In January 1945, five Waffen-SS divisions were in the process of pulling out of Belgium after the failure of the Ardennes Offensive. Hitler wanted them concentrated to lead his offensive into Hungary, which he thought would turn the course of the war. A special order was issued by the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, for the divisions to be pulled back into Germany to be refitted for their new offensive. Almost the total production of Germany's shattered armaments industry was to be diverted to the SS divisions. The efforts to re-equip the Waffen-SS divisions stretched Germany's armaments industry to the limit. There were no more reserves left. The coming offensive would be the last throw of the dice for Hitler's Third Reich.

Building the Sixth SS Panzer Army

Throughout January and into February 1945, new tanks, assault guns, halftracks, artillery and other equipment arrived by train at barracks and training grounds in central Germany. Thousands of raw recruits and drafted Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine personnel, who no longer had aircraft or ships to serve in, found themselves pressed into the Waffen-SS. Crash training courses were organized to try to mould this raw material into an élite fighting force. The results were very mixed.

For the first time, six SS panzer divisions would be committed to an operation on the Eastern Front under the command of SS panzer corps, and two of those corps would be under the command of the Sixth SS Panzer Army. This army had been raised in September 1944 to lead the Waffen-SS panzer divisions in the Ardennes. SS-Oberstgruppenführer Josef "Sepp" Dietrich remained in command of this army. There was great rivalry between the two corps in the Sixth SS Panzer Army. The most favoured formation was I SS Panzer Corps Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler led by SS-Gruppenführer Hermann Priess, the former commander of the Totenkopf Division. It boasted the Leibstandarte and Hitlerjugend Divisions (the latter was to see action on the Eastern Front for the first time during the coming offensive).

King Tiger tanks

The Leibstandarte Division's panzer regiment was reinforced with a full battalion of 36 of the new super-heavy Tiger II, or King Tiger, tanks. These 71-tonne (70-ton) monsters boasted frontal armour 250mm (9.84in) thick that was impervious to almost all anti-tank weapons then in service. However, they were notoriously mechanically unreliable, and more would be abandoned on the battlefields of Hungary following breakdowns than were lost to enemy fire. The 501st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion was one of three such units created by the Waffen-SS in the final months of the war that used the Tiger II tank. These units grew out of the Tiger I companies that had served with the three original SS panzer divisions since 1943. The two other battalions, the 502nd and 503rd, were sent to the East Prussian and Berlin sectors in the final months of the war, and so missed the offensive in Hungary. The Leibstandarte's other panzer battalion fielded 27 Panzer IV tanks, 41 Panthers and 8 anti-aircraft tanks.

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