Preliminary moves

In the last days of August, Reinhard Heydrich's SD Foreign Intelligence Section played a key role in creating the "justification" for the war. His operatives dressed up in Polish Army uniforms and staged three "incidents" at border posts and a radio station, thus allowing German propaganda to portray the invasion of Poland as a defensive response to hostile provocations. The incidents were scheduled to unfold in the early hours of 1 September, just before the main invasion was to begin.

An even more sinister role was played by three regiments of Eicke's Totenkopfverbönde, which were mobilized to follow up behind the army and SS assault troops to eliminate political and racial enemies of the Nazi Party. In total some 18,000 SS men were mobilized to support the invasion of Poland, codenamed Operation White. The SD's special operations went ahead as planned and Hitler had his justification for war. By 04:00 hours on 1 September, the invasion was under way.

SS-Heimwehr Danzig

Some of the first SS troops in action were from SS-Heimwehr Danzig, which launched a dramatic attack on Polish troops at the Danzig Post Office, supported by armoured cars from the Danzig police. The Poles surrendered only when the Danzig Fire Department pumped gas into the building's cellar and ignited it. Another small group of SS men tried to capture a key bridge over the Vistula River, only to be repulsed with the loss of 26 dead. The German battleship Schleswig Holstein blasted the Poles around the bridge and the SS force eventually seized the position. Over the next 10 days the SS troops, backed by police, army units and Luftwaffe bombers, mopped up more Polish opposition around the city.

The Leibstandarte

The star of the invasion as far as the armed SS was concerned was the Leibstandarte. It began its assault on schedule and proceeded to take apart the Polish frontier defences east of Breslau with great élan. Leibstandarte infantry detachments used the morning mist to cover a river-crossing operation and they overwhelmed lightly manned Polish defensive positions. Follow-up troops then moved forward to clear out Polish rear positions. The Polish troops here were better prepared and they brought up armoured cars to counterattack the SS men, who had to use their 37mm anti-tank guns to repel them. The fighting lasted all day, but soon the Leibstandarte gained the upper hand and elements of three Polish divisions and two cavalry brigades were retreating east. In the early afternoon two Leibstandarte columns were sent to bypass the Polish resistance and push towards Wieruszow, which was reached by nightfall.

Bloodbath at Pabianice

Despite Polish cavalry attacks during the night, the Leibstandarte struck out again the following morning towards a strong Polish defensive line on the Warta River. This was the northern pincer of a move to encircle Polish forces in Lodz. For four days the Leibstandarte was locked in a grim battle with Polish troops holding the heavily defended town of Pabianice, which guarded the western approaches to Lodz. Additional reinforcements and civilian volunteers bolstered the line against the Leibstandarte, and the battle turned into a bloody struggle to hold a key ridge line outside the town. Polish snipers took a heavy toll on the SS men, who repeatedly tried to break through the defences. To try to counter the concealment tactics of the Poles, the SS men took to wearing camouflage smocks, which would soon become a trademark of the Waffen-SS.

A new plan was needed to break through this strongpoint and so a coordinated assault was ordered for 7 September. Tanks of the 23rd Panzer Regiment were brought in to support the assault which aimed to outflank Pabianice. Almost immediately the German tanks ran into a heavy barrage of well-sighted Polish anti-tank guns. Early model German panzers were not the heavily armoured versions that saw action later in the war, and soon several were hit and destroyed. To provide cover for the withdrawing tanks, and to rescue the crews who had bailed out of their burning panzers, SS infantry were sent into action. They endured withering fire to achieve their mission. German Army artillery observers had gone forward with the Leibstandarte and they now began to call down fire on Polish positions. Boosted by this support, the SS assault teams at last penetrated into Pabianice and began to secure the town.

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