1st Skijäger Division (Wehrmacht)

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1st ski hunter division

Troop registration number of the 1st Skijäger Division

Troop identification: oak leaves and skis
active June 2, 1944 to May 1945
Country German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era) German Empire
Armed forces Wehrmacht
Armed forces army
Type Ski hunter division
structure structure
Installation site at the Army Group Center

The 1st Ski Division was a major unit of the Army of the German Wehrmacht in World War II .

Lineup

In view of the experiences in the winter of 1941/1942 on the Eastern Front , the first provisional ski-mobile infantry units were set up. The success of the Siberian Red Army troops in front of Moscow demonstrated the value of winter-mobile units in the lowlands . A first full battalion was formed on the orders of Army Group Center using personnel from the Winter Combat Schools Orel , Gschatz and the Fulpmes High Mountain School . In 1942 a total of twelve such independent units , also known as hunting commandos , were created in battalion strength. In view of the threatening situation at the front, most of these units were used as infantry on the front in the summer of 1942. Under changing positions, deployed at focal points and “passed on” from division to division, high losses occurred, so that new setups were necessary. In 1942, the ski hunter troops were reclassified into stronger battalions of five companies with their own anti-tank systems. In view of the Red Army's offensives in the winter of 1942/1943, however, the ski-hunter battalions were again called in to clean up front intrusions and were largely wiped out. In the summer of 1943, the army command therefore decided to form a large unit with its own support weapons from the remnants of the ski hunter battalions (2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11).

1st ski hunter brigade

Under the responsibility of Army Group Center , the units for the planned ski hunter brigade were created in September 1943 in the Minsk area . As a special division, there were certain differences in the uniform, e.g. B. the steel helmet of the paratroopers , and the armament. The formation was delayed in particular by the slow removal of the Jäger battalions from the front area. At the beginning of January 1944, the brigade was considered ready to fight, from February it was subordinate to the 2nd Army . Instead of being relocated to Karelia as planned, the brigade was deployed again in unsuitable terrain in view of the situation on the front: in the marshland of the Pripjet . The trench warfare there lasted until the hasty retreat after the start of the Soviet summer offensive in 1944.

1st ski hunter division

The unit was expanded into a division on June 2, 1944, renamed the 1st Skijäger Division; a second ski hunter division was never set up; and subordinated to the 4th Panzer Army . The operational area was still the northern Ukraine around Pripjet and Bug. The fighting retreat led the division from the Turija River over the Bug to the Vistula , where the front came to a standstill. At the end of September, the railway was moved to the border area between Poland and Slovakia . From October the division was subordinate to the 1st Panzer Army in Army Group A. Until December 1944, the Duklapass in the Carpathian Mountains was successfully closed here. In January 1945 the division took part in the Vistula-Oder Operation and the West Carpathian Operation , then in February in the Lower Silesian Operation . Other battle areas of the division were the Biskids and Slovakia. At the end of the war, the division, subordinate to the 17th Army , was in Central Silesia . Most of the surviving soldiers ended up in Soviet captivity.

structure

  • Ski-Jäger-Regiment 1 (with two battalions, from June 1944 three battalions)
  • Ski-Jäger-Regiment 2 (formed from Grenadier Regiment 167 of the 86th Infantry Division , with two battalions, from June 1944 three battalions)
  • heavy ski battalion 1 with a tank destroyer department, self-propelled infantry support weapons department, self-propelled anti-aircraft gun department and a captured weapon department with 22 Soviet T-34 tanks
  • Artillery division (motorized) II / 59
  • Ski Pioneer Battalion 85
  • Assault Gun Division 270

additionally from June 1944:

  • Artillery Regiment 152 with the heavy thrower battalion 18
  • Panzerjäger -teilung 152 (from Sturmgeschütz-Brigade 270)
  • Ski Füssilier Battalion 1

Commanders

  • Colonel Günther von Manteuffel : April 1943 to September 1943
  • Colonel Hans von Schlebrügge : December 1943 to May 12, 1944
  • Colonel / Major General Martin Berg : May 13, 1944 to October 2, 1944, promoted to Major General on August 1, 1944
  • Major General Gustav Hundt : October 3, 1944 to November 14, 1944
  • Colonel and later Major General Emmanuel of Kilia ni : November 15, 1944 to December 7, 1944
  • Major General Gustav Hundt: December 8, 1944 to January 1945
  • Major General Hans Streets: January 1945 to February 1945
  • Major General Gustav Hundt: February 1945 to April 1945
  • Colonel Bruno Weiler: April 1945 until dissolution

Well-known members of the division

Web links

literature

  • Thomas Anderson: Ski hunters: a "nouvelle race" de guerriers. In: Batailles & Blindés, n ° 40, Caraktère, 2010.
  • Georg Gunter: The German ski hunters until 1945. Podzun-Pallas, Friedberg 1993, ISBN 3-7909-0485-9 .
  • Gustav Fochler-Hauke: Ski hunters on the enemy. Kurt Vowinckel Verlag, Heidelberg et al. 1943, DNB 576010898 .
  • Mitcham, Samuel W., Jr. (2007). German Order of Battle. Volume Two: 291st - 999th Infantry Divisions, Named Infantry Divisions, and Special Divisions in WWII. PA; United States of America: Stackpole Books. Pp. 237 + 238, ISBN 978-0-8117-3437-0 .
  • Georg Tessin : Associations and troops of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen SS in World War II 1939–1945 , Volume 2, Frankfurt / Main and Osnabrück, 1966, page 25 ff.
  • Gordon Williamson: German Mountain & Ski Troops 1939–45 . Bloomsbury Publishing, 2012.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Georg Gunter: The German Skijäger bis 1945. 1993, p. 28.