113th Infantry Division (Wehrmacht)
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113th Infantry Division |
|
|---|---|
 Troop registration number of the 113th Infantry Division |
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| active | December 1940 to November 2, 1943 |
| Country |
.svg){kind=small} German Empire
|
| Armed forces | Wehrmacht |
| Armed forces | army |
| Type | Infantry division |
| structure | structure |
| Installation site | Grafenwoehr Training Area |
| Second World War | Battle of Stalingrad |
| Commanders | |
| list of | Commanders |
The 113th Infantry Division was a major unit of the Wehrmacht from 1941 to 1943.
Lineup
The 113th Infantry Division was set up on December 10, 1940 in Grafenwoehr as a division of the 12th wave of deployment . Two thirds of the troop strength were levies from existing units, the rest newly drafted recruits and reservists . The equipment with means of transport and weapons consisted partly of captured French stocks.
War against the Soviet Union
From June 23, 1941, it was relocated to Lemberg as an army reserve by rail . The division marched behind the front in forced marches. On July 16, the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler on the north wing of the 6th Army was replaced. The division fought in the Korosten area until August 9th . During the Battle of Kiev on August 29, the Dnieper was crossed and attacked to the south. From September 27th to October 6th, the division, which had meanwhile been severely battered, was deployed as an occupying force in Kiev and was then transported from the Soviet Union.
Serbia
From November 18, 1941, the division was assembled in Serbia and used to fight partisans . Due to the Soviet winter offensive, however, the order to relocate to the Eastern Front arrived at Christmas .
Eastern Front 1942
The divisional units arriving on the southern eastern front from January 30th were immediately thrown into battle one by one in meter-high snow in order to seal off the Soviet intrusion at Isjum . Until the end of March, when the thaw set in, the positions could be held in conjunction with Romanian units. At the end of April there was a refreshment close to the front. When Soviet Marshal Tymoshenko launched an offensive on May 12 to cut off Kharkov and the Dnepr crossings, the division was thrown into the center of the southern Soviet pincer arm. The 113th Infantry Division was able to maintain its position with heavy losses until the Soviet attacking troops were cut off from their connections by an attack by the 1st Panzer Army in the south. From June 11th , Volchansk was captured as part of Operation “Blue” , the beginning of the German summer offensive. After that, the Don bend was reached in long marches in the summer heat and a Soviet bridgehead there was removed by September 21 . Later the division moved further east and moved into the "northern bar position" of Stalingrad in the middle of the steppe . When Stalingrad was enclosed on November 22, 1942, the division put together a combat group to build up the south-western front of the pocket . On January 10, 1943, the "north bolt position" was overrun. Only remnants of the division fought their way back east to the northern outskirts of Stalingrad. On February 2, the last resistance stopped and the few survivors, including the commander Lieutenant General Hans-Heinrich Sixt von Armin, were taken prisoner .
Realignment
From February 1943 returned tourists, convalescent and remained outside the boiler were rear parts in the area north of Stalino gathered to prepare the commanded reorganization. Due to the Soviet advance, it had to be relocated back to Dnepropetrovsk , where the approximately 1000 collected division members were transported to France . The new 113th Infantry Division was formed on the Atlantic coast through personnel levies from the Air Force and the reserve army . From June 1, 1943, it was relocated to the hinterland, where association training and punitive actions against French partisans were carried out. The first rail transports for use in Russia started on July 20.
Eastern Front 1943
The 113th Infantry Division had to take over a section of the "Buffalo Position" (→ Battle of Rzhev ) at Army Group Center from July 27th . On August 7, the Red Army targeted the division. The mostly inexperienced soldiers of the division withdrew in panic, so that the worn-out 18th Panzer Grenadier Division had to be brought in to clear up the situation. In the following battles, the troops of the division continued to suffer high losses and were then mostly subordinated to the neighboring divisions. Due to the low combat value of the division, it was disbanded and divided on November 2, 1943. A division group 113 existed until July 1944 as part of the 337th Infantry Division .
Commanders
- Major General Ernst Günzel (from December 10, 1940)
- Lieutenant General Friedrich Zickwolff (from June 5, 1941)
- Lieutenant General Hans-Heinrich Sixt von Armin (June 2, 1942 to February 2, 1943)
- Major General Friedrich-Wilhelm Prüter (March 15 to November 2, 1943)
structure
- 260 Infantry Regiment
- 261st Infantry Regiment
- 268th Infantry Regiment
- Artillery Regiment 113
- Division units 113
literature
- Veit Scherzer : 113th Infantry Division: Kiev - Kharkov - Stalingrad . Path and use of an infantry division 1940–1943. 2nd, change Edition. Scherzers Militaer-Verlag, Ranis / Jena 2007, ISBN 978-3-938845-05-9 .
- Georg Tessin : Associations and troops of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS in the Second World War 1939–1945, Volume 6: The land forces. No. 71-130. 2nd Edition. Osnabrück 1979. VI, 336 pages. ISBN 3-7648-1172-2 .
