500th SS Parachute Battalion - 600th SS-Parachute Battalion

600th SS-Parachute Battalion

The second Budapest mission, Operation Panzerfaust, can be said to have been, officially, the 600's first mission although the new battalion was not formally mustered until 9 November 1944 in Neu-Strelitz, their garrison town. The soldiers of the 500th who survived long enough to see the formation of the 600 were also given back their previous ranks and the right to wear the sig rune on 9 November 1944.

Two companies of the newly forming SS-Fallschirmjäger-Btl 600 were then attached to Otto Skorzeny's Panzerbrigade 150 in December 1944 for the Ardennes offensive. It was the only occasion in which SS paratroopers faced the Western Allies until, fleeing the Soviets, they surrendered to US forces early in May 1945. After the Ardennes, the 600th fought on the Oder Front in the Schwedt and Zehden bridgeheads and in various rearguard actions across northern Germany at the very end of the war. The battalion was virtually wiped out three times in its eighteen-month existence.