Waffen-SS: The army and the Waffen-SS

The relationship between the SS and the German Army was complex and often antagonistic. As the war progressed and Germany was forced on to the defensive, a major split started to develop between the senior officers of the Waffen-SS and the higher echelons of Himmler's Allgemeine-SS (General SS), the main SS political and administrative branch.

By early 1944, veteran Waffen-SS combat generals, such as Paul Hausser, "Sepp" Dietrich, Willi Bittrich and Felix Steiner, were all disillusioned with Hitler's war strategy. They had lost thousands of men in brutal battles in Russia and all believed that Hitler's "no retreat - fight to the last man" strategy was bound to lead to Germany's early defeat. Hausser's retreat from Kharkov in early 1943 was the first symptom of this disillusionment, as the founder of the Waffen-SS was clearly not going to sacrifice the cream of the organization in a senseless battle to hold a strategically worthless city. The cauldron battles of the winter of 1943-44, when tens of thousands of German soldiers, including many Waffen-SS units, only escaped destruction from Soviet encirclement because Field Marshal Erich von Manstein organized breakouts against Hitler's expressed orders, further added to the alienation from the Führer.

Senior Waffen-SS commanders began to see that they had more in common with higher army commanders, such as Manstein, than with the fawning men who surrounded Hitler or the SS bureaucrats who worked for Himmler. The army and the Waffen-SS had been intense rivals in the 1930s, but by the middle of the war much of the tension had gone out of the relationship, particularly among field commanders of the élite Waffen-SS panzer units. The Waffen-SS and army panzer commanders fought side by side in some of the bloodiest battles on the Eastern Front, and soon a mutual respect developed. For a time Hitler would indulge the indiscretions of his favourite SS commanders, such as Dietrich, but by 1944 he was clearly also growing suspicious of them to a degree. Himmler also was not happy with the likes of Dietrich and Hausser openly siding with army commanders against him in policy arguments.

When most of the élite Waffen-SS panzer divisions were posted to France in the spring of 1944 as part of the build-up to counter the expected Allied invasion, their commanders came into contact with a very senior army officer who was involved in a new plot to kill Hitler - Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.

June 1944 was a black month for the Wehrmacht. US and British troops landed in strength in Normandy and Soviet troops smashed Army Group Centre. Around one million German soldiers were either killed or wounded in the space of a few weeks. Germany was now fighting a war on two fronts. In Normandy, the Leibstandarte, Das Reich, Frundsberg and Hohenstaufen Divisions were thrown into battle to try to stem the advance of the British and Americans. Their losses were horrendous and, although they at first checked the Allied advance, senior army and Waffen-SS commanders openly conceded that they could only delay, not defeat, the relentless drive of the Allies in Normandy.

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