Frundsberg and Hohenstaufen

The Frundsberg and Hohenstaufen Divisions were not quite as lavishly equipped and trained, but nonetheless they were to benefit from a trip to the Eastern Front in April 1944 to help the First Panzer Army break out of a Soviet encirclement. They saw limited action and allowed Hausser's successor, Willi Bittrich, to see his units in battle and to sideline a number of incompetent unit commanders. The troops themselves fought well and showed much potential. They stayed in the Ukraine on temporary "loan" to the Eastern Front until early June, when they were recalled to France to fight in Normandy. On their return they would put up an impressive performance, on a par with the other Waffen-SS units. Bittrich's headquarters team was also first rate, and would later inflict the only strategic defeat on the Allies during the northwest European campaign. This famous defeat was one that would take place at Nijmegen and Arnhem in September 1944.

Languishing in the south of France, the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division was at the bottom of the list for receiving new equipment. Its inventory was to number only a single assault gun battalion of StuG IIIs by the time the Allied landings occurred in Normandy in June.

Rebuilding the ghost divisions

Shattered by their experiences on the Eastern Front, the Leibstandarte and Das Reich Divisions were pulled back to France in the spring of 1944. There, they would be rebuilt so that they could act as the spearhead for Hitler's counter-invasion strategy. The half-starved and lice-infested remnants of the two divisions were in no shape to do much beyond clean and repair their paltry stocks of weapons and vehicles.

Then the Waffen-SS replacement and supply system started to kick in. The new soldiers and equipment were suddenly beginning to arrive in large quantities. Time was short, however, and the quality of the new recruits left a lot to be desired. Most of them were drafted youngsters, or former Luftwaffe (air force) and navy personnel. They were not of the same ilk as the volunteers who had made their way into the ranks of the élite Waffen-SS divisions earlier in the war. The cadre of Leibstandarte and Das Reich veterans had to begin almost from scratch. They found themselves teaching these new Waffen-SS men basic soldiering skills while also having to indoctrinate them into the special philosophy of their "divisional family".

The Panther tank

Crucially, by the late spring of 1944, France and Belgium were hotbeds of resistance sabotage activity, and the Allied air forces had started to concentrate their air attacks on communications links in the run-up to D-Day. This made it almost impossible for the two divisions to take their young recruits out on large-scale manoeuvres. When the invasion came, they would go into battle with half-trained units that were unused to operating together. This would put even greater strain on the remaining Eastern Front veterans.

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