The 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich ( German : 2. SS-Panzerdivision "Das Reich" ) or SS Division Das Reich was an armored division of the Waffen-SS of Nazi Germany during World War II .
93-520: [REDACTED] Look up das reich in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Das Reich may refer to: 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich Synonym for Deutsches Reich , often used as a universal term, translates to "The Empire or The Realm" Das Reich (newspaper) , a National Socialist newspaper Das Reich , the main work of German right-wing intellectual Friedrich Hielscher (1932) Das Reich ,
186-614: A Soldier 1950, published in English as Panzer Leader ) according to the second hypothesis, posing as a lone voice against the reactionary German officer corps. In 2006, Adam Tooze wrote that the quick victory in France was not the consequence of a logical strategic synthesis but a "risky improvisation" to cope with strategic dilemmas that Hitler and the German military leaders had been unable to overcome before February 1940. Tooze wrote that
279-612: A company commander in Das Reich, led his men across Yugoslavia to the capital, Belgrade , where a small group in the vanguard accepted the surrender of the city on 13 April. A few days later Yugoslavia surrendered. For the invasion of the Soviet Union ( Operation Barbarossa ), Das Reich fought under Army Group Center , taking part in the Battle of Yelnya near Smolensk ; it was then in the spearhead of Operation Typhoon aimed at
372-473: A consequence of the sabotage of the rail cars, Das Reich left Montauban on 8 June with 1,400 vehicles and proceeded northward by road. Travel by road caused the steel tracks of the tanks and assault guns to wear out; vehicles broke down frequently; and fuel was in short supply. Pinprick attacks by groups of resistors, called Maquis , killed 15 Germans on the first two days of the movement. More than 100 French were killed, many of them unarmed civilians. Das Reich
465-540: A counter-offensive, Operation Lüttich , from Vire towards Avranches ; the operation included Das Reich. The Allied forces were prepared for this offensive, and an air attack on the combined German units proved devastating. Paris was liberated on 25 August, and the last of the German forces withdrew over the Seine by the end of August, ending the Normandy campaign. The US 2nd Armored Division had encircled Das Reich and
558-409: A gradual adoption during the thirties of technologically-advanced military equipment and integration into existing Bewegungskrieg thought, familiar to all the great powers prior to 1940, differences being variations on a theme. The invasion of Poland was not "Blitzkrieg but an annihilation battle fought according to Vernichtungsgedanke " (annihilation theory). The lack of Blitzkrieg elements in
651-583: A journal during the Weimar Republic (1930-33), edited by Friedrich Hielscher Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Das Reich . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Das_Reich&oldid=1078934561 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
744-563: A longer campaign. The Luftwaffe gained air superiority but suffered far greater losses than the army. Operations on 10 May cost the Luftwaffe 347 aircraft and by the end of the month 30 per cent of its aircraft had been written off and 13 per cent badly damaged. The concentration of units in the Ardennes was an extraordinary gamble and had the Allied air forces bombed the columns,
837-525: A mass grave in Alibunar's Serbian Orthodox Church's yard, as well as 54 others in the nearby settlement of Selište. The crimes were committed as a retaliation for the involvement of armed civilians during the fighting in the area and the murder of the regimental adjutant. A support unit of the division aided an SS extermination group in the slaughter of 920 Jews near Minsk in September 1941. After
930-609: A plan for an invasion of France and the Low Countries, devised by Franz Halder . The original Aufmarschanweisung N°1, Fall Gelb (Campaign Instruction No 1, Case Yellow), was a plan to push the Allied forces back through central Belgium to the Somme river in northern France , with similarities to the 1914 campaign of the First World War . On 10 January 1940, a German aircraft carrying documents with parts of
1023-410: A quick victory, there is little evidence to support Fuller and that if the military theory later labelled Blitzkrieg was influential in the German officer corps, only those like Manstein and Guderian had fully accepted it. The disagreement between Kleist and Guderian that led Guderian to resign on 17 May, showed the apprehensions of the German high command about the speed of movement and vulnerability of
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#17327653729471116-521: A rush through Belgium to join with the Dutch Army to the north, in the Breda variant of Plan D , the Allied deployment plan. The Manstein plan has often been called Operation Sichelschnitt, a transliteration of "sickle cut", a catchy expression used after the events by Winston Churchill . After the war, German generals adopted the term, which led to a misunderstanding that this was the official name of
1209-612: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich Initially formed from regiments of the SS-Verfügungstruppe (SS-VT), Das Reich initially served during the Battle of France in 1940 before seeing combat on the Eastern Front between 1941 and 1944. It was transferred to the Western Front in 1944, where it fought in
1302-518: The Blitzkrieg elements provided and executed by Guderian. The influence of Fuller and Liddell Hart in Germany was limited and exaggerated by them after the war; no explicit Blitzkrieg doctrine can be found in pre-war German army records. German tank production had no priority and plans for the German war economy were based on the premise of a long war, not a swift victory. The hypothesis allows for
1395-489: The 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division Götz von Berlichingen around Roncey . In the process Das Reich and 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division lost most of their armored equipment. Around Roncey P-47 Thunderbolts of the 405th Fighter group destroyed a German column of 122 tanks, 259 other vehicles, and 11 artillery pieces. A separate attack by British Hawker Typhoons close to La Baleine destroyed 9 tanks, 8 other armored vehicles, and 20 other vehicles. A column around La Chapelle
1488-595: The Atlantic Coast or the Mediterranean Sea . In May the division received 37 Panzer IV and 55 Panther tanks , well below the official complement of 62 of each, but a full complement of 30 Sturmgeschütz III assault guns. Fuel and truck shortages hampered training and movement and many of the more than 15,000 men in the division were recent recruits and inadequately trained. The Allied Normandy landings took place on 6 June 1944. On 7 June Das Reich
1581-655: The Battle of Boulogne and the Siege of Calais , only temporarily being halted by orders from Hitler on 17, 22 and 24 May. After the halt orders the panzer forces advanced to the North Sea coast and fought the Battle of Dunkirk . The Manstein plan devastated the Allies , whose armies were cut in two, those in the north being encircled by Army Groups A and B, leading to the surrender of the Belgian Army and Operation Dynamo ,
1674-703: The Battle of Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge . Toward the end of the war, it was transferred back to the Eastern Front, where it participated in Operation Spring Awakening in Hungary . The division became notorious for its brutality, committing numerous war crimes during its operations. The division was responsible for several massacres, including the Tulle massacre on 9 June 1944, and
1767-471: The Blomberg–Fritsch affair . On 1 September 1938, Halder rather than Manstein had replaced Beck. In late January, Halder got rid of Manstein by having him promoted to the command of XXXVIII Corps in east Germany. In late January, Lieutenant-Colonel Günther Blumentritt and Major Henning von Tresckow , on Manstein's staff, contacted Lieutenant-Colonel Rudolf Schmundt (an old acquaintance of Tresckow)
1860-582: The II SS Panzer Corps , which took part in the Battle of Kursk that summer. The division operated in the southern sector of the Kursk bulge during the Battle of Prokhorovka . It was pulled out of the battle along with the other SS divisions when the offensive was discontinued, giving the strategic initiative to the Red Army. The Battle of Kursk was the first time that a German strategic offensive
1953-791: The Oradour-sur-Glane massacre on 10 June 1944. In August 1939 Adolf Hitler placed the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH), later SS Division Leibstandarte , and the SS-Verfügungstruppe (SS-VT) under the operational command of the High Command of the German Army . The units' performance during the Invasion of Poland raised doubts over the combat effectiveness of the SS-VT. Himmler insisted that
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#17327653729472046-483: The geostrategic position of Germany seemed so hopeless. Two of the most prominent were Hitler and Halder; Hitler had not liked Halder's original plans and had suggested many alternatives, some of them bearing a resemblance to the Manstein plan, the closest being a proposal made by him on 25 October 1939. Soon, Nazi propaganda began to claim that the victory was a result of Hitler's military genius; Hitler said, Of all
2139-481: The 1944 Massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane : We felt the bullets, which brought me down. I dove... everyone was on top of me. And they were still firing. And there was shouting. And crying. I had a friend who was lying on top of me and who was moaning. And then it was over. No more shots. And they came at us, stepping on us. And with a rifle they finished us off. They finished off my friend who was on top of me. I felt it when he died. Darthout and Hebras' eyewitness testimony
2232-514: The Allied second front opened on 6 June 1944, all resistance groups joined "into the uprising". Part of the division was ordered to attack the rural strongholds of French Resistance fighters as it moved to Normandy. After a successful FTP offensive on 7 and 8 June 1944, Das Reich was ordered to the Tulle-Limoges area. The arrival of the SS troops "rescued the beleaguered" army troops and ended
2325-527: The Allies and the Germans had no interest in acknowledging the importance of improvisation and chance in the sensational victory of 1940. The fabrication of a Blitzkrieg Myth was convenient for the Allies to hide the incompetence that had led to their defeat. Rather than resort to technological determinism , German propaganda emphasised the machinery of the German army and that of the Allies, juxtaposing it with
2418-597: The Ardennes, the weakest part of the Allied line, where the defence was left to second-rate French divisions in the Second Army and the Ninth Army , on the assumption that the difficulty of moving masses of men and equipment would give the French plenty of time to send reinforcements if the area was attacked. The Seventh Army , which had been the most powerful part of the French strategic reserve, had been committed to
2511-815: The Battle of France, the SS-VT was officially renamed the Waffen-SS in July 1940. In December 1940 the Germania Regiment was removed from the Verfügungs-Division and used to form the cadre of a new division, SS Division Germania. By the start of 1941, the division was renamed "Reich" (in 1942 "Das Reich"), and "Germania" was renamed as SS Division Wiking . In April 1941, Germany invaded Yugoslavia and Greece . The LSSAH and Das Reich were attached to separate army Panzer Corps. Fritz Klingenberg ,
2604-625: The British tank force, which got to within 15 feet of commander Felix Steiner 's position. Only the arrival of the Totenkopf Panzerjäger platoon saved the Regiment Deutschland from being destroyed and their bridgehead lost. By 30 May, most of the remaining Allied forces had been pushed back into Dunkirk where they were evacuated by sea to England. The SS-VT Division next took part in the drive towards Paris. After
2697-768: The Deutschland Regiment successfully made an opposed crossing of the Sloedam from east to west, a feat attempted four years later by elements of the 2nd Canadian Division and the 52nd (Lowland) Division during the Battle of the Scheldt . After the fighting in the Netherlands ended, the SS-VT Division was transferred to France. On 24 May the LSSAH, along with the SS-VT Division were positioned to hold
2790-644: The French Ninth Army (General André Corap ). XV Corps moved through the upper Ardennes towards Dinant, with two panzer divisions, as a flank guard against a counter-attack from the north. From 10 to 11 May, XIX Panzer Corps engaged the two cavalry divisions of the Second Army, surprised them with a far larger force than expected and forced them back. The Ninth Army, to the north, had also sent its two cavalry divisions forward, which were withdrawn on 12 May, before they met German troops. Corap needed
2883-410: The French failure was caused by an inadequate military system and that this had much to do with the success of the German invasion. The French had prepared to fight a methodical battle based on massed firepower, against an opponent that emphasised surprise and speed. French training for a centralised and slow-moving battle left the army incapable of hasty counter-attacks or bold moves. The French army lost
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2976-511: The French with a simultaneous attack to the south to occupy the assembly areas that the French would use for a counter-offensive. Five panzer divisions of Panzergruppe von Kleist advanced through the Ardennes; XIX Panzer Corps with three panzer divisions on the southern flank towards Sedan, against the French Second Army. The XLI Panzer Corps with two panzer divisions on the northern flank, advanced towards Monthermé, against
3069-610: The German advance, while the First Army moved up but attacks on the bridges at Maastricht had been costly failures (the 135 day bombers of the RAF Advanced Air Striking Force were reduced to 72 operational aircraft by 12 May). Against the plan, Guderian and the other panzer generals disobeyed their orders and quickly advanced to the Channel. The panzer forces captured Abbeville and then fought
3162-459: The Napoleonic principle of the concentration of superior force at the decisive point was impossible for the Germans to achieve. In the 2014 edition of Breaking Point , Doughty described how in a 1956 publication, Fuller wrote that the Battle of Sedan was an "attack by paralyzation" that he had devised in 1918 and incorporated into Plan 1919 . Doughty wrote that although the Germans hoped for
3255-579: The SS-VT Division to retreat and relinquish ground. On 26 May the German advance resumed. On 27 May, Regiment Deutschland of the SS-VT Division reached the Allied defensive line on the Leie River at Merville . They forced a bridgehead across the river and waited for the SS Division Totenkopf to arrive to cover their flank. What arrived first was a unit of British tanks, which penetrated their position. The SS-VT managed to hold on against
3348-569: The SS-VT should be allowed to fight in its own formations under its own commanders, while the OKW tried to have the SS-VT disbanded altogether. Hitler was unwilling to upset either the army or Heinrich Himmler , and chose a third path. He ordered that the SS-VT form its own divisions but that the divisions would be under army command. In October 1939 the SS-Verfügungstruppe regiments Deutschland, Germania and Der Führer were organized into
3441-622: The SS-Verfügungs-Division with Paul Hausser , a former army officer, as commander. Thereafter, the SS-VT and the LSSAH took part in combat training while under army commands in preparation for Fall Gelb , the invasion against the Low Countries and France in 1940. In May 1940, the Der Führer Regiment was detached from the division and relocated near the Dutch border, with the remainder of the SS-VT Division behind
3534-686: The XIX Panzer Corps. Doughty suggested that the development of the Manstein plan showed that the force sent through the Ardennes was intended to follow a familiar strategy of Vernichtungsgedanke intended to encircle and annihilate the Allied armies in Kesselschlachten (cauldron battles). Twentieth-century weapons were different but the methods were little changed from those of Ulm (1805), Sedan (1870) and Tannenberg (1914). When German forces broke through on 16 May, they did not attack French headquarters but advanced westwards in
3627-425: The advance could have been reduced to chaos. The "audacious" manoeuvre of Army Group A comprised only about twelve armoured and motorised divisions; most of the rest of the German army invaded on foot, supplied from railheads. The Channel coast was a natural obstacle, only a few hundred kilometres from the German border and over such a distance, motorised supply from railheads over the dense west European road network
3720-455: The approximately two hundred SS soldiers who had been involved. Only twenty-one of them were present. Seven of them were Germans, but fourteen were Alsatians , (French nationals of Germanic culture). On 11 February, twenty defendants were found guilty, but were released after only a few months for lack of evidence. In December 2011 German police raided the homes of six former members of the division, all aged 85 or 86, to determine exactly what role
3813-805: The army attaché of Adolf Hitler, when he was visiting Koblenz, who informed Hitler of the affair on 2 February. Having found the Halder plan unsatisfactory from the start, Hitler ordered a change of strategy on 13 February in accordance with Manstein's thinking, after having heard only a rough outline. Manstein was invited to the Reich Chancellery in Berlin to meet Hitler on 17 February, in the presence of Alfred Jodl and Erwin Rommel . Though Hitler felt an immediate antipathy against Manstein for being arrogant and aloof, he listened silently to his exposition and
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3906-447: The basis of the plan for the Invasion of Poland ; the Manstein plan would have been its most spectacular implementation. Blitzkrieg theory would have been reflected in the organisation and equipment of the army and Luftwaffe and would have been radically different from those of France, Britain and the Soviet Union, except for the contributions of individuals like Mikhail Tukhachevsky , Charles de Gaulle , Fuller and Liddell Hart. That
3999-538: The breakthrough of massed panzer forces. Tactically, the Germans were often able to overcome French defences that usually were inadequate. French military intelligence failed to predict the main German attack, expecting it in central Belgium as late as 13 May. Military intelligence had made the elementary mistake of noting information that fitted with their assumptions of German intentions and paid insufficient attention to German capability or information suggesting that they were not conforming to expectations. Doughty wrote that
4092-569: The capture of the Soviet capital. By the time the division took part in the Battle of Moscow , it had lost 60 percent of its combat strength. It was further reduced in the Soviet Winter counter-offensive: for example, the Der Führer Regiment was down to 35 men out of the 2,000 that had started the campaign in June. The division was "mauled". By February 1942, it had lost 10,690 men. By mid-1942,
4185-516: The cavalry divisions to reinforce the defences on the Meuse, because some of the Ninth Army infantry had not arrived. The most advanced German units reached the Meuse in the afternoon; local French commanders thought that the German parties were far ahead of the main body and would wait for it before trying to cross the river. From 10 May, Allied bombers had been sent to raid northern Belgium to delay
4278-402: The church and spraying it with machine gun fire: It was simply an execution . There were a handful of Nazis in front of us, in their uniforms. They just raised their machine guns and started firing across us, at our legs to stop us getting out. They were strafing, not aiming. Men in front of me just started falling. I got caught by several bullets, but I survived because those in front of me got
4371-560: The commander of the XIX Panzer Corps , Guderian proposed to avoid the main body of the Allied armies and swiftly advance with the armoured divisions to the English Channel , taking the Allies by surprise and cutting their supply routes from the south. Manstein had many reservations about the proposal, fearing the long open flank to the south that would be created by such a bold advance. Guderian managed to convince him that
4464-405: The danger of a French counter-offensive from the south could be averted by a simultaneous secondary spoiling offensive southwards, in the general direction of Reims . When Manstein first presented his ideas to OKH, he did not mention Guderian and made the attack to the north the main effort, with a few armoured divisions protecting the left flank of the manoeuvre. The changes were included because
4557-424: The day. As a result, Das Reich arrived only piecemeal to the Normandy battlefield between 15 and 30 June, its arrival delayed at least several days by the resistance attacks and air strikes. Rather than going on the offensive to try to push the Allies back into the sea, Das Reich initially found itself mostly plugging gaps in the German defenses. The division was not reunited until 10 July. On 4 August Hitler ordered
4650-472: The days before 6 June French operatives of the SOE's Pimento network, headed by Anthony Brooks , sabotaged the rail cars by draining the axle oil and replacing it with an abrasive powder that caused the axles of the cars to seize up. The powder had been parachuted in by SOE. The perpetrators of the sabotage were a 16-year-old girl named Tetty, her boyfriend, her 14-year-old sister, and several of their friends. As
4743-413: The decisive point, a synthesis of "materialism and military art". The German army committed all its armoured units to the offensive and had it failed, would have had none left to resist an Allied counter-offensive. Casualties were high but the swift end to the campaign made them bearable. The Luftwaffe was also fully committed but the Allied air forces held back a substantial reserve, in anticipation of
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#17327653729474836-463: The division in the last phases of its northward journey. On 11 June British bombers attacked and destroyed several railcars full of much-needed gasoline at Châtellerault . The airstrike was directed by B Squadron, 1st Special Air Service (SAS) and was codenamed Operation Bulbasket . After its advance elements crossed the Loire River on 13 June, the division was under constant air attacks during
4929-514: The division reported having 12,357 officers and men, down from 17,283 on 1 July. The division surrendered to the U.S. Army in May 1945. During the invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, members of the division committed crimes against the civilian population as well as Yugoslav prisoners of war in the area of Alibunar (Vojvodina, Serbia) where an estimated 200 people were murdered. 51 corpses were found in
5022-404: The division under the auspices of HIAG , the historical negationist organization and a lobby group of former Waffen-SS members. The unit narrative was extensive and strived for a so-called official representation of their history, backed by maps and operational orders. "No less than 5 volumes and well over 2,000 pages were devoted to the doings of the 2nd Panzer Division Das Reich ", points out
5115-417: The division was pulled out of the fighting line and sent to the west to refit as a Panzergrenadier division. In January 1943, the division was transferred back from France to the Eastern Front . There it participated in the fighting around Kharkov . Here the unit engaged in some heavy fighting against 1st Guards Cavalry Corps , among other units. Thereafter, it was one of three SS divisions which made up
5208-451: The earliest plans by Halder or Manstein and the final plan by Halder did not conform to this doctrine is an anomaly, to be explained by circumstances. In the latter hypothesis, favoured by Robert A. Doughty and Karl-Heinz Frieser , the Manstein plan was a return to the principles of 19th century Bewegungskrieg (war of manoeuvre), adapted to modern technology by a sudden and unexpected departure from established German thinking, through
5301-636: The evacuation of the BEF and French forces from Dunkirk. Defeat in the north and the lack of mobile reserves led to the defeat of the remaining French and British forces in Fall Rot and the Armistice of 22 June 1940 . The success of the German invasion surprised everyone; the Germans had hardly dared hope for such a result. Most generals had vehemently opposed the plan as being much too risky; even those supporting it had mainly done so out of desperation because
5394-445: The familiar principles of Bewegungskrieg . The German army managed to concentrate a hugely powerful force at the decisive point but took a gamble of great magnitude that could not be repeated if the attack failed. When the Germans attempted to emulate the success of 1940 against the Soviet Union in 1941, little was left in reserve. The Red Army had a greater margin of numerical superiority, better leadership and more room for manoeuvre;
5487-475: The fields of northern France; the toughness and training of the German infantry should be recognised, along with the efforts of the engineers and artillery, which got the XIX Panzer Corps across the Meuse. Doughty also wrote that the success of the German army could not adequately be explained without reference to French mistakes. French strategy was unusually vulnerable to an attack through the Ardennes; operationally, French commanders failed adequately to react to
5580-418: The fighting in the city of Tulle . On 9 June, in reprisal for the German losses, the SS hanged 99 men from the town and another 149 were deported to Germany. On 10 June 1944, the division massacred 642 French civilians in the village of Oradour-sur-Glane , in the Limousin region. SS- Sturmbannführer Adolf Diekmann , commander of the I Battalion, 4th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment (Der Führer) that committed
5673-426: The following day, the rest of the SS-VT Division crossed into the Netherlands, participating in the drive for the Dutch central front and Rotterdam , which they reached on 12 May. After that city had been captured, the SS-VT Division, along with other German formations, were sent to "mop up" the remaining French-Dutch force holding out in the area of Zeeland and the islands of Walcheren and South Beveland. On 17 May
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#17327653729475766-601: The former Waffen-SS members' version of events. The divisional history, like other HIAG publications, focused on the positive, "heroic" side of National Socialism. The French author Jean-Paul Picaper, who studied the Oradour massacre, notes the tendentious nature of Weidinger's narrative: it provided a sanitized version of history without any references to war crimes. Structure of the division in 1943: Fall Gelb Asia-Pacific Mediterranean and Middle East Other campaigns Coups The Manstein plan or Case Yellow ( German : Fall Gelb ; also known after
5859-455: The full impact. I was so lucky. Four of us in the barn managed to get away because we remained completely still under piles of bodies. One man tried to get away before they had gone – he was shot dead. The SS were walking around and shooting anything that moved. They poured petrol on bodies and then set them alight." Marcel Darthout's experience was similar. His testimony appears in historian Sara Farmer's 2000 book Martyred Village: Commemorating
5952-416: The generals with whom I spoke about the new attack plan in the West, Manstein was the only one who understood me! After the war, Halder claimed he was the main instigator of the German plan, supporting this with the fact that he had begun to consider changing the main axis to Sedan as early as September 1939 and that Manstein's original proposal was too traditional. The Manstein plan is often seen as either
6045-437: The heroic individualism of German soldiers, notably in the film Sieg im Westen (1941). OKW explained the victory as a consequence of the "...revolutionary dynamic of the Third Reich and its National socialist leadership". Tooze wrote that a debunking of the technological interpretation of the German victory should not lead to the conclusion that it was the genius of Manstein or the superiority of German soldiers that caused
6138-505: The instigation of his commander, General Gerd von Rundstedt , who rejected Halder's plan, partly through professional rivalry and part because it could not inflict a decisive victory over France. Manstein first thought to follow annihilation theory ( Vernichtungsgedanke ), envisaging a swing from Sedan to the north, rapidly to destroy the Allied armies in a cauldron battle ( Kesselschlacht ). When discussing his intentions with Generalleutnant (Lieutenant-General) Heinz Guderian ,
6231-425: The line in Münster , awaiting the order to invade the Netherlands . The regiment and LSSAH participated in the ground invasion of the Netherlands, which began on 10 May. An NCO in Der Führer’s 3rd Battalion, Oberscharführer Ludwig Kepplinger, became the first Waffen-SS recipient of the Knight’s Cross , awarded for leading a patrol over the ruined bridge at IJssel and taking Fort Westervoort by surprise. On
6324-433: The main thrust of the invasion through the Ardennes in southern Belgium. After crossing the Meuse River between Namur and Sedan, Army Group A would turn north-west towards Amiens , as Army Group B executed a feint attack in the north, to lure the Allied armies forward into Belgium and pin them down. The revision was a substantial change in emphasis, in which Halder no longer envisaged a simultaneous secondary attack to
6417-408: The manner of a cavalry raid. Doughty wrote that Fuller had called the advanced forces of the German army an armoured battering-ram, covered by Luftwaffe fighters and dive-bombers acting as flying field artillery, to break through a continuous front at several points. The XIX, XLI and XV panzer corps had operated as the leading force through the Ardennes but the most effective Allied resistance to
6510-460: The massacre, claimed that it was a just retaliation due to partisan activity in nearby Tulle and the kidnapping of Sturmbannführer Helmut Kämpfe , commander of the III Battalion, although the German authorities had already executed ninety-nine people in the Tulle massacre , following the killing of some forty German soldiers in Tulle by the Maquis resistance movement. On 10 June, Diekmann's battalion sealed off Oradour-sur-Glane, and ordered all
6603-400: The men had played that day. SS- Brigadeführer Heinz Lammerding , who had given the orders for retaliation against the Resistance, died in 1971, following a successful business career in West Germany . The French government never obtained his extradition from the German authorities. Following the war, one of the regimental commanders of the division, Otto Weidinger , wrote an apologia of
6696-484: The military historian S.P. MacKenzie . The Das Reich divisional history was published by HIAG's publishing house Munin Verlag. Its express aim was to publish the "war narratives" of former Waffen-SS members, and the titles did not go through the rigorous processes of historical research or assessment common in the traditional historical works; they were negationist accounts unedited by professional historians and presented
6789-400: The original conception was too bold to be acceptable to many generals, who also considered Guderian too radical; Halder and Walther von Brauchitsch rejected the Manstein concept. Reformulating it in a more radical sense did not help. Manstein and Halder were rivals; in 1938 Manstein had been the successor of the chief of staff Ludwig Beck but had been ousted when the latter was disgraced over
6882-440: The perimeter around Dunkirk and reduce the size of the pocket containing the encircled British Expeditionary Force and French forces. A patrol from the SS-VT Division crossed the canal at Saint-Venant , but was destroyed by British armor. A larger force from the SS-VT Division then crossed the canal and formed a bridgehead at Saint-Venant; 30 miles from Dunkirk. On the following day, British forces attacked Saint-Venant, forcing
6975-571: The plan fell into Belgian hands during the Mechelen incident on 10 January 1940 and the plan was revised several times, each giving more emphasis to an attack by Army Group A through the Ardennes , which progressively reduced the offensive by Army Group B through the Low Countries to a diversion. In the final version of the plan, the main effort of the German invasion was made against
7068-852: The plan for Fall Gelb crashed in Belgium (the Mechelen Incident ) prompting another review of the invasion plan. Halder revised Fall Gelb to an extent in Aufmarschanweisung N°3, Fall Gelb and Manstein was able to convince Hitler in a meeting on 17 February, that the Wehrmacht should attack through the Ardennes , followed by an advance to the coast. Manstein, chief of staff of Army Group A , had originally formulated his plan in October 1939 in Koblenz on
7161-499: The plan or at least of the attack by Army Group A. The German name was Aufmarschanweisung Nr. 4, Fall Gelb (Campaign Instruction No. 4, Case Yellow) issued on 24 February 1940 and the manoeuvre through the Ardennes had no name. The Manstein plan was a counterpart to the French Dyle plan for the Battle of France . Lieutenant General Erich von Manstein dissented from the 1939 versions of Fall Gelb (Case Yellow),
7254-528: The plans for Fall Gelb is seen as unremarkable; only after the crossings of the Meuse, the sudden success of the break-out and the insubordination of Guderian and other tank commanders during the rush down the Somme valley, would "Blitzkrieg" have been adopted as an explicit theory, in this view making Operation Barbarossa the first and only Blitzkrieg campaign. Guderian presented the situation in his postwar book Erinnerungen eines Soldaten ( Memories of
7347-540: The result of or the cause of a mid-20th century Revolution in military affairs . In the former hypothesis, expounded by J. F. C. Fuller and Basil Liddell Hart immediately after the events, the Manstein plan is presented as a result of the evolution of German military thinking since the First World War by Hans von Seeckt and Guderian, adopting the ideas of Fuller or Liddell Hart. If true, an explicit Blitzkrieg doctrine would have been established by 1939 and been
7440-479: The sacristy; after the explosion they climbed on a stool and jumped out of a window three meters from the ground. A burst of machine gun fire hit all of them, but Rouffanche was able to crawl into the presbytery garden. The woman and infant were killed. Diekmann was later killed in the battle of Normandy in 1944. On 12 January 1953, a military tribunal in Bordeaux , heard the case against the surviving sixty-five of
7533-401: The skill and determination of German infantry, sometimes helped by anti-tank guns, accompanying guns and a few tanks. Fuller's writing was in the vein of much of the early reports of the Battle of France but since then new studies had added nuance, dwelling on the complications and chaos of the military operations. The Manstein plan led to much more than a simple tank rush through the Ardennes and
7626-422: The south and south-west of Sedan was reduced by the combined operations of infantry, tanks and artillery, a fact overlooked for long after 1940. Luftwaffe bombers had not acted as flying artillery and their main effect occurred on 13 May, when bombing collapsed the morale of the French 55th Division . Air attacks helped the ground forces to advance but destroyed few tanks and bunkers, most of which were taken by
7719-445: The townspeople to assemble in the village square, ostensibly to have their identity papers examined. All the women and children were locked in the church. The men were led to six barns and sheds. One of the six survivors of the massacre, Robert Hebras, described the killings as a deliberate act of mass murder . In 2013, he told the U.K. newspaper The Mirror that the SS intentionally burned men, women, and children after locking them in
7812-416: The victory. There was no German grand-strategic synthesis; the course of the 1940 campaign depended on the economic mobilisation of 1939 and the geography of western Europe. During the winter of 1939–1940, the quality of German armoured forces was substantially improved. The plan attributed to Manstein was not a revolutionary departure from traditional military thinking but the concentration of superior force at
7905-552: The war as Unternehmen Sichelschnitt a transliteration of the English Operation Sickle Cut ), was the war plan of the German armed forces ( Wehrmacht ) for the Battle of France in 1940. The original invasion plan was an awkward compromise devised by General Franz Halder , the chief of staff of Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH, Army High Command) that satisfied no one. Documents with details of
7998-419: The west but made it the main effort ( Schwerpunkt ). The dash for Abbeville was removed, river crossings were to be forced by infantry and there would be a long period of consolidation by a large number of infantry divisions crossing into the bridgeheads. The armoured divisions would then advance together with the infantry, not in an independent operational penetration. Halder rejected the idea of forestalling
8091-467: Was attacked at point blank range by 2nd Armored Division artillery. Over the course of two hours American artillery fired over 700 rounds into the column. The division suffered the loss of 50 dead, 60 wounded and 197 taken prisoner. Material losses were over 260 German combat vehicles destroyed. Beyond the town another 1,150 German soldiers were killed in combat. The division also lost an additional 96 armored combat vehicles and trucks. On 13 September 1944,
8184-419: Was corroborated by other survivors of the massacre. One other survivor, Roger Godfrin, escaped from the school for refugees despite being shot at by SS soldiers. Only one woman, Marguerite Rouffanche, survived from the church. She later testified that at about five in the afternoon, two German soldiers placed a crate of explosives on the altar and attached a fuse to it. She and another woman and her baby hid behind
8277-439: Was halted before it could break through enemy defences and penetrate to its strategic depths . In October, the division was redesignated, this time as SS Panzer Division Das Reich to reflect its complement of tanks. In April 1944, Das Reich took up a new base near the city of Montauban in southern France. The location was chosen so that the division could respond quickly to the anticipated Allied invasion of France on either
8370-432: Was impressed by Manstein's thinking. Hitler remarked after Manstein had left, "Certainly an exceptionally clever fellow, with great operational gifts, but I don't trust him". Manstein took no more part in the planning and returned to eastern Germany. Halder had to revise the plan again, which became Aufmarschanweisung N°4, Fall Gelb . The new plan conformed to Manstein's thinking in that Army Group A would provide
8463-498: Was ordered to move to Normandy to reinforce the German units contesting the Allied invasion. An unopposed movement of men and equipment by railroad would have taken three or four days over approximately 700 kilometres (430 miles). However, the option to move by rail had been preempted by the Special Operations Executive (SOE). The rail cars to be used for transporting the tanks and equipment were unguarded. In
8556-460: Was ordered to suppress the Maquis during its journey; "to break the spirit of the population by making examples." The division carried out the order by massacring hundreds of civilians on 9 and 10 June in Tulle and Oradour-sur-Glane .(see below) Attacks by resistance forces mostly ended on 12 June as Das Reich moved into less favorable territory for ambushes. Air attacks hindered the progress of
8649-617: Was possible. The Germans could live off the land, amidst the highly developed agriculture of western Europe, unlike in Poland where it had been much harder to maintain momentum. Tooze concluded that although the German victory of 1940 was not determined by brute force, the Wehrmacht did not rewrite the rules of war or succeed because of the ardour of German soldiers and French pacifism. The odds against Germany were not so extreme as to be insurmountable by better planning for an offensive based on
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