While not really being much of a test of the Leibstandarte's fighting skills, the Anschluss, or Union, with Austria proved to be a great test of the organizational and logistical planning skills of senior SS officers. The unit had to move more than 965km (600 miles) in 48 hours as part of a coordinated deployment with army tank divisions. The commander of XVI Army Corps, General Heinz Guderian, reported favourably on the performance of the SS men, which was no small achievement considering that he was the "father of the panzer divisions".

The SS in Austria and Czechoslovakia

The occupation of Austria had an added benefit of increasing the pool of manpower available to the SS. Hausser began to raise a third regiment, Der Führer, for his SS-VT in Vienna late in 1938. Eicke was also busy expanding his empire in Austria, forming another Totenkopf regiment, Ostmark, under the pretext of guarding the Mauthausen concentration camp that he had established outside Linz.

By the autumn of 1938, Hitler had his sights set on Czechoslovakia, specifically the Sudetenland that contained three million Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans). Heydrich's covert operatives again stirred up a bogus crisis, involving the ethnic Germans in the Sudetenland. SD agents faked attacks on ethnic German property and planted evidence to blame the Czech Government. Nazi propaganda portrayed the ethnic Germans as the victims of Czech oppression, and Hitler claimed Germany had to go to their rescue. When the British and French Governments refused to back the Czechs, the government in Prague had little option but to cave in to Hitler's demands, and the border regions of its country were surrendered. Several armed SS and Totenkopf units participated in the invasion. The Leibstandarte repeated its undertaking during the Austrian adventure, and acted as a reception party for Hitler when he triumphantly entered Carlsbad in October 1938. The Germania and Deutschland Regiments also joined in as occupation troops, along with two battalions of Totenkopf soldiers. These later troops were used to assist the SS-controlled Sudeten militia, the Henlein Free Korps, in the rounding up of anti-German civilians.

The SS in Prague

In March 1939, SS police units were at the forefront of the operation to occupy Prague and subjugate the rest of Czechoslovakia. Scores of people were killed as SS squads rounded up opponents of the occupation during the entry of German troops into Prague, which was now declared the capital of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

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