Hitler's Commanders (55 page)

The 501st was stationed at Beauvais, France, on June 6, 1944, when the Allied D-Day invasion came ashore. The following day the SS heavy tank battalion began its march to join the I SS Panzer Corps in Normandy. This was no easy task. Allied airplanes had destroyed most of the bridges south of Paris and made daytime travel an extremely hazardous business. After the 2nd Company had been caught in the open near Versailles and smashed by fighter-bombers on June 8, the 501st traveled only at night. The battalion’s spearhead—Wittmann’s company—arrived in the combat zone during the night of June 12–13 and took up camouflaged positions northeast of Villers-Bocage, in the extreme left-rear of Dietrich’s corps. Wittmann intended to spend the next day repairing some of the bomb damage his tanks had suffered in the approach march. However, the British quickly changed his plans.

On the morning of June 13, a strong combat group from the British 7th Armoured Division found a gap in the too-thin German line, advanced past the left flank of the Panzer Lehr Division, penetrated into the German rear, and passed Villers-Bocage. They had turned the flank of the I SS Panzer Corps and were clearly heading for Caen, the key German position in Normandy and the major obstacle between Montgomery and Paris. They were about three miles east of Villers-Bocage when they were spotted by Lieutenant Wittmann, whose position was far from enviable. He had only five Tiger tanks—all that were still operational after his harrowing approach march. The rest of his battalion was still some distance away, and both Panzer Lehr and I SS Panzer had committed all their reserves to contain fierce British attacks in Tilly and Caen sectors. In other words, Wittmann’s handful of tanks was all that stood between Montgomery and the envelopment of most of the SS panzer corps and the capture of Caen. The SS lieutenant decided to attack immediately. This decision began one of the most spectacular feats of arms in the entire Normandy campaign.

The British column—which included the 22nd Armoured Brigade and elements of the 1st Infantry Brigade—did not expect to meet opposition here and was lax in its security measures. Wittmann opened up on the first British Sherman from a range of 80 meters, instantly reducing it to a mass of flaming metal. Within moments he had knocked out three more Shermans and was closing in on the British column at full throttle.

Consternation broke out in the British ranks as Wittmann’s Tiger blasted its first armored personal carrier (APC). Many British soldiers abandoned their vehicles and fled as Wittmann closed to within 10 to 30 meters of an APC, stopped, fired, watched his target explode into a million pieces, and then moved on to his next victim. A British Cromwell tank fired on Wittmann’s Tiger with its 75mm main battle gun, but the shell bounced harmlessly off the thick armored plating of the German giant. Wittmann turned his 88 on the Cromwell and blew it away. Meanwhile his crew machine-gunned other British soldiers and vehicles that had failed to maintain a proper march interval and were now packed together much too closely. Simultaneously to the south, the light tanks of the British 8th Hussars Regiment (which had come up to help the main column) were attacked by the other four Tigers of Wittmann’s company, and several more Allied tanks were soon abandoned and on fire. Wittmann continued to tear up the enemy spearhead as he proceeded slowly toward Villers-Bocage, destroying at least seven more tanks and several APCs in the process. Meanwhile, SS Captain Rudolf Moebius of the 501st SS Panzer arrived with eight more Tigers, was joined by Wittmann’s other four, and headed straight for Villers-Bocage. He broke into the town and fought a running battle in the narrow streets with British tanks, an anti-tank gun unit, and the now dismounted infantry in the ruins of the French town.

Firing bazookas from windows and doorways, the British destroyed two Tigers and damaged others but were totally smashed in the process. Meanwhile, however, they managed to knock out Wittmann’s Tiger as he entered Villers-Bocage from the other direction. Unable to join Moebius due to the British infantry, Wittmann abandoned his wrecked tank and headed north, where the Panzer Lehr Division was still holding on at last report. The lieutenant and his crew, however, traveled about 10 miles before they reached German lines.

Wittmann’s counterattack had broken the back of the British breakthrough, and Villers-Bocage was back in German hands by nightfall. “Through his determined act,” Sepp Dietrich wrote of Michael Wittmann that night, “against an enemy deep behind his own lines, acting alone and on his own initiative with great personal gallantry, with his tank he destroyed the greater part of the British 22nd Armoured Brigade and saved the entire front of the I SS Panzer Corps from the imminent danger which threatened.” He recommended Wittmann for the Swords to his Knight’s Cross.
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Lieutenant General Fritz Bayerlein, the commander of the Panzer Lehr Division, wrote a similar recommendation. Wittmann received this decoration on June 22 and a few days later was promoted to SS-Hauptsturmfuehrer (captain). As of June 14, he had destroyed 138 enemy tanks and 132 guns.

Despite the urgings of von Rundstedt, Rommel, von Kluge, Dietrich, and others, Adolf Hitler refused to allow Army Group B to retreat from the hedgerow country of Normandy to positions behind the Seine. As a result, the German forces were slowly ground to pieces. On August 8, the II Canadian Corps, supported by 500 British heavy bombers and 700 American airplanes, decimated the German 89th Infantry Division and broke through the German front. They were, however, slow in committing their armored reserve—the 4th Canadian and 1st Polish Armored divisions. Grasping this fact immediately, SS Major General Kurt “Panzer” Meyer realized that the proper course of action would be to launch a sharp counterattack with his 12th SS Panzer Division “Hitler Youth” to pin down the Allies before they could begin to roll south, into the German rear. After two months of constant combat, however, the 12th SS had only 50 operational tanks left, including Michael Wittmann’s company, which had recently been loaned to Meyer by corps headquarters. The young SS general divided his assault forces into two battle groups (under Wittmann and SS Major Hans Waldmueller)
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and attacked at once.

On the last day of his life, Captain Wittmann led the Hitler Youth battle group that recaptured Cintheaux and took the steam out of the Allied drive. The Allies tried to regain their momentum by counterattacking the ruined village with 600 tanks and, after a battle of several hours, actually succeeded in retaking the position. They were too late to take advantage of their earlier success, however, because the Germans had brought up reinforcements. When Panzer Meyer fell back behind the 85th Infantry Division, the German front was no longer in imminent danger of collapse. Michael Wittmann was not with him, however. He had last been seen directing the rearguard, where his lone Tiger was engaged in a fierce combat with five Shermans. He was reported as missing in action that evening and remained missing for the next 43 years.

In 1987, a French highway crew was widening a road near Cintheaux when it unearthed an unmarked grave. In it, they found the remains of Michael Wittmann, the greatest tank ace of all time. He is now buried in the Soldiers Cemetery at La Cambe.

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gustav knittel
is a good example of the kind of young man who joined the Waffen-SS.

Gustav and his twin brother, Bernhard, were born on November 27, 1914, in Neu-Ulm, Bavaria, the sons of a baker.
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Gustav’s life’s ambition was to be a soldier, so he joined the
Allgemeine-SS
(General-SS) and the Nazi Party in the spring of 1934, because he thought membership in these organizations would help him when he applied to join the Reichswehr. It did not. Gustav received his
Abitur
(school leaving certificate, roughly equivalent to today’s high school diploma) in 1934 and promptly tried to enlist in the army but was rejected. (He was one year too early. Hitler’s military expansion did not begin in earnest until 1935.) Disappointed, he enlisted in the Waffen-SS instead and was assigned to the SS-Standarte “Deutschland” of the SS-VT in Ellwangen. He was promoted to SS corporal in 1936 and SS sergeant in 1937.

In a sense, advancement in the Waffen-SS was easier than in the more class-conscious army, and Knittel took advantage of this fact. He applied for officer training and was sent to the SS-Junkerschule at Bad Toelz, where he graduated 7th in his class in 1938. Commissioned SS second lieutenant on November 9, 1938, he returned to the SS Deutschland Regiment. The following summer, he was named adjutant of the SS Reserve Motorcycle Battalion “Ellwangen.” He was promoted to SS first lieutenant on November 9, 1939.

Knittel first saw action in France, as a platoon leader in the 15th (Motorcycle) Company of the LAH, where he did well until he was severely wounded in the left thigh during the attack on St. Pourcain on June 19, 1940. After he recovered, he was given command of the 3rd Company of the Leibstandarte’s Reconnaissance Battalion (later redesignated 1st SS Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion “Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler”). He led this company in the conquests of Yugoslavia and Greece, and in Operation Barbarossa, until July 10, 1941, when he was wounded by shrapnel and shot through the right shoulder as the Leibstandarte stormed the heights at Marchlewsk. After stops at various hospitals, he was sent to the SS replacement and training battalion at Dachau to recover.

Promoted to SS captain on November 9, 1941, Knittel was back in action on the Eastern Front later that month, where he distinguished himself in the capture of Rostov. He continued to lead his company in the retreat to the Mius, after which he was given command of the 3rd (light half-track) company of the 1st SS Recon. This unit was sent to the Sennelager Maneuver Area in Germany, where it was rebuilt and reequipped following its heavy losses on the Russian Front. Knittel and his men were then sent to Normandy, where they recovered from the winter fighting and trained new replacements until after the 6th Army was encircled at Stalingrad. The Leibstandarte was then hurried to the southern sector of the Eastern Front, where it took part in the battles around Kharkov. Knittel was wounded in the leg near Bereka on February 15 and in the left arm near Teterewino on July 11, but he remained with his troops.

In the spring of 1943, Kurt “Panzer” Meyer, the commander of the 1st SS Reconnaissance, was earmarked to command the 25th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment of the 12th SS Panzer Division “Hitler Youth.” Knittel succeeded him as commander of the 1st SS Recon and led it in the Battle of the Kursk and the subsequent retreats through Russia and Ukraine. He was promoted to SS major on April 23, 1943.

In March 1944, Knittel’s battalion held Hill 300 against five major Soviet attacks and enabled the army’s 68th Infantry Division to escape encirclement. For this and other actions, Gustav Knittel was awarded the Knight’s Cross. Shortly thereafter, he returned to Germany for a short leave and married 21-year-old Raymonde Gauthier on May 6. They would have one child, a son named Bruno, who was born on May 28, 1946. Knittel, meanwhile, returned to the war.

After three years on the Eastern Front, Knittel and his men were thrown into the Battle of Normandy a few days after D-Day. Here they were in action almost daily, and the Leibstandarte was again smashed. It was here, as he witnessed the devastating power of the Allied air forces, that SS Major Knittel realized that the war was lost. He nevertheless continued fighting—in Normandy, in the Falaise Pocket, and in the retreat across France to the Siegfried Line. After the retreat ended, Knittel finally managed to secure a noncombat position. Following a brief furlough at Neu-Ulm, Knittel took charge of the 1st SS Field Replacement Battalion at Luebbecke in Westphalia.

Because he knew that the war was lost, Gustav Knittel did not want to return to the front. Meanwhile, however, the brutal Wilhelm Mohnke replaced the badly wounded Theodor Wisch (who lost both of his legs) as commander of the 1st SS Panzer Division.
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It was Mohnke—who had obviously been impressed by Knittel’s performance in Russia—who insisted that he be reassigned as commander of the 1st SS Reconnaissance Battalion. Knittel arrived back at the Western Front on December 13, 1944, where he was named commander of
Schnell Gruppe Knittel
(Fast Group Knittel), a battle group built around the 1st SS Recon. Knittel asked Mohnke to give the command to another, but his appeal was rejected.

The Battle of the Bulge began on December 16. By this point of the war, the 1st SS was almost completely brutalized, especially under Mohnke’s command, and at least a dozen atrocities were committed. On December 17, at Wereth, members of Knittel’s battalion murdered 11 African American soldiers from the U.S. 333rd Artillery Battalion after they had surrendered. It is not clear whether or not Knittel knew about this, but it seems fairly certain that he was aware of atrocities against civilians at Stavelot, Parfondruy, and Renardmont on December 19. It is not certain that he sanctioned these murders, but it is certain that he did little to restrain his men. His battalion was not involved in the Malmedy Massacre, as its route of advance that day was south of Kampfgruppe Peiper, which did the killing. Later in the battle, Knittel covered the retreat of the remnants of Joachim Peiper’s regiment.

For Gustav Knittel, the war ended on December 31, 1944, when American airplanes bombed his command post near Vielsahn. The SS major suffered a serious concussion (his fifth wound of the war). He had not returned to active duty when Adolf Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945.

Following the surrender, Knittel hid out at a farm near Stuttgart. On January 5, 1946, he attempted to visit his wife at Neu-Ulm, but found that agents of the American CIC (Counter Intelligence Service) were waiting for him. He was taken to Schwaebisch Hall, where he was a defendant in the Malmedy trials. He confessed to the murder of American prisoners, but later averred that the CIC obtained the confession as a result of physical abuse and psychological torture. The CIC agents naturally denied this, and Knittel was found guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment on July 16. Six weeks later, his wife filed for divorce.