The Leibstandarte was the élite of the élite. It was the first unit to be formed and the Führer took a personal interest in the division that bore his name, giving it priority for recruits and equipment.

Das Reich had been hardened by years on the Eastern Front, but by 1944 was an unhappy unit under a martinet commander, Heinz Lammerding. The Hitlerjugend adopted many of the traditions of the Nazi Youth movement and was not strong on military formalities. Many of its officers were former Leibstandarte men who were determined to prove themselves as good as their old comrades.

The Hohenstaufen and Frundsberg Divisions were new units but, despite this, were very professional in the way they conducted themselves. In 1944, soldiers of the Waffen-SS panzer divisions all believed that they were serving in the best units in the world. Every soldier considered himself to be utterly invincible.

Senior Waffen-SS leaders

The leadership of the Waffen-SS panzer force had developed and matured during the course of the war. There were a number of distinct groups within the Waffen-SS, and they all - to varying degrees - meshed together to produce very effective fighting units. There was a rump of senior officers who were all hardcore Nazis, such as "Sepp" Dietrich, who had loyally served Hitler for two decades.

Senior officers such as "Sepp" Dietrich had power, position and lavish property under Hitler's regime. Moreover, they were passionate believers in Hitler's cause, particularly his racial war against the Jewish and Slav untermenschen in the East. Men such as Dietrich never had any pretensions to be military geniuses, and relied on professional soldiers including Hausser, Bittrich and Fritz Kraemer to run things for them. Dietrich was later to enjoy promotion to the rank of SS-Oberstgruppenführer, or the equivalent of an army lieutenant-general, which many considered to be a serious case of over-promotion. However, what mattered most to Hitler was Dietrich's loyalty, not his tactical skill.

Hausser and Bittrich were the military intellectuals of the Waffen-SS. Hitler, however, never quite trusted them. He once called Hausser "crafty fox" in a very uncomplimentary way. However, they were practical, down-to-earth soldiers, and by 1944 they were no longer convinced that Germany would be able to win the war. There was a small core of Himmler cronies in the Waffen-SS panzer divisions. They found their way into senior command posts through Himmler's patronage, and because of this nepotism were considered "untouchable", even if they proved to be totally incompetent. Lammerding of Das Reich and the Hitlerjugend Division's Mohnke were examples of the individuals who would fit into this category.

A core of veterans

Almost all Waffen-SS combat regiments and battalions in France in 1944 were commanded by hardcore veterans. These were men who had worked their way up through the ranks of their divisions. Most of them had started their military life as junior officers in the opening days of the war and, by a process of natural selection, ended up shouldering much of the responsibility for the fight against the Allies. The likes of Meyer, Peiper, Fritz Witt, Max Wünsche, Teddy Wisch and tank ace Michael Wittmann were all in their late twenties or early thirties, and could only be described as "natural leaders of men".

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