APPENDIX C
Order of the Day to the SS Cavalry Division
Brigadier-General (Oberführer) Hermann Fegelein
14 May 19431
Men of the SS Cavalry Division!
Men of the Waffen-SS!
By order of the Führer I assumed command of the SS Cavalry Division on 20 April 1943.
The tradition of this division is grounded in the very beginnings of the Guard Echelons (Schutzstaffeln; SS) of the N.S.D.A.P. The cornerstone was laid in Munich in 1929 by order of the Reichsführer-SS with the establishment of the 3rd Company, 1st Battalion of the 1st Regiment. It was by way of the Reiter companies that the Reiter regiments and Reiter districts (Abschnitte) of the General SS were developed following the assumption of power in 1933. With the beginning of this great conflict in September 1939, the first 400 cavalrymen of the reinforced SS-Death's Head Units advanced into Poland and subsequently formed the basis of the 1st SS Reiter Regiment. Disbursed in thirteen garrisons across the General Government,2 this regiment supplied cadre for the formation of the 2nd SS Reiter Regiment and thereby for the SS Cavalry Brigade.
The brigade's march of more than 6,000 kilometers, its renowned engagements and battles, and the crowning achievement of the closing of the gap near Rzhev in the winter battles of 1941/42 are a unique witness to the heroism and bravery of all of the blood-related Reich- and ethnic-German units of the Greater German Reich.3
On the basis of trials in the bitterest offensive and defensive battles, in winter as well as summer, the Führer approved the establishment of the SS Cavalry Division. Once again, in the second winter battles of 1942/43, near Smolensk as well as Orel, the division added imperishable fame to its flags. All of that was accomplished through the efforts of the troops whose bravery, determination, and surpassing heroism overcame even the direst crises. A skilled leadership and the instinct for success in war allowed for an avoidance of severe losses.
Even though we were only established during the course of the war, we proceed from the principle that we are the equal of the other regiments and divisions of the Waffen-SS. It is good when every unit desires to be the best. It is good when regiments strive with one another in their accomplishments. No one need maintain that we suffer from presumption when we say that we-constituted as we are from all of the pedigrees (Stämme) of the Reich—desire to be the best men of the whole of Greater Germany. If only others would say the same! Therefore we hold fast to our company (Verband) and because of this pride we lay the greatest worth on a doctrine (Erziehung) that appropriately meets our objectives. Therefore we know nothing of conceit and presumption, because presumption is merely a disputing over one's lack of worth. The great man is always a natural man; he doesn't forget whence he comes.
Our love is Germany's treasure, our loyalty its protection and security. Manly virtues, with loyalty first of all, must determine the course of how we lead our lives.
The tasks the division now faces have been ordered by the Führer because they help protect and strengthen the entire front in the East. It is an honor for us to prove through superior leadership and hard-bitten effort in marching and fighting that we can exterminate the dangerous enemy who opposes us. Our will to exterminate the enemy must be inexorable, without mercy or compassion. Every weakness means a prolonging of the war.
With exactly the same drive and determination with which I commanded the first Reiter Company of the Guard Echelon, I now assume command of the only cavalry unit of the Greater German Army.4 To you I want to be a good superior and comrade.
We have the holy obligation to continue a tradition of the cavalry stretching back thousands of years, one expressed in the words of the Führer:
Let us more strongly close the ring of our great community in the trust of our Volk, filled with the belief in our mission, ready for any sacrifice that the Almighty might demand of us. Then will Germany—the National Socialist Third Reich—pass through the time of distress and trouble, armed with that metal that alone can preserve the knight, unsullied and fearless, in the battle with death and the devil.
Just as we have withstood our many battles and just as so many of us have calmly looked death in the eye, so too do we love the struggle and thereby life.
Long live the Führer!5
Fegelein
1. Translation by the author.
2. The General Government was the rump Polish State administered by, but not annexed to, Germany.
3. “…aller reichs- und volksdetuschen Stammes-Einheiten des Grossdeutschen Reiches.”
4. The Army's 1st Cavalry Division had been officially disbanded in 1941. Ad hoc Army cavalry units, later somewhat more formalized, were nevertheless starting to reappear by the late spring and early summer of 1943.
5. Fegelein did not use the more typical “Sieg heil!”