Waffen-SS: Central Russia, 1941

The Das Reich Division

The Das Reich Division formed part of the order of battle of Army Group Centre at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa. Having a strength of just over 19,000 men, it took part in the great encirclement battles waged by the Germans during the first weeks of the Russian campaign. By the time it participated in the attack on Moscow, the division had lost more than a quarter of its manpower.

The Second Panzer Group

In Army Group Centre's sector of the Eastern Front, Paul Hausser's Das Reich was in reserve when the invasion began. It was fortunate to receive the first ever Waffen-SS assault-gun detachment, equipped with Sturmgeschütz III vehicles, a few days before it was due to move into action. These heavily armoured, self-propelled guns provided the Waffen-SS with an armoured punch that they had never had before, and reduced their dependency on the army to provide tank support.

Das Reich was assigned to the reserve corps of General Guderian's Second Panzer Group, which was positioned north of the fortress town of Brest Litovsk, ready to drive east once the city fell to German infantry. The first victim of Guderian's panzers was the Soviet Tenth Army, which was holding a salient around the city of Bialystok and was soon encircled. Guderian had his eyes firmly on an even larger group of Soviet armies positioned to defend Minsk, and he soon launched his reserve panzer corps into action. Generaloberst Hermann Hoth's Third Panzer Group completed the northern arm of the pincer movement.

The Minsk Pocket

Hausser's troops were soon in the vanguard of the encirclement. They raced forward at breakneck speed, shooting up bypassed groups of Russians. Speed was of the essence to Guderian's plan; by 3 July Das Reich's motorcycle reconnaissance battalion had reached the River Beresina, southeast of Minsk. It was the job of other German units to clear up the Minsk Pocket that now contained some 290,000 Russians with 2500 tanks and 1500 guns. In a week of fighting the pocket was reduced by German infantry divisions, and most of the Russian troops were either killed or captured. The SS division and Guderian's panzers formed the outer crust of the German ring to stop any Soviet troops breaking through to their trapped comrades.

Das Reich's advance was characterized by brief skirmishes with confused and disorganized Soviet soldiers. It met its first serious resistance when the reconnaissance battalion tried to cross the Beresina, and a stiff fight ensued. The division was strung out in long convoys that were struggling to move at speed over the atrocious Russian road network. A Russian engineering team had time to blow the bridge over the Beresina, forcing SS engineers to repair it, delaying the advance until 5 July. Even when the bridge was built, small pockets of Russian troops continued to contest the Das Reich attempts to secure a bridgehead to launch the advance eastwards again.

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