[2] When hostilities started, Hitler ordered the LSSAH to participate in the campaign against Poland, leaving him with no large military type of bodyguard formation (a small contingent of the Leibstandarte, remained stationed in Berlin).

[4][5] Prior to the invasion of France and the Low Countries, Rommel left the FBB to take command of the army's 7th Panzer Division.

Although the new Führerbegleit-unit had practically the same purpose as the original and still-existing Führerbegleit battalion, and was approximately the same size, it was different from the FBB in that it was motorized.

While the FBA was being refitted for service on the eastern front, Hitler ordered it to head west in 1944, along with most of its vehicles and personnel, to prepare for the Ardennes counter-offensive, for which it would be expanded into a brigade.

Radically upgraded for the Ardennes Offensive ("Operation Wacht am Rhein") to provide General der Panzertruppe Hasso von Manteuffel's Fifth Panzer Army with additional firepower, the Führerbegleitbrigade was formed from elements of the FBA, Panzerkorps Großdeutschland, Hitler's personal army guard detail, and the mobile artillery from Hitler's Wolfschanze headquarters.

As part of this drastic reorganization, the FBB was detached from army control, expanded by incorporating elements of the FGB and Panzergrenadier-Division Großdeutschland, and redesignated the Führer-Begleit-Division (FBD); at the same time, its sister formation, the Führergrenadierbrigade, was also upgraded to divisional status and renamed the Führer-Grenadier-Division (FGD).

Both "Führer" divisions were put in the OKH (Oberkommando der Heere: the army high command), reserve until committed to the eastern front.