The 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich

"Certainly my first recourse from now on when looking at the SS panzer divisions. Give yourself a treat and buy a copy ASAP if tanks are your thing" (Army Rumour Service).

The Das Reich Division was the most infamous unit of the Waffen-SS. Originally a paramilitary formation raised to protect the members of the Nazi Party, it was founded in 1934 as the SS-Verfügungstruppe. During the invasion of Poland, the unit fought as a mobile infantry regiment. After the Battle of France, the SS-VT was officially renamed the Waffen-SS, and in 1941, the Verfügungs-Division was renamed Reich, later Das Reich.

By the time Das Reich took part in the battle of Moscow, it had lost sixty percent of its combat strength. It was pulled off the front in mid-1942 and sent to refit as a panzer-grenadier division. Returning to the Eastern Front, Das Reich took part in the fighting around Kharkov and Kursk. Late in the year, it was designated a panzer division.

In 1944, the unit was stationed in southern France when the Allies landed in Normandy. The following days saw the division commit atrocities, hanging one hundred local men in the town of Tulles in reprisal for German losses, and massacring 642 French civilians in Oradour-sur-Glane, allegedly in retaliation for partisan activity in the area. Later in the Normandy fighting, Das Reich was encircled in the Roncey pocket by US 2nd Armored Division, losing most of their armored equipment. Das Reich surrendered in May 1945.

"Another fascinating piece of military history from the opposite point of view . . . this doesn't purport to be an illustrated history of the Reich, but it damn well is!" -Books Monthly

Auteur

Yves Buffetaut is an internationally respected French military historian and editor of Histoire & Collections major magazine, Militaria. He lives in France.