Traditionally, the Germanic rulers of the 18th and 19th centuries had leib (life) units or royal bodyguard units. The Prussian Army of Frederick the Grew included the Leibregiment zu Pferde and the LeibKarabiniers; during the campaign of 1809, the king's Leib-Regiment marched with the Bavarian Army contingent of Napoleon's Grande Armee; and the British Army (whose royal house originated in Hannover) had The Life Guards of the Household Cavalry, which, with The Royal Horse Guards, formed two armored car regiments during WWII.

In that tradition, Germany's 20th Century despot formed his own leib unit: the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH). This unit is probably the only Wehrmacht unit that, today, is familiar to the average non-wargaming American, both because of its name and because of its role in the Battle of the Bulge and its responsibility for the Malmedy Massacre.

First to Fight: 3-2-10 1x 3-2-10 mot Inf III LSSAH (SS)

The LSSAH was formed on March 17, 1933, by Adolf Hitler's long-time crony, Josef "Sepp" Dietrich, two months after the Nazis came to power, from one-hundred-seventeen picked SS men as a Stabswache (headquarters guard) to supplement an existing Fuhrerbegleitkommando (bodyguard unit). The oldest of the Waffen SS units, and at first garrisoned with, trained and even funded by Goring's private army, Polizeiabteilung zbV Wecke, the new unit soon was expanded and moved into its own quarters in the ex-Imperial Prussian cadet college at Berlin-Lichterfelde. By order of September 9, 1933, it was named the Adolf-Hitler-Standarte, and in October 1933 it was officially placed on the state payroll. At the Feldherrnhalle in Munich, the cradle of the Nazi party, each of its 835 men swore a personal oath of loyalty to Hitler at midnight on November 9, 1933. From henceforth it was known as Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler.

Josef "Sepp" Dietrich

Oberstgruppenfuhrer and Generaloberst der Waffen SS Josef "Sepp" Dietrich (1892-1966) was intimately associated with LSSAH from the time of its creation. As far as the author is aware, Dietrich and General George S. Patton were the only two WWII army commanders to have served in combat with tank units in WWI: Patton as a tank brigade commander with the AEF, Dietrich as a tank sergeant in the first German tank unit. For a "he wasn't a Nazi, but a good German fighting against the Bolsheviks" biographical sketch, see Franz Kurowski's contribution to Hitler's Generals, edited by Correlli Barnett.

The men of LSSAH soon were called on to fulfill their oath. Besides guarding and escorting the Fuhrer, acting under Hitler's personal orders, LSSAH firing squads carried out the liquidation of Ernst Roehm and the SA leadership on June 30, 1934. For this, Sepp Dietrich was convicted of manslaughter after the war by a West German court. Thereafter, LSSAH participated in all of Hitler's pre-war bloodless coups: the reoccupation of the Rhineland (1935); the annexation of Austria, the Anschluss (March 1938); the occupation of the Sudetenland (October 1938); and, lastly, the occupation of Bohemia-Moravia (March 1939).

By the start of the war in September 1939, LSSAH was a well-equipped motorized infantry regiment, three battalions strong. In the Polish Campaign, it was assigned to XIII Army Corps of the Eighth Army, and immediately began to earn a reputation by suffering some four hundred casualties in its first taste of real warfare.

A Wachbataillon was formed late in 1939. In one form or another for the rest of the war, LSSAH depot units remained in Berlin (at Lichterfelde until 1944), and continued to mount guard on Hitler. 

Fall of France:
1x 3-10* Motorized III LSSAH (SS)

For FALL GELB, LSSAH received an artillery battalion from the SS VerfUgnungstruppe (the future Das Reich), was attached to Eighteenth Army and marched into Holland. It was then shifted south for the abortive assault on the British positions at Dunkirk, and for the final drive up the Somme.

Balkan Front:
1x 6-10 Mot XX Grp LSSAH (SS)

In August 1940 LSSAH began to be reinforced to brigade strength. When it drove into Yugoslavia and Greece in April 1941, it consisted of three motorized infantry battalions, a heavy-weapons battalion (with self-propelled antitank guns and assault guns), a twobattalion artillery regiment, a reconnaissance battalion and an engineer battalion. At the end of Operation MARTTA, Sepp Dietrich took the surrender of an entire Greek army. By June 22, 1941, though still only at brigade-strength, LSSAH had been redesignated SS-Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, and had added a composite panzer battalion, a flak battalion, and an additional infantry battalion.

Scorched Earth:

Jun II 41:
1x 7-10 PzG XX LSSAH (SS) 7-10

Mar I 42:
Upgrade: 1x 7-10 PzG XX LSSAH (SS) to: 1x 11-10 PzG XX LSSAH (SS)

Jul II 42:
Withdraw: 1x 5-8 PzG Cdr (11-10) LSSAH (SS)

As part of Army Group South, LSSAH fought from Galacia to Rostov on the Don. Its reputation grew and gained a more sinister character. As reprisal for the murder of six captured LSSAH men in March 1942, Dietrich ordered the execution of some 4,000 Russian POWs during a three day period. A battalion formed from the Wachbataillon was flown to the Leningrad front in February 1942, remaining there until June 1942, when it was sent to join the main body then reforming at Stalino.

BARBAROSSA cost LSSAH dearly and by June 1942 it had been decimated. It withdrew to France in July and began reforming as a panzergrenadier division with two large, three-battalion panzer-grenadier regiments, a panzer battalion (raised to a regiment in October 1942), a motorized artillery unit with four battalions; together with reconnaissance, panzerjager, sturmgeschutz and engineer battalions. Like its erstwhile rivals, the Hermann Goring Division and Gross Deutschland, LSSAH was always bigger and usually better equipped than an ordinary army panzer division. Its panzer regiment included a company of Tiger Is until July 29, 1943, when it was used to form the 101st (later 501st) SS Heavy Panzer Battalion, which was attached to the LSSAH in many of its battles for the rest of the war.

Feb I 43:
Arrive: 1x 16-10 Pz XX LSSAH (SS)

Aug I 43:
Withdraw: 1x 7-8 Pz Cadre (16-10) LSSAH (SS)

While LSSAH was reorganizing in France, the situation in the East became critical. In December, another battalion was formed from the Wachbataillon and, as Kampfgruppe Schuldt, fought on the Stalingrad Front until March 1943. In late January 1943, in its new role as part of Hitler's "fire brigade," the rebuilt SS-Panzergrenadier Division LSSAH arrived on the Donets to be thrown in to stem the Russian winter offensive. In March, LSSAH, along with Das Reich and Totenkopf, recaptured Kharkov. Subsequently, the Soviets accused SS troops of murdering 20,000 residents of the city after its fall.

From March to June 1943, LSSAH was in reserve. At this time, Sepp Dietrich was promoted to command the newly created I SS Panzer Corps Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler and was succeeded by Theodor Wisch, one of the 117 original LSSAH members. Cadres, including the entire panzerjager battalion, were furnished for the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitler Jugend, then beginning formation in France. All regimental and many of the battalion commanders of the new division were ex-LSSAH men. Both divisions were intended to make up Dietrich's I SS Panzer Corps. 

In July came CITADELLE, Hitler's last offensive in the East. For this operation, LSSAH, by now a panzer division in organization but not in name, was missing its Panther battalion, still equipping in France. On July 25th, it was pulled from the battle, ordered to turn all of its tanks over to Das Reich and Totenkopf Divisions and move immediately to Italy. As part of Rommel's Army Group B, LSSAH participated in the occupation of Northern Italy and the disarming of the Italian army. After the war, Joachim Peiper, then a battalion commander, was accused by the Italian Government of ordering the burning of the village of Boves and of the mass execution of its residents during an antipartisan campaign. At the same time, other LSSAH soldiers murdered Jews in the Lago Maggiore area and were convicted of war crimes by a West German court in 1970. One regiment was detached for operations in the brutal guerilla war then raging in Yugoslavia.

Nov I 43:
Arrive: 1x 20-10 Pz XX 1 LSSAH (SS)

Apr II 44:
Withdraw: 1x 20-10 Pz XX 1 LSSAH (SS)

However, events in Russia again forced the LSSAH to be rushed to the Eastern Front. Redesignated 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler on October 22, 1943, in November it was committed to the desperate battles in the Ukraine. In early 1944, LSSAH was again wrecked while leading the relief of the Cherkassy pocket and then was pocketed itself as part of Hube's First Panzer Army. It took only a few railway cars to transport the remnants to Flanders in April 1944 for rebuilding.

In June 1944, after D-Day, along with Hitler Jugend, LSSAH was thrown into the battles of attrition against the British and Canadians around Caen. All but destroyed in the breakout from Falaise, LSSAH could only muster a kampfgruppe for the defense of the Westwall around Aachen in October 1944. On August 20, 1944, Wilhelm Mohnke (another of the original LSSAH men) replaced the wounded Theodor Wisch as division commander.

Second Front:
Aug I 43:
Arrive: 1x 7-8* Pz Cadre (16-10) LSSAH (SS)
Convert to: 1x 9-8* Pz Cadre (20-10) 1 LSSAH (SS)

Nov II 43:
Withdraw to East: 1x 20-10 Pz XX 1 LSSAH (SS)

Apr II 44:
Arrive: 1x 20-10 Pz XX 1 LSSAH (SS)

Jan II 45:
Withdraw to East: 1x 20-10 Pz XX 1 LSSAH (SS)

Rebuilt yet again, LSSAH marched into history and infamy as the spearhead of Dietrich's Sixth Panzer Army for Hitler's last offensive in the West, WACHT AM RHEIN. As at Kursk, it went into combat missing one panzer battalion, but reinforced with 501st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion and its 34 Tiger IIs. The ensuing Malmedy Massacre is still a subject of great controversy and revisionism fifty years later. Suffice it to say that for the murder of some 72 American soldiers and an unknown number of Belgian civilians, 73 members of LSSAH, including Sepp Dietrich (the army commander), Fritz Kramer (commander of I SS Panzer Corps), Hermann Priess (acting commander of LSSAH), and Joachim Peiper were put on trial. All were convicted and 43 were sentenced to death. All of the sentences were commuted and the last defendant was released from prison by 1956. On July 14, 1976, Peiper, then living in France, was killed by unknown assailants.

In January 1945, LSSAH, along with other SS divisions of the now Sixth SS Panzer Army, was rushed for the last time to the Eastern Front in a vain attempt to relieve the besieged city of Budapest.

When the relief attempt failed, Hitler flew into a rage and ordered that the cuff titles of all of the divisions, including LSSAH (from February 6, 1945, led by its fourth and last commander, Otto Kumm), be taken away. Sepp Dietrich refused to carry out the order and allegedly mailed all his own decorations (including the Knight's Cross with Oakleaves, Swords and Diamonds) back to the Fuhrer. It was Dietrich who, in the Gotterdamerung of the Third Reich, led the LSSAH and the rest of the SS divisions of the Sixth SS Panzer Army from Vienna to surrender to the Americans in upper Austria. The division's depot unit lived up to LSSAH's original oath to Hitler and perished in the final Battle for Berlin, albeit with 710 of its members missing. 

There is no question that the Leibstandarte deserves its reputation as one of the best combat units of the Wehrmacht in World War II. Nevertheless, there is also no question that it also deserves its reputation as one of the most brutal of Hitler's SS units. When a Europa player pushes that sinister black 20-10 counter across the steppes of the Soviet Union or through forests of the Ardennes, he can appreciate the former, but also should never forget the latter.

Special OB Notes

While the formation of the units necessary to convert LSSAH to a full-fledged panzergrenadier division began in February 1942, these units did not join the division until after it arrived in France; conversion to a panzer division began in October 1942; in Jul 43 and Dec 44, the division should be shown with a -4 PzG marker.

Selected Bibliography

Bender, Roger James and Hugh Page Taylor, Uniforms, Organization and History of the Waffen SS, Volume 2, San Jose: R. James Bender Publishing, 1971 (1986 edition).
Dupuy, Trevor N. et al., Hitler's Last Gamble, New York: HarperCollins, 1994.
Game Designers Workshop and Game Research/Design, The Europa Series.
Hoehne, Heinz (translated by Richard Barry), The Order of the Death's Head, New York: Ballentine Books, 1977.
Lehmann, Rudolf (translated by Nick Orcott), The Leibstandarte I, Winnipeg: J. J. Fedorowicz Publishing, 1987.
Lehmann, Rudolf (translated by Nick Orcott), The Leibstandarte II, Winnipeg: J. J. Fedorowicz Publishing, 1988.
Lehmann, Rudolf (translated by Nick Orcott), The Leibstandarte III, Winnipeg: J. J. Fedorowicz Publishing, 1990.
Lehmann, Rudolf & Ralf Tiemann (translated by Nick Orcott), The Leibstandarte IV/1, Winnipeg: J. J. Fedorowicz Publishing, 1993.
Reitlinger, Gerald, The SS Alibi of a Nation 1922-1945, London: Arms and Armour Press, 1981.
Stein, George H., The Waffen SS, Hitler's Elite Guard at War, 1939-1945, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1966.
Tessin, Georg, Verbande and Truppen der Deutschen Wehrmacht and Waffen SS im Zweiten Weltkrieg 1939-1945, Osnabruck: Biblio Verlag, 1973.