Hitler's Boy Soldiers in Normandy

[hist2004]

In the summer of 1944, the mostly teenage soldiers of the 12th SS Hitlerjugend Panzer Division threw itself against the mighty Allied onslaught to retake Europe.

by Jon Latimer

The pivotal and terrifying battle for Normandy's beaches lay only hours ahead. Experienced soldiers, what few the 25th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment had, understood what was coming. They also knew how much would depend upon the fresh-faced teenagers assembling around them. They were the cream of German youth, but they were babies. In the 1st Battalion, for example, 65 percent were under 18 years old. Only 3 percent were over 25, and almost all of these older soldiers were officers and noncoms. Organized in Antwerp, Belgium, in July 1943, the 12th SS Hitlerjugend Division, of which the 25th was part, had been formed around a cadre of veterans from the 1st SS Panzer Division, the army and the Luftwaffe. Most of its personnel came from the Hitler Youth leadership schools, and it was not uncommon to have boys of 16 in its ranks. "We could foresee what lay ahead," recalled one older veteran. "The fine young grenadiers by contrast glanced smiling at us. They had no fear, full of confidence, trusting in their strength and innate aggression. How willing will these youngsters be to stand the test?"

Sixteen hours earlier the first reports of the June 6 Allied landings had been received. Colonel Kurt Meyer had finally received orders committing his regiment to the struggle to throw the Allies back into the Channel. However, since receiving the order, confusion as to the true scale and nature of the landings had hampered the German high command, and a German armored counterstroke was late in forming. But first, Meyer's 25th Regiment, which was located with the rest of the division to the west of Paris and south of Rouen, had to reach the battlefield.

At 5 o'clock on the afternoon of June 6, 1944, the division's 229 tanks and assault guns, 658 armored vehicles, some 2,000 soft-skinned vehicles and 20,540 men moved off along three routes. "We'll soon give it to Tommy!" was the banter remembered by Corporal Helmuth Pock as the boys traveled to the front. Despite the overall exuberance, Pock recalled that many of the youngsters were smoking cigarettes to steady their nerves.

Driving forward in a Panzerkampfwagen (PzKw.) Mark IV medium tank, Pock soon ran into traffic jams that hampered the division's advance. While progressing slowly he heard many words of encouragement shouted to the tank crews. When they got closer to the front, some of that excitement was tempered by seeing the number of vehicles shot up by Allied fighter-bombers, the dreaded Jabos.

Losses to enemy aircraft were not heavy, but the accumulated delays caused by wrecked vehicles were enough to destroy the division's timetable. By nightfall, barely a third of the division's strength had reached the assembly area southwest of Caen. Despite the delays and fear of what lay ahead, morale remained high as soldiers hastily dug in and erected camouflage netting around their positions.

As soon as his men reached the assembly area, Meyer went to the headquarters of the 716th Infantry Division to get a better picture of what was happening. He was disturbed to discover that even the division headquarters had lost all communications with its regiments and battalions. "Caen is a sea of flame," he noted as he negotiated blazing trucks at the roadside to rejoin his regiment. The battle was at a critical stage. Nearly 10 Allied divisions faced seven battered and fragmented German divisions. Unable to concentrate effectively, the Germans would be forced to launch their counterstrokes with whatever forces were available.

Nevertheless, Meyer was still confident. "Little fish," he called the enemy. "We'll throw them back into the sea in the morning." Meanwhile, the 3rd British Division had been ordered to close the gap that the 21st Panzer Division had created between itself and the 3rd Canadian Division on June 6. At the same time, the 3rd Canadian Division was directed southwest toward Carpiquet airfield.

Army Group B, which was responsible for plugging the rapidly expanding hole in Hitler's Atlantic Wall, was now reduced to scraping together a Kampfgruppe (battle group) of the 12th SS and part of the 21st Panzer Division. The scratch formation was supposed to drive the Allies back to the beaches.

Meyer had three Panzergrenadier battalions in the line with two companies of tanks behind each flank and artillery in support. He was also told that the 21st Panzer Division had been ordered to form up on his right flank. Watching the Canadian advance unfold from the tower of Ardenne Abbey, he could see an opportunity opening in front of him. At 10 a.m. on June 7, the 50 Mark IV tanks of the 2nd Battalion, 12th SS Panzer Regiment, arrived and moved into position. The 1st Battalion, with its powerful PzKw. Mark V Panthers, was stranded and momentarily idled east of the Orne River for want of fuel.

The Canadians continued to file across the German front. Once the lead Canadian tanks reached the ridge south of Franqueville, they spotted one of Meyer's panzer companies waiting to advance. It was at that moment that the German youngsters could hear Meyer's voice over the radio net, ordering them to advance.
Engines roared to life and tracks squeaked as the 12th SS received its initiation. "It cracked and flashed around Franqueville," recalled a German soldier. "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." Meyer's sudden advance had caught the Canadians unawares, and their infantry were forced to fall back to Authie. Meyer's 3rd Battalion pursued them doggedly. The boys overran Authie and Franqueville in their initial rush. Buron, a kilometer to the north, was the next objective. The "enemy forces appeared to be completely surprised," wrote Meyer. "Artillery on both sides had not fired a single round."

Meyer's panzers roared around Authie and headed for Buron. Canadian anti-tank guns hit four or five of the tanks, and the Hitlerjügend crews' inexperience showed as they turned away while trying to retire. Hans Fenn's tank was one of those hit: "The shell tore off the tank commander's leg—SS Scharführer [Sergeant] Esser—but I heard he got out of the turret later," Fenn recalled. "Phosphorus shells caused the tank to instantly burst into flames all over. I was helpless....I made my way back with third degree burns, toward our grenadiers following up. They recoiled from me on sight, as if they had seen a ghoul." The Panzergrenadiers reached Buron but were forced out by a Canadian counterattack.

Meyer was concerned at the slowing of the attack's momentum. The Canadians had recovered from their initial surprise, and now their artillery had found the range and was heavily shelling the area. Nevertheless, Meyer ordered his tanks to resume the attack. Meanwhile, the 1st and 2nd battalions were approaching Cambes. "Until Cambes, everything went well," Emil Werner remembered. "So far as we were concerned, the village looked fine. But on the outskirts we came under infantry fire and then all hell broke loose." Two men were killed, but the tankers still had not seen any enemy soldiers. Unaware of exactly what was to his front and unable to make contact with any supporting formations, the battalion commander leading the attack on Cambes decided to go onto the defensive. With his attack now slowing down, Meyer was horrified to discover that the 21st Panzer Division had not yet been able to advance, and his right flank was open and being menaced by Allied tanks.

Although their situation was now precarious, the boys of the 12th were reluctant to withdraw. A company commander described the difficulty of extricating exposed sections that, having fought their way forward, would not retire: "All had the will to reach the sea. It was difficult to get them back on the leash again. The order to fall back was met with disbelief, and as a result was followed only after a long delay." Some witnesses later said that they came across boys from the division crying over their failure to force the Allies back into the sea. That evening, the 26th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment arrived and moved into Putot, but was thrown out after a fierce counterattack by the 7th Canadian Brigade. With neither side able to secure complete victory, the lines on either side were solidifying and turning the battle into one of attrition around the villages.

A company of Panther tanks finally appeared on June 8, and Meyer personally led a night attack toward the village of Rots, which they reached at midnight. After several hours of confused fighting, however, the Germans were forced to withdraw, leaving behind six tanks. The Canadians noted that despite advancing with courage and determination, the young Germans seemed to lack tactical control and had a habit of attacking piecemeal, failing to exploit favorable opportunities.

With pressure mounting to crush the Allied lodgment, the Germans planned a major offensive for June 10, in which the 12th SS, 21st Panzer and Panzer Lehr divisions were also due to take part. Before the attack could begin, however, the Allies seized the initiative and attacked the left flank of Panzer Lehr.

A series of local and largely inconsequential attacks was mounted by both sides. Neither was able to secure a strategic advantage, and the German defensive perimeter around Caen tightened. Casualties on both sides steadily mounted. The 12th's headquarters, positioned some 27 kilometers southwest of Caen, came under heavy and sustained naval gunfire on June 16, killing the commander, Brig. Gen. Fritz Witt, and several other senior officers. So determined had his attacks been since the invasion that Meyer was given command of the division. The 12th was now deployed in detachments north and west of Caen, and like the rest of the German army, was suffering from shortages of ammunition, fuel and equipment. To the north of Caen, some of its panzers supported unreliable units such as the 16th Luftwaffe Field Division. To the west, a flak battery and 15 tanks, together with the 1st Battalion, 26th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment, held the important Carpiquet airfield.

British General Sir Bernard Law Montgomery, commander of the 21st Army Group, now began a series of attacks intended to push the Germans out of Caen once and for all. He hoped that seizure of the city would draw the bulk of the German armor to the eastern side of the Allied beachead and create the conditions for the breakout by the Americans in the west. The first was Operation Epsom, beginning on June 26 and directed toward Hill 112, south of Carpiquet. Meyer's boys defended each hedge tenaciously but were steadily pushed back by the weight of Montgomery's attack, which was mounted by three infantry divisions and two armored brigades, with more than 700 artillery pieces in support.

One German, forced to the ground by a rolling artillery barrage, surfaced to find his unit swamped by tanks and "furious Scotsmen hurling grenades." It was a confusing battle, and few participants retained clear memories of it, but the British line moved slowly southward, regularly subjected to fanatical counterattacks by the boys of the 12th.

The Germans were now forced to commit their last reserves to stem the tide, but on June 27, the British advance resumed. The Commonwealth soldiers managed to capture Hill 112 the next day. The Germans clung on for a while but then withdrew, and by the 29th the British had secured the important summit.
Although the Allied salient was now five miles deep, nowhere was it more than two miles wide. They had yet to achieve their hoped-for breakthrough, and the narrowness of the salient made it an obvious target for a major German counterstroke.

Facing the British by June 29 were elements of no fewer than six panzer divisions, including the 12th SS. Beginning late on the 29th, the Germans tried to regain the initiative, but dogged British resistance halted the attack. The commander of the assault, General Paul Hasser, explained that "the murderous fire from naval guns in the channel and the terrible British artillery destroyed the bulk of our attacking force in the assembly area." Those tanks that did get forward were easy prey to infantry anti-tank weapons, which could pick them off at short range.

Montgomery now resumed the offensive. On July 4, the 3rd Canadian Division launched an attack against Carpiquet. Despite suffering heavy losses from German artillery, elements of two Canadian battalions found themselves fighting some 50 Panzergrenadiers in the village. By nightfall, the Canadians held the northern half of the village and airfield, while the Germans controlled the south. Lack of infantry reinforcements prevented the Germans from launching effective counterattacks, but they had stopped the Canadian advance.

The capture of Caen had now become as much a matter of prestige as necessity, and Montgomery decided that desperate measures were necessary. For the next four days, the Hitlerjugend was the cornerstone of the defense of Caen against the British I Corps. Finally, by means of 2,600 tons of bombs dropped from the air, Montgomery managed to isolate the forward defenses of Caen. The bombing destroyed the city and exacerbated the Germans' already acute supply problems. Meyer, unwilling to retire, continued his bitter defense. On July 8, after all hope of holding the city was lost, Meyer ordered his boys to evacuate their positions.

Sheer weight of resources on the Allied side made the outcome inevitable. By July 9, the British had captured the city and inflicted crippling losses on the 12th. The division had been nearly shattered. It had only 65 tanks out of an original 150 and had suffered 60 percent casualties.

Those who had survived the maelstrom were now hardened veterans. They were lauded at home in the excited prose of the SS periodical SS Leitheft: "Thousands of aircraft, rolling barrages of batteries, massed tank attacks hammered them with bombs and shells. The earth heaved thunderously. An inferno was unleashed. But faith was the strongest support of courage. Smeared with blood, covered with dust, gasping and fighting, doggedly dug into the earth, these youths brought the Anglo-Americans to a halt."

Using Hill 112 as a vantage point, which they had regained after the British inexplicably withdrew on June 30, the Germans were able to dominate the Odon Valley behind Caen and the ground to the north. With German armor starting to move toward the American sector, the British decided to regain Hill 112 and secure it and the surrounding villages.

Operation Jupiter began on July 10. Some elements of the 12th SS still held part of the line between Eterville and the Orne River. Although they held the line for a time, the defenders were eventually overcome by sheer numbers. A young grenadier noted in his diary what it was like to face the British: "From 0630 to 0800, again heavy machine-gun fire. Then Tommy attacks with great masses of infantry and many tanks. We fight as long as possible but we realize we are in a losing position. By the time the survivors try to pull back, we realize we are surrounded." The following day, the division was pulled out of the line and sent to Potigny, some 30 kilometers north of Falaise, for a rest and refit.

The respite did not last long. The next major British drive, Operation Goodwood, began on July 18 on the eastern side of Caen. As soon as the attack began, the 12th SS was recalled to help prevent a breakthrough. A British Second Army Intelligence summary of the day before noted that the "12th SS is the only reserve formation not committed and it is but a shell of its former self." Divided into two battle groups, Kampfgruppe Krause and Kampfgruppe Waldmüller, with a combined strength of just 50 tanks, it quickly became a key element in the defense of the German position south of Caen. But it was an increasingly desperate position. The relentless and punishing attacks in and around the city were sapping the strength of the defenders, and the Allies' absolute control of the air was making it impossible to relieve or reinforce them. Goodwood was followed on July 25 by Cobra, which coincided with the breakout of the Americans to the west and the beginning of the end for the Germans in Normandy.

Cobra was followed by Operation Bluecoat, the return of the British Second Army to the offensive. Following Bluecoat, the Canadian First Army took up the gauntlet with Operation Totalize on August 8. Once more, the pressure was applied directly to the 12th SS. The attack involved a daring and innovative plan in which narrow columns of armored vehicles drove through the defenses at night without a preliminary artillery barrage, but with heavy bombing from the air to seal the flanks. Once they reached their objectives, the infantry exited their armored personnel carriers and cleared out the defenders. Although the attack began well, Meyer's determination prevented it from becoming a disaster for the Germans.

Meyer later remarked on what he saw while driving forward to reconnoiter immediately after the bombing. "Before me, making their way down the Caen-Falaise road in a disorderly rabble were the panic-stricken troops of the [German] 89th Infantry Division," he said. "I realized that something had to be done to send them back into the line and fight. I lit a cigar, stood in the middle of the road and in a loud voice asked them if they were going to leave me alone to cope with the enemy. Having a divisional commander address them in this way, they stopped, hesitated, and then returned to their positions." Having rallied the frightened soldiers from the 89th, he sent armor and anti-tank guns to the positions they had abandoned at Cintheaux before directing his two battle groups to counterattack to the north of the village.

Stiffening their resistance against continued pressure, the German anti-tank gunners held up the Canadians after an advance of three miles. Over the next two days, the effects of this action and the continuous grind of counterattacks reduced the German division to little more than a reinforced battle group. The Allies tried to bomb their way through, but the Germans had captured a scout car on August 13 with a copy of the plan for the attack, and Meyer moved his men back in time. Between August 14 and 16, the 500 or so Panzergrenadiers and 15 tanks remaining defended Hill 159 to the northeast of Falaise against the 3rd Canadian Division. Under nearly continuous artillery and air attack, the Germans were forced to withdraw when the 2nd Canadian Division broke through on their western flank.

Fighting at Falaise itself was another small detachment of some 60 boys from the 12th SS. They held out for three days, and only four were taken prisoner. The loss of Falaise meant the gap between the British and American arms of a large pincer was only 20 kilometers, and in the pocket the remnants of some 19 German divisions were subjected to incessant and increasingly heavy artillery bombardment.

With only one tiny avenue of escape left open to them, the pitiful remnants of the 12th SS were ordered to help hold open the northern side of the salient. The aim was to permit the remains of the Seventh Army to escape. Hitler's refusal to face reality, however, meant that in the end less than half of those within the pocket succeeded in breaking out. Those who did could thank the defenders of the gap, which was under enormous pressure for two days. When the withdrawal had been completed, Meyer ordered a French peasant to guide his last small group of some 200 men across the Dives River. On August 22, Army Group B reported that the 12th SS Panzer Division consisted of 10 tanks, 300 men and no artillery. It had effectively been destroyed in Normandy.

The Hitlerjugend shared many characteristics with other formations of the German army and Waffen SS fighting in Normandy in 1944. They fought exceptionally well and suffered appalling losses. The 12th had been well equipped, but in other respects it was less well provided for. Its training was not as thorough as in regular formations. As became the normal procedure for most German formations, especially in the later war years, it ended up divided into widely scattered battle groups where gunners, engineers, cooks and clerks had all found themselves fighting as Panzergrenadiers. However, the primary difference between the 12th SS and other German formations lay in the singular spirit of self-sacrifice these youngsters espoused in the name of Adolf Hitler and National Socialism. Not every one of them was a volunteer, but even the vast majority of those who had been drafted into the division accepted its ethos as a result of their charismatic leaders.

Such fanaticism could not always make up for the tactical shortcomings in their senior officers' leadership. A high level of casualties certainly suggests bravery. But it is not necessarily commensurate with military skill and was no substitute for tactics and firepower. One British tank commander recalled how Hitler Youth soldiers had sprung at Allied tanks "like young wolves, until we were forced to kill them against our will." The nature of the fighting in Normandy meant that leadership often devolved down to junior noncoms and officers. Hardly older than the boys they led, their fanatical devotion to the point of death was an inspiration to the others. One example was Sergeant Emil Durr, who was posthumously awarded the Knight's Cross for attacking a Canadian flame-throwing tank. Although seriously wounded, he attacked it three times and eventually destroyed it, losing his life in the process.

Unfortunately, devotion to duty, bravery in action and aggression, while in many ways admirable qualities in soldiers, also led to extreme brutality. During the campaign there were numerous instances of the division's mistreatment of prisoners and civilians. The boy soldiers gained a fearsome reputation for shooting prisoners, especially Canadians, and were responsible for the deaths of 64 British and Canadian prisoners between June 7 and 16. After his capture, Meyer was tried and convicted for the part his division played in the massacre of Canadian prisoners at Buron, Authie and Ardenne Abby.

Normandy did not quite mark the end of the Hitlerjugend's involvement in the war. The 12th SS Panzer Division was re-formed in time to play a part in Hitler's final gamble in the West. It was to be part of the great Ardennes offensive launched less than six months later in a vain attempt to capture Antwerp, where the division had originally been formed 18 months earlier.

Despite all that had gone before, the next group of boys to be collected under the Hitler Youth banner showed no less idealism than their predecessors. A letter found on the body of a young grenadier killed in the fighting expressed the attitude of many of the division's young men: "I write during one of the momentous hours before we attack, full of excitement and expectation of what the next days will bring....Some believe in living but life is not everything! It is enough to know that we attack and will throw the enemy from our homeland. It is a holy task. Above me is the terrific noise of V1s and artillery, the voice of war." On the back of the envelope is written a postscript: "Ruth! Ruth! Ruth! We March!"

Regards,
Hist2004

[Kitsune]

:(

[pinkeye]

has anyone seen any figures on the number of under-18s who fought during ww1 and 2? one of my relatives was killed in france during ww1 at the age of 17 (he lied about his age), and i am sure there are many families with similar stories...

[simple jumper]

There are rumours that during the battle of the Bulge, 2 12th SS soldiers who were captured were only 12 years old and 14. The average age in the division in 1945 was 16.

I'm 16 and I re-enact the 12th SS Hitlerjugend, not for personnal opinions about the Nazi regime (what they did was wrong, no question about it), simply for the interrest in history, their uniforms etc. And vets often say they remember fighting against kids which tore thme up inside, but they alos cant forget the 12th SS had shot over 150 Canadian POWs execution style. :(

[Mr. Nielsen]

There are rumours that during the battle of the Bulge, 2 12th SS soldiers who were captured were only 12 years old and 14.

12 years old is perhaps a bit too low for an SS division, in the ardenner offensive. But as young as fourteen I have seen reported.

The captions usually seen with the picture below states that it is two members of the 12th SS captured in january 1945, in the ardenner.
There also exits a picture of the two, next to two grown up US MP's, that show how small the two boys are.

http://mars.acnet.wnec.edu/~grempel/tours/normandy/HJ%20images/sskinder.jpg



The average age in the division in 1945 was 16.

Actually I wouldn't be surprised if the average age had increased, when the division was rebuilt after normandy. As the terrible casualties was replaced, though they wasn't as big as stated in the article above, both very young soldiers were added but also older ones, from the german navy etc. If remember correctly.

[simple jumper]

I doubt the age would have increased, had they had to go get boys for war , why not take the ones that would have been older? Hard to explain... :|
But if the age would have increased where were those guys when they first started taking in teens. And when they regrouped before the Ardennes offensive thats when the age dropped from 18 to 16. Just stating thing's I've read or heard from vets, inluding german vets.

[Mr. Nielsen]

I doubt the age would have increased, had they had to go get boys for war , why not take the ones that would have been older? Hard to explain... :|

The whole idea in forming the division was to have it entirely manned by volunteers from the HJ. Therefore it was by idealistic reasons made younger than it otherwise had to.



But if the age would have increased where were those guys when they first started taking in teens.

Employed in war critical industries, manning and supplying the big ships of
the kriegsmarine, Flak batteries, german minorities or men previously considered unfit for duty.



Just stating thing's I've read or heard from vets, inluding german vets.

Nothing wrong with that. I don't have numbers for the replacements and you could very well be right.

[DE_Six]

Interesting article, hist.

Thanks.

[hist2004]

Thanks for the responses. Here's another article on the subject-

Hitler's Baby Division

by Gerhard Rempel

In his study of human behavior on the "Eastern Front", Omer Bartov has delineated the "barbarization of warfare", a characterization that can be applied with equal force to certain aspects of other fronts and especially to the inhuman exploitation of children in the final months of war. After the crucial defeat of Stalingrad, bewildered HJ leaders and determined SS officers conspired to generate a fantastic children's crusade which sought to shore up crumbling defenses and in the nature of things offered thousands of teenagers as a final sacrifice to the god of war. That the HJ-SS alliance should have concluded this way is no surprise. For years the SS had circumvented formal restrictions about the induction of underage youth and millions of HJ members already found themselves in ill-fitting SS uniforms doing men's jobs at home and in actual combat. Millions of emaciated boys were digging tank traps and manning anti-aircraft batteries, young girls were replacing nurses in hospitals, and armies of children were collecting scrap metal and old clothes, fighting fires caused by bombing raids, policing streets and railroad stations, serving as couriers and messengers. Normal activity for the young, such as attending school, seems to have become an afterthought.
Goebbel's "total war" meant that the younger generation was mobilized like everyone else. The creation of the Hitler Youth Division (HJD) within the W-SS was more than merely a sign of desperation and a sense of foreboding doom. It exposed the relationship between HJ and SS in a fatal way. The connection between these two Nazi generations, the process of socialization under the Nazis, and the ultimate implications of the HJ-SS alliance, expressed in numerous small ways at home and on the battlefield, was compressed within the confines of a single combat division, deliberately patterned to take full advantage of what was thought to have been achieved by these key affiliates of the Nazi movement. The HJ was also an essential element in the so-called "Peoples Militia", which was supposed to incorporate all able-bodied males. More sinister and brutal schemes were hatched in the end which envisioned the formation of a clandestine, fanatical, suicidal guerrilla army, made up largely of HJ boys and BDM girls. These children were expected to conduct sabotage and assassination behind enemy lines, wreaking havoc on occupation troops and German officials collaborating with the occupiers. That such desperate and criminal schemes should have been thought of is a natural concomitant of the ideology which informed the HJ-SS alliance. That these schemes should actually have begun to emerge in the twilight of Hitler's empire is proof of the effectiveness of that collaboration. The HJ-SS symbiosis, forged during a decade of inter-generational cooperation, was reaffirmed in blood and destruction during the chaotic death throws of the Third Reich and seemed to extend beyond total surrender to radical political activity in the early postwar years.
A thirst for action, increasingly proto-military as the uncertain prospects of the war revealed themselves, changed the HJ into a school for soldiers at the end. Exploiting this incubator of ideologically-drilled warriors, the SS not only extracted a sizeable proportion of its elite troops from this source but began to think about more specific ways of using the HJ. Creating adolescent combat units was not unique, since it had been foolishly tried in the early days of World War One, when talented and enthusiastic young volunteers were thrown into battle at Langemarck, without adequate training and due consideration for future officer candidate needs. Some party leaders and army veterans remembered this blunder, but the fanaticism in the SS and the RJF made those who made decisions in these matters oblivious to the ominous precedent played out in the bloody fields of Flanders. So it was not by chance that the HJ Division remained closely associated with the Führer's SS Body Guard, beginning in Berlin's Lichterfelde Barracks and ending in the Battle of Caen, the Stalingrad of the HJ, the Battle of the Bulge, another sign of desperation fraught with atrocity, and finally the last-ditch efforts to defend an indefensible Vienna, the scene of Hitler's painful struggle for manhood.
With peculiarly independent relationships to Himmler and the rest of the W-SS, the Body Guard was an elite within an elite. As a personal security unit dedicated exclusively to the person of the Führer, the LSSAH gave birth to a unique and exclusive combat division which was moved from front to front to rescue difficult military situations or to snatch glory from the jaws of death by benefitting from victories won by others. It was in the forefront of every major military campaign. Singularly reckless in its style of warfare, the Guard suffered a disproportionately large number of casualties, requiring as a result perpetual replenishment. It was mainly the HJ which had to furnish the special cannon fodder.
Recruiting privileges had been given to the Guard as early as 1934. We have already seen that the Guard also established direct contacts with the HJ in order to siphon off the best available young manpower. Many starry-eyed young men therefore joined Hitler's Guard before the war began and many more must have been recruited during the halcyon years of 1939 to 1941. To become a member of Hitler's famous Praetorian Guard fulfilled the ambition of many young idealists in the HJ, especially after the inflated exploits of the Guard became weekly features of Goebbels' newsreel editors. By the fall of 1941 the RJF agreed to mount special recruiting campaigns only for the Guard. After Hitler's SS Guard became a mechanized infantry division in 1942, the recruiting campaign was repeated and subsequent SS recruiting efforts were based on the experiences of 1941 and 1942, always accompanied by special appeals from Artur Axmann.
The idea of creating an SS armored division composed exclusively of Hitler youths has been generally credited to Artur Axmann, although the idea of mobilizing teenagers in separate units may have occurred to a number of people, including Berger and Axmann. The ambience of "total war" was fertile ground for such desperate expedients. During a highly secret discussion between Gottlob Berger and Helmut Möckel on February 9, 1943 it was agreed that the Division should be formed from 17 year old members of the HJ. These were to be prepared in the WEL for 6 weeks, spend 4 additional weeks in the RAD and conclude their training with another 16 weeks of intensive military drilling under SS auspices. As a concession to physical immaturity they were to receive special rations during training. On the 10th Himmler saw Hitler at the Wolf's Lair and discussed the project with him. Three days later he informed Axmann that the plan had made the Führer happy and that he had authorized immediate commencement of recruiting.
A secret planning conference was held on February 16 at HJ headquarters in Berlin, attended by Axmann, Möckel, Schlünder, Berger and two members of the SS Recruiting Office. They agreed to accept volunteers with a minimum height of 5'6" who demonstrated a "capacity to wage war", and possessed the HJ Achievement Medal. RJF representatives thought that 30,000 boys could be made available. Seemingly reluctant to accept HJ insistence on premilitary training, Berger thought the simplest method would be to assemble the boys in basic training centers close to the area where the division was to be formed. In lieu of this the existing 39 WELs still staffed by the SS, with a total capacity of 8,000, would have to be pre-empted temporarily for HJD candidates. During the following day the RJF announced these plans to regional leaders assembled for a regularly scheduled conference in Berlin. Axmann said that the HJD, alongside the SS Body Guard, was intended as a "Guard of the Führer." It would be fully motorized, equipped with the heaviest weapons and led mostly by HJ leaders. Boys who became seventeen on June 30 could volunteer. Eagerness for action and enthusiasm should be decisive factors, while parental permission was unnecessary. Recruiters were urged to accept only boys who were physically fit, spiritually alive and those who had exemplary records in the HJ. Recruiting should be done so as to create a vocational balance among peasants, workers, artisans and students. There was also to be a balance between leaders and rank and file boys. Since the division was not intended to be an elite combat formation made up of upper middle class boys as those who fought at Langemarck, it indicates that this uncomfortable precedent was circumvented in the spirit of the Volksgemeinschaft, at least on the surface. Axmann further announced that the special WEL courses, another attempt to avoid the Langemarck syndrome, would begin in April and ordered vigorous recruitment to begin immediately. A mere 26 days were thus allowed to recruit an entire division, a sign of hope and haste produced, no doubt, by extreme pressure from Berger's minions.
While planners threshed about in convoluted schemes and expedients, no one seems to have anticipated the problems of recruitment soon to be faced. What they did fear is negative publicity. Recruiting began secretly because the RJF thought public notice would call attention to the distasteful memory of Langemarck where very enthusiastic but badly trained volunteers suffered disastrous losses. As late as November secrecy was still maintained under threats of prosecution, coupled with the suggestion that appearance of HJD units should be called simply W-SS volunteers. When recruitment was set in motion by Axmann in the middle of February, the HJ ran into surprising apathy, especially among students of secondary schools, a development the RJF might have expected had the hostile attitude of students in the WELs been taken into account. The RJF plunged on nevertheless. Late in March an agreement was concluded with the National Business Chamber to allow vocational students, who would normally have graduated in the fall, to take premature examinations, thus opening the way for induction into the WEL. For non-vocational students the problem was more complicated. The RJF had accepted responsibility to negotiate a solution but seems to have encountered a series of roadblocks. Not until April was Axmann able to inform regional leaders that volunteers would be granted "preliminary leaving certificates" with the promise that they could finish secondary education in special courses after the war. This made recruiting among students difficult. Berger then stepped in and made a more satisfactory agreement with the Education Ministry by granting "final leaving certificates" to student-volunteers who demonstrated the "ability, resolution and will power of potential university students."
Regions and districts commenced recruiting during the third week of February. Recruiting problems soon forced the RJF to shorten premilitary training from six weeks to four and postpone the starting date to May. This became necessary despite the fact that Hitler had meanwhile exempted HJD volunteers from compulsory labor service, an expedient adopted so frequently after 1943 that it practically became a general rule. While premilitary training sessions got underway, the RJF ordered a "supplementary recruiting campaign" for May. In WEL camps as well as in individual HJ dens the siren calls of strident SS and HJ recruiters were heard once more. When recruits completed WEl training and transferred to the W-SS, they were ordered to recruit personally their friends for the division while on furlough, a device that was probably more effective than some other forms of persuasion. These belated volunteers went directly to the reserve units of the division. At the end of July, the RJF allowed the regions to recruit from the second half of the 1926 class. They were allowed to skip premilitary training as well. In all WELs recruiting meanwhile continued at least through the middle of August.
Despite formal safeguards against the use of force many boys must have been driven to volunteer under extremely coercive circumstances. Army reserve authorities in Stuttgart, for instance, complained to OKW that "illegal means" were being used to recruit for a "so-called HJD to be presented to the Führer on his birthday." It would be erroneous, however, the report went on, if the Führer were to be "under the impression that he was dealing with purely voluntary recruits." Incidents were cited where Hitler youths had been forcefully "moved" to volunteer. They had been imprisoned in rooms guarded by SS soldiers until volunteer papers were signed and even had their ears boxed for failure to respond to SS appeals. The SS Recruiting Station at Stuttgart denied these charges, when Berger was forced to investigate, and claimed it could not find allegedly responsible persons because the army had given "imprecise information." One of the incidents took place at Achern where 220 boys had been assembled for recruiting purposes. Since only 18 had signed volunteer certificates and a mere 13 of them were later found to be suitable, the SS "certainly could not be accused of using force." Berger dismissed the whole affair as just another example of the army "raising a stink against the SS." SS General Kurt Meyer, the second and most important commander of the Division, subsequently implied, however, that some youths had not come voluntarily and SS General Fritz Witt, the first commander, ordered an investigation in November 1943 to determine how many men had been inducted against their will. It is apparent that many forms of official influence and pressure were used to compel "volunteering", at a time when the critical military situation had top priority.
Securing the required number of NCOs for the division proved to be equally difficult. Originally Axmann had asked regional leaders to enlist at least ten percent of their eligible unit leaders as divisional NCO candidates. Swabia was thus expected to furnish 26 and send them to WEL Kuchberg near Geislingen in Württemberg for training. The initial response was not encouraging; only thirteen mustered men went to Kuchberg. Most eligible leaders it appears chose to go to the Labor Service, refused to surrender their officer-candidate status with the air force and the army, or wanted to finish formal education first. Recruiting results in Swabia must have reflected national efforts because at the end of March Axmann issued renewed calls for NCO candidates. While some regional leaders were afraid their staffs would be depleted, Axmann no longer cared whether local HJ organizations collapsed when the need for troops to face military crises was overwhelming. What clearly also was on Axmann's mind had something to do with his notion of an elite division which would glorify the martial tradition of the HJ with his peculiar stamp on it.
HJ districts already faced severe manpower shortages in 1943. At Kempten, for instance, seven leaders had become officer candidates for the air force, two had been transferred to a children's camp, one was employed part-time in the local civil administration, one wore corrective glasses, and a couple of others were too short to qualify for the W-SS. While two leaders were NCO candidates with the SS, they refused to switch to the HJD, one of them wanting to finish school in order to pursue university training in engineering after the war, while the other served as SRD leader and therefore could not be replaced. The district leader showed a considerable degree of exasperation: "If I am to surrender two additional leaders for 'service in the east' then I am faced with a practically leaderless organization. I don't think it makes any sense to force someone to volunteer." Other leaders faced similar problems. In this situation coercion seemed to be the only recourse if Axmann's demands were to be met and he in turn was bound by his commitment to Himmler. Yet draftees would not provide the kind of elan which the division was supposed to have. Axmann, clearly worried about this problem, ordered all WEL directors training NCO candidates to determine how many of them had been commandeered. The latter were then submitted to another barrage of propaganda and those who still refused to volunteer were finally dropped from the roster. So in the end the RJF was forced to pick potential NCO candidates from rank and file recruits born in 1926. This began during the second week of their training in the WELs. So the manpower squeeze led to an expedient, which gave the "Baby Division" a substantial number of noncommissioned officers of 17 and 18 year old youth, leading soldiers of the same age.
At the conclusion of premilitary training all 38 WELs staged uniform ceremonies, transferring these HJ boys to the W-SS. Short speeches by HJ and SS leaders, followed by rousing renditions of martial songs like "Ein junges Volk steht auf" and "Es zittern die morschen Knochen", accompanied by combined SS-HJ musical units, characterized these events. It was clearly a momentous occasion in a decade of HJ-SS collaboration. Axmann and Himmler, who spoke at one of these ceremonies in WEL Wildflecken, expressed the symbolic significance of this mutual dependency. The Youth Leader was somewhat disingenuous:
...My comrades and young volunteers...you are a wonderful demonstration of the attitude and spirit of youth during this fourth year of war. We all feel the burning desire to create a military unit out of volunteer comrades from the HJ. The Führer was delighted with this wish of his youth. He counted on you and thousands of you responded to our call. You are the elite of German youth and I am happy and lucky that not one of you is here except by his own free will....In your unit, my comrades, the soldierly tradition of the HJ will find its ultimate expression. That is the reason why all German youths direct their attention to this unit, to you; that is why you must embody the virtues inherent in the best of Germany's youth. So, we expect you to be idealistic, selfless, courageous and loyal!
Himmler was less hortatory and more candid:
Since the years of struggle, throughout the years of growth before the war and during the war years themselves, a tie of particular intimacy and inner fellowship bound the HJ and SS together...It can be said in all candor that half of the W-SS divisions which reconquered Kharkov were volunteers from the classes 1924 to 1925...In these weeks when the sacrifice of Stalingrad was on every one's mind...your Youth Leader made the decision to offer to the Führer the best young boys....The Führer agreed happily. After eight years of training in the HJ, you have now assembled in your W-SS uniform with your old HJ armband. For four weeks you have lived together, worked together, trained together and prepared for military service. Today the National Youth Leader has released you from the HJ and presented you to the W-SS. Now, in your new W-SS uniforms, you will go home on a 14-day furlough (stormy applause!). After a few months in SS barracks you will enter a great formation, an SS Panzergrenadier Division. You will then train some more, loose many drops of sweat in order to save drops of blood and finally will march alongside your sister division, the Body Guard SS Adolf Hitler. You will carry the name which the Führer gave you..."

During the month of June, while the Body Guard recovered from the exhaustive Battle of Kharkov, SS Colonel Fritz Witt, chief of its 1st Armored Infantry Regiment, received appointment as commander of the HJD. Typical of an aggressive new breed of young SS officers, Witt brought with him a select number of officers, sergeants and technical specialists. The rest of the officers were transferred from army and SS divisions or activated from reserve status as the original plan provided. More than half of them must have been former HJ leaders. A shortage of company commanders, platoon and squad leaders, was gradually filled when "training assistants" arrived from the SS NCO schools. Many NCOs were barely a year older or even the same age as the young soldiers they commanded. In July and August the first 10,000 boys arrived to commence basic training in Beverloo, Belgium, while various units were formed and shaped into battle condition. The CG of the 1st SS Panzer Division, Sepp Dietrich, had already gotten Hitler's permission to provide these boys with food rations normally reserved for combat soldiers, but August Pohl, the chief of the SS Economic and Administrative Office, arranged to give them special rations much more substantial than those allotted to workers in heavy industry.
There were two battalion commanders in the HJD who were merely 26 years old and three other top commanders in their late 20s. This was quite unusual enough, but those below battalion level were nearly all in their early 20s and the bulk of the enlisted men were 17 during training and 18 at the time of their first combat engagement. It was indeed the "Baby Division"! The youthful character of the division not only worried the RJF but also Goebbels, who feared that Allied propaganda might interpret it as a sign of desperation, which it clearly was. Allied intelligence did refer to the "Baby Division" derisively in radio broadcasts and propaganda leaflets, suggesting the milk bottle as its tactical symbol. Hitler, nonetheless, believed his youngsters would fight "fanatically" and predicted that the enemy would be "struck with wonder." He was right.
Two months before the division was committed to combat Witt issued one of his periodic special directives dealing with discipline and order. He complained that many unit leaders still failed to understand that their primary duty was to "shape young soldiers into straight and decent SS men." Many company commanders apparently had forgotten that their charges had grown up with fathers away at the front and mothers employed, with the best teachers and most capable HJ leaders on the long list of casualties. Unit leaders therefore had to become substitute educators. Providing models to imitate was the best form of instruction and this required daily association, since the company was the only world these impressionable recruits knew. Witt then ordered platoon and squad leaders to live in the same room with their men to show that they cared about their welfare. Such concern was a soldier's "most beautiful task." Every noncommissioned officer "should appreciate the valuable German human material entrusted to him."
At least three hours a week were set aside for indoctrination to be conducted by company commanders. After eight years of incessant doctrinal drilling in the HJ and four weeks of intensive propagandizing in the WELs, it was still deemed necessary to conduct regular weekly indoctrination sessions within the division itself. Witt believed, as most SS officers believed, that the war against Soviet Russia had made it painfully clear that a "fanatically indoctrinated enemy" could only be conquered by the "bearer of a superior ideology." Every young soldier therefore had to know what he fought for. Hence, "attitude, spiritual strength and emotional power" were thought to be the deciding factors in "popular wars." Company commanders were expected to dedicate themselves to this task of with vigor and responsibility. The themes they used were no surprise: "Germany's demand for living space", "the enemies of Germany are the enemies of Europe", and similar platitudes familiar to these boys since the age of ten, when most of them had entered the Junvolk and ceased to be children. Every opportunity - the waking call, roll call, a pause during training, an infrequent free hour - was to be utilized by officers and NCOs to "clarify and impregnate the weekly theme." Aiming to create a fighting force of true believers required that every man "grasped internally what he fought for." Immature youths had to be transformed into men "who lived according to the fundamentals of the SS as fanatic warriors", willing to sacrifice all and give no quarter.
Fritz Witt declared the training period to be concluded on March 16, 1944: "The...situation happily is a good one. Our...boys during these eight months have been transformed into young men who know the military craft." To celebrate the miraculous metamorphosis Witt ordered that the candy rations thus far issued be replaced by cigarettes. In April the Division was transferred to France and located southwest of Rouen, the remaining men and equipment being added in the process. If the Division attained prescribed strength - and there is every reason to believe that it did - by the beginning of June it had some 20,000 men and officers, 177 tanks, 700 machine guns, 70 mortars, 37 infantry guns and howitzers, 40 field and medium guns, 33 anti-tank guns and over 100 pieces of varied anti-tank artillery. Motor vehicles, armored troop carriers and tractors brought the total to some 2,950 vehicles. We know for certain that the Division had at least 20 more tanks than the average SS Panzer Division and certainly more than army equivalents. Since the HJD was trumpeted as a "junior Body Guard" and since Hitler had specifically ordered that it be fully equipped, there is little doubt that it was one of the better supplied fighting units of the war. There were always devious ways to acquire desired officers and equipment if normal channels failed to supply them, as Witt's most resourceful regimental commander, Kurt Meyer, and his young subordinate officers, repeatedly demonstrated.
One source of strength lay in the HJ origin of the personnel. The tie to the RJF was carefully maintained by assiduous propaganda and by visits of Youth Leader Artur Axmann, who made at least two formal inspection tours. During the first Witt ordered commanders to discuss plans with Axmann and had all positions of honor occupied by young men, making sure that the Youth Leader was accorded the same respect as W-SS generals by special order of Himmler himself. Axmann spent some time with most battalions and even with smaller units. During the second visit he brought along Dutch and Norwegian youth leaders, no doubt at the suggestion of Gottlob Berger who was, of course, eager to influence SS recruitment in the occupied countries. The RJF also assumed troop welfare for the Division in order "to solidify the special tie of the national socialist movement with the Division." Musical groups, theatrical troupes, letter-writing campaigns and dispatch of packages fell under this program. Ties with individual battalions and smaller formations were later established by regional HJ directorates.
All of this meticulous care in organizing, training and preparing the "Baby Division" was carried out in order to avoid the errors of Langemarck which hung over these activities as an ominous cloud. It was also done because the planners believed the HJD could make a difference by setting an instructive example and reversing the rising tide of defeatism and cynical indifference among regular army troops. These notions were soon to be tested when the HJD experienced its bloody baptism of fire in a crucial sector of the Battle for Normandy, around and in the city of Caen. When British and Canadian troop landed in the estuary of the Orne, the HJD surprised them. The youngsters of the HJ fought ferociously and with a suicidal determination that appalled German and Allied commanders who were not particulary sensitive or inexperienced. The HJD and its patron the Body Guard, which arrived on the scene belatedly, held up Bernard Montgomery's advance for a whole month. In the process they were destroyed. The Battle of Caen become the Stalingrad of the Hitler Youth.
From June 7 until July 9 the HJD lost 4,000 dead and 8,000 wounded and missing. An Allied officer thought that it had "fought with a tenacity and fierceness" such as he had not seen in the entire European campaign. A few days later, Field Marshal von Rundstedt, in conversation with "Sepp" Dietrich and Kurt Meyer, recognized the unique attitude of the HJD: "Your soldiers possess the spirit of the young regiments of Langemarck, but are far better trained and above all led by front-experienced officers and NCOs. It is a shame that his faithful youth is being sacrificed in a hopeless cause." Erwin Rommel made similar remarks shortly before his death.
But the end was not yet in sight. What followed was attrition, gradually grinding the remaining elements of the division to shreds. New headquarters were established at Potigny north of Falaise. Regimental staffs were withdrawn to hammer new replacements into marching companies, while remaining troops were organized into two "Battle Groups." With some 50 remaining tanks the latter played a significant role in spiking three separate British offensives between Caen and Falaise, prolonging the capture of Falaise for a month. A concerted counter-attack at Cintheaux, organized by Kurt Meyer, and isolated victories demonstrated that the HJ had lost none of its resolute combat elan. When Falaise was finally taken by the Canadians on August 16 a remnant of 60 Hitler youths held out in the ruins of the Ecole Superieure until all but two messengers, chosen by lot, were dead. The rest of the Division helped to keep the pincers of the Falaise-Argentan pocket open long enough to allow two decimated German Armies to escape. By September 4, 1944 the fighting strength of the division was enlarged again to 600 men from the 200 who slipped out of the pocket, but the sum and substance of its effectiveness had been destroyed. Eighty percent of the original combat personnel had been annihilated, and similar losses had been sustained by the support troops. The Division lost 80 percent of its tanks, 70 percent of its armored vehicles, 60 percent of its artillery and mortars and 50 percent of the rest of its vehicles.
The RJF made feeble recruiting efforts to rebuild its elite formation. In some areas 15 year olds were drafted to shore up dwindling reserves. Axmann even made plans to establish a separate reserve organization for the Division, but little came of this nonsensical effort. The shock of Caen had been too great. The Division was replenished with air force ground personnel, navy personnel and recuperated veterans from military hospitals. Some new HJ recruits must also have been added. This patched-up division, with little resemblance to its former elite character, was engaged in the Battle of the Bulge and subsequently in Hungary and Austria, with some isolated effect.
On May 5, 1945, the "Baby Division" was withdrawn from futile, last-ditch efforts to defend Vienna, their patron's libidinal battleground a generation before. SS Major General Hugo Kraas, the last commander of the 12th SS Panzer Division, gave his men free reign to follow their natural inclination to escape the clutches of the aproaching Russian troops by moving west toward the American lines. Three days later, near the small town of Enns, 6,000 weary and bedraggled survivors of the once proud HJD tried to cross a bridge across the Danube. It had been blocked by other HJ boys working in tank-trap battalions organized by Gauleiter Baldur von Schirach. Someone cried "Russky!" and panic broke loose as all stampeded towards a narrow gap on the bridge. Trucks rammed into the surging mass and killed at least 15 of them, scattering the fleeing hordes along both sides of the river. A single Russian tank "clanked toward the bridge. A Red Army lieutenant stood in the turret, laughing at the sight of 6,000 men frantically scrambling to escape his single gun." Towards the end of the day a faithful remnant of 455 men and one tank marched before Hugo Krass for the last time. In a final symbolic act of arrogant defiance, the HJ-SS soldiers refused to obey an American order to drape their vehicles in white flags and drove into American captivity "proud and erect."
"Panzermeyer", as his admiring boys called him, had been the soul of courage, strength and defiance. He led thousands of Hitler youths to what most of them probably perceived to be heroic deaths. On September 6, 1944, while the emaciated remnants of the HJD fought another in a long series of small holding actions near Namur, Belgium, Kurt Meyer became an Allied prisoner. He was subsequently the first German officer to be tried as a war criminal. A SHAEF court of inquiry alleged that soldiers and officers of the 12th SS Panzer Division "shot 64 unarmed allied prisoners of war in uniforms, many of whom had been previously wounded, and none of whom had resisted or endeavored to escape." SHAEF investigators also alleged that "it was understood throughout the division that a policy of denying quarter or executing prisoners after interrogation was openly approved." These crimes purportedly took place between June 7 and 17, and responsibility for them was distributed to all three regiments of the division.
Kurt Meyer was tried and condemned to death by a Canadian military court for collusion in the shooting of Canadian and British prisoners. His sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment and on September 7, 1954 he was released. The commutation and release stirred up considerable controversy in Canada and elsewhere. Meyer admitted that certain atrocities occurred in the W-SS, but refused to acknowledge guilt in this particular case. The responsibility of other officers under his command remains like that of Meyer an open question. The guilt of lower-ranking soldiers cannot be determined with any degree of certainty either. In the latter case there is the additional problem of legal and illegal orders.
The distinction between murder and legalized slaughter, in the context of military combat, is always difficult to make. Every war leaves behind a trail of atrocity charges and counter-charges. It is not surprising that an unusually high number of atrocities were committed by the combat personnel of the SS during World War Two. The effort of W-SS veterans to rehabilitate their post-war image by denying connection to the genocidal policies and crimes of the SS organization has long since been discredited. The self-serving attempt by the regular German army officers to pass all blame for war crimes onto the SS has come under general suspicion as well. Accepting the theory of collective guilt, the Nuremberg Tribunal condemned the entire SS as a criminal organization, thereby painting every man who wore its uniform with the brush of personal crime. Such a conclusion cannot survive the test of historical evidence. Yet a great number of ordinary murders were committed by the soldiers of the W-SS.
In the case of the HJD the atrocities, to the degree that they actually occurred, were symbolic of SS influence. The aggressive, reckless, at times even fanatic, leadership, exercised by ambitious young SS officers like Meyer, certainly contributed to the process of blurring clear distinctions between murder and "legal" killing in combat conditions. Other factors, in this dehumanizing process, were the tender, impressionable age of most of the soldiers in the division, the long years of assiduous racial indoctrination, and the circumstances of defeat and frustration which enveloped the vastly outnumbered German forces in the Normandy theater. The result was a form of barbarism born of desperation, primitive revenge and arrogant defiance.

Regards,
Hist2004

[Rommel's friend]

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