As part of Paul Hausser’s 2nd SS Panzer Corps, the 9th SS Hohenstaufen moved to normandy with its sister division, the 10th SS Frundsberg. It took them longer to reach Caen from the French border than it had taken to make the journey from Poland to France. All German reinforcements from the east were delayed by virtue of having to pass through the Chartres gap between the Seine and the Loire, which was vulnerable to air attack and French sabotage.
The 9th SS Hohenstaufen division reached the French border on 16 June, but it was another four days before the lead elements were unloaded from their railway carriages between Paris and nancy. It then assembled south of Aunay-sur-odon with a total of 18,000 men, 170 panzers, 21 self-propelled guns, 287 armoured halftracks, 16 armoured cars and 3,670 trucks. Initially the division was deployed south of a line that ran from Falaise to Condé-sur-noireau, but it then moved north between Caen and Villers-Bocage on a line between Tournay-sur-odon and neuillyle-Malherbe.
At a critical moment before their counter-attack the Germans were forced to conduct one of their habitual command reshuffles. ‘willi’ Bittrich suddenly found himself commanding 2nd SS Panzer Corps after Hausser succeeded General dollmann as commander of 7th Army when he dropped dead on 28 June of a suspected heart attack (although General Max Pemsel, his Chief of the General Staff, suspected he may have poisoned himself).
Hausser, with 2nd SS Panzer Corps, organised the counter-attack using the 9th SS. This was scheduled to begin at 0700 on 29 June with the 9th SS on the left of the odon, but attacks by the rAF delayed the preparations until 1430. In addition, in a stroke of bad luck for the Germans, an officer from the 9th SS, with the plans for the coming attack, was out early reconnoitring the routes to Cheux when he was captured. The first group of SS troops captured Grainville-sur-odon and the second group also reached Cheux, but everywhere else the British and Canadians held fast. Several flame-throwing tanks also assisted with the assault on Le Valtru, but although the panzers overran the British infantry, the latter held firm.
During the fighting against the epsom salient, the 9th SS suffered 1,145 casualties and lost sixteen Panzer IVs, six Panthers and ten assault guns. over the next few days the division’s assault guns accounted for forty-nine enemy tanks, while its Panzer IVs and Panthers claimed another thirteen.
In July SS-Brigadeführer Sylvester Stadler took command of the 9th SS, having previously commanded Panzergrenadier regiment Der Führer of the 2nd SS Panzer division. It was units of this regiment, under SS-Sturmbannführer otto diekmann, that had conducted the massacre at oradour-sur-Glane during the division’s march northward to normandy. Stadler was an experienced eastern Front veteran, having gained the Knight’s Cross for his part in the capture of Kharkov in 1943. He had then gained the oak Leaves for the award after his involvement in the massive battle of Kursk. Thomas Müller, who had been acting commander of the 9th SS, subsequently assumed command of the 17th SS Panzergrenadier division for a brief period in September, after SS-oberführer eduard deisenhofer was wounded.
Stadler quickly found his division being thrown into action and recalled the details of the battle:
Within one hour after the division had been taken over, orders for a counterattack on Maltot, etenrille and on Baron by way of Hill 112 were received from the Corps by telephone, and a short time later confirmed in writing. So the attack on Baron was to be launched at 2000 and that on eterville at 1200. Although the time was very short, the execution of this task was still possible thanks to the fact that the SS Panzergrenadier regiment 20 was not too far away and that a tank battalion, together with the artillery, could support the operation from the positions they were in at the time.
Things did not run smoothly as the Allies did all they could to impede the massing of the 9th SS, and in addition its position was compromised by the loss of Hill 112. The latter was to become the scene of heavy casualties for both sides. Stadler discovered flexibility was an increasing prerequisite of such operations:
Concentration of the division was greatly impeded and delayed by serious traffic jams on roads, harassing fire from the enemy artillery directed on villages along the routes of advance and on road junctions, as well as by the strong enemy air activity. In addition to that, the enemy managed at about 1800 to capture Height 112, which dominated the entire Corps sector. Thereupon the mission assigned to the division was altered by the Corps, to the effect that only Height 112, and later eterville, had to be recaptured.
The British quickly contested the 9th SS’s successes at eterville and Hill 112 on the 4th. The panzers managed to knock out a number of British tanks, for little loss, but the panzergrenadiers suffered from the enemy’s artillery. Stadler recalled, perhaps with some pride:
In the course of the forenoon the enemy, in turn, resumed his attacks and managed to take eterville once again, whereas his attacks on Height 112 were repelled with considerable losses. A counter-attack launched immediately on eterville succeeded and, by noon, the village was again in our hands. An extremely heavy and fluctuating battle ensued afterwards for the ruins of eterville, which place changed hands repeatedly until, finally, it was firmly in our possession late in the evening of 4 July 1944…. nevertheless, the panzer Abteilung operating near eterville managed to destroy twelve to fourteen enemy vehicles, whereas they lost only two tanks. Thus, it could be figured out that the enemy losses were at least as high as ours.
During the night of 4/5 July the division was relieved on the eastern sector by elements of the 12th SS and on the western sector by the 10th SS. The British renewed their attacks on 6 July, this time along the road running from Caen to Noyers. To help the 277th Infantry division recapture noyers the 9th SS despatched its armoured reconnaissance battalion. The latter successfully retook the town and remained there in support of the 277th.
The panzers’ regimental HQ was established on 12 July at Bully, about 2.5 miles east of Point 112, between Caen and evrecy. when the British attacked between Gavrus and noyers-Bocage four days later, the division’s tanks were undergoing maintenance. However, the 277th was ordered to counter-attack, supported by the 9th SS. About twenty panzers were mustered to the right of Point 113 north of evrecy, but the British put down smoke and they were forced to withdraw. while Point 113 remained unoccupied, the panzers took Bougy and reached Gavrus, moving up the orne valley. during the various engagements they knocked out a total of forty tanks, including eighteen around Bougy and eight at Point 113 for the loss of just five panzers.
Sylvester Stadler recalled the battle:
A serious crisis occurred only once on the occasion of a concentrated attack carried out by British armoured troops with some forty to fifty tanks late in the evening of 16 or 17 July 1944, on Height 113. All day, the enemy had pounded the hill with undiminished intensity and covered it with a smokescreen. Sometimes, the smoke was so dense that the majority of the troops felt sick and therefore believed that the enemy was using gas.
Stadler remembered the sudden British armed assault which came late in the day and threatened to overwhelm his men. The men of the 9th SS, though, were quick witted and swiftly turned the tables on their attackers, as their commander noted:
Our own tanks, a battalion of about fifteen to twenty tanks, were located on the rear slope of the hill and noticed the enemy only at the very last moment, either on account of the dense smoke, or perhaps owing to the swift and surprising advance of his forces. during the ensuing tank battle, fifteen enemy tanks were destroyed with no losses at all on our side.
By the 17th the exhausted division could muster just thirty-three panzers and fifteen assault guns, while the infantry amounted to little more than a regiment. The 9th SS was called back from the left flank of the 10th SS at the height of the Goodwood battle and positioned in the orne valley, guarding the southern suburbs of Caen. over the next few days the 9th SS helped the 1st SS defeat Montgomery’s Goodwood armoured offensive. notably, on 18 July the division captured sixtyseven tanks, fifty-six of which were destroyed, the rest still running.
The 10th SS and the 272nd Infantry division were instructed to retake St Martin, St André and May-sur-orne east of the river and south of Caen on the 22nd with support from the 9th SS. However, the Panthers of the 9th SS were still engaged around Bougy and could only be freed up slowly. Some were assigned to two companies of the 10th SS, while the rest were to attack south of May. Few of the Panthers materialised, except for those directed to take the high ground northeast of May.
On 30 July Montgomery launched operation Bluecoat southwards towards Vire and Mount Pinçon. By the 31st the 9th SS had lost most of its armour. It remained southwest of Caen until early August, when it moved northeast of Vire. British tanks got to within 5 miles of the town, the very heart of 7th Army’s resistance against the Americans. Preferring to counter-attack against the Americans, who were considered inferior fighters, the Germans first had to secure Mont Pinçon against the British to control the network of roads westwards.
The division was relieved by the 1st SS on 1 August and that night a Kampfgruppe under otto Meyer, including seventeen panzers and assault guns, moved west to take up positions on a line from Arclais to Montchauvet and Montchamp, to the west of Mont Pinçon and between Villers-Bocage and Vire. rAF Typhoons located the SS tank columns in the afternoon of the 2nd and launched 923 sorties, destroying thirteen tanks and seventy-six trucks and holding up the deployment of the German panzers for most of the day. They then held the 15th (Scottish) division with dug-in tanks, 88mm guns and nebelwerfer rocket launchers. Those troops at Montchauvet were embroiled in heavy fighting around Point 170 and although surrounded managed to escape.
On 4 August the 9th SS attempted to cut off the British breakthrough at Chênedollé, knocking out thirty-nine Allied tanks in the process. otto Meyer, near estry with thirty-two panzers and assault guns, had to block the road northwest of Chênedollé and went over to the defensive. on 11–12 August the division claimed another twenty-two enemy tanks in the unrelenting fighting before escaping normandy.
Confident Hitlerjugend panzertruppen (also identified as Hohenstaufen) in France. They are wearing black leather U-boat clothing, comprising jackets and trousers, believed to be specific to this unit. At the beginning of June the 9th SS Panzer division Hohenstaufen had forty-five Panzer IVs, thirty-four Panthers and forty StuG IIIs.
This grimy Hitlerjugend panzergrenadier barely looks 18. He is armed with an MG42 fitted with a drum magazine (though is also carrying a spare ammunition belt). This weapon with attached bipod weighed just over 25lb, and was capable of firing 1,550 rounds per minute.
Das Reich SdKfz 251 caught on the road in Normandy. Hohenstaufen arrived in Normandy with almost 300 of these vehicles.
A Tiger of the 1st SS Panzer Corps in France in 1944. Schwere SS Panzer Abteilung 102 fought with the 2nd SS Panzer Corps in Normandy. Tigers provided the Waffen-SS with added punch in France and were greatly feared by Allied tankers.
The 2nd SS Panzer Corps, comprising the 9th SS and 10th SS Frundsberg Panzer divisions, counter-attacked the Allies’ Normandy bridgehead on 29 June 1944. Hohenstaufen suffered 1,150 casualties, including this Waffen-SS panzergrenadier who was part of an MG42 team.
This is what greeted the Waffen-SS panzer divisions as they deployed to Normandy. Allied bombers targeted the train yards and main roads to impede movement of the panzers. Such attacks by the RAF delayed preparations for Hohenstaufen’s counter-attack on 29 June 1944.
Waffen-SS anti-tank gunners manning a PaK40 anti-tank gun. This weapon, along with the PaK38, was the standard towed anti-tank gun deployed in Normandy with both the Waffen-SS and the army.
Destroyed German equipment. The fighting for Hill 112 was brutal, and Hohenstaufen’s positions were compromised once the Allies had captured it.
Captured teenage Waffen-SS in the distinctive four-pocket camouflage M1944 field tunic and matching trousers. Although it was forbidden to wear insignia on camouflage clothing, they have armeagles. The young man on the right is also wearing a Waffen-SS smock. They have been stripped of their personal gear as none is wearing webbing or helmets.
An abandoned SS Hummel self-propelled gun being examined by US troops.
Bloody carnage wrought by Allied fighter-bombers on German horse-drawn transport in the confines of the Bocage. Normandy became plagued by the stench of rotting horseflesh.
Waffen-SS Panthers took a battering in Normandy. This captured Ausf G was used as target practice to gauge the penetration rates of Allied anti-tank weapons of various calibre. The gun mantlet is particularly damaged, as is the glacis plate on the left, which has been fractured.
Passing GIs look on with interest at a decapitated Panther in France. Both the 1st and 2nd SS Panzer Corps escaped Normandy and the Falaise pocket relatively unscathed and lived to fight another day.