America\'s Military Adversaries. From Colonial Times to the Present

In January 1945, Dietrich’s command relo-
cated from Belgium to Hungary to confront a
huge Soviet offensive. Once he cleared the
Hron bridgehead of Soviet troops, common
sense dictated that his troops should have
dug in. Hitler, however, furious over recent
Russian gains, ordered the emaciated Sixth
SS Panzer Army to recapture Budapest. Die-
trich did as ordered and was badly repulsed
with heavy losses. This sacrifice did nothing
to appease the Führer, who then accused his
own SS troops—the cutting edge of Nazism—
of cowardice. He then summarily ordered
them to strip off the “Adolf Hitler” armbands
of their uniforms in disgrace. Dietrich, rather
disillusioned, did as ordered, but only under
protest. Subsequent Russian offensives
pushed the exhausted Germans back to Vi-
enna, where Dietrich tried cooperating with
forces under Gen. Hermann Balck. That city
was likewise abandoned, and by the time the
war ended in May 1945, Dietrich withdrew to
the Alps and surrendered his command to the
Americans.
After the war, Dietrich found himself ar-
rested and charged with war crimes. An
American court found him responsible for the
Malmedy Massacre, and he was sentenced to
life in prison. This was subsequently com-
muted to 25 years, and he gained early release
in 1955. One year later a German court found
him culpable for the murder of the SA faction
in 1934, and he served another 18 months. Di-
etrich, old and ill, was finally released in 1959
and lived the rest of his life in obscurity. His
record as a general was mixed at best, but he
was a soldier’s soldier and highly popular
with his troops. When Dietrich died in Lud-
wigsburg on April 21, 1966, his funeral was at-
tended by more than 6,000 former SS soldiers.
But no battlefield accolades, however well de-
served they might be, can expunge the bloody

legacy that even today stalks Dietrich and the

Führer’s Waffen-SS.

See also

Balck, Hermann; Blaskowitz, Johannes; Hausser, Paul;

Hitler, Adolf; Peiper, Jochem

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DIETRICH, JOSEF