After 7:00 a.m. on May 8, 1945, American Captain McLean, stationed near Linz, Austria, spotted a German car with a white flag approaching him with three SS officers informing the U.S. army that two hours later, the SS Twelfth "Hitler Youth Panzer Division" would arrive here and present to Stanley Lee, commander of the U.S. 65th Infantry Division. Eric. Major General Reinhardt surrendered.
Reinhardt, commander of the U.S. 65th Infantry Division, was a German at first glance
The Twelfth SS Division was the last armored division in the SS sequence, and most of the soldiers of the division were from the "Hitler Youth", most of whom were between the ages of 16 and 18, and were basically minors, so the welfare supply distributed to the division replaced cigarettes and beer with milk and candy, so the division was also jokingly called "bottle division" and "baby division". For this "baby division", the Allies can be described as impressed by it, that is, these half-sized baby soldiers, in the Battle of Normandy, let the Allies suffer a lot, and the crazy, tenacious, cruel, and lifeless momentum they showed still made the Allies feel uneasy.
< h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the formation of a "bottle master"</h1>
As World War II continued, Germany's military base was stretched thin, and Hitler's own distrust of the Wehrmacht grew stronger, and he was very impressed with the performance of the SS. In this environment, in January 1943, Gottrop, director of the SS Central Technical Administration, proposed to Himmler that the young people of the "Hitler Youth" be transferred to the Waffen-SS to form a new Panzergrenadier division. The proposal was affirmed by Axmann, the leader of the Hitler Youth, who declared the plan to Hitler. On 13 February, Hitler approved the plan and ordered the formation of an SS Panzergrenadier division, which he personally named the "Hitler Youth Division".
Gotlob, head of the SS Central Technical Administration, is also known as the father of the SS
Nazi Germany officially held a campaign to collect the divisional emblem, and selected one of the thousands of designs, its pattern is a combination of SS lightning and the key emblem of the Guard Flag Division, which reflects the close internal connection between the "Bottle Division" and the Guard Flag Division, which is very appropriate as the symbol of the "Bottle Division".
Logo of the 12th SS Panzer Division
As a newly formed division-sized unit, the selection of commanders at all levels was a big problem, and the SS headquarters transferred a large number of officers from Hitler's most trusted SS First Guard Flag Division to the "Bottle Division" as regimental, battalion, and company-level officers, whose command system was basically composed of officers from the Guard Flag Division, a small number of Reich Division officers, and a large number of veterans of the Eastern Front as noncommissioned officers. Initially, Gottrop offered himself to serve as commander of the Twelfth Division, but Himmler, considering that he had never commanded a division-sized unit, rejected Gottrop's offer and instead selected fritz, the flag captain (colonel) of the Guard Flag Division. Witt served as division commander.
The person who raised his hand was Fritz. Werther, who was a major at the time
By September 1943, the 12th SS Division had 16,000 men, most of whom were minors born after 1926, and the division commander, Witt, realized that he had to prepare for the coming real battle, so he omitted the boring and time-consuming content of the platoon drill in the training, and instead directly conducted real-combat live-fire exercises.
These teenagers were originally raised under the nazi ideology, their ideas were deeply poisoned by fascism, and they had become crazy Nazi believers at a young age, and after receiving military training, they were full of energy and blood, waiting for the day to come to the front as soon as possible.
In late October, the Twelfth Division received another piece of good news, the division was upgraded to an armored division in one step, and the Wehrmacht was quite critical of this, believing that the distribution of valuable heavy armored weapons to the Boy Scouts who had never fought in actual combat was a nonsense, which must have been a ghost of Himmler. But Hitler had other plans in mind, preferring to equip advanced weapons and equipment to "loyal" baby soldiers from scratch rather than distribute weapons to the Wehrmacht, whose "will to fight is getting weaker."
The Twelfth Panzer Division had been training in Belgium until March 1944, when Field Marshal Lundstedt inspected the division's training and considered it well-trained and morale commendable, and gladly decided to deploy them to the Western Front, stationed on the french line between Rouen and Caen, as a mobile force to prevent allied landings, the main strength of which was:
25th Panzergrenadier Regiment, Flag Captain Kurt. Meier was the head of the regiment.
Kurt. mayer
26th Panzergrenadier Regiment, Flag Captain William. Munch was the head of the regiment.
William. Monk
12th Panzer Regiment, First Class Assault Brigade Commander Max. Wen She was the head of the regiment.
Max. Warm House
12th Artillery Regiment, Second Class Assault Brigade Commander Fritz. Schroeder was the head of the regiment.
The armored unit consisted of more than 80 Panther tanks, more than 100 Panzer IV tanks and other armored vehicles. Next, they are about to usher in the first battle after the formation, these baby soldiers will not expect that the first battle will be so bloody and cruel.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > bloody battle against Caen</h1>
On June 6, 1944, the Allies landed in Normandy, and at first the German command did not understand the situation, thinking that it was just another tentative landing, so it missed more than a dozen precious counterattacks. It was not until 2:30 p.m. that the "Youth Regiment Division" received orders to immediately march to the beaches of Normandy to block the Allied landings. The division was stationed relatively scattered and could not concentrate the entire regimental force at the first time, and the 25th Regiment of the Armored Meier was with Max. The first of The Windshe's armored regiments set out.
12th SS Division at the Battle of Caen
The Germans, who lacked air superiority, were heavily bombarded by Allied aircraft, the road was blocked and delayed for a long time, coupled with insufficient capacity, a hundred kilometers or so traveled for eight or nine hours, and finally at ten o'clock in the evening, the first troops arrived at the assembly area on the front line of Everre, at this time the front beach had been lost, and the SS could only fortify Caen, ready to counterattack the landing Allied forces here, Kurt. Meier was confident, and according to his words: Our task is to throw the fish (referring to the Allies) back into the sea. However, his mood is inevitably too optimistic and confident, and the subsequent battle will make him change his words and never get up again.
Witt with Meier and Wenshe
The next morning, The main forces of Meier and Wenshe reached northwest caen and exchanged fire with the Canadians, catching the Canadians by surprise and winning the first battle. This battle only prevented the Allied advance and did not achieve the purpose of counter-offensive, and Meier also realized that it might not be realistic to quickly break through the Allied defenses, so he ordered the cancellation of the attack and turned to the defense.
At night, William. Munch led the 26th Panzergrenadier Regiment to Caen, reinforcing the SS. In the next ten days, the two sides fought a tug-of-war and a war of attrition in Caen, which was equivalent to a small "meat grinding battlefield", and no one could achieve absolute superiority, but the battle was fierce and cruel, the personnel and equipment losses of both sides were huge, and the German army had to withstand not only bombardment from the air, but also had to withstand the bombardment from the guns of allied ships on the sea, and the losses rose sharply. On 14 June, Major General Werther, commander of the Twelfth Panzer Division, was killed by Allied naval guns, and Meier was urgently promoted to division commander.
Fritz. Werther celebrated his birthday and was killed more than a month later
"Both sides were fighting like lions, dead bodies one after another, commandos falling next to the dead SS. Grenades were scattered on the roads and on the porches of houses, and a Canadian soldier and an SS soldier fought each other, clinging to each other and dying in each other's arms. A German tank and a Canadian tank were destroyed at each other at the same time, and smoke billowed from the turret, and the charred corpses of the machine gunners hung from the blackened turrets. The German tanks were blocked and retreated backwards, and the wounded SS soldiers were crushed alive by their tanks. Near the church, the vanguard guards of Company C spotted three young Germans, only three, but one of the SS immediately drew his pistol and hit one of our soldiers. We immediately fought back, killing two SS and the other escaping. Now we understand what kind of fanatics we have to deal with. ”
Caen, a baby soldier who won the Iron Cross of the Order of the Second Class
The "Bottlemasters" were unusually crazy, and the Canadians were not ambiguous, and they came up with an even crazier trick, tying three captured German soldiers to the car as human shields. Without any suspense, the three Germans were beaten into a honeycomb by their own firepower. The enraged SS soldiers retaliated immediately, shooting more than a hundred Canadian prisoners of war at the Ardenne abbey. Since the Ardennes Abbey was The headquarters of Mayer, the mass killings that occurred under his eyes could not be avoided in any case, and this became the main reason why he was sentenced to death by Canada after the war, followed by ten years in prison.
Caen, Machine Gunner Otto. Funk
Late June was a relatively calm period, with both sides exhausted and suffering heavy losses, and in the face of countless dead and wounded subordinates, Meier was in a dull mood, and he sighed: These children, before they have learned how to live, have learned how to die.
Meier expressed this sentiment out of heartache and sorrow for the German children, but he did not realize that when Nazi Germany imposed a war of aggression on other countries, not only did tens of millions of wives and families be separated and families destroyed, all of which were the sins of Nazi Germany, and the death of these half-grown children in Normandy was nothing more than the martyrdom of fascism.
In early July, fierce fighting began again, the Allies intensified their artillery attack, in a few days dropped 2600 tons of bombs on the city of Caen, destroyed most of the city, had a great impact on the German supply, the lack of supplies of the SS finally could not hold on, had to evacuate Caen on the 8th, the month-long bloody battle of Caen ended with the defeat of the German army.
Caen, Wenshe and Little Ribbentrop
In the Battle of Caen, the SS 12th Panzer Division suffered about 3,000 casualties, and it is worth mentioning that the civilian population of Caen suffered heavy casualties and displacement, and after the battle, the civilian population of Caen fell from 60,000 before the war to 17,000.
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > fales pocket</h1>
The SS Twelfth Panzer Division received only a short break, but was not adequately replenished, and was immediately sent to set up a defensive line north of Falais. The Allies followed suit, and the Germans were defeated. On 8 August, the Canadian First Army launched another attack on the SS Twelfth Panzer Division, and the enemies were extremely red-eyed, and the two sides began a new round of flesh and blood strangulation.
The child soldiers of the "Youth Regiment Division" fought wildly, destroying 26 Allied tanks in five days, and inflicting heavy casualties on their own, leaving the division with only 15 tanks left, but they undertook the extremely important task of holding the northern flank of Falais in order to ensure the retreat of the German Seventh Army, which was surrounded by the Allies in the pockets of Fales. The Twelfth Panzer Division withstood the Indiscriminate Bombardment of the Allies, desperately defended the gap, and finally only 10 tanks were left, losing all the artillery, and finally helping the friendly forces escape the encirclement. On 22 August, the remnants of the 12th SS Panzer Division withdrew from the fighting.
Throughout the Battle of Normandy, the SS 12th Panzer Division lost a total of about 8,500 men, and the armored forces were almost completely depleted. Wen She was wounded and captured. The division had lost its combat effectiveness and was ordered to withdraw to Germany, and the remaining tanks were incorporated into the Imperial Division. In the course of the retreat, Division Commander Kurt. Meier was separated from the large army and retreated in the direction of Germany with a small number of his men, and on September 6, Meier was captured by the partisans in Belgium. Due to the chaos of the situation, the Germans were unable to organize a rescue, and the divisional staff officer Hubert. Major Meier also tried to rescue Meier, but was blocked by American artillery fire and returned without success. Hubert was temporarily appointed acting division commander and finally led the remnants back to Germany.
The person wearing the leather coat was Hubert. mayer
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the final outcome</h1>
The SS Twelfth Panzer Division received a certain replenishment in Germany, and most of the new troops came from the Air Force and the Navy, which did not participate in actual combat and did not undergo rigorous actual combat training, so that despite the replenishment of personnel and equipment, the combat effectiveness of the division could not reach the level of what had been called "elite" troops before. Flag Captain Hugo. Klaas was appointed new division commander, which was incorporated into Dietrich's SS Sixth Panzer Corps and took part in the Ardennes counterattack.
Hugo Hugo, the last division commander of the SS 12th Panzer Division. Klaas
The Ardennes counterattack was originally a dying struggle of Nazi Germany in the sunset, fighting for a month and returning to the starting point, without achieving any strategic significance except that the loss of troops would waste the last family. The SS Twelfth Panzer Division's performance in the Battle of the Ardennes was lackluster, almost a role in soy sauce, but the result of the loss of soldiers did not fall at all, and the division actually lost more than 9,000 casualties in this battle, and by the time of the armistice, only 26 tanks were left, and each battalion had only an average of more than a hundred people, and was once again crippled.
Battle of ardennes
The fighting of the SS 12th Panzer Division in the Ardennes counterattack was not fierce, and could not be compared with the Battle of Caen, but the losses of the division were so exaggerated that its combat effectiveness was reduced so severely. The main reason for this is that in the Battle of Normandy, the young "veterans" and officers of the division suffered too many casualties, and the supplementary adult "recruits" lacked actual combat experience, and more importantly, they did not have the fanatical spirit of the baby soldiers, which can also prove how terrible the stunned young people of the "Hitler Youth" should be.
The SS in the Ardennes counterattack
Before they could catch their breath, the SS 12th Panzer Division followed the Sixth Panzer Army to Hungary on the eastern front to block the Soviet advance to the west. This time, the performance of the "Bottle Division" was unexpected, and a small victory was achieved against the Soviet Army's Gran Bridgehead.
Dietrich
In early March, Nazi Germany launched its last offensive, Operation Spring Awakening, aimed at regaining control of the Hungarian oil fields, and soon Dietrich discovered that this was nothing more than a pipe dream, and the German offensive was in danger of being divided and surrounded by powerful Soviet forces, so he ordered a retreat in the direction of Austria.
Hungary, Soviet heavy artillery
The SS 12th Panzer Division was ordered to halt and stumble against the Soviet pursuit, and finally retreated to Austria. As the Soviets approached, the division withdrew from Vienna on 13 April, slowly retreating all the way to the American occupation zone, eventually surrendering to the Americans, and the SS Twelfth "Hitler Youth" Panzer Division was destroyed.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > war crimes</h1>
Massacre in the town of Ask: On April 2, 1944, a train carrying soldiers of the SS Panzer Division of the Hitler Youth derailed in an explosion near the eastern French town of Aske, and soldiers of the SS 12th Panzer Division shot and killed 86 civilians in the town of Ask, including more than 20 railway workers.
Aden Abbey Killings: In the Battle of Caen, soldiers of the SS 12th Panzer Division shot and killed 156 Canadian PRISONERs of War (data are uncertain, some say dozens of them were shot), and 2 British PRISONERs of War were shot dead.
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