For educational purposes
Originally created as Hitler's personal household troops, the Waffen-SS grew into a formidable fighting force during World War 2.
It gained a reputation second to none for its tenacity in combat, but also for brutality, which made it the subject of numerous Allied war crimes investigations.
Originally created as Hitler's personal household troops, the Waffen-SS grew into a formidable fighting force during World War 2.
It gained a reputation second to none for its tenacity in combat, but also for brutality, which made it the subject of numerous Allied war crimes investigations.
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
01:00They were Hitler's elite bodyguard, the ruthless protectors of their Fuhrer.
01:10But the Nazi regime's most loyal servants were also among the most feared gladiators of World War II.
01:19The Waffen-SS, the combat units of the SS, became famous for their tenacity on the battlefield.
01:25Countless times on both the western and eastern fronts, Waffen-SS men were the cornerstone of the German defences,
01:36fighting to the death, even when all hope had gone.
01:40They were respected by their enemies for their fanatical courage, but feared for their barbarity.
01:56Survivors of the Waffen-SS insist that they were just soldiers doing their duty.
02:10Many of the evil crimes which made the name of the SS notorious were indeed carried out by other parts of the organisation,
02:26the Gestapo, the concentration camp guards and the extermination squads.
02:32But what cannot be denied is that the Waffen-SS was responsible for some of the most appalling atrocities of the war.
02:39One of the most notorious was the utter destruction of the French village of Oradour and the massacre of 648 of its inhabitants in June 1944.
02:52Yet even today, the veterans refuse to accept that such things happened.
02:57Who were these men capable of such extraordinary acts of both heroism and barbarity?
03:16The origins of this elite World War II fighting force lie in the early days of the Nazi party in the 1920s.
03:27Germany was paying the price for its defeat in 1918.
03:30The democratic Weimar Republic was grappling with the effects of the harsh peace terms imposed by the victorious Allies.
03:38The payment of massive war reparations had crippled Germany and resulted in runaway inflation and widespread unemployment.
03:46People moved towards the political extremes.
03:49The communists on the one hand and Adolf Hitler's Nazis on the other.
03:53Clashes became frequent.
03:59In 1922, the Nazis formed the Sturmabteilung, the storm unit, or SA, to protect its speakers at rallies.
04:07They quickly became known as the brown shirts from the colour of their uniform.
04:13The following year, Ernst Röhm, the SA leader, formed a special unit to protect Hitler himself.
04:24This was recognisable by the black caps worn by its members.
04:28Gradually, it became independent of the brown shirts, taking the title Schutzstaffel, the protection squad, or SS, and adopting a wholly black uniform.
04:41In 1929, the mild-seeming but ruthless Heinrich Himmler, one of Hitler's closest cronies, became head of the SS.
04:49This was still small in size compared to the brown shirts, which now numbered over 60,000 men.
04:55Himmler stressed the differences between the SS and the SA.
05:03He saw the latter as a mass paramilitary force, whereas the SS was an elite and integral part of the Nazi party.
05:11Himmler began to increase the SS's power base by taking over the Nazi party's departments for intelligence and racial affairs.
05:20Soon after Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in January 1933, the SS gained very significant new roles.
05:32It provided the guards for the newly established concentration camp at Dachau, in the suburbs of Munich.
05:38Eventually, this was to lead to its infamous role as the main perpetrator of the extermination of the Jews.
05:50In 1936, the SS also took over the Gestapo, the secret state police which had been founded in 1933 by Hermann Göring.
05:59This meant that Himmler now had all the organs of political policing and terror under his direct control.
06:07Alongside these developments, the new Führer also ordered the formation of a special SS unit, which was to be called the SS-Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler.
06:19This would eventually grow into the Waffen, or armed SS.
06:24The Leibstandarte was to be Hitler's personal household guard, on duty at the Reich's Chancellery and at the Führer's mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps.
06:34Sepp Dietrich, a bluff and outspoken World War I sergeant major, who had since become part of Hitler's inner circle, was appointed to command the Leibstandarte.
06:55Its members were all volunteers, and Dietrich insisted they must be mature men of 23 to 35, in superb physical condition, and at least 5 foot 11 inches tall.
07:08Applicants also had to prove that they were of pure Aryan ancestry, with no hint of Jewish blood.
07:15In keeping with Himmler's belief that the SS were an elite within the Nazi party, the Waffen-SS recruits were indoctrinated with Nazi ideology and the belief that they were members of a master race.
07:27This was the core of the ruthlessness which the Waffen-SS were to display on the battlefield.
07:34They were housed in Berlin's Lichterfelder barracks, which under the Kaiser had been one of Germany's leading officer cadet schools.
07:45Military training was largely provided by the army. Physical fitness and field exercises played a large part.
07:56But the Leibstandarte prided itself on its turnout and drill.
08:00Other units of the SS soon jeeringly referred to its members as the Asphalt Soldiers.
08:13Despite the growth of the SS, the SA remained a powerful force in Germany.
08:20Ernst Röhm even advocated that Hitler give him a new name.
08:25Hitler decided that Röhm was becoming a threat.
08:33Early on the 30th of June, 1934, he flew to Munich.
08:41He was accompanied by Sepp Dietrich and a selected number of other officers.
08:46He flew to Munich.
08:51He was accompanied by Sepp Dietrich and a selected unit of the Leibstandarte.
08:57Hitler went on to arrest Röhm and several of his cronies at a lakeside resort, while Dietrich carried out further arrests in Munich itself.
09:07Others were arrested in Berlin and the Leibstandarte carried out many of the subsequent executions.
09:17As Himmler's adjutant, SS General Karl Wolf later explained, friendship and personal loyalty were not allowed to stand in its way.
09:30Among others, a charming fellow, Count von Spräti, Röhm's personal adjutant.
09:36He held the same position with Röhm as I held with Himmler, died with the words, Heil Hitler, on his lips.
09:43We were close personal friends, we often dined together in Berlin.
09:50He lifted his arm in the Nazi salute and called out, Heil Hitler, I love Germany.
09:59The Leibstandarte's ruthlessness and total loyalty to Hitler were now proven.
10:04Its reward would not be long in coming.
10:13The loyalty of the SS Leibstandarte, when Röhm's brown shirts were decimated, was rewarded by Hitler with a major expansion.
10:23Sepp Dietrich's Leibstandarte became a full regiment and two more were formed.
10:28These were to be known as the SS-Verfugungs-Truppe, or SSVT, special purpose troops who would be completely distinct from the other branches of the SS.
10:38The expansion of the armed branch of the SS did not lead to any reduction in the physical or racial standards demanded.
10:45The SSVT remained Hitler's elite political troops, indoctrinated with the belief in their superiority.
10:51Almost inevitably, the expansion incurred the hostility of the army, which suspected that Hitler was creating a rival military force.
11:00His actual intention was that in time of war, the SSVT would be incorporated into the army as a complete division.
11:12The army resisted this, refusing to provide the SSVT with the necessary artillery and other support for it to function as a division.
11:20The generals pleaded that Hitler's demands for rapid expansion of his army meant that they could not spare the resources.
11:27Nevertheless, the army did help the SSVT with its training.
11:32It also allowed the transfer of certain officers to improve the SSVT's military efficiency.
11:38The highly experienced Paul Hauser became head of the Waffen-SS-Inspektorat.
11:45The SSVT was a highly skilled unit.
11:49The highly experienced Paul Hauser became head of the Waffen-SS-Inspektorat.
11:57Felix Steiner, the army's director of education, took a similar role for the Waffen-SS.
12:03He had been a stormtrooper during World War I, and saw the Waffen-SS adopting a similar role as highly trained assault troops.
12:11They would lead attacks, with the army providing the follow-up cannon fodder.
12:16The aim was to create a force of men who would be tough and ruthless.
12:20As events would show, Hauser and Steiner succeeded brilliantly.
12:25But the downside was that the men of the Waffen-SS became totally careless about human life, whether their own or the enemy's.
12:32The seeds had been sown for the atrocities which were to sully the reputation of the Waffen-SS.
12:38In spite of the army's suspicion of the SSVT, it was given control of the Leibstandarte during the annexation of Austria in March 1938,
12:47and of other SSVT units during the seizure of the Sudetenland province of Czechoslovakia that autumn.
12:55The failure of Britain and France to intervene when he dismembered what was left of Czechoslovakia convinced Hitler that it was now safe to turn on Poland.
13:04The SSVT was about to have its first real taste of combat.
13:09The SSVT fought in the Polish campaign as separate, motorised infantry regiments.
13:18Hitler took particular interest in the SSVT.
13:23The SSVT was the first of its kind.
13:27The SSVT was the first of its kind.
13:31The SSVT was the first of its kind.
13:35Hitler took particular interest in the progress of Sepp Dietrich and the Leibstandarte,
13:42daily marking Sepp on his map in the Chancellery.
13:48Yet in spite of the lightning German victory over Poland, the army felt that the performance of the SSVT left much to be desired.
13:57Its units lacked fire discipline and were careless with casualties.
14:01It also showed an ominous tendency to torch villages and brutalise civilians.
14:09In defence of his men, Himmler argued that they would have performed much better if they had been concentrated in one formation,
14:16rather than fighting under senior army commanders whom they did not know.
14:21Hitler agreed to allow further expansion, but insisted that the new units must remain under the operational control of the army.
14:31While the Leibstandarte remained an independent regiment, the others were combined into a separate division.
14:39A second division was created by volunteers from the police,
14:43and a third from the units originally created to guard the Nazi concentration camps.
14:50This was known as the SS Totenkopf, or Death's Head Division.
14:55Its commander, Theodor Eicke, had been the commandant of Dachau and was notorious for his brutality.
15:05The enlarged SSVT was also given a new title.
15:09In March 1940, it became the Waffen, or Armed SS, confirming it as a separate element of Germany's armed forces.
15:25On 10 May 1940, Hitler launched his long-expected attack on the West.
15:34The SS Leibstandarte and a second SS regiment helped to spearhead the invasion of Holland.
15:42Simultaneously, airborne forces were dropped to capture Dutch airfields.
15:47In the five-day campaign that followed, the Leibstandarte linked up with the airborne forces after a number of clashes with Dutch troops.
16:02There was, however, an unfortunate incident in Rotterdam when the airborne commander, General Kurt Student, was wounded.
16:09He suspected that it had been a trigger-happy SS man, although the Leibstandarte strenuously denied it.
16:18The Waffen-SS did not take part in the thrust by the panzers through the wooded Ardennes and across the river Meuse.
16:25But as they began to rampage westwards, the SS Totenkopf Division was summoned from the reserve to fight in support of Erwin Rommel's 7th Panzer Division.
16:36The Waffen-SS was the first of its kind.
16:39The Waffen-SS was the first of its kind.
16:42The Waffen-SS was the first of its kind.
16:45The Waffen-SS was the first of its kind.
16:48The Waffen-SS was the first of its kind.
16:50...in support of Erwin Rommel's 7th Panzer Division.
16:55On the 21st of May, the British launched an armoured counter-stroke into the flank of 7th Panzer and the SS Totenkopf.
17:03They succeeded in knocking the Germans off balance momentarily, and caused some panic, especially in the ranks of the Totenkopf, before the advance westwards continued.
17:12...in support of Erwin Rommel's 7th Panzer Division.
17:16The Germans now trapped the British, together with French troops, in a pocket based on the port of Dunkirk.
17:31The SS Leibstandarte joined in the fighting to reduce the perimeter.
17:35...in support of Erwin Rommel's 7th Panzer Division.
17:38It met stiff British resistance, especially from the village of Vormhaut.
17:45Dietrich himself was shot up in his car, and had to spend some time under fire in a ditch.
17:54Not until almost nightfall was the village secured.
17:57...in support of Erwin Rommel's 7th Panzer Division.
18:04The Leibstandarte captured a number of British soldiers. Some 90 of them were herded into a barn.
18:11One of the few survivors describes what happened next.
18:14...in support of Erwin Rommel's 7th Panzer Division.
18:16...in support of Erwin Rommel's 7th Panzer Division.
18:40It was one of the first documented examples of the behaviour for which the Waffen-SS was to become notorious.
18:47Theodor Eicher's Totenkopf was also guilty of massacring prisoners.
18:52This time at a village called Le Paradis, when they murdered almost 100 British soldiers.
19:04To celebrate his victory in the West, Hitler made a triumphant speech in Berlin's Kroll Opera House on the 19th of July.
19:12He singled out the Waffen-SS for special praise.
19:15Its tactical performance had improved, but blind obedience and ideological brainwashing made Waffen-SS soldiers careless with their lives, and frighteningly ready to murder prisoners.
19:27Following the campaign in the West, Himmler was keen to expand the Waffen-SS, but the army was concerned that he was stealing recruits.
19:35Hitler therefore authorised only a small expansion, but did allow one significant change.
19:40A new division, the SS-Viking, was formed from the citizens of German-occupied countries inhabited by people of related stock, as Himmler put it.
19:50A number of right-wing Danish, Dutch and Norwegians volunteered to join the SS-Viking division.
19:57One Dane later gave his reason for enlisting in the Waffen-SS.
20:01I was fighting voluntarily in the Waffen-SS, on the East Front, for the idea of a Europe united.
20:13And what I would like to emphasise is that Germany, we had the only opportunity we had to fight the Communism, we couldn't do it alone, we could do it together with Germany.
20:26In the meantime, the SS-Das Reich division and the Leibstandarte took part in the invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece in April 1941.
20:37The campaign saw both units distinguish themselves, and one particular action typified the best aspects of the fighting spirit of the Waffen-SS, and its determination to prove itself better than the army.
20:51Hauptsturmführer Walter Klingenberg, a company commander of the Das Reich, led his men in a race to reach the Yugoslav capital, Belgrade, before the army's Krak-Großdeutschland regiment.
21:07Although severely hampered by the spring rains which had turned the roads into quagmires, his unit reached the banks of the Danube first.
21:15But it was unable to cross, because all the bridges had been destroyed.
21:20Klingenberg found a single rowing boat, which had been abandoned, and crossed the river with ten volunteers.
21:27They headed for the German embassy, which was besieged by an angry crowd.
21:31Klingenberg used the embassy phone to telephone Belgrade's mayor.
21:35He then threatened to call in an airstrike unless the city surrendered.
21:39Unaware that the Germans had no radio, the mayor fell for the bluff and gave in.
21:45Klingenberg received the Knight's Cross for his achievement.
21:48He was to fight on in the Waffen-SS, dying in April 1945, only days before Germany surrendered.
21:58When the Germans reached Greece's capital, Athens, it was Sepp Dietrich who took the surrender of the Greek army.
22:05Once again, one of the Führer's favourite soldiers had proved a hero, and the Waffen-SS had added to its growing reputation for élan and aggressiveness.
22:14The campaign in the Balkans was, however, a mere sideshow compared to the storm that Hitler was about to unleash.
22:31On the 22nd of June, 1941, he launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of Soviet Russia.
22:38By now, the Leibstandarte had been expanded to a fully-fledged division in its own right,
22:44and all six existing Waffen-SS divisions took part in the initial assault.
22:53It was now that ideology came into play.
22:57The men of the Waffen-SS were imbued with the belief that the Russians were subhuman,
23:01and that they were embarking on a crusade to save Western civilisation.
23:07This gave the Waffen-SS a new, ruthless determination to achieve victory at whatever cost.
23:21The army general soon came to respect its fighting qualities in a war that was more savage than any Soviet war.
23:27But the reputation of the Waffen-SS was soon being linked to the activities of other SS units,
23:32in particular, the Einsatzgruppen, or extermination squads, which organised massacres of thousands of Soviet Jews.
23:43What was seen as a crusade against communism encouraged further volunteers from both occupied Eastern and Western Europe to enlist in the Waffen-SS.
23:52They became known as the Foreign Legions of the SS, and were often amongst the most ruthless members of the Waffen-SS.
24:01Typical of the men who came forward was the Belgian Léon Degrel,
24:06who had been a leader of the extreme right-wing rexist party before the war.
24:11He raised the Walloon, or Flanders Legion, which was incorporated in the Waffen-SS.
24:16Degrel took it to Russia and led it in combat.
24:23Hitler personally decorated him with the Knight's Cross, and is reputed to have said,
24:28''If I had had a son, I would have liked him to be like you.''
24:47The Waffen-SS proved itself during the grim battles of winter 1941-42, through its ability to stand and fight.
24:58That spring, three divisions, Leibstandarte, Totenkopf and Das Reich, were withdrawn to the west to refit,
25:06and be converted to Panzer-Grenadier divisions through the addition of tanks.
25:10Formed into the SS Panzer Corps, Himmler ensured that these divisions received the best equipment,
25:16and were larger than the equivalent army divisions.
25:19The SS Panzer Corps, commanded by Paul Hauser, returned to Russia in early 1943,
25:25and won undying fame for its recapture of Kharkov that spring.
25:34Sepp Dietrich, in particular, distinguished himself.
25:37Hitler awarded him the swords to his Knight's Cross, and gave him a gift of one million marks.
25:46By now, the Waffen-SS had become a formidable fighting force, notorious for its willingness to fight to the death.
25:53Army commanders employed it as their fire brigade.
25:56They sent its divisions to the most critical points on the battlefield,
26:00with every confidence that the SS soldiers would tip the scales.
26:06While unquestioning obedience remained the cornerstone of the Waffen-SS,
26:11relations between officers and men were less formal than in the army,
26:15with much more emphasis on mutual respect.
26:19But the ruthlessness that characterized Hitler's ideological soldiers became increasingly apparent.
26:25They gave little quarter in the ever more bitter battles on the Eastern Front.
26:30In turn, the men of the Waffen-SS knew that they could expect little mercy if captured by the Russians.
26:36This increased their resolve never to surrender, as the carnage continued.
26:44No Waffen-SS units were involved in the disaster at Stalingrad in early 1943,
26:50when an entire German army was surrounded and forced to surrender.
27:00But it was to be heavily involved in the crucial battle which finally confirmed that the tide of war on the Eastern Front had turned.
27:10In July 1943, the Germans launched a major offensive designed to pinch out the massive Kursk salient.
27:18The Waffen-SS had been expanded to four corps, some 12 divisions,
27:23and most of these took part in what was to become one of the largest and most bitter tank battles in history.
27:47After a week's fighting against ever tougher Russian resistance, Hitler was obliged to halt the attack.
28:03Thereafter, the Germans were forced onto the defensive,
28:07as the Red Army steamroller began the liberation of Western Russia.
28:11The SS divisions again became the cornerstone of the German defence.
28:16Time and again, they counterattacked and broke out of encirclements as the Russian offensives drove ever further west.
28:25But Hitler was increasingly aware that the Allies were posing a growing threat to Germany in the west.
28:30Italy had been invaded, and Anglo-American forces were building up in Britain.
28:34An Allied landing in France was inevitable, and it would soon present the Waffen-SS with fresh challenges.
28:46In the spring of 1944, the German forces in France and the Low Countries stood waiting for the Anglo-American assault.
28:56Behind the coastal guns and beach obstacles of Hitler's much vaunted Atlantic war,
29:00and the infantry divisions that supported it, were deployed 11 Panzer and Panzergrenadier divisions.
29:14Four of these formations were Waffen-SS divisions.
29:20In southern France was the Das Reich, and in the Loire Valley, 17th SS Panzergrenadier division.
29:26The Leibstandarte was in Belgium, refitting after bitter fighting on the Eastern Front.
29:31And west of Paris, the recently formed 12th SS Panzer division, Hitlerjugend.
29:38As its name suggests, the Hitler Youth division consisted of 17 and 18 year old members of the Hitler Youth,
29:45stiffened by combat experienced officers and NCOs.
29:48The recruits of the Hitlerjugend division were the generation of boys who had been educated wholly under Nazi rule.
29:55Indoctrinated since earliest youth with the ideology of survival of the fittest,
30:00and war as the noblest activity of mankind,
30:03they were to be among the most fanatical of all Hitler's political soldiers.
30:08In the early years of Hitler's rule, the young boys were trained to fight.
30:12As the noblest activity of mankind, they were to be among the most fanatical of all Hitler's political soldiers.
30:19Sepp Dietrich's 1st SS Panzer Corps commanded three of the four divisions.
30:32When the Allies did land in Normandy on D-Day, the 6th of June,
30:37only one Panzer division was close to the beaches.
30:39But its units were too scattered for it to be able to contest the initial landings.
30:45Hitler refused to allow the bulk of the Panzer divisions to be moved without his permission.
30:51The Führer slept late and no one dared wake him.
30:54So it was not until the afternoon that the Hitlerjugend began to deploy.
31:01Its troops began to come into action on the evening of D plus 1.
31:09But rather than being able to mount a decisive counterattack to drive the Allies back into the sea,
31:15the Hitler youth found themselves fighting a desperate defensive battle.
31:39By the 13th of June, the British appeared poised to break through the German line in the area of the village of Vier-Bocage.
31:47It was then that SS-Leutnant Michael Wittmann, who had already won the Knight's Cross in Russia,
31:53performed a feat which became a legend of the fighting style of the Waffen-SS.
31:58He was supervising some much-needed maintenance on his five Tiger tanks in a wood
32:03when he spotted a column of British vehicles travelling along the road running up the hill from Vier-Bocage.
32:09Realising that they had halted, Wittmann jumped into his tank and charged down the column, firing as he went.
32:21Within a matter of a few minutes, he had knocked out 25 British vehicles.
32:26Wittmann charged on into the village, and only then was his Tiger disabled by a British Cromwell tank, firing at almost point-blank range.
32:45Wittmann and his crew managed to escape.
32:48Their actions seemed to be a sign of the end of the war.
32:51Wittmann and his crew managed to escape.
32:54Their actions single-handedly brought the British attack to a halt.
33:04In the meantime, the Hitler Youth became involved in the tenacious defence of the city of Caen.
33:10Time and again they frustrated British and Canadian efforts to break through.
33:14Fritz Witt, their inspirational commander, was killed early in the battle.
33:25His place was taken by Kurt Mayer, the founder member of the Leibstandarte,
33:30who was known as Panzer Mayer because of his dashing exploits in Greece and Russia.
33:36In spite of their dwindling strength, Wittmann and his crew managed to escape.
33:43Mayer and his young soldiers fought on, gaining high respect from friend and foe alike.
33:49But if the Waffen-SS divisions fought bravely in Normandy, they also displayed the same ruthlessness as in Russia.
33:57On at least two occasions, captured Canadian soldiers were shot in cold blood.
34:02The SS Das Reich Panzer Division
34:07The SS Das Reich Panzer Division committed an even worse atrocity during its move to Normandy from the south of France.
34:15It was forced to travel by road because of the Allied destruction of the rail system.
34:21The French resistance constantly harried the Germans, blowing bridges and mounting ambushes.
34:27Finally, in the village of Oradour-sur-Glane, the Das Reich wreaked a terrible revenge.
34:36The Waffen-SS troops rounded up the villagers and set their houses alight.
34:41Then they herded them into the church and torched this as well.
34:45A total of 648 French civilians were slaughtered in this atrocity.
34:50For many, Oradour was the defining moment when the claim that the Waffen-SS were simply combat soldiers was exposed as a myth.
34:59Despite their claims after the war that they were never involved in atrocities,
35:04the gaunt ruins of this French village still prove otherwise.
35:09Even though a further SS Panzer Corps reached Normandy,
35:14the Germans did eventually buckle under the remorseless Allied pressure.
35:23The German SS Panzer Corps was the only one left standing.
35:28It was the last of its kind.
35:31It was the last of its kind.
35:33It was the last of its kind.
35:40The shattered remnants of their army withdrew eastwards across France.
35:45By that time, many of the leading Waffen-SS commanders had become casualties.
35:51Panzermeier had been wounded and captured.
35:56Michael Wittmann, the hero of Vierre-Bocage, was dead.
36:04Only overstretched Allied supply lines prevented the German retreat from becoming a rout.
36:16By the end of the first week of September, the Allied advance had come to a virtual halt.
36:26The Waffen-SS divisions were withdrawn from the line to refit.
36:29The Waffen-SS divisions were withdrawn from the line to refit.
36:33Two of them, the 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions, did so in the Arnhem region of Holland.
36:39This was to prove disastrous for the Allies.
36:44For on the 17th of September, 1944,
36:47they mounted a massive airborne operation to outflank Germany's last natural bastion in the west,
36:53the River Rhine, by seizing bridges over the Dutch waterways.
37:00British and Polish paratroops dropped at Arnhem.
37:04The Waffen-SS troops went quickly into action.
37:15During the bitter week-long struggle that followed,
37:19they gradually tightened their grip on the embattled paratroops,
37:22eventually forcing them to surrender.
37:23But by now, Hitler was preparing his own audacious gamble against the Western Allies.
37:32This was a massive counter-offensive in the west, through the Ardennes region of Belgium,
37:37and designed to split the British from the Americans.
37:42Spearheading the attack would be two panzer armies,
37:46one of them commanded by Sepp Dietrich, which consisted largely of Waffen-SS divisions.
37:54The offensive opened on the 16th of December, 1944.
38:09Dietrich's battlegroups sliced through the American defences,
38:13spreading panic and confusion.
38:16But the hilly and wooded Ardennes was very much harder going in December 1944
38:21than it had been in May 1940.
38:27After the first few days, the weather cleared,
38:30and Allied air power began to wreak havoc.
38:34In increasingly difficult conditions,
38:37the German advance slowed, and one battlegroup after another ground to a halt.
38:43It was now that the worst side of the Waffen-SS again became apparent.
38:47Joachim Peiper, one of its most fanatical and aggressive young officers,
38:52was commanding the battlegroup which advanced furthest west.
38:56It left a trail of atrocities in its wake.
39:01Peiper's men murdered unarmed Belgian civilians.
39:07Near the village of Malmedy, they ambushed a US artillery observation battalion,
39:12which thought that it was well inside friendly territory.
39:18.
39:26Ruthlessly picking off the vehicles at the beginning and end of the convoy
39:30so as to trap the remainder,
39:32Peiper's men ensured that few of them escaped the carnage that followed.
39:42Many of those Americans made prisoner were marched into a field
39:45and shot in cold blood.
39:49It was an atrocity which would come back to haunt the Waffen-SS.
39:53But despite their barbarity, by the end of December, Hitler's armies were in retreat.
40:04His final gamble in the west had failed,
40:07and he was forced to turn once more to the east,
40:10where the Red Army was poised to advance onto German soil.
40:13The final act of the drama of the Waffen-SS
40:16and the regime they served so loyally was about to be played out.
40:25As 1945 began, the Red Army prepared for the assault
40:29which would take it into the Nazi Reich.
40:35Hitler ordered Sepp Dietrich to move his army to Hungary
40:38to lead an offensive to recapture the oil fields near Lake Balaton.
40:46Dietrich's command was renamed 6th SS Panzer Army.
40:51Himmler's ambition for the Waffen-SS to fight under its own command
40:55had at last been realized.
40:58The final German offensive in the east took place in early March 1945.
41:08Dietrich's SS Panzer Army and the German 6th Army,
41:12which was also taking part,
41:14struggled forward in the snow and mud against increasing Russian resistance.
41:28Within a week, the attack had ground to a halt.
41:31So angry was Hitler that he ordered the SS men
41:34to remove their prized divisional cuff bands as a mark of disgrace.
41:40But true to their motto,
41:42my honour is my loyalty,
41:44the Waffen-SS divisions continued to fight on
41:47as the Russians and western allies squeezed the Third Reich ever tighter.
41:52By now, on both the eastern and western fronts,
41:55the true horror of the activities of other branches of the SS
41:58was becoming clear,
42:00as the extermination camps were overrun.
42:04Horrified Allied troops made little attempt
42:07to differentiate between the guilt of those who wore the SS badge.
42:12In the west,
42:14the Allies continually came up against small pockets of fanatical SS resistance,
42:18but this could only delay the inevitable.
42:22In the east,
42:24the remnants of the 6th SS Panzer Army
42:26could not prevent the Russians from capturing Vienna.
42:35There remained the final prize,
42:38Berlin.
42:42The Russian assault on the German capital began on the 16th of April.
42:46Within a week, fighting was taking place in the city itself.
42:50Among the elements defending Berlin
42:53were French and Latvian SS troops.
42:55Hitler still hoped that his Waffen-SS could weave a miracle and rescue him,
43:00but he was now living in total fantasy.
43:02The German garrison finally surrendered on the 2nd of May,
43:06two days after Hitler had taken his own life.
43:15Fearing that they would receive little mercy from the Russians,
43:18there was now a rush among the surviving SS and army formations
43:22to surrender to the western Allies.
43:25A number of SS divisions conducted formal surrender parades
43:29to demonstrate their defiance.
43:33Because of the vast catalogue of crimes against humanity
43:37committed by the SS as a whole,
43:39and the war crimes of particular units of the Waffen-SS,
43:43all SS men were rounded up for special interrogation.
43:47Many tried to disguise themselves,
43:50but the giveaway was their SS number,
43:52tattooed under the arm,
43:54which could not be easily hidden.
43:58Some Waffen-SS soldiers,
44:00some Waffen-SS men eventually found themselves on trial,
44:04and some paid the ultimate price for their crimes.
44:10Very few of those who fell into Russian hands
44:13were ever to get back to Germany.
44:16For the Waffen-SS,
44:18the trial of the men involved in the Malmedy massacre
44:21was the most notorious.
44:25Almost everyone in the Waffen-SS chain of command
44:29was arraigned, and the vast majority found guilty.
44:33Sepp Dietrich, under whose ultimate command Peiper had been,
44:37was among the first to be sentenced.
44:39At the time the vote was taken concurring,
44:41sentences you to life imprisonment.
44:43Commencing forthwith at such places
44:45may be designated by competent military authority.
44:48Joachim Peiper,
44:50whose battle group had been responsible for the massacre,
44:52was one of six men sentenced to death.
44:56The death sentences were eventually commuted,
44:59and Dietrich himself was released on parole in 1955,
45:02but the long arm of justice had not yet finished with him.
45:06Two years later he was arraigned by a West German court
45:09for his part in the Night of the Long Knives in 1934.
45:12He was sentenced to a further term in jail,
45:15but was released after 15 months on medical grounds.
45:19For him, and for many of those who fought under him,
45:22the brutal reality of what had been done was soon glossed over.
45:26I must say that we are a front group.
45:29We were only at the front.
45:31We fought.
45:33We know nothing of what happened in the hinterland.
45:36We were soldiers.
45:38Very simple soldiers.
45:41Despite all the evidence to the contrary,
45:43it appears that the West German government agreed.
45:46During the 1950s,
45:48it awarded the Waffen-SS veterans war pensions
45:51on the grounds that they had fought for their country
45:52in the same way as every other soldier.
45:56The authorities also allowed those who fought in the Waffen-SS
45:59to form their own association, Hayak,
46:02which continues to this day.
46:05This was in stark contrast to the treatment of men
46:08like Leon de Grel,
46:10who had fought in the foreign legions of the Waffen-SS.
46:13He could never return to Belgium,
46:15where he was regarded as a traitor,
46:17and lived out the rest of his long life in Spain.
46:19Sepp Dietrich,
46:21the personification of Hitler's political soldiers,
46:24died in his bed in April 1966.
46:27He was buried with the honors befitting
46:29one who had fought with gallantry
46:31and distinction for his country.
46:35Dietrich and his comrades in the Waffen-SS
46:38developed a combat reputation second to none.
46:42Their determination to fight on,
46:44often against impossible odds,
46:46gained the respect of their enemies
46:47and the admiration of their countrymen.
46:50They were true gladiators.
46:54But poisoned by its ideology,
46:56their tragedy was that they became
46:58the willing servants of an evil regime.
47:00Their reputation as fighting soldiers
47:02will be forever sullied
47:04by the atrocities which they committed in its name.
47:17© BF-WATCH TV 2021
47:47© BF-WATCH TV 2021