The Waffen-SS deployment

The Waffen-SS fighting divisions and brigades were posted to each of the three main German combat groups: Army Groups North, Centre and South. In the woods of East Prussia, the Totenkopf and Polizei Divisions were posted in reserve ready to exploit any successes by Colonel-General Erich Hoepner's Fourth Panzer Group as they advanced on Leningrad. The Das Reich Division was assigned to Colonel-General Heinz Guderian's Second Panzer Group, which was to lead the advance on Moscow.

Army Group South, which was to seize Kiev and key economic facilities in the Ukraine, contained the Leibstandarte, now given divisional status following the campaigns in Yugoslavia and Greece, and the newly formed Wiking Division. The SS units were held back from the first assault wave, and it was several days before they were fully engaged in action. The fighting in each sector was very different because of the terrain and intensity of Soviet opposition.

The advance on Leingrad

For the men of the Totenkopf Division, the advance on Leningrad, the Soviet Union's second city and cradle of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, quickly turned into a nightmare battle of running skirmishes and ambushes in the heavily wooded and marshy terrain of the Baltic states and northern Russia. General Erich von Manstein's panzer corps initially rampaged through the Soviet border defences and advanced more than 320km (200 miles) in four days. The Totenkopf Division was ordered to follow behind and mop up Red Army stragglers in Lithuanian forests. The poor roads plagued the advance, and soon the SS men were running into large groups of Russian soldiers who were now starting to fight back with some determination. Many Soviet stragglers who tried to resist the SS men were dealt with ruthlessly, most being executed by their captors. It was almost a week before Theodor Eicke and his men had caught up with Manstein's panzers on the Dvina River line.

Fighting on the Stalin Line

They then formed the right flank of Manstein's advance to the so-called Stalin Line, which ran south from Pskov through the heavily forested terrain that was also full of lakes. Eicke's division moved forward in two columns, and it soon ran into heavy resistance. At Dagda on 2 July, 10 SS men were killed and 100 wounded as the remains of a Soviet division decided to stand and fight. Soviet tanks joined the action, which raged throughout the night. Only the intervention of Luftwaffe Stuka dive-bombers broke the back of the resistance. Soviet artillery covered the Russian withdrawal to the Stalin Line.

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