Commanders
- Josef "Sepp" Dietrich was a former Army sergeant with a peasant background, who commanded the forerunner of the Waffen-SS, the Sonderkommando Berlin. He would command the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler from its inception to Regiment, Brigade and Division. He was then given command of the I SS Panzer Corps Leibstandarte and by the end of the war was the commander of the 6th SS Panzer Army.
- Paul Hausser, a former General in the regular army, was chosen by Himmler to transform the SS-VT into a credible military organisation. He was the first divisional commander of the Waffen-SS when the SS-VT was formed into a Division for the Battle of France. He went onto command the II SS Panzer Corps and the 7th Army.
- Theodor Eicke, a former army pay master and police informant. He was the first commander of the Dachau concentration camp. He formed the SS Totenkopf Division from members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände and was killed in action on 26 February 1943, on the Eastern Front.
- Felix Steiner, another former army officer and veteran of World War I. He was given command of the SS Regiment Deutschland. He has been given credit for the creation of small mobile Battle Groups and armed his men with Submachine guns and Grenades instead of Rifles and issued Camouflage clothing. He would go on to command the SS Division Wiking and the III (Germanic) SS Panzer Corps.
- Kurt Meyer started the war in command of the Leibstandarte anti-tank company, was promoted and given command of the Reconnaissance Battalion which he led in the Balkans and Russia. He was chosen to lead the SS Panzergrenadier Regiment 25, in the newly formed 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend, and at the age of 33 became a Divisional commander in the German forces when he took over command of the division (after the death of Fritz Witt) in Normandy in 1944.
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