division was notified that it was to be formed as a panzer rather than a panzergrenadier unit, and the division was redesignated SS-Panzer-Division Hitlerjugend. Many of the recruits were so young that they were supplied with sweets and candies instead of the standard tobacco and alcohol ration. In late October 1943 the division received its final designation, 12.SS-Panzer-Division Hitlerjugend.
While the HJ members, who had grown up under NSDAP propaganda, were committed to the Nazi cause, they lacked any military aptitude. To provide a skilled backbone for the division, veterans from the 1.SS-Panzer-Division LSSAH were assigned to the Hitlerjugend division as officers and NCOs. Training for the division was unusual. Witt, realizing that the division had to be made ready for combat as quickly as possible, ignored many rules and regulations and instead focused on realistic combat scenarios and live-fire exercises. A result of this was that the morale of the HJ was exceptionally high, and the relationship between the officers, NCOs and men was an informal one, based on mutual trust and respect.
In March 1944 the HJ was deemed ready for active service and was ordered to move to Caen in Normandy, where it was to form a part of Panzergruppe West, the German armoured reserve.
Throughout the spring of 1944 the division continued training exercises in the peaceful area around Caen, familiarizing itself with the terrain. This was to prove invaluable in the months to come. On 27 May, Witt celebrated his 36th birthday and his recent promotion to SS-Brigadeführer. The peaceful 'holiday atmosphere', as one grenadier described it, was soon to be shattered.
At the beginning of June 1944 the division was declared ready for combat operations. The Division's tank strength at this time was 81 Panther ausf A / G and 104 Panzer IV ausf H / J tanks. The division was also equipped with Jagdpanzer IV tank destroyers, three prototype Wirbelwind flakpanzer vehicles, along with a number of 20 mm, 37 mm and 88 mm flak guns, Hummel, Wespe and sIG 33 self-propelled guns and regular towed artillery pieces.
Its tank destroyer unit, SS-Panzerjäger-Abteilung 12, however, was not ready for action and was understrength in Jagdpanzer IV.
[edit] Normandy campaign
On 6 June 1944, the Western Allies launched Operation Overlord, the invasion of Normandy. The HJ, along with the 21.Panzer-Division, was the closest armoured unit to the landing beaches. Due to Hitler's authorization being required to release the panzer units, the HJ was not ordered to the front until 1430 on 6 June. The division's advance to the areas near Sword and Juno Beaches was severely hampered by incessant allied Jabo (fighter-bomber) attacks. Forward elements of the HJ finally reached their assembly area near Evrecy at 2200 on 6 June.
On 7 June, SS-Standartenführer Kurt Meyer's ("Panzermeyer") SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 25, along with the II./Abteilung from SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Max Wünsche's SS-Panzer-Regiment 12, were supported by artillery and ordered to crush advancing Canadian infantry and armour and drive through to the coast, still only a few miles away. In Meyer's words they were to "throw the little fish into the sea". Although they destroyed many Canadian tanks and overran a company of the North Nova Scotia Highlanders in Authie, the attack failed to break through the advancing Canadians. Meyer had relied on the shock value of the rapid attacks that had served his units so well on the Eastern front.
Without support from other units on his own flanks and no reconnaissance information with which to plan his attack it was initially very successful but rapidly lost its momentum. The Sherbrooke Fusiliers lost over 25 Sherman tanks to the Panzer IV tanks and anti tank guns of 12th SS in the opening minutes of the counterattack. The 12th SS managed to push the portion of the Canadian spearhead they attacked back two miles but the remaining North Nova Scotia Highlanders halted the 25th regiment and established a defence.
The fighting was brutal and there were reports from both sides of atrocities. German prisoners were found shot dead along the railway line south of Rots, Oberst Luxemburger of Panzer-Artillerie-Regiment 130 was tied to the front of a British tank as a bullet shield. According to accounts from Canadian prisoners, the youth of the Hitler Jugend were frustrated and mad with rage and there were numerous incidences of North Nova prisoners being shot, bludgeoned to death, and even run over with a truck. After the war, war crimes judges in Canada acknowledged the bitter and ruthless nature of the fighting and that often enemy soldiers trying to surrender were mistakenly shot. Battle casualties for the day on both sides were virtually even. Both forces suffered approximately 80 killed and around 175 wounded or captured. It was a hard and bloody fight to a draw.
Meyer set up his command post in the Abbey Ardennes, whose towers provided an excellent view of the countryside. In the early evening of 7 June, as he planned the regiment's next moves. Meyer's regiment was deployed near the villages of Authie and Buron, in positions covering the vital Carpiquet Aerodrome. Repeated assaults by Canadian units and continuous artillery and air bombardment failed to dislodge them until they were finally driven off in vicious hand-to-hand fighting with the Highland Light Infantry of Canada on 8 July.
On 8 June, SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 26 under command of SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Wilhelm Mohnke arrived on the battlefield. Meyer's attack had pushed back one part of the Canadian advance but another brigade had occupied a group of small villages two miles into the German line. They crossed behind Meyer's regiment and the 26th took up positions to their west. After planning and positioning the regiment for a powerful thrust the I Battalion launched an attack towards Norrey-en-Bessin, defended by the Regina Rifles of the 3rd Canadian Division. Their orders were to drive over the Canadians and force a deep wedge between them and the British division to the west. Again, no reconnaissance of the Canadian positions was done and this time the youth of the 12th SS infantry would wade into a maelstrom of defensive fire from firmly established defensive positions.
The attack, launched at 0330 hours - had little initial success. The various companies in the attacking 12th SS failed to co-ordinate their moves towards the Canadians and, despite heavy casualties during repeated attempts by the infantry, Canadian artillery and supporting heavy machine guns of the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa took a heavy toll on each attacking company of SS troops. The Regina Rifles held their ground and the I Battalion fell back.
On the Canadian right the II Battalion attacked the Royal Winnipeg Rifles defending the village of Putot-en-Bessin. The Battalion managed to break into the village and surround several companies, effectively pushing the Winnipeg's out of the village, inflicting 256 casualties - of which 175 were taken prisoner.[1] A counter-attack launched at 20:30 by the Canadian Scottish, however, regained Putot-en-Bessin, and the II Battalion withdrew and dug-in south of the village.
Following the battle SS-Aufklärungs-Abteilung 12 deployed to the west of Mohnke's regiment and, by the evening of 8 June the division, while having failed in its assignment to drive the Canadians into the sea, had effectively halted the units of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division in the Allied advance on Caen.
Despite the ferocity of the 12th SS counterattacks, the Division failed to fulfil its orders to throw the attacking allies back into the sea. Once British troops had moved up to the positions now firmly held by the troops of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division that faced the 12th SS, the British dug in and established a firm line of defence from which they could launch future attacks. The allies were firmly on the continent to stay. The panzer army that contained the 12SS and the 21st Army Group they opposed, settled into a bitter series of battles that would finally lead to the liberation of Normandy.
On 14 June, a British naval barrage hit the divisional command post in Venoix, killing Witt and leaving the division without a commander. The thirty-three-year-old "Panzermeyer" was ordered to take command of the division, becoming the youngest divisional commander of either side during the war.
Over the next four weeks, the division managed to halt all Allied attempts to take Caen, despite the Allies' superior numbers and overwhelming air supremacy. The ferocity of the combat during this period equalled or exceeded anything the German troops had encountered on the Eastern front. Both sides claim that the other gave orders not to take prisoners but it was scarcely needed by the Allies at any rate. Time and again to the consternation of the attacking Allied troops, the youth of the 12th SS fought to the bitter end. Despite their successes in breaking up several major attacks, the division suffered immense losses, and in the first week of July 1944, Meyer ignored orders to hold the line north of Caen and withdrew the shattered remnants of his division south of the city. In the fighting from the day after D-Day until 9 July the division had lost 4,000 dead with a further 8,000 wounded and missing.
The division was to have little respite though, and on 19 July took part in the defence against the Anglo-Canadian Operation Goodwood. Following this, the division was pulled out of the line and used to form the mobile reserve for I.SS-Panzerkorps. Rather than rest and refitting, the division found itself involved in constant fire-brigade actions. In early August, the division took part in defensive actions to halt two Allied operations, Totalise and Tractable. At the launch of Totalise, the sixty remaining panzers of the HJ were faced with over 600 tanks of the Canadian First Army. Despite these odds, the division managed to halt the offensive short of its objectives.
Hitlerjugend, reduced to a few thousand men and a handful of vehicles, now took part in operations to try to keep the Falaise Pocket open and to help trapped German forces to escape. On 20 August the pocket collapsed and tens of thousands of troops of the Seventh Army went into captivity. The scattered remnants of the division were pulled back behind the Seine River.
The 12th SS had established a reputation as fierce combatants. Of the battles around Caen, it was said by a former opponent "The 12th SS-Panzer Division, which defended this sector, fought with a toughness and intensity which was not encountered anywhere else during the entire campaign."
[edit] Withdrawal - Wacht Am Rhein
Hitlerjugend was given a brief respite, but received virtually no reinforcements or equipment. The division was soon thrown back into battle, and took part in the fighting withdrawal to the Franco-Belgian border. By September 1944, the division counted less than 2,000 men, without armour or heavy equipment. On 6 September, Kurt Meyer was captured by Belgian partisans. Meyer had removed his SS uniform and was wearing the uniform of a regular German army officer. In the confusion of the withdrawal, the division was unable to undertake a rescue attempt. SS-Obersturmbannführer Hubert Meyer was placed in command of the division.
In November 1944, the division was pulled out of the line and sent to Neinburg in Germany, where it was to be reformed. The majority of the much-needed reinforcements were transferred Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine personnel, and the reformed division would never match the elite status it had boasted in the spring of 1944. Late in the month, Hubert Meyer was replaced by SS-Obersturmbannführer Hugo Kraas, and the division was attached to SS-Oberstgruppenführer Sepp Dietrich's 6.SS-Panzer-Armee, which was forming up for Operation Wacht Am Rhein (the Second Battle of the Ardennes, popularly known as the Battle of the Bulge), a large-scale offensive to recapture Antwerp and halt the Allied advance.
The operation opened on 16 December 1944. Kampfgruppe Peiper from the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler led the assault, breaking through the enemy lines. The HJ, which was to follow the Kampfgruppe and exploit the breakthrough, became bogged down in traffic jams caused by the 12.Volksgrenadier-Division. When the division reached the front, it was met with heavy resistance from American troops stationed on the Elsenborn Ridge. Despite several intense efforts, the division could not budge the American defenders. As a result, the division was ordered to swing left and follow the advance line of the remainder of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. American defenders prevented the division from reaching its objective, and after the destruction of Kampfgruppe Peiper, the advance of Dietrich's army altogether. Near the end of the year, the HJ was shifted south to take part in the efforts to capture Bastogne, and saw heavy fighting around the city. By 18 January 1945, the HJ, along with all the German forces, had been pushed back to its starting positions.
[edit] Hungary - Austria
On 20 January 1945, Dietrich's 6.SS-Panzer-Armee was ordered east to Hungary where it was to take part in an offensive to recapture the Hungarian oilfields and open the way to Budapest, where 45,000 men of the IX.SS-Gebirgskorps had been encircled.
While the division was in transit, the IV.SS-Panzerkorps launched several ill-fated relief operations. The HJ, alongside the LSSAH as a part of I.SS-Panzerkorps arrived in Hungary in early February 1945, only a few days before the city fell. The division was thrown into action against the Gran Bridgehead, a strong salient formed by the Soviets over the Danube near the town of Gran. The HJ and the LSSAH both fought well, and by the end of February the bridghead had been destroyed.
The division was next to take part in Operation Frühlingserwachen (Spring Awakening), the operation to retake the Hungarian oilfields. Hitler, desperate to keep the operation a secret, had ordered that no reconnaissance of the battlefield was allowed before the attack began. The attack got underway on 6 March 1945 in atrocious conditions. The spring thaw meant that the German attack was confined to a few narrow roads, and after initial successes, the offensive was aborted after a Soviet counterattack threatened to encircle the German forces. After the failure of "Frühlingserwachen", Hitler lost faith in the Waffen-SS and ordered that the honorary cuffbands issued to the divisions involved in the attack be returned. Outraged at the order, Dietrich refused to pass it on to his men.
In mid-March, a heavy Soviet counterattack near Stuhlweissenberg split Armeegruppe Balck in half and resulted in a general withdrawal towards Vienna. The HJ was involved in many desperate rearguard actions, and on 13 April fell back from Vienna. Withdrawing through Odenburg and Hirtenburg, the division reached Linz, Austria near the American lines. On 8 May 1945, 10,000 survivors of the division surrendered to the Americans near Enns. In a final act of defiance, the division refused to drape their vehicles with white flags, as the Americans had ordered.
[edit] War crimes
The acknowledged war crimes of the division happened in Normandy where over 100 Canadian soldiers were executed by their captors in the 12th SS "Hitlerjugend" Panzergrenadier Division. Their murders, and the consequent search for justice, is well documented[2].
Between 7 June and 8 June 1944, Canadian prisoners were executed by elements of Kurt Meyer's SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 25 at the Abbey Ardennes south of Caen. As this was Meyer's command post, he, along with several subordinates, was charged with this crime after the war. Testimony at Meyer's war crimes trial, later deprecated, also suggested that Meyer later made it clear he expected no prisoners to be taken during subsequent fighting. The evidence for this (called Exhibit T3, a handwritten testimony) was a set of secret orders given during training that was remembered by SS-Schűtze F. Tobanisch who said that receipts of these orders had to be signed by all soldiers. No supporting testimony was provided and the witness was not available to the court.
All the charges against the 12th SS are dated between 6 - 17 June. It is however not the case that any official encouragement of those events has been documented unlike the situation of the Canadian forces where Meyer claims that a "no prisoners" edict was in place[3] evidenced by documents captured from Canadian officers at the time. The HJ Division returned three times[4] the level of prisoners as other divisions.
After the war, Meyer was tried and condemned to death by a Canadian military court for collusion in the shooting of Canadian and British prisoners. The main weight of the Prosecution's case rested on Jan Jesionek. Jesionek, a Pole who had been forcibly conscripted into the Waffen-SS from which he deserted. The Jesionek's testimony was questioned[citation needed], in January 1946, Meyer's sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by Canadian Major General Christopher Vokes, who considered all evidence against him circumstantial. Vokes recognized that in the heat of battle it was often difficult to decide who had killed an enemy and who had murdered a prisoner. There was no proof Meyer ordered the murder of Canadian prisoners[citation needed] but it was clear from physical evidence collected after the fighting that dozens of unarmed Canadians had been murdered and as the commander, Meyer, while not guilty of the murders was at least fully responsible. The circumstances surrounding the shooting of the prisoners within the grounds of Meyer's HQ in the Abbey d'Ardennes was especially damning. The physical evidence and testimony from German soldiers that Canadians were executed inside Meyer's HQ after being interogated could not be ignored.
On 7 September 1954, with the support of several Canadian and British officers who had faced him in Normandy, he was released from prison. Charges against Wilhem Monke were brought him several years after the war by Britain, Canada and the United States for separate incidents during the war. In the first case, after an attack during the invasion of Belgium in 1940, elements of LSSAH's II.Battalion, under the command of SS-Hauptsturmführer Wilhelm Mohnke, were mistakenly informed that their divisional commander Sepp Dietrich had been killed in the fighting. In what is known as the Wormhoudt massacre, about 80 British POWs of 2nd Battalion of the The Royal Warwickshire Fusiliers were executed in retaliation for the supposed death of Dietrich. Mohnke's level of involvement in massacre wasn't determined and he was never brought to trial to face the allegations (see[5]).
Some members of his 26th Regiment of the 12th SS were responsible for dozens of killings on 8 June again, after he took up duties with the 1st SS in time for the Battle of the Bulge, his men committed what has come to be known to Americans as the Malmédy Massacre. In spite of these charges no nation was ever successful in having German courts present him for trial.
[edit] Commanders
- SS-Brigadeführer Fritz Witt (24 June 1943 - 14 June 1944)
- SS-Brigadeführer Kurt Meyer (14 June 1944 - 6 September 1944)
- SS-Obersturmbannführer Hubert Meyer (6 September 1944 - 24 October 1944)
- SS-Brigadeführer Fritz Kraemer (24 October 1944 - 13 November 1944)
- SS-Brigadeführer Hugo Kraas (13 November 1944 - 8 May 1945)
[edit] Order of battle
- Divisional Headquarters
- SS Panzergrenadier Regiment 25
- SS Panzergrenadier Regiment 26
- SS Panzer Regiment 12
- SS Motorized Artillery (Panzer Artillerie) Regiment 12
- SS Kradschutzen-Regiment 12
- SS Reconnaissance Detachment 12
- SS Tank Destroyer (Panzerjäger) Detachment 12
- SS Mortar Detachment 12
- SS Flak Detachment 12
- SS Pioneer Detachment 12
- SS Motorized Signals Detachment 12
- SS Maintenance Unit 12
- SS Logistics Troop 12
- SS Wirtschafts Battalion 12
- SS Fuhrerbewerber Lehrgange
- SS War Reporter Platoon (mot) 12
- SS Military Police Battalion 12
- SS Field Post Office 12
- SS Medical Detachment 12
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Zuehlke, Mark (2005). Holding Juno. [Douglas&McIntyre]. ISBN 1-55365-102-2.
- ^ Conduct Unbecoming: The Story of the Murder of Canadian Prisoners of War in Normandy by Howard Margolian (ISBN 0-8020-8360-9) (University of Toronto Press, 1998)
- ^ Meyer, Kurt, Grenadiers, Stackpole Books, 2005, p 233 ISBN 0-8117-3197-9. Meyer states that on 7 June a notebook taken from a Canadian Captain stated that along with tactical instructions there was an instruction "No prisoners are to be taken" and that this was passed upwards to the Commander-in-Chief 7th Army. He also states that interrogation of 3rd Canadian Division officers and men confirmed this order "if they were hindering operations". He also cited von Rundstedt's Intelligence Officer as stating at his trial that he had twice received captured documents containing this order.
- ^ Grenadiers, Kurt Meyer, Stackpole Books, 2005, p367
- ^ Massacre
[edit] Further reading
Tim Saunders Operation Epsom Pen & Sword Battleground Europe 2003 ISBN 0 85052 954 9
[edit] External links
- Hitler's Baby Division
- 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend entry at Axishistory.com
- [1] List of Canadian POWs killed June 1944
- [2] Detailed account of some incidents
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