The German SS Imperial Division
The Imperial Division is a former German SS unit as famous as Adolf Hitler's Guards Division, ranking second in the SS organization sequence . The division fought in the East and West during World War II and made great contributions to Hitler's establishment of the "New Reich" and was known as the "Flower of the Empire."
Reich Elite
Like Hitler's Guards Division, the Reich Division was also created during Hitler's activities to create the Armed SS in the first half of the 1930s, but its initial scale was much larger. It surpassed the leader of the Guards Division, the predecessor of the Guards.
In early 1935, former Wehrmacht Lieutenant General and SS Flag Captain Paul Hausser opened the first SS NCO School at the Duke of Braunschweig’s residence to train military cadres for the SS. On the basis of a large increase in military cadres, the SS began to expand grassroots armed organizations and form regular military units.
In the summer of 1936, the three assault groups of the Munich SS became the first regiment of the armed SS, named "German Regiment". In Hamburg, three local assault brigades were formed into a second regiment, named "German Regiment". Two years later, in 1938, after Germany annexed Austria, it formed a third regiment in Vienna, called the "Führer Regiment". These regiments all adopted the organizational structure of the Wehrmacht combat regiment, which was called the SS Special Mobile Unit at the time. They formed the forerunners of the Imperial Division.
Not long after the regiment was established, a former Wehrmacht officer named Felix Steiner and captain of the SS Second Class Assault Group was sent to the German regiment to guide the regiment's training and construction. People soon discovered that this was a real military talent, and his arrival played a crucial role in the early construction of the German regiment, the Imperial Division, and even the entire SS.
Steiner participated in the First World War and witnessed the dreary scenes of long-term stalemate on the Western Front. He was deeply familiar with the melee of large corps with a large number of personnel, a mixture of good and bad, and bloated institutions. Out of disgust, he developed a strong interest in the battles of the "Elite Assault Battalion" that was emerging on the battlefield at that time. From then on, a new idea of ??"building an army with elite soldiers" sprouted in his mind.