After the fierce fighting of Cherkasser, the "Guard Flag" division was already in tatters, but in the face of the massive offensive launched by the Soviet 1st, 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts in early March 1944, this tenacious force could not leave the front line. As part of the 24th Panzer Army, the "Guard Flag" division continued to fight deadly battles in western Ukraine. Manstein's demands to withdraw his troops to the Dnestr line to establish a defensive line along the Romanian border were still rejected by Hitler. The German "Southern" Army Group, which had been repeatedly damaged, was simply unable to stop the Soviet offensive and retreated again and again.
By 15 March, the "Guard Flag" division had less than 1,250 men in combat. In late March, the main forces of the "Guard Flag" division and the 1st Panzer Army were surrounded by the Soviets in the Kamenets-Podolski area, which had just rescued the "Viking" division a month earlier, and in the blink of an eye it had a taste of being besieged, and could only get supplies through airdrops. Taking advantage of the lack of a tight Soviet encirclement, the Germans quickly organized powerful siege relief corps, including the 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions, which had participated in the first battle, launched an attack, opened a passage, and rescued most of the besieged troops. The "Guard Flag" division escaped the fate of a total annihilation, this time it was the little brother who rescued the big brother.
■ In March 1944, the German armored unit fighting in the area of the Kamenets-Podolsky encirclement was a destroyed Assault Gun No. 3 in close proximity.
The "Guard Flag" division, which had escaped from its predicament, could no longer continue to fight as a combat unit, and on 18 April was ordered to rest in northwestern France. At this time, only 41 officers and 1118 soldiers were left in the division's combatants. When the westbound train left the Soviet border, probably many of the "Guard Flag" divisions did not realize that this was the last time they would witness the land of Russia. The "Guard Flag" division fought on the Eastern Front three times from the summer of 1941 to the spring of 1942, from the winter of 1942 to the autumn of 1943, and from the winter of 1943 to the spring of 1944. By the time they returned to the Eastern Front for the fourth and final time, the German army had been driven out of this vast expanse forever.
On June 6, 1944, after four years of waiting and preparation, the Allies finally set foot on the French coast. A huge landing force of 5,000 ships and more than 3 million people, supported by 13,000 aircraft, broke through the German "Atlantic Barrier" off the coast of Normandy, France, and launched an attack on the Third Reich from the west. However, the British and American soldiers were not greeted by enthusiastic French civilians, beautiful women's kisses and sweet wine, but by the fierce artillery fire of the German army. Although the German army on the Western Front is far from strong, its defense organization is not perfect, and it has no sea and air superiority, but the elite German troops with rich combat experience and armor advantage will not easily give up their positions, especially those SS armored units that are still fanatical, which really makes the Allies suffer. The SS 1st, 2nd, 9th, 10th, 12th Panzer Divisions and the 17th Panzergrenadier Division took part in the battle in Normandy, and although the Germans were ultimately unable to drive the Allies out of the sea, the three-month bloody battle created a new myth for the SS units, and the "Guard Flag" division remained indispensable protagonists.
■ In June 1944, the Allies landed in Normandy, and the Germans suffered a strong pinch from the east and west.
As experienced in 1942, the "Guard Flag" division, which had been beaten so badly on the battlefields of the Eastern Front, once again crossed the European continent and reached Western Europe to recuperate and recuperate in Belgium. On 25 April, Wisch set up headquarters in Tournhout, near Beverloo, Belgium, once home to the SS 12th Hitler Youth Division, and two months later the two elite divisions, deeply related to each other, would fight side by side on the Normandy battlefield. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, still using his usual opportunistic tactics to look for possible news gimmicks, seized the opportunity of the "Guard Flag" division to reach Antwerp to set off a new propaganda upsurge. As veterans of the "Guard Flag" divisions, who had spent the rest of their lives, marched through the streets of Antwerp in an orderly manner, they were once again surrounded by flowers, lenses and microphones. Goebbels reported extensively on the radio and newspapers under the title of "Victory and Triumph of the Guard Flag Corps", and also made a news film.
But exciting propaganda films can never replace harsh realities, and while the Eastern Front is losing ground, the Western Front is not calm. It was no secret that the Anglo-American Allies were fighting across the strait, and the Germans in Western Europe realized that an Allied landing was imminent. In order to prevent a possible attack at any time, the "Guard Flag" division must quickly regain its strength. On 3 May, Hitler personally ordered the supply of the necessary equipment for the "Guard Flag" division. Soon, brand new tanks, assault guns, and armored vehicles were sent to the garrison of the "Guard Flag" division, and some even drove directly from the factory to the troops. By early June, the division's armored strength had been restored to 144, including 45 Panzer IV tanks, 54 Panther tanks and 45 assault guns. Priority was also given to the replenishment of troops, reaching nearly 20,000 by the beginning of June, and even 2,000 grenadiers with an average age of only 18 years old had been transferred from the overstaffed "Hitler Youth" division.
Even in 1944, when the war situation was already very unfavorable, these people still maintained fanatical faith and high morale, and their combat effectiveness should not be underestimated.
However, the quality of the replenishment is very problematic. After years of bloody battles and several times of drawing backbone cadres to form a new division, there are not many veterans left in the "Guard Flag Brigade" division. There are 208 officers and 2234 non-commissioned officers in the division, most of whom have rich practical combat experience, accounting for about one-tenth of the division, and the remaining 90% are almost all untrained recruit eggs. The "Guard Flag" division, which had carefully selected its soldiers before the war, now had its standards significantly lowered. On days off, veterans were busy teaching recruits the skills of combat. Due to the lack of fuel, the live-vehicle training of armored units has also been greatly reduced, and the training of non-commissioned officers has been limited to simple staff operations and sand table exercises. However, the morale of the troops was not bad, especially the young volunteers, who still had fanatical faith and conviction, and the veterans also maintained a kind of pride in their hearts, determined to teach the American soldiers a good lesson.
The "Guard Flag" division transferred to the Western Front was part of the SS 1st Panzer Army in terms of affiliation. This Panzer Corps also inherited the title of "Adolf Hitler's Flag Guard". The army had been formed since the summer of 1943 and had begun to take shape by the spring of 1944, with divisions of the "Guard Flag" and "Hitler Youth" divisions, directly subordinate units including the famous SS 101st Heavy Panzer Battalion, headed by Zepp Dietrich, the old commander of the "Guard Flag", headquartered in Paris. The SS Panzer Corps, as a reserve of the Wehrmacht High Command, was responsible for defending the area from Antwerp to Cherbourg that could become an Allied airborne landing site or amphibious landing site, which could only be mobilized by order of Hitler himself. Prior to the Allied landings, the "Guard Flag" division was deployed near Enghen, Belgium, ready for combat in preparation for a possible Allied landing in the Calais area, while the Hitler Youth division was deployed deep in Normandy.
■ Lundstedt and Rommel, these two famous German commanders, even if they are more capable, they are unable to return to heaven.
There has always been a debate within the Germans over how to resist the Allied landings. The commander of Army Group B, Rommel, advocated a decisive battle with the enemy on the beach, and used armored forces to launch a counterattack at the first time of landing, driving the Allies back to the sea. However, Marshal von Rundstedt, commander-in-chief of the German army on the Western Front, believed that the opposing side should be allowed to land before a counter-offensive, using armored units to fight a mobile defensive battle inland. His theory was based on the difficulty of determining where the Allies landed. He speculated that the Allies might have landed in Normandy or in Canada, where the Continent was the closest to the British mainland. In the face of two disagreements, Hitler simply took control of the German panzer units on the Western Front into his own hands. This made it impossible for either of the two marshals to carry out their defensive ideas, which seriously affected the defensive preparations of the German army on the Western Front. The Allied forces carried out a thorough and extensive strategic deception operation before the landing, so that the German command, including Hitler himself, judged that the real Allied landing site was in Calais, so that after the Allied landing in Normandy, Hitler still refused to mobilize reinforcements from the German troops defending Calais, which also led to the "Guard Flag" division not being able to enter the battle immediately after the battle began.