Obedient Unto Death: A Panzer-Grenadier of the Leibstandarte: SS Adolf Hitler Reports

225 Pages·2014·4 MB·English

by  Kindler

Originally published in German in 2010 as
Mit Goldener Nahkampfspange
Werner Kindler – Ein Panzergrenadier der Leibstandarte.
This English edition first published in 2014 by Frontline Books
an imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd,
47 Church Street, Barnsley, S. Yorkshire, S70 2AS
www.frontline-books.com
Copyright © Munin Verlag
Deutsche Buchunion GmbH
Translation copyright © Frontline Books, 2014
Foreword copyright © Frontline Books, 2014
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Contents
List of Plates
Foreword by Charles Messenger Preface and Translator’s Notes
Introduction
Chapter 1 From a Farm in Danzig into the Leibstandarte-SS Adolf
Hitler
Chapter 2 Russia 1941–1942: My First Ten Close-combat Days
Chapter 3 I Become a Panzer Grenadier
Chapter 4 The Battle for Kharkov, 27 January–29 March 1943
Chapter 5 The Seizure of Byelgorod, 18 March 1943
Chapter 6 Interlude and Preparations for Kursk, 29 March–4 July 1943
Chapter 7 Operation Citadel – the Kursk Offensive
Chapter 8 12 July 1943 – The Death Ride of the Soviet Tanks at
Prochorovka
Chapter 9 The Leibstandarte in Italy, 5 August–24 October 1943
Chapter 10 Back to the Eastern Front, 15–30 November 1943
Chapter 11 Operation Advent and the Fighting in the USSR to March
1944
Chapter 12 The Reorganisation in Flanders, April to June 1944
Chapter 13 Invasion: Securing the Mouth of the Scheldt, 6–17 June 1944
Chapter 14 Action in Normandy, 30 June–20 August 1944
Chapter 15 Tilly-la-Campagne, Caen and Falaise to the Westwall: 25
July–November 1944
Chapter 16 The Führer-Escort Company, the Gold Clasp and Preparing
for the Ardennes
Chapter 17 The Ardennes Offensive, 16–24 December 1944
Chapter 18 Transfer to Hungary, January–February 1945
Chapter 19 Operation South Wind, 17–24 February 1945, and the
Retreat from Hungary
Chapter 20 The Fighting on Reich Soil, 1 April–8 May 1945
Notes
List of Plates
The author.
A visit to the house of Hitler’s parents at Leonding near Linz, winter
1940.
Units of 4th SS-Totenkopf Standarte parade through a Dutch town,
autumn 1940.
The author’s No 19 (MG) Company, LAH in 1941.
SS-Captain Heinz Kling, commander No 18 Company LAH, 1941.
Peiper issuing his final instructions from an APC before an attack.
Company commanders and the Battalion adjutant.
The APC battalion in winter with the new MG 42.
The APC battalion often launched night attacks in Russia.
Panzer grenadiers of the Battalion preparing for a counter-attack.
Karl Menne of No 12 Company.
Kharkov, March 1943.
12 March 1943. APCs of No 11 Company in Kharkov.
Panzer grenadiers in an APC near Mk IV panzers of the LAH.
SS-Corporal Hannes Duffert on a tank-gun APC of No 14 Company.
Men in an APC watch a direct hit close by.
Jochen Peiper decorates a young panzer grenadier during the Kursk
offensive.
The author’s company commander at Kursk.
An APC with a 3.7cm anti-tank gun.
The author’s Grille in Italy, August 1943.
Awards of the Iron Cross First Class on 16 September 1943 in Italy.
Fritz Schuster of No 12 Company.
The APC battalion marching through Reggio-Emilia.
SS-Leading Grenadier Werner Kindler.
The Iron Cross First Class; the Close-combat Clasp in silver; the Wound
Badge in gold.
Awards of the Close-combat Clasp in silver for service on the Eastern
Front.
Training on the new APCs delivered before the invasion.
In Bree, Belgian Flanders, before the invasion.
In July 1944 the author’s platoon was equipped with six APCs armed
with 7.5cm guns.
Foreword
T
here is no doubt that Werner Kindler was a very brave soldier and
was probably very lucky to survive the war. He was also clearly a
dedicated member of the Waffen-SS and appears to have retained his
Nazi views throughout his life. True, Kindler had cause to be hostile
towards the Poles. His family lived in the so-called Polish Corridor,
which Germany had had to surrender to newly independent Poland after
the First World War, and, as ethnic Germans, suffered. He therefore
welcomed the German invasion of Poland. He then found himself in the
SS Totenkopf, with whom he did his military training before joining the
Leibstandarte, which had originally been formed as Hitler’s personal
guard. He entered Russia with it at the beginning of July 1941 and
remained with the division until the very end of the war. Three spells on
the Eastern Front, northern Italy over the time of the Italian surrender to
the Allies, Normandy, the Ardennes counteroffensive, Hungary, and
finally Austria provided the author with a wealth of combat experience.
Kindler claims that Hitler launched a ‘preventive war’ against the
USSR because it was poised to strike at Germany and cites an article in
Pravda of June 2001 and a book by Viktor Suvorov, nom de plume of
Vladimir Rezun, a Soviet army officer who defected to the West in 1978.
Rezun wrote a number of books claiming that Stalin intended to attack
and was supported by a number of German and Russian historians. It
was, however, a total myth in that, largely as a result of Stalin’s purges,
the Soviet Armed Forces were in no fit state to launch any form of attack
and were still undergoing drastic reforms resulting from their poor
showing against the Finns during the winter of 1939–40. Their posture in
June 1941 was solely defensive.1
When we get on to the actual fighting and what it was like, Kindler
says little about his own feelings and experiences. The only aspect that he
does recount in detail is the medals and other awards that he earned. In
particular, he details every day that counted towards his Close-combat
Badge. It is difficult not to believe that he was what the British called in
the Second World War a ‘gong hunter’, although he does also recount the
awards won by his comrades. Otherwise, the book is more a history of
his battalion, 3rd Battalion, 2nd SS-Panzer Grenadier Regiment, which he
calls the APC Battalion. His ultimate hero is its commanding officer,
Jochen Peiper, who time and again displayed extraordinary leadership
and tactical flair, qualities which he would take with him when he was
promoted to command 1st SS-Panzer Regiment, also in the Leibstandarte
and under which Kindler’s battalion often fought.
What is revealing is the author’s views on general aspects of the war.
The Russians are guilty of atrocities against German soldiers, but there is
no mention of those perpetrated by the Waffen-SS and the German
Army. He has little regard for Germany’s enemies, except perhaps the
Western Allies’ air power, but Allied bomber crews are dubbed
‘terrorists’. Unconditional Surrender meant the adoption of the
Morgenthau Plan, which aimed to strip Germany of all its industry. This,
indeed, was Allied policy until more realistic measures were adopted at
the July 1945 Potsdam Conference and the German propaganda machine
made much of it during the last months of the war. Kindler, however,
goes one further, claiming that the intention was also to literally
emasculate the German male population. When it comes to the December
1944 Ardennes counteroffensive and, in particular, the Malmédy
Massacre, he claims that Peiper and his men were forced to make false
confessions. As for himself, he was not at the scene since his sub-unit was
providing security for the battle group’s supply echelon. As to who did
carry out the murder of the US soldiers, Kindler offers no explanation.
Finally, he noted that morale plummeted when Hitler’s death was
announced.
What then to make of this book? Some will view Kindler as an
arrogant and cold-blooded warrior, who delighted in combat. Others
may consider him as a man displaying intense loyalty to his country.
What his writing does reveal, however, is something of the mind-set of
the Waffen-SS soldier, whose fighting spirit was largely forged from the
very close bonds which existed among his officers and their men, bonds
much closer than those in the Army. Add in National Socialist
indoctrination and one begins to understand what motivated them to
continue to fight with the same intensity long after the prospect of
ultimate victory had vanished.