The Waffen-SS divisions surender

The Frundsberg Division was on the Czech-German border when the war ended and, rather than formally surrender, its officers and men split themselves up into small groups and headed for the American lines. A few made it, but most were trapped by Soviet patrols or killed by Czech partisans. Those captured by the Russians were shipped to Siberia, and only a handful returned home in 1955 when the Kremlin finally released its last batches of German prisoners.

In Austria, what was left of the Hitlerjugend Division surrendered en masse to the Americans under the watchful eye of a Russian tank column. At the last minute, the remaining 6000 Hitlerjugend troops stampeded past an American check-point rather than risk capture by the Russians. The Hohenstaufen Division was able to surrender peacefully to the Americans, while Wiking just broke up into small groups and disappeared into Austrian and Bavarian villages. Many of the staff officers of the various Waffen-SS panzer corps and the Sixth SS Panzer Army also took to the hills. American, British and French patrols soon arrested hundreds of Waffen-SS men as they tried to reach their home towns, or flee to Switzerland.

The end of the supermen

The Totenkopf Division suffered a tragic - or fitting, depending on one's point of view - fate after an epic journey to the American lines. In spite of managing to cross into the American sector, the 3000 Totenkopf men were then handed over to the Russians. The senior officers were separated from the bulk of the men and executed by NKVD secret policemen. Hundreds of others were also executed as the remnants of the division were shipped to Stalin's Gulag in Siberia.

Dietrich himself headed for Switzerland, dressed in traditional Bavarian costume, with his wife. Many of these fugitives, including Dietrich, were captured, although some were spirited away by the shadowy Odessa group to exile in Switzerland, Spain and South America. Das Reich's Heinz Lammerding and the flamboyant Otto Skorzeny were among the lucky few.

As the remnants of Dietrich's army were being rounded up in a string of temporary prisoner-of-war camps spread throughout southern Germany, it began to dawn on the Waffen-SS that the victorious Western Allies were not going to treat them as honourable defeated opponents. The officers were soon separated from their men, and squads of investigators arrived to take statements about the deaths of Allied prisoners of war in a spate of incidents from Normandy to the Ardennes.

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