The 12. SS-Panzer-Division “Hitlerjugend” was ordered formed in early 1943 from volunteers of the Hitlerjugend born in 1926, with a cadre of experienced officers and NCOs drawn mainly from the 1. SS-Panzer-Division “Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler.” Officially established as a Panzergrenadier-Division on 20 July 1943 and redesignated a full Panzer-Division on 30 October 1943, it trained at Beverloo in Belgium under its first commander SS-Brigadeführer Fritz Witt and reached a strength of over 20,000 men by the spring of 1944. Equipped with Panzer IV and Panther tanks of SS-Panzer-Regiment 12 together with SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 25 and SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 26, the division was transferred to Normandy in March 1944 as part of I. SS-Panzerkorps. It entered combat on 7 June 1944 north-west of Caen, launching determined counter-attacks against Canadian and British forces around Buron, Authie and Putot-en-Bessin. After Witt was killed by naval gunfire on 14 June, command passed to SS-Standartenführer Kurt Meyer, under whom the division fought stubbornly in the defence of Caen and later helped keep the Falaise pocket open long enough for thousands of German troops to escape. Severely depleted, the remnants were withdrawn and rebuilt before taking part in the Ardennes offensive in December 1944 under SS-Brigadeführer Hugo Kraas. In early 1945 the division was transferred to Hungary, where it fought in Operation Frühlingserwachen and the subsequent retreat through Austria, finally surrendering to the 7th US Army on 8 May 1945 near the Enns river. Throughout its existence the division’s youthful but fanatical rank-and-file, led by battle-hardened veterans, earned a reputation for tenacious defence while also being responsible for several war crimes against civilians and prisoners.
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SCHWERTERTRÄGER
SS-Brigadeführer Kurt Meyer (1910-1961) was born on 23 December 1910 in Jerxheim to a working-class family and joined the Hitlerjugend in 1925, the NSDAP in 1930 and the SS in 1931 before transferring to the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler in 1934 as SS-Untersturmführer. He commanded the 14. Panzerabwehr-Kompanie during the Polish campaign, receiving both classes of the Eisernes Kreuz, and later led the SS-Aufklärungs-Abteilung of the Leibstandarte through the Western campaign and the Balkans. On 18 May 1941 he was awarded the Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes as SS-Sturmbannführer for the bold capture of the Klisura Pass and the subsequent cutting-off of Greek forces near Kastoria during the Greek campaign. On the Eastern Front his reconnaissance battalion fought in Operation Barbarossa and the Third Battle of Kharkov; for a series of aggressive thrusts that shattered Soviet cavalry formations and blocked enemy withdrawal routes east of Kharkov he received the Eichenlaub on 23 February 1943 as SS-Obersturmbannführer, the 195th award. In mid-1943 he became Kommandeur of SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 25 in the newly formed 12. SS-Panzer-Division “Hitlerjugend”. After the death of SS-Brigadeführer Fritz Witt on 14 June 1944 he assumed command of the division itself, becoming one of the youngest divisional commanders in the German forces. For his determined leadership of the heavily outnumbered division in the bitter defensive battles around Caen and during the breakout from the Falaise pocket he was awarded the Schwerter on 27 August 1944 as SS-Standartenführer, the 91st award, and promoted to SS-Oberführer and later SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen-SS. Captured near Namur on 6 September 1944, he was later convicted of war crimes related to the shooting of Canadian prisoners, had his death sentence commuted, and was released in 1954; he died of a heart attack in Hagen on his fifty-first birthday, 23 December 1961.
Source :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12th_SS_Panzer_Division_Hitlerjugend
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