Unit History
In early 1943, plans were put into motion to form a twelfth division of
the Waffen-SS. Unlike some divisions which had been previously formed,
it was not to be made up of foreigners, ethnic Germans or a mixture of the two.
After three years of war And now facing a serious manpower shortage,
the Waffen-SS fell upon a vast, highly acceptable and all-German pool of
recruits. The Hitlerjugend. recruiting started in the spring of 1943 and by
midsummer the required number of recruits had been assembled at the Belgian
military training area at Beverlo. The young volunteers of the
division belonged to the age group born in 1926 and were 16-17 years old during the
training. The officers of the new division came principally from the
1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler (LAH)
and from other divisions of the Waffen-SS. There were also about fifty
army officers among them who had originally been in the officer corps of the
Hitlerjugend. As the LAH and other replacement units of the various
arms of service could not provide sufficient amounts of NCOs, young
volunteers, after completing their basic training, were trained in the Waffen-SS
NCO school in Lauenburg or in NCO courses within the division and after
successfully completing these, were employed as NCOs.
Under the guidance of very capable officers, the division
carried out very thorough training. Most of the training was combat
training in the field. Special emphasis was placed on firearms
training in realistic combat conditions. In January 1944 the division
began to train as a body but still struggled to find sufficient amounts of tanks
and other vehicles. While waiting for the new vehicles, the division
used many captured French and Italian vehicles, mainly trucks and motorcycles.
This problem was soon taken care of as the required number of German
vehicles began to arrive. In early April 1944 the division left
Belgium and moved into the reserve area in Normandy between Vitmoutiers and
Rouen. It was here that Generaloberst Heinz Guderian, inspector of the
armored troops came to observe the division in large scale exercises.
Guderian was pleased and the 12th SS Panzer Division
Hitlerjugend was declared fully operational and was to
await the expected allied invasion of France. On July 6,
1944 the allied armies landed on the beaches of Normandy beginning the
liberation of Europe. After hours of confusion, Panzer Group West
finally issued the following orders to the 12th SS at 3:05pm:To the 12th SS
Panzer Division: Division to move forward immediately north of the axis
Alencon-Carrouges-Flers into the area around Evrecy. The division
subordinated initially to the LXXXIV Army Corps.Assignment: Operating on the
left flank of the 21st Panzer Division, throw the enemy west of the Orne into
the sea and destroy him. By 4:30pm the 20,540 men of the
division were on the march from their various positions in Normandy with the
intent on carrying out the order and smashing the allied armies on the beaches
north-west of Caen. Traveling at night, the elements of the 12th SS
were able to reach the front by early morning June 7, 1944 with relatively
little hassle from enemy aircraft. After the forward reconnaissance
units, the first elements of the Division to reach Caen were the 25th SS Panzer
Grenadier Regiment under SS-Standartenfuhrer Kurt Meyer (Panzermeyer),
the 2nd Battalion of the 12th SS Panzer Regiment (Prinz), and the 3rd Battalion
of the 12th SS Panzerartillerie Regiment (Bartling). Meyer
took up his command post in the Abbey Ardenne which was situated north-west of
Caen and had large towers which provided an excellent view of the battlefield.
From the Abbey, Meyer derived a plan for the counterattack of his
kampfgruppe (battlegroup). The attack was planned for 4:00 PM And
called for all three infantry battalions to attack abreast with support of the
five panzer companies and the artillery from the 3rd Battalion.
The situation changed rapidly however and Meyer was forced
to change his plans because of increasing enemy pressure in the area.
About 2:00 PM the forward elements of the 3rd Canadian Infantry
Division were pressing south down the main road from Villons-Les-Buissons to
Carpiquet where they planned to capture the airfield there. As the
Canadian Armor and infantry passed through Authie towards Franqueville, they
were stunned by a violent counter-attack by the 12th SS Panzer Division.
Sweeping through Authie And Buron, the III Battalion of the 25th
Regiment and the 5th and 6th Panzer Kompanies annihilated C Company of the North
Nova Scotia Highlanders and badly mauled the rest of the battalion.
The 12th SS also managed to destroy 28 Canadian tanks and numerous
other vehicles before pulling back to the northern fringe of Authie.
At 3:00 PM the II Battalion attacked from its positions
south of St. Contest with limited success which was hampered by the loss of its
commander SS-Sturmbannfuhrer Hans Scappini. At 4:15 PM the I
Battalion (Waldmuller) attacked with support of the 8th Panzer Kompanie
(Siegel). The Kampfgruppe reached Cambes where it was engaged by the
right flank of the 3rd British Infantry Division. After destroying
numerous enemy tanks and inflicting heavy losses, the Battalion pulled to the
southern fringe of the village and entrenched itself in defensive positions.
The elements of Panzermeyers Kampfgruppe had
stopped the enemy cold by 6:00 PM, but because of the withering Allied naval
gunfire and his mounting casualties, he was forced to call off the attack.
His whole regiment was ordered to dig in on the line they had
gained, During the early morning hours of June 8th, the 26th SS Panzer Grenadier
Regiment under the SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Wilhelm Mohnke began to
arrive at its jump-off positions to the West of Meyers Kampfgruppe.
They were given order to attack and secure the villages of
Norrey-en-Bessin, Bretteville-Orgueilleude, Putot-en-Bessin, and
Brouay. The Regiment went into battle without tank support and faced
the 7th Brigade of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division which also was dug into
position in these villages. At 3:00 AM on June 8th, the I
Battalion (Krause) advanced from Cheux towards Norrey-en-Bessin where they took
over a group of buildings to the north-west called Cardenville and continued the
advance. However the Canadian artillery was too strong and the
Battalion was forced to dig in short of Norrey on the high ground along the Mue
River. The II Battalion (Siebken) attacked Putot-en-Bessin around
6:00AM. In a violent sweep, the grenadiers soon had A, B, And C
Companies of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles totally surrounded and nearly wiped them
out as they tried to retreat under cover of smoke. With the village
now in German hands, the Canadians counterattacked about 9:30 PM with an
infantry battalion, an armored squadron and several companies of machine gun
battalions. The numerically superior enemy with tank support forced
the SS to pull to the southern fringe of the village and dig into positions
there. The III Battalion (Olboeter) moved into action about 8:00 AM
and attacked the village of Bouray and the woods to the south-west with little
hassle from the enemy. The village was found unoccupied and the
grenadiers dug into defensive positions in this area. To the
west, the 12th SS Reconnaissance Battalion under SS-Sturmbannfuhrer
Gerhard Bremer was given the task of holding the divisions left
flank. Under increasing pressure the battalion was forced to pull back
into line across Cristot to Brouay where it was linked to the 3rd Battalion of
the 26th regiment on the right and to the Panzer Lehr Division on the left.
The main body of the Division was now on the defensive on
the line it had gained in the first hours of its counter-attacks on June 7th and
8th. The Allies had been dealt a serious setback, since their D-Day
objective was to capture Caen and the Carpiquet Airfield there. In
fact, the Allies, despite the advantage of naval gunfire, control of the skies,
and numerically superior tanks and personnel were not able to capture Caen for
33 days mainly because of the fanatical fighting qualities of the 12th Panzer
Division. Along the line of the 12th SS, the Canadian held
village of Norrey-en-Bessin was protruding into the German lines like an enemy
finger. The 12th SS was determined to take the village and establish a
solid line from Bremers reconnaissance battalion on the left of
Waldmullers 1st battalion to the extreme right. To
accomplish this, an attack was planned for the night of June 8th to take
Bretteville and would use the Reconnaissance Company of the 25th SS Panzer
Grenadier Regiment and the 1st And 4th Kompanies (Panthers) from the I Battalion
(Jurgensen) of the 12th SS Panzer Regiment which had just arrived at the front.
With Kurt Meyer leading in his BMW and sidecar (Meyer had
promised his recon company that he would join them in their baptism of fire) the
column rolled from Rots towards the objective of Bretteville and fought all
night in and around the village. Although the attack was initially a
success, the Germans were forced to call off the attack because of stiff allied
resistance and lack of support from the infantry of Mohnkes 26th
Panzer Grenadier Regiment who were unable to advance. Two
more times the 12th SS would try to crack the allied hold on Norrey-en-Bessin
without success mainly because of the tenacious fighting of the Regina Rifle
Regiment who held the town. Further attacks on this village were
postponed because of enemy attacks coming from this vicinity.
On June 14th the divisional commander of the 12th SS,
SS-Brigadefuhrer Fritz Witt was killed by naval gunfire at his
headquarters in Venoix. The division was then handed over to
SS-Standartenfuhrer Kurt Meyer. The 25th Regiment went to
SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Milius. The rest
of June consisted of some stinging defeats for the British and Canadian Armies
as they unsuccessfully tried to take the positions of the 12th SS.
During the four weeks after the invasion, the 12th SS was always at
the focal point of the fighting for Caen. Successfully, they repelled
all attempts of the allies to take the city despite superior numbers and
complete air supremacy. This however drained the 12th SS of the much
needed manpower for the planned counter attack toward the sea and it never did
happen. By the first week of July the allies had massed such an amount
of men and material outside of Caen that the 12th SS had no choice but to
withdraw south of the city to take up new positions. The allies
finally moved into Caen on July 9th, thirty three days after the invasion.
On July 19th the 12th SS was in action again. This time it
was the British-Canadian Operation Goodwood that drew them into the fighting.
By July 20th the attack had been stopped near Vimont and the 12th SS
remained in line there for the next two weeks. The 12th SS was then
pulled out of the line and formed the reserve of the I SS Panzer Corps.
Being the only mobile reserve in the area, the 12th SS was turned into
a fire brigade and was continually hurled into the breaches of the line to seal
off breakthroughs of greatly superior enemy forces. During the first
weeks of August, the 12th SS played a decisive role in halting two separate
offensives of the 1st Canadian Army. Operation Totalize and Tractible
were stopped in their tracts between Caen and Falaise by typical tenacious
combat techniques of the 12th SS. In Operation Totalize, the remaining
sixty tanks of the division were faced by 600 tanks of the allied armies.
In some cases grenadiers tied explosives to their bodies and jumped
onto the enemy tanks, destroying the tank and themselves. Operation
Tractible was the last drive towards Falaise and the 12th SS managed to stop it
on the last ridge before the city. The next day the Canadians broke
into Falaise from the west and in an act of defiance, fifty to sixty
SS Grenadiers fought to the last man in the cities Ecole Superieure.
Withdrawing to the west, the division was placed on the
northern side of the pocket now being formed around Chambois. Meyer
was given the order from the 7th Army to hold the northern side of the pocket
open, allowing as many German troops out as possible. It was about
this time that SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Max Wunsche was captured
by the British. He had just been awarded the Oakleaves to the Knights
Cross in recognition for SS Pz. Rgt.12s actions in Normandie.
In a period of two months, his unit had destroyed no fewer than 250
enemy tanks. On August 20th the 12th SS Pz. Div. pulled out of the
Falaise pocket and crossed the Seine River ending their campaign in Normandie.
After a short time to rest and refit, the Division was at
the front again. This time the 12th SS was covering the German
withdrawal from France. On September 6th near the Franco-Belgian
border, SS-Oberfuhrer Kurt Meyer was captured by the Americans as the
rest of the Division fought with the advancing GIs trying to enter Belgium.
In November, the Division was transferred to Germany where
it linked up with its Replacement Battalion at Nienburg 60 km south of Breman.
At this time the 12th SS took on the much needed replacements, tanks
and equipment. Most of the personnel came from the Kriegsmarine and
the Luftwaffe. After the capture of Kurt Meyer, the Division was under
the command of SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Hubert Meyer until it arrived in
Germany. In November, SS-Standartenfuhrer Hugo Kraas took
command of the Division and then assigned to the 6th Panzer Army under Sepp
Dietrich. On December 16, 1944 the 12th SS took an active
role in the Ardennes Offensive. Starting on the northern sector, the
Division was given the right flank of the 6th Panzer Army to protect as it moved
forward towards Malmedy. Stiff allied resistance forced the Division
to swing left and follow the path of the Leibstandarte. By New Years
Day 1945the 12th SS was one of the many German units forming around Bastogne.
The German front was under heavy pressure from the flanks of the
salient and the troops, including those of the HJ Division, were forced to
withdraw. By January 18th the German armies had returned to the
positions they had held before the offensive had begun.
There would be no time for rest because on January 20th the
entire 6th Panzer Army was ordered to the east. The plan was to attack
Russian elements that had surrounded Budapest and had trapped German units
there. Before the end of the month, the Division was transferred by
rail to Hungary. Being in Army Group South, it was one of the first to
arrive. In early February, before the attack was launched, HJ and
elements of the Leibstandarte attacked and successfully destroyed a Russian
bridgehead which had been established on the River Gran. On March 6th
the main operation started and the 12th SS advanced along the northern side of
Lake Balaton. After limited success, the attack bogged down in the
spring mud at Danube. By the middle of March, the 12th SS
was on the retreat heading for Austria. By April 13th, the Division
was forced west of Vienna passing Odenburg and Hirtenburg and finally arriving
near Linz and the Americans. On May 8th the division crossed the
demarcation line near the town of Enns and entered American captivity.
Proud and defiant until the end, they refused to comply with the
American order that their vehicles be draped with white flags as a token of
surrender.
the Waffen-SS. Unlike some divisions which had been previously formed,
it was not to be made up of foreigners, ethnic Germans or a mixture of the two.
After three years of war And now facing a serious manpower shortage,
the Waffen-SS fell upon a vast, highly acceptable and all-German pool of
recruits. The Hitlerjugend. recruiting started in the spring of 1943 and by
midsummer the required number of recruits had been assembled at the Belgian
military training area at Beverlo. The young volunteers of the
division belonged to the age group born in 1926 and were 16-17 years old during the
training. The officers of the new division came principally from the
1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler (LAH)
and from other divisions of the Waffen-SS. There were also about fifty
army officers among them who had originally been in the officer corps of the
Hitlerjugend. As the LAH and other replacement units of the various
arms of service could not provide sufficient amounts of NCOs, young
volunteers, after completing their basic training, were trained in the Waffen-SS
NCO school in Lauenburg or in NCO courses within the division and after
successfully completing these, were employed as NCOs.
Under the guidance of very capable officers, the division
carried out very thorough training. Most of the training was combat
training in the field. Special emphasis was placed on firearms
training in realistic combat conditions. In January 1944 the division
began to train as a body but still struggled to find sufficient amounts of tanks
and other vehicles. While waiting for the new vehicles, the division
used many captured French and Italian vehicles, mainly trucks and motorcycles.
This problem was soon taken care of as the required number of German
vehicles began to arrive. In early April 1944 the division left
Belgium and moved into the reserve area in Normandy between Vitmoutiers and
Rouen. It was here that Generaloberst Heinz Guderian, inspector of the
armored troops came to observe the division in large scale exercises.
Guderian was pleased and the 12th SS Panzer Division
Hitlerjugend was declared fully operational and was to
await the expected allied invasion of France. On July 6,
1944 the allied armies landed on the beaches of Normandy beginning the
liberation of Europe. After hours of confusion, Panzer Group West
finally issued the following orders to the 12th SS at 3:05pm:To the 12th SS
Panzer Division: Division to move forward immediately north of the axis
Alencon-Carrouges-Flers into the area around Evrecy. The division
subordinated initially to the LXXXIV Army Corps.Assignment: Operating on the
left flank of the 21st Panzer Division, throw the enemy west of the Orne into
the sea and destroy him. By 4:30pm the 20,540 men of the
division were on the march from their various positions in Normandy with the
intent on carrying out the order and smashing the allied armies on the beaches
north-west of Caen. Traveling at night, the elements of the 12th SS
were able to reach the front by early morning June 7, 1944 with relatively
little hassle from enemy aircraft. After the forward reconnaissance
units, the first elements of the Division to reach Caen were the 25th SS Panzer
Grenadier Regiment under SS-Standartenfuhrer Kurt Meyer (Panzermeyer),
the 2nd Battalion of the 12th SS Panzer Regiment (Prinz), and the 3rd Battalion
of the 12th SS Panzerartillerie Regiment (Bartling). Meyer
took up his command post in the Abbey Ardenne which was situated north-west of
Caen and had large towers which provided an excellent view of the battlefield.
From the Abbey, Meyer derived a plan for the counterattack of his
kampfgruppe (battlegroup). The attack was planned for 4:00 PM And
called for all three infantry battalions to attack abreast with support of the
five panzer companies and the artillery from the 3rd Battalion.
The situation changed rapidly however and Meyer was forced
to change his plans because of increasing enemy pressure in the area.
About 2:00 PM the forward elements of the 3rd Canadian Infantry
Division were pressing south down the main road from Villons-Les-Buissons to
Carpiquet where they planned to capture the airfield there. As the
Canadian Armor and infantry passed through Authie towards Franqueville, they
were stunned by a violent counter-attack by the 12th SS Panzer Division.
Sweeping through Authie And Buron, the III Battalion of the 25th
Regiment and the 5th and 6th Panzer Kompanies annihilated C Company of the North
Nova Scotia Highlanders and badly mauled the rest of the battalion.
The 12th SS also managed to destroy 28 Canadian tanks and numerous
other vehicles before pulling back to the northern fringe of Authie.
At 3:00 PM the II Battalion attacked from its positions
south of St. Contest with limited success which was hampered by the loss of its
commander SS-Sturmbannfuhrer Hans Scappini. At 4:15 PM the I
Battalion (Waldmuller) attacked with support of the 8th Panzer Kompanie
(Siegel). The Kampfgruppe reached Cambes where it was engaged by the
right flank of the 3rd British Infantry Division. After destroying
numerous enemy tanks and inflicting heavy losses, the Battalion pulled to the
southern fringe of the village and entrenched itself in defensive positions.
The elements of Panzermeyers Kampfgruppe had
stopped the enemy cold by 6:00 PM, but because of the withering Allied naval
gunfire and his mounting casualties, he was forced to call off the attack.
His whole regiment was ordered to dig in on the line they had
gained, During the early morning hours of June 8th, the 26th SS Panzer Grenadier
Regiment under the SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Wilhelm Mohnke began to
arrive at its jump-off positions to the West of Meyers Kampfgruppe.
They were given order to attack and secure the villages of
Norrey-en-Bessin, Bretteville-Orgueilleude, Putot-en-Bessin, and
Brouay. The Regiment went into battle without tank support and faced
the 7th Brigade of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division which also was dug into
position in these villages. At 3:00 AM on June 8th, the I
Battalion (Krause) advanced from Cheux towards Norrey-en-Bessin where they took
over a group of buildings to the north-west called Cardenville and continued the
advance. However the Canadian artillery was too strong and the
Battalion was forced to dig in short of Norrey on the high ground along the Mue
River. The II Battalion (Siebken) attacked Putot-en-Bessin around
6:00AM. In a violent sweep, the grenadiers soon had A, B, And C
Companies of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles totally surrounded and nearly wiped them
out as they tried to retreat under cover of smoke. With the village
now in German hands, the Canadians counterattacked about 9:30 PM with an
infantry battalion, an armored squadron and several companies of machine gun
battalions. The numerically superior enemy with tank support forced
the SS to pull to the southern fringe of the village and dig into positions
there. The III Battalion (Olboeter) moved into action about 8:00 AM
and attacked the village of Bouray and the woods to the south-west with little
hassle from the enemy. The village was found unoccupied and the
grenadiers dug into defensive positions in this area. To the
west, the 12th SS Reconnaissance Battalion under SS-Sturmbannfuhrer
Gerhard Bremer was given the task of holding the divisions left
flank. Under increasing pressure the battalion was forced to pull back
into line across Cristot to Brouay where it was linked to the 3rd Battalion of
the 26th regiment on the right and to the Panzer Lehr Division on the left.
The main body of the Division was now on the defensive on
the line it had gained in the first hours of its counter-attacks on June 7th and
8th. The Allies had been dealt a serious setback, since their D-Day
objective was to capture Caen and the Carpiquet Airfield there. In
fact, the Allies, despite the advantage of naval gunfire, control of the skies,
and numerically superior tanks and personnel were not able to capture Caen for
33 days mainly because of the fanatical fighting qualities of the 12th Panzer
Division. Along the line of the 12th SS, the Canadian held
village of Norrey-en-Bessin was protruding into the German lines like an enemy
finger. The 12th SS was determined to take the village and establish a
solid line from Bremers reconnaissance battalion on the left of
Waldmullers 1st battalion to the extreme right. To
accomplish this, an attack was planned for the night of June 8th to take
Bretteville and would use the Reconnaissance Company of the 25th SS Panzer
Grenadier Regiment and the 1st And 4th Kompanies (Panthers) from the I Battalion
(Jurgensen) of the 12th SS Panzer Regiment which had just arrived at the front.
With Kurt Meyer leading in his BMW and sidecar (Meyer had
promised his recon company that he would join them in their baptism of fire) the
column rolled from Rots towards the objective of Bretteville and fought all
night in and around the village. Although the attack was initially a
success, the Germans were forced to call off the attack because of stiff allied
resistance and lack of support from the infantry of Mohnkes 26th
Panzer Grenadier Regiment who were unable to advance. Two
more times the 12th SS would try to crack the allied hold on Norrey-en-Bessin
without success mainly because of the tenacious fighting of the Regina Rifle
Regiment who held the town. Further attacks on this village were
postponed because of enemy attacks coming from this vicinity.
On June 14th the divisional commander of the 12th SS,
SS-Brigadefuhrer Fritz Witt was killed by naval gunfire at his
headquarters in Venoix. The division was then handed over to
SS-Standartenfuhrer Kurt Meyer. The 25th Regiment went to
SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Milius. The rest
of June consisted of some stinging defeats for the British and Canadian Armies
as they unsuccessfully tried to take the positions of the 12th SS.
During the four weeks after the invasion, the 12th SS was always at
the focal point of the fighting for Caen. Successfully, they repelled
all attempts of the allies to take the city despite superior numbers and
complete air supremacy. This however drained the 12th SS of the much
needed manpower for the planned counter attack toward the sea and it never did
happen. By the first week of July the allies had massed such an amount
of men and material outside of Caen that the 12th SS had no choice but to
withdraw south of the city to take up new positions. The allies
finally moved into Caen on July 9th, thirty three days after the invasion.
On July 19th the 12th SS was in action again. This time it
was the British-Canadian Operation Goodwood that drew them into the fighting.
By July 20th the attack had been stopped near Vimont and the 12th SS
remained in line there for the next two weeks. The 12th SS was then
pulled out of the line and formed the reserve of the I SS Panzer Corps.
Being the only mobile reserve in the area, the 12th SS was turned into
a fire brigade and was continually hurled into the breaches of the line to seal
off breakthroughs of greatly superior enemy forces. During the first
weeks of August, the 12th SS played a decisive role in halting two separate
offensives of the 1st Canadian Army. Operation Totalize and Tractible
were stopped in their tracts between Caen and Falaise by typical tenacious
combat techniques of the 12th SS. In Operation Totalize, the remaining
sixty tanks of the division were faced by 600 tanks of the allied armies.
In some cases grenadiers tied explosives to their bodies and jumped
onto the enemy tanks, destroying the tank and themselves. Operation
Tractible was the last drive towards Falaise and the 12th SS managed to stop it
on the last ridge before the city. The next day the Canadians broke
into Falaise from the west and in an act of defiance, fifty to sixty
SS Grenadiers fought to the last man in the cities Ecole Superieure.
Withdrawing to the west, the division was placed on the
northern side of the pocket now being formed around Chambois. Meyer
was given the order from the 7th Army to hold the northern side of the pocket
open, allowing as many German troops out as possible. It was about
this time that SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Max Wunsche was captured
by the British. He had just been awarded the Oakleaves to the Knights
Cross in recognition for SS Pz. Rgt.12s actions in Normandie.
In a period of two months, his unit had destroyed no fewer than 250
enemy tanks. On August 20th the 12th SS Pz. Div. pulled out of the
Falaise pocket and crossed the Seine River ending their campaign in Normandie.
After a short time to rest and refit, the Division was at
the front again. This time the 12th SS was covering the German
withdrawal from France. On September 6th near the Franco-Belgian
border, SS-Oberfuhrer Kurt Meyer was captured by the Americans as the
rest of the Division fought with the advancing GIs trying to enter Belgium.
In November, the Division was transferred to Germany where
it linked up with its Replacement Battalion at Nienburg 60 km south of Breman.
At this time the 12th SS took on the much needed replacements, tanks
and equipment. Most of the personnel came from the Kriegsmarine and
the Luftwaffe. After the capture of Kurt Meyer, the Division was under
the command of SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Hubert Meyer until it arrived in
Germany. In November, SS-Standartenfuhrer Hugo Kraas took
command of the Division and then assigned to the 6th Panzer Army under Sepp
Dietrich. On December 16, 1944 the 12th SS took an active
role in the Ardennes Offensive. Starting on the northern sector, the
Division was given the right flank of the 6th Panzer Army to protect as it moved
forward towards Malmedy. Stiff allied resistance forced the Division
to swing left and follow the path of the Leibstandarte. By New Years
Day 1945the 12th SS was one of the many German units forming around Bastogne.
The German front was under heavy pressure from the flanks of the
salient and the troops, including those of the HJ Division, were forced to
withdraw. By January 18th the German armies had returned to the
positions they had held before the offensive had begun.
There would be no time for rest because on January 20th the
entire 6th Panzer Army was ordered to the east. The plan was to attack
Russian elements that had surrounded Budapest and had trapped German units
there. Before the end of the month, the Division was transferred by
rail to Hungary. Being in Army Group South, it was one of the first to
arrive. In early February, before the attack was launched, HJ and
elements of the Leibstandarte attacked and successfully destroyed a Russian
bridgehead which had been established on the River Gran. On March 6th
the main operation started and the 12th SS advanced along the northern side of
Lake Balaton. After limited success, the attack bogged down in the
spring mud at Danube. By the middle of March, the 12th SS
was on the retreat heading for Austria. By April 13th, the Division
was forced west of Vienna passing Odenburg and Hirtenburg and finally arriving
near Linz and the Americans. On May 8th the division crossed the
demarcation line near the town of Enns and entered American captivity.
Proud and defiant until the end, they refused to comply with the
American order that their vehicles be draped with white flags as a token of
surrender.