Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler

Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) SS Panzer Grenadier Division "Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler" 1st SS Panzer Division "Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler"
Troop registration
active	March 17, 1933 to May 8, 1945
Country	German Empire
Armed forces	SS
garrison	Berlin-Lichterfelde , former cadet institute
march	Badenweiler March
Butcher	Roman coup invasion of the Saar area annexation of Austria occupation of Czechoslovakia attack on Poland invasion of the Netherlands including massacre of Wormhout invasion of Greece German-Soviet war Battle of Kharkov (1943) Company Citadel Case axis operation overlord Falaise cauldron Battle of the Bulge Lake Balaton offensive

Reich Party Rally in Nuremberg in 1933. The Leibstandarte "protects" the speaker Hitler.

Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, Lichterfelde barracks , December 17, 1935 (Photo Georg Pahl )

Honorary formation of the Leibstandarte for the reception of the Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano at the Berghof , August 12, 1939

Himmler in Metz, Feste Alvensleben , September 7, 1940

Standard of the LSSAH (front and back)

Heavy all-terrain car of the "Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler"

The March 17, 1933 by Adolf Hitler as Stabswache Berlin founded and him personally assumed paramilitary troops Association changed its name in September 1933, the name Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler , shortly LSSAH or LAH .

In 1934, on Hitler's orders, the LSSAH murdered parts of the SA leadership, which was itself a paramilitary organization of the NSDAP, in the so-called " Röhm Putsch ". Together with the political readiness, the Leibstandarte formed the SS disposal force, from which the Waffen SS emerged in 1940 .

history

Establishment, role model function, oath of leadership

The Leibstandarte was drawn up by Adolf Hitler shortly after he came to power on March 17, 1933 and sworn in personally on him. It initially operated under the name of Stabswache Berlin , in May as SS-Sonderkommando Zossen , in June as SS-Sonderkommando Jüterbog ; in September 1933 at the NSDAP party congress it was given the designation Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler . On November 9, 1933, the anniversary of the Hitler coup , she swore her oath of leadership and was thus also withdrawn from Himmler's authority as the SS commander. The reason for the establishment of the Leibstandarte was that Hitler mistrusted the guarding of the Reich Chancellor by the Reichswehr , which was customary before 1933 .

The Leibstandarte was set up under Sepp Dietrich from around 120 men, some of whom already had a similar function in the Munich Brown House . As long as Hitler was only party leader, the personal oath of his former staff guard was, according to Hans Buchheim's judgment, "a romantic, but at least a meaningless act". However, after he became Chancellor of the Reich in 1933 and Head of State after the death of Paul von Hindenburg in 1934 , “an oath given to him gained unique constitutional significance. Because the chancellor or the head of state created for himself in this way not by virtue of his office, but as a person an area of ​​own rights and personal sovereignty alongside the party and all institutions of the state. ” Georg H. Stein also emphasizes that Hitler from a party formation without every legal authorization created a Praetorian Guard , which stood above the state and party, which is fundamental for the further status of the Waffen-SS until the end of the war.

The Leibstandarte formed the model for the expansion of the SS commandos operating as “ Political Readiness ” or “Barracked Hundreds” in 1934 and 1935. Unlike the other SS units, it was allowed to take on all three supplementary posts (Berlin: Wehrkreis I to IV and VIII, Hamburg: Wehrkreis IV and IX to XI and Munich: Wehrkreis V, VII, XII and XIII) access.

The Leibstandarte barracks was the former cadet institute in Berlin-Lichterfelde . Hitler had suggested building another barracks near Weimar; After Himmler's intervention, the already acquired land was used to build the Buchenwald concentration camp against the division of the Leibstandarte .

Used in the murders on June 30, 1934 ("Röhm Putsch")

The Leibstandarte was first deployed beyond representation duties at the end of June / beginning of July 1934, when, according to the “cleansing list” drawn up by Reinhard Heydrich , it helped murder large parts of the SA leadership and other people in the alleged “ Röhm Putsch ”. Sepp Dietrich asked Walter von Reichenau from the Reichswehr Ministry for the means of transport for this on June 27 for a “secret and very important assignment from the Führer”. The Reichswehr had been informed in advance by the NSDAP leadership.

Dietrich himself went to Munich and was personally commissioned by Hitler to put together the execution command for the SA leaders Hans Hayn , Edmund Heines , Peter von Heydebreck , Wilhelm Schmid , August Schneidhuber and Hans Erwin von Spreti-Weilbach who were “imprisoned” in Stadelheim . Dietrich was sentenced to imprisonment in 1957 for aiding and abetting manslaughter. On the grounds of the Leibstandarte barracks in Berlin-Lichterfelde (former Hauptkadettenanstalt ) other arrested SA leaders were murdered by the Leibstandarte: Veit Ulrich von Beulwitz , Georg von Detten , Karl Ernst , Hans-Joachim von Falkenhausen , Daniel Gerth , Willi Klemm , Hans-Karl Koch , Fritz von Kraußer , Walter von Mohrenschildt , Wilhelm Sander , Konrad Schragmüller , Erwin Villain and Gerd Voss . In addition, there were the three disgraced SS members Joachim Hoffmann , Gustav Fink and Fritz Pleines . The ministerial director in the Reich Ministry of Transport and representative of political Catholicism Erich Klausener was murdered in his office by Kurt Gildisch , who was previously assigned to the Leibstandarte. Gildisch was sentenced on May 18, 1953 to a prison sentence of fifteen years.

The cold-blooded execution of the killing operations paid off for the SS unit shortly after the crime. As early as the evening of June 30th, Hitler is said to have promised Dietrich to equip the Leibstandarte with modern weapons in recognition of their services. In fact, only five days later, on July 5, 1934, Reichswehr Minister Werner von Blomberg confirmed to the commanders of the Wehrmacht that the Reichswehr would provide funds to arm an SS division.

Annexation of Austria

When Austria was annexed in March 1938, the Leibstandarte was quartered in the Fichtnergasse grammar school in Vienna-Hietzing.

Standing military association from 1938

On August 15, 1938, the "LSSAH" was set up as a standing military unit and in September combined with the political readiness to form the " SS disposable troops ". Josef Dietrich remained in command.

Reclassifications and changes of names

After the western campaign in 1940, the association was called the "reinforced Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler" and already corresponded to a brigade in terms of strength and structure . In July 1942, the LSSAH in northern France was transformed into a division and was given the designation "SS-Division (mot.) Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler". Already at this point in time their structure corresponded to that of a particularly strong armored division of the army. From November 1942 it was called "SS Panzergrenadier Division LSSAH", and on October 22, 1943, in the course of the consecutive numbering of the SS divisions, the last name was changed to "1. SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler ”.

In World War II

The LSSAH is responsible for numerous war crimes on the Eastern and Western Fronts. The unit started just a few weeks after the attack on Poland . In addition to other incidents, on the night of 18./19. September 1939, west of Warsaw, Hauptsturmführer Hermann Müller-John and his men “hunt Jews”. 50 Jewish civil prisoners were shot. According to the historian Westemeier, the murder was so cruel that Müller-John was then arrested by a Wehrmacht unit and brought before a court martial. The prisoner sent a telegram to the commander, Sepp Dietrich, in which he on the one hand discussed his statements with the investigating authorities and on the other hand asked for help. Dietrich insisted on the release of Müller-John. He was finally released on Hitler's orders. Other well-known murders are the shooting of around 80 to 100 British prisoners of war in Wormhout in 1940 , the murder of 34 French civilians in Tavaux and Plomion (which also included soldiers from the 12th SS Panzer Division “Hitler Youth”) and the Malmedy massacre (December 17, 1944), in which 72 American soldiers were shot, although they had already surrendered. Soldiers of the division also murdered 11 African-American US soldiers in the Wereth massacre in December 1944 . On the Eastern Front, the division killed a large number of wounded and prisoners when they retook Kharkov .

Members of the Leibstandarte committed u. a. The first mass murders of Jews in Italy , the Lake Maggiore massacre : between September 15 and 23, 1943, they murdered 54 Jews on the Piedmontese side of Lake Maggiore (also: Lago di Verbania ). On October 4, 1943, they killed 157 citizens of what is now a Croatian town in the Pazin massacre . They also murdered the Italian Jew Ettore Ovazza and his entire family in Intra in October 1943 . The division had been moved to Chivasso , with a battalion on the west bank of Lake Maggiore. Another battalion, stationed in the Borgo San Dalmazzo police detention center , ambushed a large group of Jews fleeing France. The SS men captured 349 of them. They were locked up in a barracks owned by the Alpini , which served as an interim storage facility for Jews, and transported to Auschwitz via France on November 21. Only nine of them survived. Another SS unit under the battalion commander Joachim Peiper murdered 24 mostly old and sick people in a massacre in Boves near Cuneo. After that, the SS people locked the local pastor Don Bernardi and the entrepreneur Vassallo in a house, who as parliamentarians had successfully negotiated the release of two captured German soldiers between the SS men and members of partisan groups. The SS then set fire to 300 houses that were completely destroyed, so that both of them burned down.

Commanders

• August 15, 1938 to July 4, 1943 Josef Dietrich
• July 4, 1943 to August 20, 1944 Theodor Wisch
• August 20, 1944 to February 6, 1945 Wilhelm Mohnke
• February 6, 1945 to May 8, 1945 Otto Kumm

Known relatives

• Otto Beisheim , SS gunner and founder of the Metro Group
• Kurt Borm , euthanasia perpetrator
• Herbert Döhring , property manager of Hitler's Berghof
• Kurt Gildisch , SS-Führer (prison sentence for a murder he committed on behalf of and as a member of the Leibstandarte)
• Otto Günsch , SS leader and Hitler's last personal adjutant
• Ernst Klink , author
• Hugo Kraas , SS leader
• Felix Lützkendorf , dramaturge, screenwriter and film director
• Theo M. Loch , SS-Obersturmführer - journalist
• Kurt Meyer ("Panzermeyer"), SS leader
• Rochus Misch , Hitler's bodyguard - in documentaries he is referred to as “Hitler's radio operator”.
• Johann Niemann , most recently in command of the Sobibor extermination camp; Death in a prisoner riot
• Joachim Peiper , SS leader (convicted of Leibstandarte war crimes)
• Otto Reich , SS leader
• Hans-Albin Freiherr von Reitzenstein , SS leader
• Franz Schönhuber , Republican politician and DVU
• Heinrich Schütz , concentration camp doctor
• Herbert Schweiger , author
• Bernhard Siebken , SS leader
• Karl-Heinz Spilker , SS-Obersturmführer , former member of the Bundestag (for the CSU)
• Wolfgang Venohr , journalist and non-fiction author
• Herbert Walther , SS-Untersturmführer of the Waffen-SS, non-fiction author
• Michael Wittmann , SS-Hauptsturmführer of the Waffen-SS

Dispute over a memorial for the dead of the Leibstandarte

→ Main article : Monument to the Waffen SS

In 1971 a memorial was erected in Marienfels ( Taunus ) as a memorial for the fallen of the “1. SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler ”and the 12th SS Panzer Division“ Hitler Youth ” (see monument to the Waffen SS ). From 2003 on, it was the target of several right-wing extremist rallies and marches. In 2004 the memorial was destroyed by strangers and then put into storage. In early 2006, it hit the headlines again when it was rebuilt on the private property of neo-Nazi Thorsten Heise in Fretterode .

Criminal trials

→ Main article : Lake Maggiore massacre

A criminal case against five defendants (Hans Röhwer, Hans Krüger, Herbert Schnelle, Ludwig Leithe and Oskar Schulz) was started against perpetrators of the massacre on Lake Maggiore in Osnabrück in 1964; one defendant had died during the investigation. The defendants were convicted; in higher instances they achieved an annulment of the sentence, since the offenses were statute-barred.

Problems with the literature on the Leibstandarte

The most extensive representation of the Leibstandarte is a multi-volume work, the first volumes of which were written by Rudolf Lehmann . Lehmann took it over, he writes in the foreword, “at the request of my comrades to write down the history of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, or Leibstandarte for short” The work was published by the extreme right-wing Munin-Verlag , which was close to the SS veteran organization HIAG . Der Spiegel counts it as part of the "intellectual background of right-wing extremism", the aim of which is "the denial of German war guilt and the Nazi extermination of the Jews, the transfiguration of Reich and race, Hitler as peace chancellor and Goebbels as truth apostle":

"The 1st General Staff Officer of the '1. SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler ', Rudolf Lehmann, honors in three volumes, two of which have appeared so far, the work of his men' for the security of Adolf Hitler 'as well as their' particularly enthusiastic 'front-line spirit in the service of the' old ' 'Idea adopted by Hitler to gain living space in the East'. "

- The Mirror (1981)

In the same publication environment, a broader tendentious memoir literature appeared from the 1960s to the present:

• Albert Frey: I wanted freedom: memories of the commander of the 1st Panzer Grenadier Regiment of the former Waffen SS. (Munin-Verlag, 1990).
• Werner Kindler: With a golden melee clasp - Werner Kindler. A Panzergrenadier from the Leibstandarte (Munin-Verlag, 2010).

The following also appeared in right-wing extremist publishers:

• Hans Quassowski's Twelve Years: 1st Company, Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. A book of comradeship (1990 - KW Schütz).
• Patrick Agtes Michael Wittmann, the most successful tank commander in World War II and the tigers of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (initially: 1995 - Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, Preussisch-Oldendorf, reprint 2013 Winkelried-Verlag).
• Wolfgang Venohr's Die Abwehrschlacht: Jugenderinnerungen 1940–1955 (Edition Junge Freiheit 2002).
• Sepp Dietrich: Commander Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler and his men (2nd edition Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, Preussisch-Oldendorf, 2007).

Right-wing extremist journalism also plays a role in apologetic writings on individual massacres by the Leibstandarte. Some examples of the narrative of the demarcation of the Waffen-SS and war crimes play a role, as in several publications by Lothar Greil on the Malmedy trial.

Archives holdings

• Composition RS 2-1, I. SS Panzer Corps "Leibstandarte" , 1943–1945 . Edited by Lioba Scheermann and Elfriede Frischmuth, Koblenz September 2009, in the Federal Archives-Military Archives .
• Stock RS 3-1, 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler , 1939–1944 . Edited by Elfriede Frischmuth, Koblenz April 2008, in the Federal Archives-Military Archives .
• Inventory NS 17 Leibstandarte SS - "Adolf Hitler" in the Federal Archives.
• German office for the notification of the next of kin of fallen soldiers of the former German armed forces ( WASt ), Eichborndamm 179, 13403 Berlin.

literature

• Becky Behar: La strage dimenticata: Meina September 1943, il primo eccidio di ebrei in Italia. Interlinea, Novara 2003, ISBN 88-8212-417-7 (translation of the title: The forgotten massacre: Meina, September 1943, the first murder of Jews in Italy ).
• Heinz Höhne: The order under the skull. The history of the SS. Orbis-Verlag, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-572-01342-9 .
• Lutz Klinkhammer : Stragi naziste in Italia. La guerra contro i civili (1943-1944). Donzelli, Rome 1997 (translation of the title: The Nazi massacres in Italy. The war against the civilian population (1943–1944) ).
• Bernd Wegner: Hitler's Political Soldiers. The Waffen-SS 1933–1945. Schöningh Verlag, Paderborn 1999, ISBN 3-506-77502-2 .

Web links

Commons : Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Verfassungsschutz.de: Right-wing extremism: Symbols, signs and prohibited organizations (PDF) ( Memento from January 16, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
• Criminal Code: Section 86a Use of symbols of unconstitutional organizations , on: dejure.org.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ https://invenio.bundesarchiv.de/invenio/direktlink/fc0746c0-33f4-4d9a-abc6-252c8efc878e/ = Federal Archives, introduction to the holdings: 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler RS ​​3-1 1939–1944 edited by Elfriede Frischmuth Koblenz April 2008.
2. ↑ Hans Buchheim: The SS in the constitution of the Third Reich. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte. 3rd year, 2nd edition, April 1955, p. 139.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Buchheim p. 139 .
4. ↑ ^{a b} Höhne p. 80.
5. ^ After the review by George H. Stein .: History of the Waffen-SS. Düsseldorf 1967. In: Allgemeine Schweizerische Militärzeitschrift 1967, issue 12, p. 807 f.
6. ↑ Buchheim p. 140 .
7. ↑ Buchheim p. 141 .
8. ↑ Stephan Lehnstaedt , Kurt Lehnstaedt : Fritz Sauckel Nuremberg records. In: VfZ Volume 57 (2009), Issue 1, p. 145 ( online ).
9. ↑ Heinz Höhne: The order under the skull - The history of the SS (3rd continuation) . In: Der Spiegel . No. 45 , 1966, pp. 93-108 ( Online - Oct. 31, 1966 ).
10. ^ Description of the Federal Archives in Berlin-Lichterfelde, which is located on the site of the former barracks. www.bundesarchiv.de accessed on July 15, 2013.
11. ↑ Lothar Gruchmann : Werner Pünder's report on the murder of Klausen on June 30, 1934 and its consequences (PDF; 1.4 MB). In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , 1971, issue 4, pp. 404–431.
12. ↑ Hans Buchheim: The SS - the instrument of rule, command and obedience. Munich 1967, p. 162.
13. ↑ Chronicle of the Hietzinger Gymnasium 1897–1987
14. ^ Jens Westemeier: Himmler's warriors. Joachim Peiper and the Waffen-SS in the war and the post-war period . Schöningh, Paderborn 2014, ISBN 978-3-506-77241-1 , pp. 140 f.
15. ↑ Jochen Böhler : The attack. Germany's war against Poland. Eichborn, Frankfurt 2009, ISBN 3-8218-5706-4 , p. 222.
16. ↑ Contemporary history: "It was a nightmare" . In: Der Spiegel from March 28, 1994.
17. ^ Antony Beevor: D-Day. The battle for Normandy. P. 476.
18. ↑ website Wereth Memorial
19. ↑ Wolfram Wette, Gerd R. Ueberschär (Ed.): War crimes in the 20th century. Primus, Darmstadt 2001, ISBN 3-89678-417-X , p. 255.
20. ^ Gerhard Schreiber: German war crimes in Italy. Perpetrator, victim, law enforcement. Munich 1996, ISBN 3-406-39268-7 , pp. 129-132.
21. ↑ NPD federal board member Heise goes under the wine dealers on endstation-rechts.de
22. ^ Process report in: Der Freiwillige, Issue 9 September 1968, p. 9 f.
23. ^ Rudolf Lehmann: The Leibstandarte. Vol. 1, 2nd edition 1978, p. 9.
24. ↑ With zeal and joy in the concentration camp . In: Der Spiegel . No. 5 , 1981, pp. 74 ( Online - Jan. 26, 1981 ).
25. ^ Karsten Wilke: The Waffen SS. Interpretation patterns of the »mutual aid community« (HIAG) and other apologies. Schöningh, Paderborn 2011, p. 165 ( online version ).