Tragedy of the Faithful

"Tragedy of the Faithful- A History of the III (Germanisches) SS Panzer Korps" by Wilhelm Tieke.

Another work by Tieke that examines in tactical detail the battles of the III SS Panzer Corps from Narva in 1944 all the way back to Berlin in 1945.


I was interested in this title by a desire to find more on the lengthy German defense around Narva in 1944.  Glantz and other authors such as Zeimke show the battles in broad strokes that showed the several attempts by the Soviets to get around the Narva lines.  Despite a large bridgehead, the Soviets were unable to rout the Germans as they had done on the breakout from Leningrad (Operation Spark).

The book provides a good look at how a flexible fighting force handles one tight situation after another.  From the start of its fighting career, the III SS Panzer Corps was in the hot seat.  First at Narva with the Soviets on two sides, the Baltic and assailable beaches on the third.  Then a fighting withdrawal to the Tannenberg positions, and continued withdrawals and bloodletting back through Riga, Courland, Pomerania, and Berlin.  At various times, the companies of the constituent divisions (11th SS and 23rd SS in various forms) are down to single squad strengths.  Tieke gives a good look at how the various companies in a regiment fight.  The regimental companies (13th, 14th, 15th, 16th) are continually forming rear-guards and assault platoons or, interestingly, combining the with battalion heavy-weapon companies (4th, 8th, 12th) to form shock units.

I always have a tough time picturing how weak battalions hold kilometers-long front with a frontage of 30-40 meters per soldier.  As described in this book, you have basically only an outpost line of machine gun positions every 100 meters or so and backed by mortars and direct-fire guns at choke points. The only strength to this type of position is the layers of reserve and reaction forces supporting the outposts.  There is no question the line will be penetrated, but then the battalion reserve is sent in, maybe an assault-pioneer platoon.  Then there are regimental reserves, usually a company from one of the battalions or the regimental pioneer or motorcycle companies backed by a couple of assault guns.  If the regiment trying to carry out this type is motorized it has the speed and weapons to make the defense work.  If the regiment is a simple grenadier formation without any other support, it is not going to last long against a mechanized assault.

In the early years, the Germans could usually shift enough army-level reserves into a threatened sector and transition from an economical defense to a powerful operational counterattack and even a strategic level counteroffensive.  But by 1944 transitioning to even a minor counterattack against the Soviets was becoming increasingly problematic.  The result is waves of retreats with some pretty sharp fighting in between. 

The "faithful" of the III SS. Panzerkorps refer to the portion of Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians who made up parts of the 11th and 23rd SS Divisions.  But even in the original formation of these SS formations there were large amounts of other ethnic and nationalities, ethnic Germans from Rumania making up a third of the 4th SS Brigade "Nederland" (pre-cursor formation of the 23rd Nederland SS Divsion).  The 11th SS  "Nordland" Division contained only about 1900 "Nordlanders" at its formation in Sept 1943.

The "tragedy" referred to in the title I assume means that the "faithful" should have met a better fate than battlefields deaths in a long retreat and Soviet prison camps.  Tieke tries his best to make the furious counterattacks and final stands as glorious as possible and, de rigueur in this type of book, trots out stories of hope for a force of united western nations fighting against Communism and plots to arrest Hitler foiled by  innocuous obstacles like failing to get in touch with a daughter-in-law.  That's better than "the dog ate my homework." 

Looking at the combat described in the book, the numerous appendices in the book describe several small-unit actions that resulted in Knight's Cross awards that would make excellent wargaming scenarios.