The Himmler's SS (45 page)
Authors: Robert Ferguson
Although given suitably heroic names from an early date, Waffen-SS divisions were not numbered until 15 November 1943. Unit titles and designations were frequently altered, either to acknowledge a change in status or, particularly late in the war, to camouflage a formation's true identity and confuse enemy intelligence. The âDas Reich' Division was a typical example, and had its nomenclature altered no less than eleven times:
September 1939 | Panzerverband Ostpreussen |
September 1939 | Panzer Division âKempf' |
10.10.39 | SS-Verfügungstruppe-Division (Motorised) |
4.4.40 | SS-Verfügungsdivision |
1.12.40 | SS-Division âDeutschland' |
28.1.41 | SS-Division (Motorised) âReich' |
May 1942 | SS-Division (Motorised) âDas Reich' |
May 1942 | Kampfgruppe âOstendorff' |
14.11.42 | SS-Panzergrenadier Division âDas Reich' |
15.11.43 | 2nd SS-Panzer Division âDas Reich' |
24.2.45 | Ausbildungsgruppe âNord' |
Divisions staffed by Germans were known as âSS-Division', while those comprising mainly Volksdeutsche or Germanic personnel, whether volunteers or conscripts, were called âSS-Freiwilligen Division'. Units composed primarily of east Europeans or Russians came into the category of âWaffen Division der SS', a term of inferiority which denoted attachment to, rather than actual membership of, the Waffen-SS.
All the Waffen-SS divisions which had been mustered, at least on paper, by 1945 are listed in the table below. Many divisions numbered above 20 were merely upgraded regiments, flung together in a hurry using any âspare' personnel available and given grandiose titles. The number of Knight's Crosses awarded is a good indication of the effectiveness and battle experience of each division.
W
AFFEN
-SS D
IVISIONS
, 1939â45
Title | Granted | Primary | Knight's |
1st SS-Panzer Division âLeibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler' (22,000) | 1942 | German volunteers with Hitler's SS bodyguard regiment as the nucleus | 58 |
2nd SS-Panzer Division âDas Reich' (18,000) | 1939 | German volunteers with the SS-Verfügungstruppe as the nucleus | 69 |
3rd SS-Panzer Division âTotenkopf' (15,400) | 1939 | German volunteers with the SS-Totenkopfverbände as the nucleus | 47 |
4th SS-Polizei Panzergrenadier Division (9,000) | 1939 | German police transferees | 25 |
5th SS-Panzer Division âWiking' (14,800) | 1940 | German/west European volunteers | 55 |
6th SS-Gebirgs Division âNord' (15,000) | 1941 | German volunteers with Totenkopf regiments as the nucleus | 4 |
7th SS-Freiwilligen Gebirgs Division âPrinz Eugen' (20,000) | 1942 | Yugoslavian Volksdeutsche volunteers | 6 |
8th SS-Kavallerie Division âFlorian Geyer' (13,000) | 1942 | German volunteers with SS-Kavallerie regiments as the nucleus | 22 |
9th SS-Panzer Division âHohenstaufen' (19,000) | 1943 | German volunteers and conscripts | 12 |
10th SS-Panzer Division âFrundsberg' (15,500) | 1943 | German volunteers and conscripts | 13 |
11th SS-Freiwilligen Panzergrenadier Division âNordland' (9,000) | 1943 | West European volunteers, many from the disbanded SS foreign legions âNiederlande', âNorwegen' and âFreikorps Danmark' | 25 |
12th SS-Panzer Division âHitlerjugend' (19,500) | 1943 | German Hitler Youth volunteers | 14 |
13th Waffen Gebirgs Division der SS âHandschar' (12,700) | 1943 | Yugoslavian Muslim volunteers | 4 |
14th Waffen Grenadier Division der SS (22,000) | 1943 | Ukrainian volunteers | 1 |
15th Waffen Grenadier Division der SS (16,800) | 1943 | Latvian volunteers, many transferring from the Schutzmannschaft and Police Rifle Regiments | 3 |
16th SS-Panzergrenadier Division âReichsführer-SS' (14,000) | 1943 | German/Volksdeutsche volunteers and conscripts, with Himmler's escort battalion as the nucleus | 1 |
17th SS-Panzergrenadier Division âGötz von Berlichingen' (3,500) | 1943 | German/Volksdeutsche volunteers and conscripts | 4 |
18th SS-Freiwilligen Panzergrenadier Division âHorst Wessel' (11,000) | 1944 | Hungarian Volksdeutsche volunteers and conscripts | 2 |
19th Waffen Grenadier Division der SS (9,000) | 1944 | Latvian volunteers, many transferring from the Schutzmannschaft and Police Rifle Regiments | 12 |
20th Waffen Grenadier Division der SS (15,500) | 1944 | Estonian volunteers, many transferring from the Schutzmannschaft and Police Rifle Regiments | 5 |
21st Waffen Gebirgs Division der SS âSkanderbeg' (5,000) | 1944 | Albanian Muslim volunteers | 0 |
22nd SS-Freiwilligen Kavallerie Division âMaria Theresa' (8,000) | 1944 | German/Hungarian Volksdeutsche volunteers and conscripts | 6 |
23rd Waffen Gebirgs Division der SS âKama' (disbanded late 1944 and number â23' given to next division) | 1944 | Yugoslavian Muslim volunteers | 0 |
23rd SS-Freiwilligen Panzergrenadier Division âNederland' (6,000) | 1945 | Dutch volunteers, many formerly of the SS foreign legion âNiederlande' | 19 |
24th Waffen Gebirgs Division der SS (3,000) | 1944 | Italian fascist volunteers | 0 |
25th Waffen Grenadier Division der SS âHunyadi' (15,000) | 1944 | Hungarian volunteers | 0 |
26th Waffen Grenadier Division der SS (13,000) | 1945 | Hungarian volunteers | 0 |
27th SS-Freiwilligen Grenadier Division âLangemarck' (7,000) | 1944 | Flemish volunteers, many formerly of the SS foreign legion âFlandern' | 1 |
28th SS-Freiwilligen Grenadier Division âWallonien' (4,000) | 1944 | Walloon volunteers, many formerly of the German army's Wallonische Legion | 3 |
29th Waffen Grenadier Division der SS (disbanded late 1944 and number â29' given to next division) | 1944 | Russian convict volunteers | 0 |
29th Waffen Grenadier Division der SS (15,000) | 1945 | Italian fascist volunteers | 0 |
30th Waffen Grenadier Division der SS (4,500) | 1945 | Russian volunteers, many transferring from the Schutzmannschaft and Police Rifle Regiments | 0 |
31st SS-Freiwilligen Grenadier Division (11,000) | 1945 | Czechoslovakian Volksdeutsche volunteers and conscripts | 0 |
32nd SS-Freiwilligen Grenadier Division â30 Januar' (2,000) | 1945 | German conscripts and SS training school personnel/Volksdeutsche volunteers and conscripts | 0 |
33rd Waffen Kavallerie Division der SS (destroyed soon after formation, and number â33' given to next division) | 1945 | Hungarian volunteers | 0 |
33rd Waffen Grenadier Division der SS âCharlemagne' (7,000) | 1945 | French volunteers, many of them formerly of the German army's Französisches Legion or LVF | 2 |
34th SS-Freiwilligen Grenadier Division âLandstorm Nederland' (7,000) | 1945 | Dutch volunteers, many formerly of the Landwacht Nederland | 3 |
35th SS-Polizei Grenadier Division (5,000) | 1945 | German police transferees | 0 |
36th Waffen Grenadier Division der SS (6,000) | 1945 | German/east European volunteers, including a large number of convicted criminals from the Dirlewanger Brigade, a terror unit used against civilians | 1 |
37th SS-Freiwilligen Kavallerie Division âLützow' (1,000) | 1945 | Hungarian Volksdeutsche conscripts and remnants of the âFlorian Geyer' and âMaria Theresa' divisions | 0 |
38th SS-Grenadier Division âNibelungen' (1,000) | 1945 | German volunteers, conscripts and SS training school personnel | 0 |
During the latter part of the war, it was not uncommon for ad hoc SS battle groups to be drawn together from divisional troops, or for smaller units to be absorbed by larger ones which just happened to be located nearby. There were also hundreds of replacement formations, such as the Latvian SS Ersatzbrigade which alone accounted for forty full companies of men under training, and some very obscure units such as the Indische Freiwilligen-Legion der SS, made up of anti-British Indian prisoners-of-war who had been captured in North Africa and Italy. One of the strangest of all was the Osttürkischer Waffen-Verband der SS, composed of three Muslim Waffengruppen der SS recruited from Caspian and Black Sea Tartars under the command of the Austrian SS-Standartenführer Wilhelm Hintersatz. He had been converted to Islam during service alongside the Turks in the First World War and took the name of Harun-el-Raschid Bey, under which he was listed in the
SS Dienstaltersliste
! It was all a far cry from the racial élite of the 1930s.
W
AFFEN
-SS U
NIFORMS
The perennial interest in the Waffen-SS tends to be concentrated on its uniforms and insignia, and for that reason these merit detailed coverage.
The manufacture of Waffen-SS uniform clothing was undertaken either by private firms or, increasingly after 1941, by the SS-owned economic enterprises operating under the auspices of the SS Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt. The first SS clothing factory, or SS-Bekleidungswerke, was established in Dachau concentration camp, where the main Waffen-SS clothing depot was also located. In 1939 a training school for tailors and seamstresses opened at Ravensbrück, and after the occupation of Poland and Russia the SS Eastern Industries Ltd, or Ostindustrie GmbH (Osti), used local Jews to manufacture winter uniforms and various items of equipment from property and raw materials seized by the Germans. Civilian clothing confiscated from concentration camp inmates was commonly reprocessed and dyed for transformation into Waffen-SS uniforms. By 1944, the vast majority of SS and police clothing was being manufactured in-house at the following establishments:
Bayreuth labour camp, in Bavaria
Dachau concentration camp, in Bavaria
Oranienburg concentration camp, near Berlin
Poniatowa labour camp, near Lublin in Poland
Posen labour camp, in Poland
Radom labour camp, in Poland
Ravensbrück concentration camp, near Fürstenberg
Schröttersburg concentration camp, near Plock in Poland
Straubing prison, in Bavaria
Trawniki labour camp, near Lublin in Poland
Their products sometimes bore the stamp âSS-BW', followed by a code number allocated to the particular bench or workshop concerned. Many items manufactured at the SS-Bekleidungswerke were, however, completely unmarked.
During 1944â5, shortages of raw materials created such a crisis in the uniform industry that even the concentration camps could not meet the clothing needs of the Waffen-SS. The result was that newly recruited front-line SS soldiers ended up wearing captured uniforms, particularly Italian items taken after the fall of Mussolini. Older veterans tended to retain their better quality early issue tunics, caps and boots for as long as possible, often until they quite literally fell apart, and there were at least three fully motorised platoons, the so-called SS-Bekleidungs-Instandsetzungszüge 500, 501 and 502, whose sole job it was to travel from unit to unit repairing uniform clothing.