18th SS Volunteer Panzer Grenadier Division "Horst Wessel"

18th SS Volunteer Panzer Grenadier Division "Horst Wessel"
Troop registration
active	January 25, 1944 to May 1945
Country	German Empire
Armed forces	Armed SS
Branch of service	Panzergrenadiers
Type	division
structure	See outline
Butcher	Occupation of Hungary Slovak National Uprising War against the Soviet Union 1941–1945 Battle for Budapest
commander
list of	Commanders

The 18th SS Volunteer Panzer Grenadier Division "Horst Wessel" was a Panzergrenadier division of the Waffen SS during World War II . The unit was given the honorary name Horst Wessel , after the Berlin SA leader who was murdered in 1930 and who was declared a " blood witness " by Nazi propaganda .

history

The division was set up on January 25, 1944 in the Zagreb / Celje area in Croatia from the 1st SS Infantry Brigade (motorized), the assault gun battery of the 6th SS Mountain Division "North" and training units.

Lineup and composition

The division was originally intended to be recruited from members of the SA, but was supplemented with Hungarian Germans because not enough suitable SA members registered. Apparently, the role of the SS during the so-called Röhm Putsch had not been forgotten in the ranks of the SA . This recruitment of Hungarian citizens was made possible by the contract with the Hungarian puppet government Döme Sztójays of April 14, 1944, which equated service in the Waffen SS with military service in the Hungarian army .

commitment

Before the completion of the installation and without having been fully equipped and trained, the division took part in the Margarethe enterprise , the occupation of Hungary in March 1944, which was intended to prevent the country from leaving the war. When Soviet troops threatened Hungarian territory in July 1944, a combat group around the SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment 40 under Obersturmbannführer Ernst Schäfer, which was reinforced a little later by the French SS Volunteer Assault Brigade (March Battalion Cance as IV Battalion), was sent to the XXIV Panzer Corps of Army Group Northern Ukraine surrendered. In August 1944, the same regiment probably took part in the suppression of the Slovak uprising together with Dirlewanger's unit , before the division was first used as a unit on the front in Hungary in autumn 1944 . During the battle of Budapest , the division was forced to face the north in heavy fighting, so that it was spared the fate of the other SS divisions ( Florian Geyer , Maria Theresia , 33rd Waffen-Kavallerie-Division of the SS (Hungarian No. 3) there The division appears to have been used primarily to keep the wavering Allies, Hungary and Slovakia, on course.

The division was last deployed in the Breslau area, where in May 1945 most of the division surrendered to Soviet troops near Hirschberg am See in the northern Sudetenland . Smaller groups managed to make their way west, where they capitulated to American troops.

War crimes

The two SS Grenadier - Regiments 39 and 40 of the 1st SS Infantry Brigade (mot.) Formed the SS Panzer Grenadier regiments 39 and 40. The SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment 39 was originally on 11 October 1939 as SS Totenkopfstandard 8 in Cracow from parts of the Totenkopfstandard 4 (Linz) was set up. Like the Totenkopfstandarte 10, it was part of the 1st SS Infantry Brigade (motorized) at the RFSS command staff , which from June 1941 in the rear army area in Russia for "security and cleaning tasks" - a paraphrase for the terrorization of the population and the murder of the Jewish population - was used. On September 1, 1943, the name was changed to SS-Grenadier-Regiment 8 and on November 12, 1943 to SS-Grenadier-Regiment 39.

The SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment 40 was originally set up on November 11, 1939 as SS Totenkopf Standard 10 in Weimar-Buchenwald from the Totenkopf Standard 2 "Thuringia". On February 25, 1941, it was converted into a motorized infantry regiment, before it was renamed SS Grenadier Regiment 40 on October 22, 1943 as part of the consecutive numbering of the SS units. Both regiments are thus at least organizationally, if not necessarily personally, linked to both the concentration camp guards and the murder of the Jewish population in Eastern Europe.

structure

• SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment 39 (I. – III.)
• SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment 40 (I. – III.)
• SS Artillery Regiment 18 (I.–IV.)
• SS Panzer Division 18
• SS assault gun division 18
• SS Panzer Reconnaissance Department 18
• SS tank destroyer division 18
• SS Flak Department 18
• SS News Department 18
• SS Pioneer Battalion 18
• SS supply troops 18
• SS repair department 18
• SS Economic Battalion 18
• SS Administration Troops Department 18
• SS-Feldgendarmerie-Company 18
• SS Field Replacement Battalion 18
• SS medical department 18

Commanders

• January 25, 1944 to January 3, 1945: SS Brigade Leader August-Wilhelm Trabandt
• 3rd - 10th January 1945: SS-Gruppenführer and Lieutenant General of the Waffen-SS Josef Fitzthum
• January 10 to March 1945: SS-Standartenführer Georg Bochmann
• March to May 8, 1945: SS-Standartenführer Heinrich Petersen

literature

• Thomas Casagrande: The Volksdeutsche SS-Division "Prinz Eugen". The Banat Swabians and the National Socialist war crimes. Campus, Frankfurt 2003, ISBN 3-593-37234-7 .
• Martin Cüppers : pioneer of the Shoah. The Waffen-SS, the Reichsführer SS command staff and the extermination of the Jews 1939–1945 2nd edition, Primus Verlag , Darmstadt 2011, ISBN 3-896-78758-6 .
• Rolf Michaelis : The Panzer Grenadier Divisions of the Waffen SS. 2nd edition, Michaelis, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-930849-19-4 .
• Karl H. Thiele: Beyond "Monsters" and "Clowns". The Combat SS. De-mythologizing Five Decades of German Elite Formations. University Press of America, Lanham 1997, ISBN 0-7618-0529-X .
• Gordon Williamson: Waffen-SS. Vol. 3, 11th - 23rd divisions. Osprey, Oxford 2004, ISBN 1-84176-591-0 .
• Georg Tessin : Associations and troops of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen SS in World War II 1939–1945. Volume 4. The Land Forces 15–30 . 2nd Edition. Biblio-Verlag, Osnabrück 1976, ISBN 3-7648-1083-1 .

Web links

Commons : 18th SS-Freiwilligen-Panzergrenadier-Division "Horst Wessel"  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Schematic war organization from September 16, 1944.
2. ↑ SS-FHA, Amt II Org.Abt. Ia / II, Tgb.Nr. 179 / 44g.Kdos. of January 25, 1944.
3. ^ Karl H. Thiele, Beyond "Monsters" and "Clowns". The Combat SS. De-mythologizing Five Decades of German Elite Formations. Lanham 1997. p. 344.
4. ↑ Chris Bishop, SS Hell on the Western Front , Staplehurst 2003. p. 87.
5. ↑ Kurt Mehner (ed.) The Waffen-SS and Police 1939–1945. Leadership and troops. Norderstedt 1995. ISBN 3-931533-02-6