They were one of the most ruthless and barbaric units inside of the German armed forces during World War II.

But many of their soldiers were just teenagers and at the end of the war their commander was convicted for horrific war crimes.

The 12th SS Panzer Division, Hitler Yugand or Hitler Youth, was at its peak made up of over 21,000 fanatical German soldiers, and they would commit many atrocities and crimes in response to the D-Day landings of June the 6th, 1944.

They also in the Arden regions shot their prisoners of war.

And they were also horrific in their treatment of civilians, in particular, women in French towns and cities.

But they were decimated in the battle of the filet pocket and would surrender to the United States Army in May 1945.

Despite many of the soldiers being so young, they were known to have been some of the most dangerous and disturbed young soldiers who took to the battlefields of the Second World War.

But why did they shoot their enemies when they captured them? And why did they commit such terrible war crimes? When Hitler came into power, he realized that he needed to galvanize support within the youth of Germany, and his attempts to brainwash them into his politics were incredibly important to him to establish a successful dictatorship.

Many youth groups were set up, but specifically for young boys and teenagers, there was the Hitler Youth, the HJ or Hitler Yugand.

It was a paramilitary organization and young boys between 14 and 18 were forced to join and those who were younger joined a similar organization.

Many think that the Hitler Youth was a boy club similar to the scouts.

But the truth was that this organization was horrific and brutal in its indoctrination of young people and Hitler was training these hundreds of thousands of young boys to become soldiers who would one day lay their lives down for Hitler and the Reich.

At its peak, there were 8 million members, which is a terrifying figure as Hitler had these men, well, young boys, at his disposal to use in a military fashion.

All were taught how to handle weapons and how to perform basic military procedure and drills.

But the idea for a Voffan SS division was first proposed by Artur Axman, the leader of the Hitler Youth, and he spoke to Hinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, about pushing these older boys into the fighting of the Second World War.

This was quickly passed, and a division was created for boys who were born in 1926, and Hitler approved the plan.

Within a few months, the division had 16,000 soldiers, and they were trained ruthlessly.

They were further indoctrinated in the SS ideology and the Nazi policies and one member of the division claimed that I quote in the Voffen SS you couldn’t do anything if an unfura hit you during the training.

The purpose of the training is to make you just as they are.

It’s pure sadism.

The perception with the Vafen SS is that the allies during World War II often shot these soldiers on site when captured as they were considered the most dangerous of soldiers.

as they were on an ideological crusade to wipe out their enemies.

It was the SS who ran the concentration camps too, oversaw the Nazi death squads and caused such death and devastation.

Particularly, the teenagers were seen as dangerous because they had grown up in a world where Hitler dominated their lives.

And they were seen as fearsome because of their political beliefs and ideologies.

In March 1944, the division was sent to Normandy and they were officially designated as a 12th SS Panzer Division, Hitler Youth, and they were equipped with over 150 tanks.

They were tasked with fighting back following D-Day.

But even before they arrived in the Normandy region, the forces were committing horrific executions and atrocities.

On the 1st of April 1944 in Ask in France, they executed 86 French men in reprisal for a resistance attack on a railway.

A commander, SS Fura Valter Hawk, ordered his soldiers to round up all men nearby to a railway and they then gathered 70 and these were shot next to the railway line.

Inside of the village, another 16 were shot and were killed.

This was all in reprisal for an attack on a railway infrastructure.

When they arrived in Normandy, the division struggled to move forwards towards the landing beaches as they were told to wait for instructions from the German armed forces high command.

They were sent to the front to hold 12 hours after the first reports of the Allied landings had taken place and they tried to move particularly towards Sword and Juno beaches where the British and Canadians had landed.

They the following day failed to break through the Canadian ranks near Bon.

In the fighting in Normandy, the 12th SS Panzer Division, Hitler Youth, did inflict significant damage upon enemy tanks, and they also took part in brutal hand-to-hand fighting.

One eyewitness claimed that from each blackened turret of a tank, hanged the charred corpse of a machine gunner.

They also committed what became known as the Arden’s Abbey massacre in Normandy.

On the second day of operations during Operation Overlord on the 7th of June, 11 captured Canadian prisoners of war were taken to the Arden’s Abbey and they were all shot in the back of the head in the graveyard.

Another nine was shot and it was specifically young men of the 12th SS who pulled the trigger and brought these men’s lives to an end.

They were selected to do this because of their fanaticism and they had no issue with executing their enemies.

These enemy men though were technically prisoners of war, meaning that they should have been given prisoner of war protections.

However, the shooting and execution of them was a war crime.

As the 12th SS were pushed back from Normandy, eventually they were pushed into the file’s pocket and the group along with others were instrumental in opening a corridor out of the pocket, allowing 10,000 German soldiers to avoid encirclement.

But in their retreat from France, they slaughtered dozens of French civilians out of anger.

But the divisional losses were huge in Normandy.

They lost around 12,000 men, 80% of their tanks, 70% of their armored vehicles, and 60% of their artillery.

They were sent to the Ardenis region to prepare for the Battle of the Bulge.

But the division, despite their attempts, could not move the American defenders who dug in.

They were on the 8th of January 1945 ordered to withdraw by Hitler and during the Aden fighting the 12th SS had been yet again battered.

They had lost almost 10,000 men.

As mentioned, they surrendered to the Americans on the 8th of May 1945.

But why were the 12th SS so ruthless and brutal with their captured enemies? Well, they were recruited from the Hitler youth who displayed absolute loyalty to Hitler and the Nazis.

And they also had immense hatred of certain groups of the populations.

They also had been taught that dying in war for the Reich was glorious.

And unlike older Germans, many of these young soldiers knew nothing else but Hitler.

They were also led by hardened SS veterans and commanders.

And many of these had been fighting on the Eastern Front.

These veterans encouraged aggression at all costs, no surrender at all, and incredibly harsh discipline.

They also wanted the boys to see their enemies as subhuman, leading to them being able to execute them easily without any questions asked.

Because many of the boys were also so young, they were eager to prove that they were courageous and brave soldiers.

This often translated to them treating prisoners of war brutally.

They wanted the approval of their commanders, and they would, without a second’s hesitation, fire a bullet into the back of a head of their enemies.

They were not also regular army soldiers and troops.

They belonged to the Vaoffan SS who were deeply tied to the Nazi ideology and terror.

But the specific war crimes in Normandy and the Arden’s region solidified their reputation.

And as Germany was losing, the propaganda for the Nazis got more desperate and the Hitler Youth Division was encouraged to fight without any restraint.

So to sum up, the 12th SS Panza Division Hitler Youth shot their enemies who were captured and executed prisoners for many different reasons.

They were often ordered to do this, but they had also been ideologically conditioned for years that the Nazi beliefs were the way and that anyone who fought otherwise was not worthy of life.

They were brainwashed young men who were commanded by brutal veteran commanders.

And the pressure of total war also led to further bloodshed.

But throughout World War II, the division became one of the most feared and fanatical German units who ever took to the battlefields.

Thanks for watching.

If you did find this video interesting, maybe click subscribe.

Once again, thank you so much for watching one of these videos.