In the early days of the Nazi Party, Adolf Hitler recruited a selected elite of close
and loyal followers that would protect his rise to power. Once he consolidated
his rule in the country, the intimate circle expanded its influence across the borders.
As the Third Reich spread throughout the continent,
the Nazi leaders were desperate to keep their ideology intact, and the infamous SS was born.
However grim its reputation, an even gloomier group of carefully chosen individuals eventually
grew inside the organization. It was the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler,
which would guard the Fuhrer himself at any cost…
Friend Or Foe
Long before the National Socialist German Workers' Party came to power,
several prominent figures were starting to get noticed. One of them was Adolf Hitler.
During the formative years of the Nazi Party,
the elite created special units with the single purpose of protecting those in command.
In his first speeches, the future Fuhrer was guarded by Ernst Röhm
and the 19th Trench Mortar Company, the first record of a bodyguard unit.
Shortly after, the group evolved into the Sturmabteilung or SA.
From the beginning, Hitler acknowledged the unit’s value as a potential threat and a
helpful tool. As such, he ordered another one made up of the most loyal followers.
The Stabswache was then formed and received the distinctive insignia of the Totenkopf,
or Death's Head. It was eventually renamed Stosstrupp-Hitler.
As early as November 9, 1923, the unit, along with the SA and several other formations,
launched the attempted Putsch against the Weimar Republic.
When the operation failed, Hitler was jailed along with many other members.
Unsurprisingly, the Nazi Party was banned, and the Stosstrupp-Hitler was disbanded.
Even so, the SA, under the leadership of Ernst Röhm, survived, but it was given a different name:
the Frontbahn.
The Elite
While the most important Nazi leaders were incarcerated,
the SA continued to grow from 2,000 men to roughly 30,000.
Hitler was freed in December of 1924 and disagreed with Röhm on the direction of the SA. Soon,
Röhm was murdered during the "Night of the Long Knives," along with many of the unit’s leaders.
Once a powerful paramilitary political force, the SA left a significant void,
and Hitler still needed a trustworthy bodyguard unit. Thus, the Schutzstaffel was born.
By 1925, there were two competing organizations within the Nazi Party - the SA and the SS.
However, the SS grew the most and gave way to the first Leibstandarte units. The organization
had grown to nearly 50,000 members by the time Hitler rose to power. Even so, it wasn't enough.
A select elite unit needed to be formed, comprising handpicked SS
men who would serve as bodyguards to Hitler and only answer to him.
It was called the SS-Sonderkommando Berlin and later redesignated Adolf Hitler-Standarte.
Then, on the 10th anniversary of the failed Munich Putsch,
the unit took a mass oath, swearing to protect the Fuhrer to the last consequence.
And by orders from Heinrich Himmler, the group was designated Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler or LSSAH.
Skeleton Key
Following the political tensions stemming from the removal of the SA's problematic heads,
two companies of the LSSAH that had taken part
in the move to quell both the real and imaginary threats were mobilized under
Otto Reich and Jürgen Wagner. Then, on the last day of June, they arrived in Munich.
A selected few were sent to join a firing squad to neutralize traitors threatening to overthrow
the State. By the time the whole affair was over, the SS had risen as an independent organization.
The following year, the unit was sent to the Saarland to help in the reoccupation,
after which they were in the vanguard of the march into Austria and participated in the occupation of
the Sudetenland in 1938. By then, they wore field-gray uniforms, similar to the Army.
When World War 2 started, the unit had already become an entire infantry regiment with
several battalions, as well as anti-tank, reconnaissance, and engineer sub-units.
Then, after participating in the annexation of Bohemia and Moravia, the LSSAH was
redesignated Infanterie-Regiment Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler.
In mid-1939, the Polish crisis demanded that the LSSAH join the XIII Armeekorps,
which was preparing for the impending attack on Poland. At first, the unit was attached
to the 17th Infantry Division and provided flank protection for the southern pincer.
As such, the regiment participated in several battles against the Polish, most notably cavalry
brigades attempting to smash the German flanks. The men also engaged elements of the Polish
28th Infantry Division and the Wołyńska Cavalry Brigade in close combat near Łódź.
Soon, the LSSAH became known for committing atrocities against civilians across several
Polish towns, all while under the symbol of the skeleton key.
Poland and France
After several successful encounters, the unit was sent close to Warsaw and attached to the 4th
Panzer Division under Brigadier General Georg-Hans Reinhardt. The unit helped prevent encircled
Polish units from escaping and repelled several attempts from other enemy troops to break through.
As swift as the military victory over Poland was,
the Army had reservations about the LSSAH and other SS-VT units,
as their casualty rate was considerably higher than regular units. Even so, the formation was
pulled back into Germany, where the men rested and refitted before joining the Western Campaign.
The LSSAH would first fight against the Low Countries and then against France.
Though initially in Army Reserve,
the unit had a motorcycle battalion linked up with the Fallschrimjager troops in Rotterdam.
The action then lulled for a while until the British retreat at Dunkirk,
where the LSSAH combatted the shrinking beachheads of the evacuating Army.
For the remainder of the campaign in France, the unit became an independent regiment under
the 14th Panzer Corps. The men were tasked with attacking south from a bridgehead at Amiens but
were stopped by fierce French resistance. As such, the 14th was transferred to the East,
where they successfully crossed the Seine River and cut the retreat of many French units.
When the Armistice was signed, the 14th helped secure the rest of occupied France.
The LSSAH then remained in the country to rest and refit but would soon be
deployed to play a pivotal role in the upcoming invasion of England.
Subsequently, the unit trained extensively in amphibious warfare,
and by August of 1940, it had reached brigade status.
Ups and Downs
When the invasion of England was canceled,
the LSSAH was deployed to Romania. Under the 40th Army Korps, the brigade would take part
in the invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece, where they rescued the retreating Italians.
The LSSAH kept pushing the British into Greece, chasing them for 18 days.
The unit then crossed the Gulf of Corinth in fishing boats and met the retreating
Allies on the Peloponnesus. Before April ended, the Germans had forced the British
into a similar situation as Dunkirk, and they barely managed to escape to Crete.
The campaign was successful, and the LSSAH was again given divisional status, although
only in name. Now attached to the 54th Armee Korps, they would then invade the Soviet Union.
As part of Army Group South, the LSSAH saw action in the assault of the Tartar Ditch,
blocking the entrance to Crimea. The unit was then transferred to Panzer
Group 1 to support the massive encirclement of the Kyiv Pocket and the drive on Rostov.
Although the LSSAH took Rostov, the unit was driven out by Soviet counter-maneuvers and
forced to cross the Mius River and take defensive positions. Severely mauled, the unit was pulled
back to Paris in the summer of 1942, after which it was upgraded to a Panzer-Grenadier Division.
Failure
The LSSAH was called into action once again in 1943.
After joining the fight on the Eastern Front, the unit participated in the
massive battles to recapture Kharkiv and in the Battle of Kursk. However,
they were abruptly stopped by Soviet resistance and sent to Italy for an anti-partisan assignment.
Once re-equipped and renamed as a full Panzer Division,
the unit was tasked with rescuing the crumbling situation on the Eastern Front,
where the Soviets launched another massive Winter offensive.
While there, the LSSAH was nearly destroyed by a Soviet encirclement, but the SS-Panzer-Korps
eventually rescued them. Subsequently, the unit had to be refitted in France.
When D-Day came in June of 1944, the unit was committed in Caen, Falaise, and Argentan,
but a superior Allied force pushed it behind the Siegfried Line in Germany.
By December, the entire unit was attached to the I SS Panzer Korps. Notably, the attack
in the Ardennes region was highly successful, but the victory was halted by downed bridges,
lack of supplies, and incessant Allied airpower. Realizing there was no way to pierce through the
Ardennes, the unit was instead transferred to the East for a last stand against the Soviets.
As such, the LSSAH was part of the last official German war offensive,
which tried to rescue besieged forces in Budapest. However, the battered German troops
could not take it much longer, and the unit was soon pulled back to Austria, where the men
would await the Soviet onslaught. However, they eventually surrendered to the Americans instead.
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