The murderous rampage of the SS through Poland outraged many senior army commanders, who were soon complaining to the High Command in Berlin. Colonel-General Walther von Brauchitsch, the Wehrmacht commander-in-chief, was too timid to raise the SS killings with Hitler personally but did protest to Himmler about the "undisciplined" manner in which the SS troops conducted themselves in Poland. The SS chief promised his men would be more orderly in future, and then quietly arranged with Hitler for a decree to be issued in October 1939 removing the armed SS and SS police units from the legal jurisdiction of the Wehrmacht in occupied territory.

Hitler was enthused by the performance of his SS men, particularly the Leibstandarte, and readily acceded to proposals from Himmler in October 1939 for the armed SS to be expanded from one to three combat divisions. The army was instructed to remove its restrictions on recruitment to allow the necessary number of young men to join the armed SS. With German plans for an offensive in the West in the final stages of preparation, Himmler was desperate to form the new units to allow them to share in the glory of the defeat of France.

Expansion

The new manpower would not be available until well into 1940. He rapidly moved to turn the "ghost" reserve units of the Totenkopfverbönde into combat units. Eicke's four regiments were transformed into the Totenkopf Motorized Division, and he was authorized to use his manpower in the concentration camp system to create the artillery, reconnaissance, supply and communications units needed for the new division. The camp system was also ordered to generate the necessary trucks, arms and other equipment needed. A major problem was the supply of artillery (when Eicke's henchmen found a factory in Czechoslovakia full of surplus 150mm artillery, he tried to acquire them for his division by unofficial methods, much to the annoyance of Himmler who was fighting his own battle with the army generals for equipment). This influx of equipment meant Eicke's men had to begin a crash programme of combat training when they were pulled back from Poland during the later months of 1939.

The SS-VT Division was now fully motorized. Its three regiments, Deutschland, Germania and Der Führer, were concentrated at Niedenberg to begin training as a coherent and integrated formation. Each of these regiments was brought back up to strength with three motorized infantry battalions. These battalions were all lavishly equipped with heavy machine guns, mortars and light infantry howitzers. The division was provided with anti-tank, reconnaissance, medical, signals, combat engineer, machine-gun and supply battalions. It was also provided with an artillery regiment with three battalions of 105mm and 150mm howitzers.

The third SS division - the SS Polizei (Police) Division - was formed from police reservists. However, it was poorly trained and lacked the trucks to move its troops and supplies or tow its field guns, so could only advance at the rate its soldiers could march.

Hitler's prized Leibstandarte was also expanded, gaining more support weapons, motorcycle scout troops and an artillery battalion with 105mm howitzers. The élite SS force was being groomed to act as an independent strike force to allow it to play a key role in the coming invasion of France.

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