132nd Infantry Division (Wehrmacht)
132nd Infantry Division |
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![]() Troop registration number of the 132nd Infantry Division |
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active | October 5, 1940 to May 8, 1945 |
Country |
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Armed forces | Wehrmacht |
Armed forces | army |
Type | Infantry Division |
structure | structure |
Installation site | Landshut |
Commanders | |
list of | Commanders |
The 132nd Infantry Division (132nd ID) was a major unit of the army of the German Wehrmacht in World War II .
Division history
Areas of application :
- Germany: October 1940 to April 1941
- Balkan campaign : April to May 1941
- Eastern Front , Army Group South: June 1941 to September 1942
- Eastern Front, Army Group North: October 1942 to October 1944
- Kurland boiler: October 1944 to May 1945
The 132nd Infantry Division was set up on October 5, 1940 in Landshut in Wehrkreis VII (Munich) as a division of the 11th wave . The personnel was made up of shares from the 263rd and 268th Infantry Divisions. The first war deployment of the 132nd Infantry Division took place during the Balkan campaign .
From June 1941 she took part in the attack on the Soviet Union . With Army Group South they advanced from Lemberg via Ostrog and Zhitomir to Kiev . In November 1941 she was in the Crimea and was one of the associations that were supposed to conquer Sevastopol . Together with the LIV. Army Corps attacked the port city from the mountain slopes of the Belbek Valley from the north and encountered fierce resistance that condensed into the defensive belt around the city. In December 1941, the fighting was concentrated around the Kamyshly Gorge and the height of the 192nd storm battalions and pioneers of the 132nd Infantry Division gained only six kilometers of terrain in the first days of the fighting. On March 30, 1942, the division was classified as suitable for limited attack tasks. At that time, an average infantry company still had a trench strength (combat strength) of 60 to 70 men.
On May 7, 1942, the 132nd Infantry Division began an offensive with artillery attacks and landings with assault boats against the Soviet 44th Army east of Feodosiya on the heavily fortified Isthmus of Parpatsch (today's Prymors'kyi). In June 1942 the final attack on Sevastopol was undertaken, with the 132nd Infantry Division together with the LIV. Army Corps was the focus. In the course of the fighting, the 132nd Infantry Division suffered such high losses that it had to be pulled out completely. In September 1942 the 132nd Infantry Division was recalled from the Crimea and placed under Army Group North . There she took part in the siege of Leningrad as part of the 18th Army and in March 1943 in the third Ladoga battle . The 132nd, 96th and 61st Infantry Divisions repelled the Soviet attacks in heavy forest battles.
In 1945 the division went under in the Kurland basin .
structure
- 436th Infantry Regiment
- 437th Infantry Regiment
- 438th Infantry Regiment
- Artillery Regiment 132
- Engineer Battalion 132
- Panzerjäger detachment 132
- Reconnaissance Division 132
- News Department 132
- Supply troops
people
period of service | Rank | Surname |
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October 5, 1940 to January 11, 1942 | Lieutenant General | Rudolf Sintzenich |
January 11, 1942 to August 12, 1943 | General of the artillery | Fritz Lindemann |
August 12, 1943 to January 8, 1945 | Lieutenant General | Herbert Wagner |
January 8 to May 8, 1945 | Major general | Rudolf Demme |
period of service | Rank | Surname |
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October 1940 to November 1941 | Lieutenant colonel | Hans Haas |
November 1941 to September 6, 1942 | major | Hans von Beeltzig |
September 6, 1942 to September 25, 1944 | Lieutenant colonel | Heinz Geyer |
September 25, 1944 to March 25, 1945 | Lieutenant colonel | Albert Schneider |
March 25 to May 8, 1945 | major | Heinrich Dechamps |
Awards
A total of 14 members of the 132nd Infantry Division were awarded the Knight's Cross and 76 with the German Cross in Gold.
Well-known members of the division
- Fritz Lindemann (1894–1944) was a member of the resistance movement from July 20, 1944
- Ludwig Siffling (1921-2020), was a soccer player for SV Waldhof Mannheim
literature
- Georg Tessin : Associations and troops of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen SS in World War II 1939–1945 . 2nd Edition. tape 7 . The Land Forces 131–200 . Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 1979, ISBN 3-7648-1173-0 .
- Gottlob Herbert Bidermann: Deadly Combat: A German Soldier's Memoir of the Eastern Front , University Press of Kansas, 2007, ISBN 978-0-7006-1122-5 .
- Gottlob Herbert Bidermann: Krim Kurland with the 132nd Infantry Division 1941–1945 , self-published by the Kameradschaft, Hanover 1964.
- Gottlob Herbert Bidermann: .... and suffered by my side: History of the 132nd Inf. Div. in pictures and documents , self-published by the Kameradschaft, Hanover 1995.