Inlägg
av Battler » 31 mars 2002, 16:48
Får väl ta Totenkopf i försvar
[/quote]Waffen-SS Death's Head ("Totenkopf") Division, one of the most powerful and legendary, but controversial, units in military history. Initially formed in part from former concentration camp guards, the units' first commander, Theodore Eicke, was the man Heinrich Himmler trusted previously to perform his most important security tasks. Eicke intended his unit to be a fanatical National Socialist warrior elite, and trained his men accordingly. From their baptism of fire in the blitzkrieg across France in 1940, to their fighting on the Eastern Front for the rest of the war, the Death's Head division distinguished itself with courage, tenacity, and fanaticism wherever it fought. Fighting against the Red Army on the Eastern Front as a Panzer Division, this unit became one of the German High Command's key spearheads in the attack, and its "fire brigade" when there was a crisis at the front, counter-attacking communist breakthroughs relentlessly. Time and again, this crack formation of the Eastern Front stemmed and slowed Soviet breakthroughs long enough for other formations to regroup and reconstitute the front. Time and again this elite Panzer Division smashed through Soviet lines to rescue surrounded and trapped German forces from almost certain annihilation.
Totenkopf is one of the most potent but defamed units in military history. Seeing hard action in all the notable battles of the Eastern Front, this unit was never able to shake off vilification due to its origins, despite their distinguished records as front-line soldiers, the accolades of nearly every regular Army General they served under, and the fact that most of the former camp guards had become casualties in the first few years of the war. Thus, the title, "Like a Rock Against the Sea," came from one such congratulatory note authored by a grateful Army General describing their effectiveness at the front against Bolshevik hordes. As a consequence, this unit took more casualties than perhaps any other of the German Armed Forces in World War II.
At the end of the war, the men of this unit suffered a fate even grimmer than their long ordeal fighting the Red Army. After voluntarily surrendering to U.S. forces at the end of the war and becoming Prisoners of War legally protected under the Geneva Convention, they were illegally turned over to Stalin's revenge squads. Those several hundred that resisted this illegal transfer, knowing full well what it meant, were shot by U.S. soldiers -- two war crimes that have gone unrecognized now for over fifty years. Of over 10,000 men illegally turned over to Communist jailers, only a few thousand survived the long years of forced labor in Siberia.[quote][/quote]
