Wittmann served in the Waffen SS
Wittmann served briefly in the German Army before joining the SS in the fall of 1936. He was assigned to the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) in 1937, in time to participate in several of the German actions prior to war, including the annexation of Austria known as the Anschluss. Initially the LSSAH was a regiment which served as Hitler’s bodyguard, eventually it grew to division size. Wittmann was a member of the Nazi Party from 1938 onward.
The LSSAH was a paramilitary branch absorbed into the Waffen SS before the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. After the war the LSSAH was determined to have killed upwards of 5,000 prisoners of war following their capture, mostly on the Eastern Front, and LSSAH members participated in the Malmady Massacre during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944.
During the Nuremberg War Crimes trials the Waffen SS was defended as being an apolitical organization which consisted of elite troops, performing alongside the Wehrmacht, separate from the criminal activities of the SS under Heinrich Himmler. The Tribunal rejected that argument and found that the Waffen SS was an inherent part of the overall structure of the SS and had participated in atrocities and war crimes in occupied countries. Since then apologists and revisionists have continued to defend the Waffen SS as elite troops with no criminal responsibility for Nazi war crimes.
Throughout the invasion of Poland in 1939 the LSSAH suffered casualties at a higher rate than German Army units which were similarly engaged. Operating on the southern flank during the invasion, and later in the encirclement of Warsaw, numerous actions were taken against Polish cavalry and infantry.
In Poland the LSSAH, for which Wittmann drove a six wheeled armored car as part of the 17th Panzer Scout Platoon, developed a reputation for ruthlessness against both enemy troops and civilian populations. The units of the LSSAH routinely burned villages overrun by the German assault, and was found to have committed atrocities including the murder of civilians by machine gunning, including children.