SS Panzers: The last stand
The panzer and panzergrenadier divisions of the Waffen-ss responded ferociously to the Allied landings in Normandy, but suffered tremendous losses.
The elite SS panzers put up a ferocious defence against the Allies in Normandy
Allied deception, tactical differences of opinion among top field commanders and Hitler’s intransigence combined in June 1944. It proved to delay the elite Waffen-ss panzer and panzergrenadier divisions in confronting the Allies during the landings in Normandy and in the campaign that followed. But once committed, these divisions were true to their reputation as fierce, fanatical combat formations dedicated to Nazi ideology and willing to die for the führer.
And die they did, by the thousands under a hail of artillery, air attacks, naval gunfire and the relentless thrusts of Allied ground troops. Nevertheless, the Waffen-ss exacted a heavy toll in lives and equipment while sacrificing its strength to halt the enemy in Normandy.
Highly motivated and led by dedicated veteran officers, the SS soldiers were deployed with the best weaponry available. From early June to late August 1944, six divisions – First SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, Second SS Panzer Division Das Reich, Ninth SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen, Tenth SS Panzer Division Frundsberg, 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend and 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division Götz von Berlichingen – were deployed in Normandy, and were later joined by the 101st and 102nd SS Heavy Panzer Battalions in the death struggle.
These divisions were equipped with tanks that had proven superior to their Allied opposition. The 29-ton Pzkpfw. IV medium tank – the workhorse of the German formations – mounted a 75mm cannon, while the 45-ton Pzkpfw. V Panther – arguably the best allaround tank of the war – was outfitted with the long-barrelled, high-velocity 75mm cannon, and the 56-ton Pzkpfw. VI Tiger mounted the lethal 88mm high-velocity cannon. These weapons generally possessed greater range than the guns of Allied tanks, while their armour protection provided enhanced survivability.
Infantrymen were equipped with the reliable Mauser K98k bolt-action rifle, squad-level automatic weapons such as the MP-38 and MP-40 sub-machine guns, and the superb MG-34 and MG-42 machine guns – reliable weapons with rates of fire well above those of any weapon in the Allied inventory.
The SS troops and German army in Normandy held an advantage: in defensive combat they could utilise the hedgerow country, or bocage – high, centuries-old earthen mounds that divided fields and pastures in peacetime, but also provided excellent concealment and turned every country lane into a killing ground.
Still, the SS formations and others throughout France were restricted in their movement
“THESE DIVISIONS WERE TRUE TO THEIR REPUTATION AS FIERCE, FANATICAL COMBAT FORMATIONS DEDICATED TO NAZI IDEOLOGY AND WILLING TO DIE FOR THE FÜHRER. AND DIE THEY DID”
during the critical early phase of the battle for Normandy. Commanders were prohibited from engaging the enemy at full strength without permission from Hitler, who slept until 10am on the morning of 6 June and refused to allow the immediately available armoured reserve, the 12th SS Panzer Hitlerjugend and the army’s Panzer Lehr divisions, to move forward until late in the afternoon. Only the tanks of the veteran 21st Panzer Division counterattacked in any strength on D-day, driving through a gap between two of the British invasion beaches to the English Channel coast, before it was compelled to retire.
As precious time evaporated, the opportunity to destroy the Allied foothold in Normandy faded as well. Rather than mounting a concerted armoured counterattack, the Germans were forced to commit their tanks piecemeal in the face of growing Allied
“DURING THEIR BAPTISM OF FIRE, THEY HAD DESTROYED AT LEAST 28 ENEMY TANKS”
strength, blunting the spearheads of British General Bernard Montgomery’s attempts to capture Caen. The city rested 11 kilometres (seven miles) from the coast and dominated an open plateau that provided favourable terrain for tank formations all the way to Paris. Although Caen was a British D-day objective, their failure to capture the city precipitated a brutal, month-long battle. The panzers were further stretched to contain the American drive, under General Omar Bradley, to capture the town of Carentan to the west and then strike across the neck of the Cotentin Peninsula and isolate the port of Cherbourg.
The Second SS Panzer Division Das Reich was ordered north from Toulouse in southern France, but its movement was seriously hampered by the French Resistance, which sabotaged rail lines and harassed the division the entire way. Allied fighter-bombers hit the division hard, taking a heavy toll on men and armoured vehicles, delaying the arrival of Das Reich in Normandy until 12 June. The 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division Götz von Berlichingen experienced similar delays before arriving at Carentan on 11 June, and the First SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler was held north of the Seine River to counter another potential landing in the Pas de Calais. The Leibstandarte was not ordered to Normandy until late June, with elements arriving on the night of the 27th, while the bulk of the division did not reach the combat zone until the first week of July.
At 5pm on 6 June, half a day after the Allied landings in Normandy had commenced, the 12th SS was set in motion, its 20,540 troops aboard 229 tanks, 658 halftracks and self-propelled assault guns and roughly 2,000 trucks. Allied air attacks, traffic jams and streams of refugees slowed its progress during a 105-kilometre (65-mile) advance from Lisieux. By nightfall only about 30 per cent of its strength had reached the marshalling area southwest of Caen. Morale remained high and the Hitlerjugend Division was spoiling for a fight. Raised in 1943 from young men of the Hitler Youth born in the first half of 1926, the division had not yet seen battle.
The vanguard of the 12th SS, the 25th Panzergrenadier Regiment under Colonel Kurt ‘Panzer’ Meyer, came up on the left of 21st Panzer, facing the Canadian Third Division. Meyer commanded a battalion of Pzkpfw. IV tanks and three infantry battalions. He climbed to the top of a tower at the Abbey of Ardenne on the western outskirts of Caen and peered through his field glasses. Canadian tanks and infantry were moving towards Carpiquet airfield. He smiled and announced, “Little fish! We’ll throw them back into the sea in the morning.”
Around 10am on 7 June, Meyer was satisfied with his disposition. As the Canadian tanks filed past, he waited until they topped a ridgeline south of Franqueville, barely 180 metres (200 yards) from his hidden tanks, anti-tank guns and panzer-grenadiers. Then he gave the order to fire. One German soldier remembered, “The lead enemy tanks began smoking, and I saw how the crews bailed out. Other tanks exploded in pieces in the air. A panzer Mark IV suddenly stopped, burning, tongues of flame shooting out of the turret.”
The sudden ferocity of the Hitlerjugend ambush took the Canadians by surprise, driving them back three kilometres (two miles) before Allied artillery and naval gunfire disrupted the drive. Finding the range, the big guns destroyed at least half a dozen German tanks, while Canadian anti-tank guns barked as the Third Division regrouped around the town of Buron. One German tank erupted in flames, and a horrified eyewitness recalled, “The shell tore off the tank commander’s leg, SS Scharführer Esser, but I heard he got out of the turret later. Phosphorous shells caused the tank to instantly burst into flames all over. I was helpless. I made my way back with third-degree burns, towards our grenadiers following up. They recoiled from me on sight as if they had seen a ghoul.”
Although rebuffed, the young SS soldiers had succeeded in blunting the Canadian drive. During their baptism of fire, they had destroyed at least 28 enemy tanks. When the division commander was killed by Allied naval gunfire, Meyer was soon elevated to lead the entire 12th SS Panzer Division.
The following day, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, commander of German Army Group B, organised a major armoured attack to rupture the Allied lodgement, including the 12th SS and the army’s 21st Panzer and Panzer Lehr Divisions. The attack was thwarted by an inadequate command structure, devastating naval gunfire and the surprise of a coincidentally timed British armoured thrust. Convinced that the opportunity to throw the Allies into the English Channel had passed, Rommel transitioned to a defensive posture, deploying nearly 600 tanks, including those of the 12th SS, on a front from Caen to Caumont in the east, while fewer than 100 were positioned near the western invasion beachhead. The 12th SS anchored positions north and west of Caen. An anti-aircraft battery and the First Battalion, 26th Panzergrenadier Regiment and 15 tanks were tasked with holding Carpiquet airfield.
Seizing the initiative, Montgomery launched an attack with his veteran Seventh Armoured Division, the famed ‘Desert Rats’ of the North Africa campaign. He was intent on driving the Germans out of Caen and bringing the weight of the enemy armour onto his own front, in order to assist the Americans further west in their efforts to break out of the beachhead and strike across open country. Montgomery focused on Hill 112, a commanding position just south of Carpiquet. On 12-13 June the British spearhead raced around the flank of 21st Panzer and into the hamlet of Villersbocage, threatening the rear of Panzer Lehr.
Suddenly, on the morning of the 13th a stark reversal sent the British reeling. The
101st SS Heavy Tank Battalion, a component of the I SS Panzer Corps later attached to the First SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte, had run the gauntlet of Allied fighter-bombers from near Lisieux. At the head of a reconnaissance element Lieutenant Michael Wittmann, commander of its Second Company, stood in the turret of his Tiger tank, watching a British armoured column as it exited Villers-bocage and pulled off along the national highway near the crest of Hill 213, dominating the road to Caen. Wittmann was already a legend in the German armed forces – an armour ace on the Eastern Front with 117 Soviet tanks to his credit and the Knight’s Cross at his throat.
Wittmann’s lone tank burst from cover on the opposite side of the hill and attacked the armoured vehicles of the Fourth County of London Yeomanry and its accompanying First Battalion, Rifle Brigade. Wittmann destroyed the leading halftrack, rumbled along a parallel cart path and knocked out the rear tank. He then ravaged the vehicles trapped in between.
Within minutes the British column was in disarray. Plumes of smoke twisted skyward. Joined by three more Tigers and a lone Panzer IV, Wittmann rolled into Villers-bocage, where other targets were shot to pieces with 88mm projectiles. British anti-tank guns got into action and disabled three German vehicles. Wittmann’s Tiger lost a track. He dismounted, evaded capture, and later returned to the scene with additional armour. When the fighting at Villers-bocage subsided, 25 British tanks and 28 other armoured vehicles had been destroyed. Wittmann was personally credited with 11 tank and 13 other vehicle kills.
Elsewhere, the 12th SS Hitlerjugend battered the British Sixth Armoured Regiment at Les Mesnil-patry, its 88mm guns destroying 37 tanks in a fight that petered out on 14 June. Meanwhile, elements of Panzer Lehr and the Second SS Panzer Division Das Reich, finally arriving in strength, stabilised the front around Caen, extinguishing any Allied hope of a swift capture of the city. The journey of Das Reich to Normandy had been torturous, as Allied aircraft ravaged its columns and resistance groups derailed trains carrying troops, tanks and guns.
Further west, American troops of the 101st Airborne Division pushed the remnants of the German Sixth Parachute Regiment out of Carentan after a bloody, protracted street brawl, allowing the US V and VII Corps to consolidate a 95-kilometre (60-mile) front wedged 16 kilometres (ten miles) deep into Normandy. On 10 June the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division Götz von Berlichingen was stopped in its thrust towards Carentan, in support of the defenders, by a handful of American paratroopers from the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions, who had landed far from their assigned drop zones. For two days the paratroops held the SS at bay before they were overwhelmed. 32 of their number finally lay dead.
Although the delay had been costly, the
17th SS and Sixth Parachute mounted a fierce counterattack on 13 June as SS Panzergrenadier Regiment 37 engaged the 502nd and 506th Parachute Infantry Regiments, 101st Airborne, about a kilometre southwest of Carentan, near Hill 30. The outgunned Americans were on the brink of
“WITTMANN DESTROYED THE LEADING HALFTRACK, RUMBLED ALONG A PARALLEL CART PATH AND KNOCKED OUT THE REAR TANK. HE THEN RAVAGED THE VEHICLES TRAPPED IN BETWEEN”
defeat when 60 tanks of Combat Command A, Second Armored Division, supported by infantry from the US 29th Division stopped the enemy thrust, securing Carentan and the linkup of the two American corps. Known as the Battle of Bloody Gulch, the action cost the Germans four tanks, 43 killed and 89 wounded. For the rest of the month, the 17th SS battled the Americans around Saint-lo and Coutances, losing more than half its strength.
The fight for Caen continued virtually without respite. On 22 June the British 11th Armoured Division thrust southward again towards Hill 112 and collided with the battered 12th SS Hitlerjugend. Still full of fight, the teenage fanatics sacrificed themselves. 20-year-old Emil Dürr unleashed a shoulder-fired Panzerfaust anti-tank weapon against a British M4
Sherman. Setting the tank on fire, he rushed forward and threw a ‘sticky bomb’ coated with adhesive against its side. When the explosive failed to stick, Dürr clutched the charge against the side of the tank, sacrificing his own life.
Meanwhile, Hitler ordered II SS Panzer
Corps to Normandy, including the Ninth and Tenth SS Panzer Divisions from Ukraine. As they prepared a major counterattack, these divisions were to relieve the depleted 12th SS and Panzer Lehr.
Montgomery mounted a major push to take Caen from the west on 26 June. Operation Epsom deployed three infantry divisions and two armoured brigades, with over 700 artillery pieces in support. The 12th SS Hitlerjugend fought with dogged determination, but the British advance continued through the following day, and Hill 112 was captured on 28 June. Colonel Meyer recalled the ferocity of his command at the town of Fontenoy: “The tank versus tank action starts,” he wrote. “Thick, black, oily smoke rolls over the battlefield. Battle-weary grenadiers wave to me yelling out jokes, their eyes shining. It mystifies me where these youngsters are getting the strength to live through such a storm of steel. They assure me again and again that they will defend the rubble to the last round and will hold their positions against all comers.”
Amid the chaos of Epsom, the Ninth and Tenth SS Panzer Divisions arrived. All thought of a massed counterattack evaporated in the smoke and flame and horrific shelling of Allied warships off the Norman coast, the concussions of their large-calibre shells capable of flipping a Tiger tank end over end. The SS counterstrike never gained momentum, LEFT: Field Marshal Erwin Rommel led German Army Group B in Normandy until he was seriously wounded by strafing Allied aircraft but it was enough to give the British pause. On 30 June they withdrew from their bridgehead across the Odon River, the Scottish 15th Division having lost over 2,300 men. The 12th SS had suffered 800 irreplaceable casualties.
In early July the American VIII Corps struck south towards Coutances and managed to advance only 11 kilometres (seven miles) in 12 days, as two battalions of the Second SS Panzer Division fought alongside the 15th Parachute Regiment, inflicting about 10,000 casualties on the attackers. Concurrently, the VII Corps advanced southwest from Carentan and ran into a buzzsaw. The US Fourth Infantry Division alone lost 2,300 killed and wounded in combat with the tenacious 17th SS Panzer-grenadier Division and the Sixth Parachute Regiment. The performance of the 17th SS was remarkable given that it was not fully combat ready when summoned to Normandy from Thouars, missing 40 per cent of its officers and NCOS. Its tanks and assault guns also arrived in piecemeal fashion due to a lack of transport. By late June it had suffered 900 casualties, and one of its panzer regiments could muster only 18 selfpropelled assault guns.
Despite the stand of a battle group that included a regiment of the 17th and three infantry battalions, the US XIX Corps made rapid progress towards the town of Saint-lo before the Second SS Das Reich brought the movement to a temporary halt. A counterattack by Panzer Lehr made progress but ground to a halt under Allied air attacks. The town did not fall to the Americans until 18 June. As sluggish as the Allied progress in Normandy had become, the Germans were decidedly reactionary, forced to parry each Allied thrust, and were slowly losing a war of attrition.
Simultaneously, the British renewed their effort to take Caen with Operation Charnwood on 8 July. The Third Canadian Division fought panzer-grenadiers for control of Carpiquet, while the beleaguered 12th SS Hitlerjugend was pummelled with 2,600 tons of Allied bombs, destroying the heart of Caen in the process. During their fight amid the rubble of the town, the British lost 103 tanks, many of them to 88mm anti-aircraft guns turned into anti-tank weapons. One 12th SS crew destroyed three British tanks, fired its last round, and died to a man in its gun pit during hand-to-hand fighting.
Finally, Colonel Meyer defied a stand fast order from Hitler and withdrew the remnants of his Hitlerjugend Division, because he could not “watch those youngsters being sacrificed to a senseless order”. A shadow of itself after Charnwood, the 12th SS counted only a few hundred infantrymen and 40 of its original complement of 150 tanks.
Within a week, Montgomery launched Operation Goodwood, intended to complete the capture of Caen. After a stunning air bombardment, British tanks rolled southward towards Bourguébus ridge, where the Germans had assembled a breakwater of more than
500 field guns and multi-barrelled mortars, with a mobile reserve of roughly 80 tanks. By the afternoon, a concerted counterattack from the First SS Leibstandarte and 21st Panzer
“THE REMNANTS OF THE LEIBSTANDARTE FOUGHT LIKE LIONS, ALLOWING UP TO 40,000 SOLDIERS TO ESCAPE THE TRAP”
stopped the British thrust. The Leibstandarte’s II Battalion, First SS Panzer Regiment moved 13 Panther tanks forward, engaging 60 British tanks and destroying 20 while occupying the village of Soliers. The First Battalion, First SS Panzer Regiment fought the British Ninth Armoured Brigade to a standstill. The Germans held the ridge for two more days, withdrawing only after destroying more than 30 per cent of the British armour in Normandy – an astonishing 500 tanks. Although Montgomery at last claimed Caen, the German defenders had prevented a breakout into open country. By late July weeks of hard fighting had shredded the SS divisions committed to Normandy, and their counterparts in the Heer (army) had fared no better. Still, Allied formations had been contained, hung up in the bocage and unable to execute a rapid advance across France to the German frontier. On 25 July Operation Cobra changed the dynamic of the campaign. Following saturation bombing, three American divisions plunged through the German lines. Panzer Lehr was virtually annihilated, while the Second SS Das Reich and 17th SS Panzergrenadier Divisions fought stubbornly, but the floodgates had been opened. While British progress outside Caen was slow, the American drive threatened to outflank the Germans in Normandy entirely. On 7 August the forlorn hope of cutting off the American advance at its narrowest point near the town of Mortain commenced. Das Reich, the Leibstandarte and elements of the 17th SS joined the Second and 116th Panzer Divisions in a counterattack ordered by Hitler, codenamed Operation Lüttich. Immediately, the timetable of the attack, poised to hit the US 30th Division, was thrown awry. A damaged Allied fighter-bomber crashed into the lead Leibstandarte tank, halting the advance for some time. A platoon of 66 American soldiers, supported by artillery, threw back an SS regiment at Abbaye Blanche. The best progress was achieved by Das Reich, advancing 6.5 kilometres (four miles), capturing Mortain and surrounding the American Second Battalion, 120th Infantry Regiment on nearby Hill 314, at a cost of 14 precious tanks.
American artillery fire thwarted an attempt by men of the 17th SS to claim the high ground. The Americans held out for another four days on Hill 314, resupplied by air. The German attack spluttered to a halt elsewhere and had actually helped to precipitate a catastrophe. With most of their remaining armour concentrated in the south, the possibility for a rapid encirclement of the entire German Seventh and Fifth Panzer Armies materialised.
In the wake of Operation Lüttich, the Germans formed a new defensive line around the town of Falaise. On 8 August Montgomery launched Operation Totalize towards this concentration, two armoured divisions leading the way. Once again the British and Canadian forces ran into the stalwart 12th SS. Two days of bitter fighting left Montgomery short of his objective, largely due to Colonel Meyer, who rallied a panic-stricken Feldheer infantry division. Still, the northern shoulder of a giant Allied pincer was nearly in position.
During late August, roughly 100,000 German troops were trapped in the Falaise Pocket. 60 men of the 12th SS fought to keep the escape route open north of Argentan. After three days, four of them were captured alive. Other men of the 12th SS Hitlerjugend kept the collapsing gap open while the remnants of the Leibstandarte fought like lions, allowing up to 40,000 soldiers to escape the trap. The First SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte had held the southern shoulder of the gap, conducting a fighting withdrawal. On the nights of 13-14 August, the skeleton of Das Reich passed through the Leibstandarte en route to a new defensive line at Champosoult. On the evening of 16 August, the Leibstandarte began its final movement. Foggy weather the next day allowed much of those division’s survivors to cross the River Orne and reach relative safety.
The ordeal of the SS divisions in Normandy had come to a catastrophic conclusion. Their losses were horrendous: the Leibstandarte had suffered 5,000 casualties and was forced to abandon virtually all its remaining tanks and artillery during the retreat at Falaise. The Ninth SS Panzer Division lost half its strength – about 9,000 men – and the Tenth SS Panzer had been reduced to four battalions of infantry and not a single tank. The 17th SS was depleted to the extent that its remaining forces were broken into battlegroups that concentrated at the city of Metz after escaping the Falaise Pocket. Das Reich had been devastated, with only 15 tanks and 450 soldiers able to bear arms. By 22 August Army Group B reported that the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend consisted of only 300 soldiers and 10 tanks: it had been utterly destroyed in Normandy.