The Waffen-SS was the fighting wing of the Nazi Party's Schutzstaffel, as well as the multi-ethnic and multi-national military force of Nazi Germany. Throughout the war it went from a squalid fighting force to the most brutal, feared and loathed military organization in the world. The Waffen-SS started with three regiments and expanded to over 38 divisions during World War II, serving alongside the Wermacht but never officially joining it. Adolf Hitler opposed the assimilation of the Waffen-SS into the army as they were to become a specialized police force at the end of the war. Before the war it was under the command of Heinreich Himmler, but after mobilization control passed to the German High Command. In the attack on Poland in September 1939, the Waffen-SS was tactically inferior to the Wermacht and suffered relatively large losses. They partly compensated during the attack on France in the spring of 1940, where they achieved exceptional success. After this last event, the creation of another division was ordered. Hitler attributed this achievement to what he called a “fierce will – the sense of superiority personified.” In mid-1941, on the eve of Operation Barbarossa, the Waffen-SS numbered only 160,000. It had six divisions (Leibstandarte, Das Reich, Totenkopf, Polizei, Wiking and Nordland). It was reserved to play a major role in the attack on Russia, and Himmler had made clear what was expected of them. Hitler had already told his Wehrmacht generals that the attack on Russia would be carried out with “an unprecedented, implacable and ruthless strategy”. harshness." The Waffen-SS made a name for itself in Russia for its unwavering determination to attack and its cruelty towards prisoners and civilians... middle of paper... had lost all faith in the Wehrmacht. He nominated Sepp Dietrich to lead the counterattack in the Ardennes, popularly known as the Battle of the Bulge. The Waffen-SS units fought hard enough to temporarily repel the Allies and were only stopped by a lack of fuel for their tanks the SS showed its dark side when some American prisoners of war were killed after what is thought to have been a singular escape attempt gone awry. After the war, SS officer Leibstandarte Joachim Peiper was sentenced to death for his role in this massacre, but was later sentenced to life in prison instead. The legacy of the Waffen-SS is far less than straightforward. On many occasions they proved themselves to be an elite fighting force, many times on both fronts. However, the harsh aspects of the war related to the Waffen-SS undermined their achievements.