Following Stalin’s hugely successful summer offensive in 1944, Field Marshal Model turned to the waffen-SS for assistance in stabilising the shattered front north of warsaw. while the 1st SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler and 2nd SS Das Reich Panzer divisions had been shipped west to re-equip after their mauling in the Kamenets-Podolskiy pocket, the 3rd SS Totenkopf and 5th SS Wiking Panzer divisions remained in romania and Poland, re-arming.
Although the 5th SS may have been the first and best of the foreign waffen-SS divisions in terms of combat performance, its behaviour left much to be desired. Wiking, like so many of its SS counterparts, was regularly involved in war crimes throughout the conflict on the eastern Front. on a number of occasions the division was responsible for the massacre of Jews. discipline also proved to be a problem with the violent mistreatment of Soviet prisoners and civilians, which often led to cold-blooded murder. Complaints were even raised by neighbouring German and Slovak divisions about looting by the 5th SS in the Mius river area.
The 3rd SS had an equally unsavoury reputation. In october 1939, after the Polish campaign, three SS Totenkopfverbände (SS-VT) concentration camp guard regiments, numbering some 6,500 men, formed the SS division Totenkopf (motorised). This took part in the invasion of the west and was responsible for the La Paradis massacre.while recuperating in southern France in november 1942 after serving in russia, it became the SS Panzergrenadier division Totenkopf and on 22 october 1943 was redesignated a panzer division. during 1943 it had fought at Kharkov, Belgorod and Kursk.
The 3rd SS Totenkopf was notified to move north as early as 25 June 1944, but disruption to the rail networks and roads meant that it took two weeks to get to northeastern Poland. Arriving on 7 July, it found the red Army was already striking towards the Polish city of Grodno, threatening the southern flank of Army Group Centre’s 4th Army and the northern flank of 2nd Army.
Deployed to Grodno, the 3rd SS was assigned the task of creating a defensive line for 4th Army to retire behind. Spectacularly, the division held off 400 Soviet tanks for eleven days before withdrawing southwest towards warsaw. Joined by the Hermann Göring Panzer division at Siedlce, 50 miles east of the Polish capital, they held the Soviets for almost a week from 24 July, keeping open an escape corridor for 2nd Army as it fled towards the Vistula. Three days later the Soviets threw almost 500 tanks to the south and by the 29th were at the suburbs of warsaw.
The 5th SS arrived in western warsaw on 27 July and trundled through the city to take up positions to the east. The next day Stalin ordered General rokossovsky to occupy Praga, warsaw’s suburbs on the eastern bank of the Vistula, and to establish a number of bridgeheads over the river to the south of the city. rokossovsky at this stage enjoyed a three to one superiority in infantry and five to one in armour and artillery. His front had at its disposal nine armies. Against all this, Model’s 2nd Army could muster four understrength panzer divisions and one infantry division, while 9th Army had just two divisions and two brigades of infantry. However, four panzer divisions, the 3rd SS, 5th SS, 4th and 19th, poised to counterattack, now defended the approaches to the Polish capital.
The 5th SS struck in a westerly direction from Stanislawow with fifty panzers in an effort to link up with the Hermann Göring and 19th Panzer divisions, then fighting a tank battle at okuniew and ossow. The panzers were repulsed and on the evening of the 31st the Soviets took okuniew, but could not budge the Germans from their strongpoint at ossow. north of the Soviet 8th Tank Corps, the 3rd Tank Corps remained unsupported and, like the 16th Corps, had endured a day of heavy attacks from German armour, artillery and infantry. The commander of the Soviet 2nd Tank Army was in an impossible position: his units were enduring heavy casualties, he was short of supplies and his rear was under threat.
Rokossovsky simply could not fulfil his orders to break through the German defences and enter Praga by 8 August; it was simply not possible. on the 1st at 1610 hours he ordered the attack to be broken off just as Model launched his major counter-attack. Model began to probe the weak spot in rokossovsky’s line between Praga and Siedlce. His intention was to hit the Soviets in the flank and the rear, and soon the 39th Panzer Corps was counter-attacking the 3rd Tank Corps to the northeast of warsaw and driving it back to wolomin.
The 3rd SS and three other army panzer divisions were to strike south into the unsupported Soviet columns. From wegrow, pushing towards wolomin, came the 5th SS. At the same time the 3rd SS was launched into the fray from Siedlce towards Stanislawow with the intention of trapping those Soviet forces on the northeastern bank of the dluga.
General nikolaus von Vormann, appointed to command 9th Army, bringing up reinforcements from 2nd Army’s reserves, also launched a counter-attack. Using units of the 5th SS and 3rd SS attacking from the forests to the east of Michalow, he drove the Soviet 8th Guards Tank Corps from okuniew at 2100 hours on 1 August and linked up with 39th Panzer Corps from the west.
By 2 August the 19th Panzer division, followed by the 4th Panzer division, was in radzymin and the Soviet 3rd Tank Corps was thrown back towards wolomin. The following day the Hermann Göring Panzer division rolled into wolomin. Vedeneev’s 3rd Tank Corps was trapped in the city. Attempts by the 8th Guards Tank Corps and the 16th Tank Corps to reach them failed, with the 8th Guards suffering serious casualties in the attempt.
After a week of heavy fighting the Soviet 3rd Tank Corps was surrounded by the 4th and 19th Panzer divisions; in the fighting, some 3,000 Soviet troops were killed and another 6,000 captured. The Soviets also lost 425 of the 808 tanks and selfpropelled guns with which they had begun the battle on 18 July. By noon on the 5th the Germans had ceased their counter-attack and the battle for the Praga approaches had come to an end.
The 3rd Tank Corps was destroyed and the 8th Guards Tank Corps and the 16th Tank Corps had suffered major losses. The exhausted Soviet 2nd Tank Army handed over its positions to the 47th and 70th Armies and withdrew to lick its wounds with the wehrmacht fully tied up fending off Soviet attacks, it was left to Himmler’s hated SS police units to stamp out the Polish rising.
A motley battle group of 12,000 troops under SS-Gruppenführer Heinz reinefarth, supported by thirty-seven assault guns and a company of heavy tanks, was also assembled to crush the Polish Home Army in warsaw. SS reinforcements included SS-Brigadeführer Kaminski’s hated anti-partisan russian national Liberation Army (Russkaia Osvoboditelnania Norodnaia Armiia – SS-Sturmbrigade ronA). This was also known as the 29th waffen-Grenadier division der SS and was one of the worst SS units ever created. Kaminski was supported by SS-oberführer oskar dirlewanger’s equally appalling anti-partisan brigade designated the 36th waffen-Grenadier division der SS. Both were little better than ill-disciplined militia.
General Heinz Guderian, Chief of the General Staff, was appalled by the conduct of Kaminski and dirlewanger’s men:
Some of the SS units involved – which incidentally were not drawn from the waffen-SS – failed to preserve their discipline. The Kaminski Brigade was composed of former prisoners of war, mostly russians who were ill-disposed towards the Poles; the dirlewanger brigade was formed from German convicts on probation. These doubtful units were now committed to desperate street battles where each house had to be captured and where the defendants were fighting for their lives; as a result they abandoned all moral standards.
By 26 August the 3rd SS had been forced back to Praga, but a counter-attack by them on 11 September thwarted another red Army attempt to link up with the trapped Polish Home Army. It was the 3rd SS and 5th SS who had the dubious honour of consigning warsaw to two months of bloody agony. They were not, though, directly involved in the suppression of the warsaw uprising.
After sixty-two days, and the loss of 15,000 dead and 25,000 wounded, the Polish Home Army surrendered in warsaw on 2 october. Up to 200,000 civilians had also been killed in the needless orgy of destruction. The vengeful Himmler expelled the rest of the civilian population and ordered warsaw to be flattened. The Wiking and Totenkopf Panzer divisions were to remain on the eastern Front until the end of the war. Both fought in Hungary against the red Army in early 1945, then withdrew to Austria to surrender to the Americans.
In the summer of 1944 two SS panzer divisions, the 3rd SS Totenkopf and the 5th SS Wiking were instrumental in stopping the red Army before warsaw. This Wiking Panther has an extremely crude camouflage scheme that appears to be three-tone and was evidently hand-painted.
Wiking Panzergrenadiers outside warsaw. The 5th SS deployed to the east of the city in late July 1944 and struck towards wolomin.
Officers and men of the Wiking division about to go into action. There seems to be some doubt over which route they should be taking. The division had a full battalion of Panthers at the start of the battle to hold warsaw.
This Panzer IV Ausf H belongs to the 3rd SS Panzer division Totenkopf and also has a three-tone camouflage, this time sprayed on. It lacks the Zimmerit anti-magnetic coating.
A Tiger I serving with the Totenkopf division, photographed in 1944. Totenkopf deployed to Poland in late June 1944 but took two weeks to get to the northeast of the country.
The Panthers had to fend off Soviet tanks on the flat plain outside warsaw that was ideal tank country. operations by the waffen-SS and German army resulted in the destruction of the Soviet 3rd Tanks Corps, with two other corps badly mauled.
Smiling Soviet troops examine a knocked-out Panther. The red Army suffered a very serious defeat at radzymin and wolomin.
The soldiers of the Polish Home Army lacked heavy weapons to resist the Germans. The warsaw Uprising commenced on 1 August 1944 but the tank battles fought east of the city ensured the Home Army was cut off for two months before being forced to surrender.
Polish fighters from the ‘Czata 49’ Battalion in the wola district with British-supplied PIAT (Projector Infantry Anti-Tank) man-portable antitank weapons. Against panzers the PIAT had an effective range of about 115 yards but could manage three times that as an indirect fire weapon.
Polish fighters with the ‘Zoska’ Battalion supported by the ‘wacek’ tank platoon using a captured Panther on the corner of okopowa and wolnosc Street.
The ‘Zośka’ Battalion employed two captured Panthers, both of which had been heavily damaged and had to be abandoned on 11 August 1944.
wacław Micuta ‘wacek’ commanded the Home Army’s tank platoon. He is pictured here with one of the captured Panthers.
Polish Home Army troops from the 8th ‘Krybar’ regiment with an SdKfz 251 captured from the 5th SS, photographed on 14 August 1944.
The Poles also had a single home-made armoured car built by supporters of the ‘Krybar’ regiment using a Chevrolet 157 van. It was dubbed Kubuś or ‘Little Jacob’ by its crew and was armed with a machine gun and home-made flame-thrower. Miraculously it survived the war.
Members of Kaminski’s hated SS-Sturmbrigade ronA in warsaw. This ill-disciplined russian militia was originally created for anti-partisan operations on the eastern Front. The man on the right in the panzertruppen uniform with the PoA arm shield is from the russian Liberation Army, a separate organisation that came under the Army and not the SS.
Children examine a burnt-out Panzer IV destroyed in warsaw in September 1944 during the uprising. It may have belonged to Totenkopf, though no divisional signs are visible.
Bronislav Kaminski and his men perpetrated the most appalling atrocities in warsaw and he was swiftly disowned by both the waffen-SS and the army. Himmler ordered his execution.
A unit of the Polish Home Army surrendering to the Germans in warsaw on 5 october 1944. After the red Army failed to reach them, their fate was sealed.
After the warsaw uprising, most of the city was systematically flattened.