The Leibstandarte's losses

The Leibstandarte men were soon picking their way through a battlefield littered with smashed tanks, trucks, artillery and dead horses. Hitler came to visit them on 25 September outside Warsaw to reward them for their efforts. They had paid a high price for winning their Führer's gratitude, losing some 400 dead and wounded over the previous four weeks. The regiment now moved eastwards to complete the encirclement of the Polish capital. It moved to the northwest of the city and formed part of the southern flank of the German force investing the fortress city of Modlin, on the banks of the Vistula.

As planning for the invasion came together in July 1939, the German Army High Command decided to create a unique unit in preparation for the assault on Poland based around General Kempf's 4th Panzer Brigade. It was a combined army/SS ad hoc panzer division, dubbed at first Panzer Detachment East Prussia and then Panzer Division Kempf. The army's 7th Panzer Regiment provided the armoured power of the force; the Deutschland Regiment, the SS-VT's artillery regiment, signals battalion and reconnaissance battalion, along with an army heavy artillery battalion, completed the unit.

Breaking the Mlava Line

East Prussia was separated by the Polish corridor from the rest of Germany, so the SS and panzer units had to be moved by sea, which made them difficult to conceal. A cover story was thus concocted: that the SS troops were part of a new panzer division and would participate as "Wehrmacht representatives" at the Tannenberg (a World War I battle) celebration.

With so many of the SS-VT's combat units attached to the new force, Paul Hausser accompanied the unit for the duration of its operations in Poland to gather information for the eventual formation of his division. The attack was set for 04:45 hours on 1 September. The Deutschland Regiment's task was to force its way through the Mlava Line, an entrenched position fortified with barbed wire, anti-tank obstacles and bunkers and manned by the Polish 20th Infantry Division. After crossing their start lines the SS men moved rapidly forward, meeting little resistance. They soon ran into heavy resistance, however, when they reached the main Mlava Line defences sited along the crest of a hill. They came under a deadly hail of fire from the prepared positions of the defending Poles, and had to abandon the assault. A second assault failed just as quickly, prompting General Kempf to order up tank and artillery support for yet another assault during the afternoon.

Only a handful of German tanks could be mustered in time and, after a short artillery strike, the panzers moved forward. As the German tanks came into view of the Polish defenders, Polish artillery opened fire, pinning down the SS infantry and wreaking havoc on the German armour. The Polish anti-tank obstacles, constructed of railway track sections embedded in concrete, channelled the tanks into killing zones. One by one the tanks were destroyed, forcing the Germans to halt the attack. The SS troops who were caught by the artillery had meanwhile worked their way up the slopes of the hill. When the order to withdraw was given, some of the SS infantry were within 137m (450ft) of their objectives. Even though the 20th Division was able to hold its positions, other Polish units did not fare so well. Eventually the 20th Division was out-flanked and forced to fall back southwards.

After breaking through the Mlava Line, the German Third Army pushed south. Kempf's panzers were in the vanguard of this advance. On 9 September, the Polish line along the River Bug was broken and the battered remnants of the defenders then retreated into a series of fortress cities along the Vistula and Bug rivers, north of Warsaw. The Polish troops included the remnants of the 8th Infantry Division, which struggled to set up defences stretching from Kazun to Nowy Dwor, and included the fortress city of Zacrozym, near Modlin.

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