Very true, but it was one of the crack Waffen SS tank units, a different body of men from their political counterparts. They treated their prisoners with reasonable courtesy, collected the wounded, quickly provided medical treatment and gave the dead decent buriels. I am quoting from the diary of an officer from the Gloustershire Regiment provided to me by his family. Stefan.
I wasn't aware either of the 2 SS divisions had any tanks in France 1940 (hope to be proven wrong). Units of one of those, SS Totenkopf, the ones that ran away at Arras, murdered 97 British soldiers at La Paradis. The SS have never been honourable warriors, but a few of their divisions were sometimes capable, especially on the Eastern Front.
The. Liebstandarte distinguished themselves at Wormhout, killing around 70 British PW on 28th May 1940.
The only really exceptional Waffen SS units, were the first 3 in their 1943 Panzer Grenadier form at Kursk. However, much of the reasons for these three formations combat ability was that they were twice the size of a US armoured division.
The Waffen SS claimed to have greater faith in the Fuhrer. Fighting power is a function of skill as well as the numbers and skill.
I remember a Wehrmacht report post France 1940 stating that the SS Units were capable but were prone to take above average casualties. The fact that they were usually the top of the list for new equipment gave them an edge over other Wehrmacht units, with perhaps the Grossdeutschland being the exception.
Is it a fact that the SS actually were at the top of the list for the best equipment? I think I read that at least in the beginning they were behind the Heer for the good stuff. Sorry that I don't have a source. Might have been Guderian's "Panzer Leader".
Mea Culpa Dave, I do apologise! Just came across this article about it. I tend to take a lot of the content in Panzer Leader with a grain of salt but this article would back up your post! Have a look here: Equipment Quality of the Waffen-SS
June 1944 in Normandy. I can't think of any Waffen-SS Divisions in Italy before that. I think there was the odd regiment but not a full division. Happy to be corrected. Edit:Waffen-SS fought Australians in Greece but not sure if that was a full Division. Nope they were a Brigade-Group. Waffen-SS - Wikipedia
As it is mentioned, in May 1940, in France vs SS Totenkopf division. After that not before Normandy 1944. They were not, they were more or less similar to size of standard German panzer grenadier division, with some additional elements, like company of Tigers. But, unlike majority of German divisions in winter 1943 on the East Front, when they arrived in Russia, they were at full strength, well trained, and had some very experienced officers.
The Iststarke(the actual strength at the time of reporting.) for the 3 Waffen SS divisions on the eve of Kursk were: LSSAH - 22,643 Das Reich - 20,380 Totenkopf - 20,912 The actual Verpflegungsstärke (ration strength) was: LSSAH - 20,933 Das Reich - 19,812 Totenkopf - 19,176 It should be borne in mind that the Sollstärke (authorized strength) would be different to these figures.
