1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler - Expansion

Expansion

On 13 April 1934, Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsführer-SS, ordered the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler (LAH) to be renamed "Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler" (LSSAH). In late June, the LSSAH was called into action for the first time. Stabschef-SA Ernst Röhm began to push for greater power for his already powerful SA. Hitler decided that the SA had to be put in its place, and ordered Himmler and Hermann Göring to prepare their elite units, Himmler's Leibstandarte and Göring's Landespolizeigruppe General Göring, for immediate action. The LSSAH formed two companies under the control of Jürgen Wagner and Otto Reich, and these formations were moved to Munich on 30 June.

Hitler ordered all SA leaders to attend a meeting at the Hanselbauer Hotel in Bad Wiessee, near Munich. On 30 June, Hitler joined Sepp Dietrich and a unit from the Leibstandarte and travelled to Bad Wiessee to personally command Röhm's arrest. On 1 July Hitler finally agreed with Göring and Himmler that Röhm should be executed. In what the Nazis called the Röhm Putsch, but otherwise came to be known as the Night of the Long Knives, companies of the LSSAH, together with the Gestapo and Göring's Landespolizeigruppe, performed Death Squad actions. At least 177 people were executed without trials over the next few days.

These actions succeeded in effectively decapitating the SA and removing Röhm's threat to Hitler's leadership. In recognition of their actions, both the LSSAH and the Landespolizeigruppe General Göring were expanded to regimental size and motorized. In addition, the SS became an independent organization, no longer part of the SA.

As the SS swelled with new recruits, the LSSAH represented the pinnacle of Hitler's Aryan ideal. Strict recruitment regulations meant that only those deemed sufficiently Aryan—as well as being physically fit and National Socialists—would be admitted.

The LSSAH provided the honour guard at many of the Nuremberg Rallies, and in 1935 took part in the reoccupation of the Saarland. The Leibstandarte was in the vanguard of the march into Austria as part of the Anschluss, and in 1938 the unit took part in the occupation of the Sudetenland. By 1939 the LSSAH was a full infantry regiment with three infantry battalions, an artillery battalion, and anti-tank, reconnaissance, and engineer subunits. Soon after its involvement in the annexation of Bohemia and Moravia, the LSSAH was redesignated "Infanterie-Regiment Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (mot.)". When Hitler ordered the formation of an SS division in mid-1939, the Leibstandarte was designated to form its own unit, unlike the other Standarten of the SS-Verfügungstruppe (SS-VT) (SS-Standarte Deutschland, SS-Standarte Germania, and SS-Standarte Der Führer). The Polish crisis of August 1939 put these plans on hold, and the LSSAH was ordered to join XIII. Armeekorps, a part of Army Group South, which was preparing for the attack on Poland.