The Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) founded in September 1933 was Adolf Hitler's personal Bodyguard Regiment. In 1939 the LSSAH became a separate unit of the Waffen-SS aside the SS-TV and the SS-VT. The LSSAH independently participated in combat during the Invasion of Poland. Elements of the LSSAH later joined the SS-VT prior to Operation Barbarossa in 1941 and by the end of World War II they had been increased in size from a regiment to a Panzer division. The elite division was a component of the Waffen-SS which was found guilty of war crimes in the Nuremberg Trials.