Joachim Peiper - The Battle of Normandy

The Battle of Normandy

The Allied landing in Normandy necessitated the return of the LSSAH to the Western Front. On 17 June, the division began its move to the area of Caen, but some parts of the panzer regiment had to stay in Belgium awaiting new tanks. Furthermore, the move of the division was made under difficult conditions due to the trains transporting Hungarian Jews to the concentration camps and Allied air attacks which caused disruptions in the rail traffic. The whole division did not reach its rally zone before 6 July 1944. On 28 June, the 1st SS Panzer Regiment of Peiper arrived at the front and was immediately engaged in combat. As with the other German units of the area, they essentially fought a defensive battle until the Avranches breakthrough at the end of July and beginning of August. Having gone to the front with 19,618 men, the LSSAH lost 25% of its men and all its tanks. As with most of the Waffen SS divisions engaged in Normandy, the LSSAH lost its operational ability and was described in the official tables of the available units prepared by the OKW on 16 September 1944 not as a division but as a Kampfgruppe.

Peiper was not in command of his panzer regiment during the counter-attacks near Avranches. Suffering from a nervous breakdown he had been discreetly evacuated to a military hospital in the area of Sées at 70 km of the frontline. According to the official diagnosis, he was suffering from jaundice. He would eventually be dispatched to the rear and from September 1944 forward was in a military hospital near the Tegernsee in Upper Bavaria. This was not far from his family home. He stayed there until 7 October.