110th Infantry Division (Wehrmacht)
110th Infantry Division |
|
---|---|
active | December 1940 to August 3, 1944 |
Country | German Empire |
Armed forces | Wehrmacht |
Armed forces | army |
Branch of service | infantry |
Type | Infantry Division |
structure | structure |
Installation site | Luneburg |
Nickname | Viking division |
Second World War | Battle of Rzhev |
Commanders | |
list of | Commanders |
insignia | |
Troop registration number 2 | Viking ship |
The 110th Infantry Division (110th ID) was a large unit of the army of the German Wehrmacht in World War II . It was erected in December 1940 and stationed in occupied Poland until June 1941. From there she took part in the attack on the Soviet Union . It was completely destroyed in July 1944 on the Eastern Front near Minsk in Belarus .
Division history
The 110th Infantry Division was set up as part of the 12th wave of deployment in 1940 in Lüneburg in military district X from parts of the 12th ID and 30th ID . In addition, the 400 Home Guard Battalion was integrated into the 110th Infantry Division. In " Operation Barbarossa " the 110th Infantry Division was subordinate to Army Group Center from June 1941 . In December 1941, the 110th Infantry Division was withdrawing from the Kalinin front line in a south-westerly direction. As part of the 9th Army , the division fought in the Battle of Rzhev in 1942 . Due to heavy losses, the GR 252 had to be disbanded on November 2, 1943 and its survivors had to be incorporated into division group 321.
As part of the 9th Army, 110 ID was involved in a war crime in March 1944 . During the German occupation of Belarus , the working population was enslaved and those unable to work were deported . The family members who were left behind and could no longer look after themselves - women, old people and children - were taken to three specially built assembly camps near Osaritschi . The camps were located in a swamp area in the no man's land between the German and Soviet front lines and were intended to disrupt a possible Soviet offensive. A total of 33,000 people, including 15,960 children and 13,072 women, were interned here without any buildings or facilities and were left unsupervised for one to two weeks. Typhus sufferers were deliberately mixed with the inmates. The entrances were mined.
Like the 35th and 129th IDs, the 110th ID set up interim camps in villages to accommodate the deportees on their way to the repository. The 110th Infantry Division was also involved in capturing and transporting civilians in the division area. Units of the 110th ID provided marching columns for the deportees to smaller camps and took over the guarding. Escape attempts and resistance were broken by force of arms. People who could not make it through the grueling march, especially children and old people, were shot. In the camps, too, people who approached the fences or wanted to start fires were shot without warning. By the time the Red Army was liberated, around 8,000 people had died. In Ernst Beyersdorff's division history, the crime, which was also the subject of the war crimes trial in Gomel in 1948, is kept secret.
In July 1944, the 110th ID was almost completely destroyed as part of the 4th Army in the Battle of Minsk in Belarus as part of the Soviet summer offensive Operation Bagration . On June 30, 1944, the 110th Infantry Division reached the Berezina ; the division's pioneers built a makeshift bridge over the river under difficult conditions such as mass attacks by Soviet attack aircraft and continuous artillery fire. Fleeing troops such as B. scattered units of the Panzergrenadier division "Feldherrnhalle" , 78th Sturm-Division etc. pushed increasingly on the pioneer bridge and intensified the mass panic of the disbanding Army Group Center. On July 1, 1944, the severely decimated division was able to withdraw from the forest of Schorowez after heavy losses, reached the Meldekopf near Borowino, which was supposed to catch the retreating troops, and finally on July 7, 1944, 16 kilometers southwest of Minsk by far superior Soviet troops posed. In view of the hopeless situation, Lieutenant General von Kurowski ordered the surrender of the few survivors. Von Kurowski and the remains of his combat group were taken prisoner by the Soviets.
On August 3, 1944, the 110th Infantry Division was completely disbanded due to a lack of personnel. In Lüneburg there is a memorial to the members of the 110th ID who fell in World War II.
Subordination of the 110th Infantry Division during World War II
date | Army Corps | army | Army Group | place | Location |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
December 1940 | in preparation | 11th Army | C. | Luneburg | Germany |
January 1941 | |||||
May 1941 | WK XI | Panzer Group 2 | - | ||
July 1941 | XXXXII | available OKH | center | Vilna | Eastern front, central section |
August 1941 | XXIII | 9th Army | Smolensk | ||
September 1941 | VI | ||||
October 1941 | Panzer Group 3 | Vyasma | |||
November 1941 | to disposal | Clin | |||
December 1941 | VI | 9th Army | Rzhev | ||
January 1942 | |||||
February 1942 | XXVII | ||||
March 1942 | XXIII | ||||
April 1942 | XXVII | ||||
May 1942 | XXIII | ||||
January 1943 | |||||
April 1943 | LV | 2nd Panzer Army | Bryansk | ||
September 1943 | 9th Army | ||||
January 1944 | Rogachev | ||||
February 1944 | LVI | Bobruisk | |||
April 1944 | XXXXI | ||||
May 1944 | to disposal | ||||
June 1944 | XXXIX | 4th Army | Orsha |
structure
- 252nd Infantry Regiment
- 254th Infantry Regiment
- 255th Infantry Regiment
- Artillery Regiment 120
- I. Department
- II. Department
- III. Department
- IV. Department
- Panzerjäger detachment 110
- Reconnaissance Division 110
- News Department 110
- Engineer Battalion 110
- Supply troops
Commanders
period of service | Rank | Surname |
---|---|---|
December 10, 1940 to January 24, 1942 | Lieutenant General | Ernst Seifert |
February 1, 1942 to June 1, 1943 | Lieutenant General | Martin Gilbert |
June 1 to September 25, 1943 | Lieutenant General | Eberhard von Kurowski |
September 25 to December 1, 1943 | Colonel | Albrecht Wüstenhagen |
December 1, 1943 to May 11, 1944 | Lieutenant General | Eberhard von Kurowski |
May 11-15, 1944 | Major general | Gustav Gihr |
May 15 to July 1944 | Lieutenant General | Eberhard von Kurowski |
period of service | Rank | Surname |
---|---|---|
December 10, 1940 to November 3, 1941 | Lieutenant colonel | Heinrich Gäde |
February 1942 | major | Wilhelm Freiherr von Malzahn |
April 10, 1942 to September 20, 1943 | Lieutenant colonel | Carl Kleyser |
December 10, 1943 to July 1944 | Lieutenant colonel | Karl Bieling |
Awards
A total of nine division members were awarded the Knight's Cross and 83 with the German Cross in Gold.
Rank | Surname | unit | Award date |
---|---|---|---|
Sergeant Major | Friedrich Fluhs | Platoon leader 5th Kp./GR 255 | November 4, 1943 |
Captain | Walter Westenberger | Battalion Commander I. Btl./GR 255 | November 12, 1943 |
major | Deert Jacob Shipowner | Battalion Commander II. Btl./GR 254 | November 30, 1943 |
First lieutenant | Ulrich Roggenbau | Company commander 7th Kp./GR 254 | November 30, 1943 |
lieutenant | Heinz Fritzler | Leader 1. Kp./Divisions-Füsilier-Btl. 110 | December 5, 1943 |
Captain | Heinz Möhring | Battalion Commander II. Btl./GR 255 | March 6, 1944 |
Corporal | Adolf Wassmann | MG shooter 6th Kp./GR 255 | March 16, 1944 |
sergeant | Hugo Grossmann | Deputy Leader 3rd Kp / GR 252 | March 26, 1944 |
Ensign | Hermann Tönnies | Ordinance officer staff I. Btl./GR 255 | April 20, 1944 |
literature
- Ernst Beyersdorff: History of the 110th Infantry Division. Podzun Verlag, Bad Nauheim 1965.
- Karl Kleysex: archive material of the 110th Infantry Division. Self-published by the traditional association.
- Traditional association of the 110th Infantry Division: Fragments from the Russian campaign of the 110th Infantry Division. Self-published.
- Georg Tessin : Associations and troops of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS in World War II 1939–1945, Volume 6: The land forces . No. 71-130. 2nd Edition. Osnabrück 1979, ISBN 3-7648-1172-2 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://kunstraum.leuphana.de/veranstaltungen/hinterbuehne.html
- ^ A b Christian Gerlach : In: Karl Heinrich Pohl (Ed.): Wehrmacht and extermination policy. Military in the National Socialist system. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2000, p. 103; Christoph Rass: "Human material". German soldiers on the Eastern Front. Interior views of an infantry division 1939–1945. Schöningh, Paderborn 2003, p. 386 ( online ).
- ↑ Christoph Rass: "Human Material ". German soldiers on the Eastern Front. Interior views of an infantry division 1939–1945. Schöningh, Paderborn 2003, pp. 394-401 ( online ).
- ↑ Christoph Rass: "Human Material ". German soldiers on the Eastern Front. Interior views of an infantry division 1939–1945. Schöningh, Paderborn 2003, p. 388 ( online ).
- ^ Ernst Beyersdorff: History of the 110th Infantry Division . Podzun Verlag, 1965, pp. 150-158.