On March 17th, 1933. SS General Josef "Sepp" Dietrich received an order from Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of Germany, to create a permanent bodyguard for his Fuehrer, to protect the Reichs Chancellary, the Berghof, and Hitler during his travels [Hitler would wind up with a total of four bodyguard units: an Army Fuehrerbegleit Battalion (later brigade), an RSSF police detail (headed by Johnannes Rattenhuber), a small detail from the SS, and a guard battalion form the LAH. The unit formed by Dietrich, the STABSWACHTE, was formed of 120 handpicked SS men. At the Party Rally in September, at a special ceremony, the unit was re-christened the "LEIBSTANDARTE ADOLF HITLER", and given cuff bands with Hitler's name written in cursive silver thread. Thus the Nazi Party, and Hitler, sought to create a historical nexus between Hitler, Frederick the Great and other German kings and Emperors with famous "Life Guard" units.
Dietrich, an Old Fighter", an early SS man, and a WW I vet [a Sergeant, he was one of the only German military men of WW II who had been a tanker in WW I], had been involved with bodyguarding Hitler since the 1920s. Initially Hitler required a small group of picked SA men to be ready to protect his person and meetings at all his speaking stops. With the creation of the SS, a small group of eight or so men became the STOSSTTRUPPE ADOLF HITLER at party headquarters in Munich.
With the seizure of power, the growth of the SS and increased tension between Hitler and the SA, the SS took over his security, and the LAH was formed. The Leibstandarte soon grew to battalion size in Berlin, and a major headache for Reichsfuehrer SS, Heinrich Himmler. Dietrich took his orders from Hitler, and ignored Himmler when it suited him. At one point, Hitler admonished Himmler tha "Dietrich is master in his own house, which I remind you, is my house".
Still, the Leibstandarte fit into the scheme to create a militarized SS. Initially known as "Asphalt Soldiers" because of their incessant drill and guard duties, the unit was soon taking military training, and was one of the first motorized units in the German Armed forces [along with the division sized SS VERFUNGESTRUPPEN, which would later become the 2nd SS Panzer Division "DAS REICH"].
With the outbreak of war, the LAH, now a regiment, fought in Poland, where their zeal, but rudimentary training led to high casualties, and then, in 1940, in the Lowlands and France. Their combat record was impressive, and Dietrich, in France, showed he could disobey Hitler as well as Himmler, disregarding the halt order in late May, to cross a canal and seize higher ground.
By 1941, the LAH was not only increasingly professional and dangerously competent, they were frightening ruthless. Now a brigade, they spearheaded the drive into Greece [Kurt Meyer won his Knight's Cross there], and were part of Army Group South in the Ukraine. It was here that their reputation for brutality hit new levels [They had already gotten a bad reputation for their conduct in Poland. And at Wormhout, in France, they had murdered British POWs]. Finding mutilated Germans who had obviously surrendered and been tortured and murdered [the number of victims varies from 6 to 42], they killed 3,500 to 4,200 Russian POWs over a three day period.
The Leibstandarte was expanded again, into a Panzer Grenadier Division, and then a Panzer Division. As the 1st SS Panzer Division [along with two other newly formed SS Panzer Divisions, the 2nd "DAS REICH", and the 3rd, "TOTENKOPF", the LAH participated in the Battle of Kursk, leading the advance on the Southern Front for 4th Panzer Armee [Hoth, CG]. Prior to that, as part of SS General Paul Hausser's SS Korps , the LAH played a major roll in Manstein's counteroffensive that ended in the re-capture of Kursk.
After Kursk, the LAH was sent west to re-fit, and spent time in Northern Italy. 1944 found them in France, facing the British in Normandy, and eventually the Americans at Avaranche and Falaise. Battered heavily, and with massive losses in men and equipment, the Leibstandarte was again withdrawn from the front, and seemed to disappear...
They re-appeared on December 16th, in the Ardennes. Now commanded by Wilhelm Monke, and spearheaded by the 1st SS Panzer Regiment, commanded by SS Lt. Col. [later Col.]Jochen Peiper, the LAH was tasked, along with other units, of forcing the Meuse river, and seizing Antwerp from the Allies. Peiper, after initial delays, stormed the Losheim Gap and drove west. But fuel shortages, heavier than expected American resistance, and bad roads and terrain, plus winter weather, slowed and then stopped Peiper. Abandoning his equipment around Christmas Eve, he and his men walked back to German lines. The LAH's bolt was shot. And aside from tanks, half-tracks and other equipment. they left behind almost 100 murdered American prisoners at Malmedy, other murdered POWs further west and at least 130 murdered Belgian civilians.
1945 saw the LAH in Hungary, engaged in an offensive at Lake Balaton to protect the last oil field available to Germany. Ordered to attack by Hitler, they obeyed, despite primordial mud and rain, overwhelming Soviet dominance, and the usual shortages. the attack failed. Hitler, enraged, ordered the Division to be stripped of their "ADOLF HITLER" cuffbands [ He did the same for "GOETZ VON BERLICHINGEN" and other SS units]. The order was supposedly delivered by Himmler himself. An apocryphal story claims that the cuffbands [one with an SS soldier's arm still in it], and various awards and decorations were sent to the Fuehrer in a chamber pot. The division then marched west and surrendered to the Americans. Except for those tried for war crimes, and de-nazification, it was over. And it all started on March 17th, 1933.
