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| 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf | |
|---|---|
| 3. SS-Panzerdivision "Totenkopf" | |
 Divisional insignia | |
| Active | 1939–45 |
| Country |  Nazi Germany |
| Branch |  Waffen-SS |
| Type | Panzer |
| Role | Armoured warfare |
| Size | Division |
| Nickname(s) | Death's Head Division |
| Engagements | |
| Commanders | |
| Notable commanders | |
The3rd SS Panzer Division "Totenkopf" (German:3. SS-Panzerdivision "Totenkopf")[1] was an elitedivision of theWaffen-SS ofNazi Germany duringWorld War II, formed from theStandarten of theSS-TV. Its name,Totenkopf, is German for "death's head" – theskull and crossbones symbol – and it is thus sometimes referred to as theDeath's Head Division.[2]
The division was formed through the expansion ofKampfgruppe Eicke, a battle group named – in keeping with German military practice – after its commander,Theodor Eicke. Most of the battle group's personnel had been transferred to theWaffen-SS fromconcentration camp guard units, which were known collectively asSS-Totenkopfverbände; others were former members ofSelbstschutz: ethnic German militias that had committed war crimes in Poland.
The division became notorious for its brutality, and committed numerous war crimes, including theLe Paradis andChasselay massacres. The remnants of the division surrendered on 9 May 1945 to American forces in Czechoslovakia.
The SS Division Totenkopf was formed in October 1939.[3] The division had close ties to the camp service and its members. When it was first formed a total of 6,500 men from theSS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV) were transferred into the Totenkopf Division.[4] The Totenkopf was initially formed from concentration camp guards of the 1st ("Oberbayern"), 2nd ("Brandenburg") and 3rd ("Thüringen") Standarten (regiments) of theSS-Totenkopfverbände and men from theSS Heimwehr Danzig. Members of other SS militias were also transferred into the division in early 1940; these units had been involved in multiple massacres of Polish civilians, political leaders and prisoners of war.[5] The division had officers from theSS-Verfügungstruppe (SS-VT), of whom many had already seen action in Poland. The division was commanded by SS-ObergruppenführerTheodor Eicke.[6] At the time of the Battle of France, the division was equipped with ex-Czech weapons.[7]
Totenkopf was initially held in reserve during theBattle of France and invasion of theLow Countries in May 1940.[8] The division was committed on 16 May to the front in Belgium. Later, it was decided that Totenkopf would reinforce the breakthrough ofErwin Rommel's7th Panzer Division in theCambrai area. Reaching theBazuel area straddling both sides of the river it arrived on the front on 19 May, facing elements of the French1st Moroccan Infantry Division,5th North African Infantry Division, and9th Motorized Division. Totenkopf suffered 16 dead and 53 wounded while killing 200 Moroccan soldiers in its first day in action.[9] In its first major battle it captured the town ofCatillon-sur-Sambre and its associated canal in fierce house-to-house fighting, blocking the exits of the town and trapping the Moroccan force in the center around the market square, eventually captured thousands of remaining troops. Soldiers from Totenkopf executed many captured Moroccans, due to Arabs being considered "racially inferior".[10] On the morning of the next day, May 20 it contained a major Moroccan counter attack near Ribeauville, driving it back with its own counter attack, before crossing the Selle river and linking up with Rommel's division in the outskirts of Cambrai.[11] Overall in the actions around the Cambrai/Sambre area the division captured 16,000 troops.
Whilst subsequently trying to drive through to the coast, Totenkopf was involved in theBattle of Arras. On 21 May units of the1st Army Tank Brigade, supported by the50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division, overran some of Totenkopf's positions, their standardanti-tank gun, the3.7 cm PaK 36, being no match for the BritishMatilda tank[12] although they quickly halted the British. In the following days, the unit committed several large-scale massacres of French civilians, most notable the Berles-Monchel and Aubigny-en-Artois massacres.[13] On 27 May, the 4 Company of the Totenkopf under the command ofHauptsturmführerFritz Knöchlein, committed theLe Paradis massacre, where 97 soldiers of the 2nd Battalion,Royal Norfolk Regiment were machine-gunned after surrendering, with survivors killed withbayonets. Only two men survived.[14][15]
In April 1941, the division was ordered East to join Field MarshalWilhelm von Leeb'sArmy Group North. Leeb's force was tasked with advancing onLeningrad and formed the northern wing ofOperation Barbarossa. It soon moved into a staging area near Insterburg and was assigned toPanzer Group 4. Totenkopf took part in the advance throughLithuania andLatvia, and by July had breached theStalin Line. The division then advanced pastDemyansk to Leningrad where it was involved in heavy fighting in August.
During Soviet winter counter-offensive, the division was encircled for several months near Demyansk in what became known as theDemyansk Pocket. During the fighting in the pocket, it was re-designated "Kampfgruppe Eicke" due to its reduced size. In April 1942, the division broke out of the pocket. At Demyansk, about 80% of its men were killed, wounded or missing in action. The division was sent to France to be refitted in late October 1942. While there, the division took part inCase Anton, the takeover ofVichy France in November 1942. For this operation, the division was supplied with a tank battalion and redesignated 3rd SS Panzergrenadier Division Totenkopf. The division remained in France until February 1943, when its previous commander, Theodor Eicke, resumed control.
In February 1943 the division was moved back to theEastern Front as part ofErich von Manstein'sArmy Group South. The division, as a part of SS-ObergruppenführerPaul Hausser'sII SS Panzer Corps, took part in theThird Battle of Kharkov, blunting the Soviet offensive. During this campaign, Theodor Eicke was killed when his spotter aircraft was shot down.Hermann Priess succeeded Eicke as commander. The SS Panzer Corps, including the division, was then shifted north to take part inOperation Citadel, the offensive aimed at reducing theKursk salient. It was during February 1943 that the 3rd SS Panzer Regiment received a company ofTiger I heavy tanks.
The attack was launched on 5 July 1943 with theII SS Panzer Corps attacking the southern flank of the salient as the spearhead for GeneraloberstHermann Hoth's4th Panzer Army. The division covered the advance on the left flank of the II SS Panzer Corps, with theSS Division Leibstandarte forming the spearhead. With the advance slower than had been planned, Hausser ordered his II SS Panzer Corps to split in two, with the Totenkopf crossing thePsel River northwards and then continuing on towards the town ofProkhorovka. In the early morning of 9 July, 6th SS Motorised Regiment Theodor Eicke attacked northwards, crossing the Psel and attempted to seize the strategic Hill 226.6, but failed to do so until the afternoon. This meant that the northern advance slowed and the majority of the division was still south of the Psel, where elements of 5th SS Motorised Regiment 5 Thule continued to advance towards Prokhorovka and cover the flank of the Leibstandarte.
By 11 July, elements of the division crossed the Psel and secured Kliuchi. In the afternoon of 12 July, near the village of Andreyevka on the south bank of the Psel, the Soviet forces launched a major counterattack against Regiment Thule and the division's battalion of assault guns during theBattle of Prokhorovka.[16] Elements of the division engaged lead units of the5th Guards Tank Army, halting the Soviet advance and inflicting severe damage to the Soviet forces, but at the cost of the majority of the division's remaining operational tanks. While the II SS Panzer Corps had halted the Soviet counteroffensive, it had exhausted itself. Citadel was called off on 14 July.
Along with theSS Division Das Reich, the division was reassigned to GeneralKarl-Adolf Hollidt's reformed6th Army in southern Ukraine. The 6th Army was tasked with eliminating the Soviet bridgehead over theMius River. The division was involved in heavy fighting over the next several weeks. During the July–August battles for Hill 213 and the town ofStepanovka, the division suffered heavy losses, and over the course of the campaign on theMius-Front, it suffered more casualties than it had during Operation Citadel. By the time the Soviet bridgehead was eliminated, the division had lost 1,500 troops; the Panzer regiment was reduced to 20 tanks.
The division was then moved north, back to Kharkov. Along with Das Reich, Totenkopf took part in the battles to haltOperation Rumyantsev and to prevent the Soviet capture of the city. The city was abandoned on 23 August due to the threats on the German flanks. In October 1943, the division was reformed as a Panzer division. The Panzer battalion was officially upgraded to a regiment, and the two motorised regiments were given the titles "Theodor Eicke" and "Totenkopf". The division, along with other Axis formations, continued its retreat towards theRomanian border. By November, the division was engaged in fighting againstRed Army's attacks over the vital town ofKrivoi Rog to the west of the Dniepr.
In January 1944, Totenkopf was still engaged in heavy defensive fighting east of the Dniepr nearKrivoi Rog. In February 1944, Totenkopf took part in the relief attempt of German troops encircled in theKorsun Pocket. In the second week of March, after a fierce battle nearKirovograd, Totenkopf fell back behind theBug River. Totenkopf took up new defensive positions. After two weeks of heavy fighting, again alongside thePanzer-Grenadier-Division Grossdeutschland, the Axis forces retreated to theDniestr on the Romanian border nearIaşi. In the first week of April, the division received replacements and new equipment, includingPanther tanks. In the second week of April, Totenkopf took part in fighting against a heavy Soviet Army attacks towardsSecond Battle of Târgu Frumos. By 7 May, the front had quieted and Totenkopf resumed its reorganizing.
In theSecond Battle of Târgu Frumos, elements of the division, together with elements of the Großdeutschland, managed to halt an armoured assault by the Red Army. The assault, which in many aspects bore similarities to those of the later British OperationGoodwood, was carried out by approximately 500 tanks.[17][need quotation to verify] In early July, the division was ordered to the area nearGrodno in Poland, where it formed a part of SS-ObergruppenführerHerbert Gille'sIV SS Panzer Corps, covering the approaches to Warsaw near theModlin Fortress.
After the SovietOperation Bagration and the destruction ofArmy Group Centre the German lines had been pushed back over 480 kilometres, to the outskirts of the Polish capital. The division arrived at the Warsaw front in late July 1944. After the collapse of the GermanArmy Group Centre, the IV SS Panzer Corps was one of the few functioning formations on the central section of the Eastern Front. On 1 August 1944, theArmia Krajowa (the Polish Home Army) launched theWarsaw Uprising. A column of Totenkopf Tiger tanks were caught up in the fighting, and several were lost. The Totenkopf itself was not involved in the suppression of the uprising, instead guarding the front lines, and fighting off several Red Army probe attacks into the city's eastern suburbs.
In several battles near the town of Modlin in mid-August, the Totenkopf, fighting alongside theSS Division Wiking and theHermann Göring Division destroyed theSoviet 3rd Tank Corps. The terrain around Modlin is excellent for armour, and Totenkopf's panzers exploited this to their advantage, engaging Soviet tanks from a range where the superiority of the German optics and the 75 mm high-velocity gun gave the Panthers an edge over the T-34s.
The efforts of the Totenkopf, "Wiking" and "Hermann Göring" divisions allowed the Germans to hold theVistula line and establishArmy Group Vistula. In December 1944, theIX SS Mountain Corps (Alpine Corps-Croatia) was encircled inBudapest. Hitler ordered the IV SS Panzer Corps to redeploy south to relieve the 95,000 Germans and Hungarians trapped in the city. The corps arrived just before New Year's Eve. The relief attempts were to be codenamedOperation Konrad. The first attack wasKonrad I. The plan was for a joint attack by the Wiking and Totenkopf from the town ofTata attacking along theBicske-Budapest line. The attack was launched on New Year's Day, 1945.
Despite initial gains,Konrad I ran into heavy Red Army opposition near Bicske and during the battle the 1st Battalion, 3rd SS Panzer Regiment's commander, SS-Sturmbannführer Erwin Meierdress was killed. After the failure of the first operation, Totenkopf and Wiking launched an assault aimed at reaching the city centre. Named OperationKonrad II, the attack was launched on 7 January from just south ofEsztergom. It reached as far as Budapest's northern suburbs, by 12 January motorised infantry of the Wiking division spotted the Hungarian capital's skyline. However, Gille's corps was overextended and vulnerable, so it was ordered to fall back.
OperationKonrad III got underway on 20 January 1945. Attacking from the south of Budapest, it aimed at encircling 10 Red Army divisions. However, the relief forces could not achieve their goal, despite making a 24-kilometre bulge in the Soviet forces line and destroying the135th Rifle Corps. The encircled troops capitulated in mid-February. The division was pulled back to the west, executing a fighting withdrawal from Budapest to the area nearLake Balaton, where the6th SS Panzer Army under SS-OberstgruppenführerJosef Dietrich was massing for the upcomingOperation Spring Awakening.
Gille's corps was too depleted to take part in the assault, instead it provided flank support to assaulting divisions during the beginning of the operation. Totenkopf, together with Wiking, performed a holding action on the left flank of the offensive, in the area betweenLake Velence-Székesfehérvár. Dietrich's army made "good progress" at first, but as they drew near the Danube, the combination of the muddy terrain and strong Soviet resistance ground them to a halt.[18] As the offensive stalled, the Soviets forces counterattacked in strength on 16 March. The Germans were driven back to the positions they had held before Operation Spring Awakening began.[19] Attacking the line between the Totenkopf and theHungarian 2nd Armoured Division, contact was lost between the two formations. The 6th Army commander,General der PanzertruppeHermann Balck, recommended moving theI SS Panzer Corps north to plug the gap and prevent the encirclement of the IV SS Panzer Corps, however, by the time the divisions finally began moving, it was too late.
On 22 March, the Red Army encirclement of the Totenkopf and Wiking was almost complete. The9th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen held open a route which could be used to withdraw – the Berhida Corridor – and Gille's corps escaped the encirclement. The Red Army then launched theVienna Offensive which destroyed any resemblance of an organised German line of defence. The remnants of the division retreated intoCzechoslovakia where it surrendered to the American forces on 9 May.
With the invasion of Poland, Theodor Eicke – who was the commandant of theDachau concentration camp, inspector of the camps, and murderer ofErnst Röhm – joined the fray with one cavalry and four infantry regiments. Three of his regiments, "Oberbayern", "Brandenburg" and "Thuringen", formed the basis of the firstEinsatzgruppen; the Oberbayern and Thuringen (EG II and EG z. B.V) followed theTenth Army inUpper Silesia; the Brandenburg (EG III) followed theEight Army acrossWarthegau.[20] His Totenkopfverbände troops were called on to carry out "police and security measures" in the rear areas. What these measures involved is demonstrated by the record of SS Totenkopf Standarte "Brandenburg". It arrived inWłocławek on 22 September 1939 and embarked on a four-day "Jewish action" that included the burning of synagogues and the execution en masse of the leaders of the Jewish community. On 29 September the Standarte travelled toBydgoszcz to conduct an "intelligentsia action".[21] The GermanIntelligenzaktion resulting in the mass murder of approximately 100,000 Poles, was a major step in the implementation ofSonderaktion Tannenberg (Operation Tannenberg a.k.a.Unternehmen Tannenberg) of installing Nazi officials fromSiPo,Kripo,Gestapo andSD to head an administrative machine in occupied Poland, leading to theGeneralplan Ost colonization programme.[22] In October 1939, these Totenkopfverbände troops formed the core of the 3 Totenkopf Division, of which Eicke became the commander.[3] During the 1943Warsaw Ghetto Uprising the training Battalion of the 3rd Panzer Division Totenkopf took part in the suppression of the uprising.
While the Totenkopf Division committed numerous massacres of French Arab and African troops, the most infamous remains the murders at Le Paradis. TheLe Paradis massacre was a war crime committed by members of the 14th Company, SS Division Totenkopf, under the command ofHauptsturmführerFritz Knöchlein. It took place on 27 May 1940, during theBattle of France, at a time when theBritish Expeditionary Force (BEF) was attempting to retreat through thePas-de-Calais region during theBattle of Dunkirk.
Soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, theRoyal Norfolk Regiment, had become isolated from their regiment. They occupied and defended a farmhouse against an attack by Waffen-SS forces in the village ofLe Paradis. After running out of ammunition, the defenders surrendered to the German troops. The Germans machine-gunned the men after they surrendered, with survivors killed withbayonets. Two men survived with injuries, and were hidden by locals until they were captured by German forces several days later. After the war, Knöchlein was tried for war crimes by a British military court. He was found guilty, sentenced to death, and executed in 1949.[14]
Thereafter, the division worked together withGroßdeutschland Division to carry out racially motivated murders of hundreds of captured black African members of the French Army. They murdered captured black soldiers on account of their race, which they believed to merit their separation and execution. For example, on 19 and 20 June 1940, Totenkopf and Großdeutschland together carried outa series of massacres of captured African soldiers in theChasselay area, murdering about captured 100Senegalese Tirailleurs.[23] They are today buried in theTata of Chasselay.
| No. | Portrait | Commander | Took office | Left office | Time in office |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  | Eicke, TheodorSS-Gruppenführer Theodor Eicke (1892–1943) | 1 November 1939 | 7 July 1941 | 1 year, 248 days |
| 2 | .jpg) | Kleinheisterkamp, MatthiasSS-Oberführer Matthias Kleinheisterkamp (1893–1945) | 7 July 1941 | 18 July 1941 | 11 days |
| 3 |  | Keppler, GeorgSS-Brigadeführer Georg Keppler (1894–1966) | 18 July 1941 | 19 September 1941 | 63 days |
| 1 | | Eicke, TheodorSS-Obergruppenführer Theodor Eicke (1892–1943) | 19 September 1941 | 26 February 1943 † | 1 year, 160 days |
| 4 |  | Priess, HermannSS-Gruppenführer Hermann Priess (1901–1985) [24] | 26 February 1943 | 27 April 1943 | 60 days |
| 5 |  | Lammerding, HeinzSS-Gruppenführer Heinz Lammerding (1905–1971) | 27 April 1943 | 1 May 1943 | 4 days |
| 4 | | Priess, HermannSS-Gruppenführer Hermann Priess (1901–1985) | 1 May 1943 | 20 June 1944 | 1 year, 50 days |
| 6 |  | Ullrich, KarlSS-Standartenführer Karl Ullrich (1910–1996) Acting [25] | 20 June 1944 | 13 July 1944 | 23 days |
| 7 |  | Becker, HellmuthSS-Brigadeführer Hellmuth Becker (1902–1953) | 13 July 1944 | 8 May 1945 | 311 days |
The main organisation structure of this SSformation was as follows:[26]
| Designation (English)[27] | Designation (German)[28] |
|---|---|
|
Oblicza się, że akcja "Inteligencja" pochłonęła ponad 100 tys. ofiar.Translation: It is estimated thatIntelligenzaktion took the lives of 100,000 Poles.
Waffen-SS divisions | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Panzer | |||
| Panzer- grenadier | |||
| Mountain | |||
| Cavalry |
| ||
| Infantry | |||
| Police | |||
| Deception "Panzer" | |||
| Lists | |||
Units marked inbold were officially named "volunteer".See also:SS heavy Panzer battalions | |||
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
