15th Royal Saxon Infantry Regiment No. 181

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The 15th Royal Saxon Infantry Regiment. 181 was an infantry joined the Saxon army .

history

The regiment was set up on April 1, 1900 and was assigned the city of Chemnitz as a garrison . The III. Battalion was in Glauchau . In the counting system of the infantry regiments it received the consecutive Saxon No. 15 and the consecutive No. 181 of the German Army.

In its basic structure, a German infantry regiment in 1900 consisted of three battalions . The 1st battalion of the regiment was formed from the 3rd Royal Saxon Jäger Battalion No. 15 from Wurzen , which was dissolved at the same time . The tradition of the "Wurzener Jäger" reached back to the reorganization of the Saxon Army in 1810 and was continued by the regiment. As an externally visible symbol of this tradition, the regiment used the hunter's horn, which can be seen on the memorial for the fallen soldiers of the regiment.

Barracks of the regiment in Chemnitz

All of the Saxon infantry regiments had to hand over soldiers to the new unit in order to set up the 2nd Battalion. Only the infantry regiment "King Wilhelm II of Württemberg" (6th Royal Saxon) No. 105 was exempt from this tax. It was at this point on the 15th Army Corps posted to Strasbourg . The list of the III. Battalion was delayed until 1912.

From the day it was set up, the regiment, together with the other Chemnitz infantry regiment “Kronprinz” (5th Royal Saxon) No. 104, formed the 7th (Royal Saxon) Infantry Brigade No. 88. It was the 4th (Royal Saxon ) Division No. 40 of the XIX. (II. Royal Saxon) Army Corps subordinated.

First World War

The regiment was deployed on the Western Front throughout the war . On August 16, 1914, the Reserve Infantry Regiment No. 244 was formed in Chemnitz from recruits from the replacement battalions of Infantry Regiments No. 104 and 181. Many editors of the Chemnitzer Volksstimme also volunteered. One of the first dead of the regiment was the regimental commander Colonel Stephani , who fell on August 30, 1914 near Tourteron . When the operations were still agile at the beginning (the race to the sea ), it played a key role in the conquest of Lille on October 12, 1914.

With the transition to trench warfare , the regiment was followed by years of heavy losses, during which it participated in the Battle of the Somme and several battles in Flanders .

On October 28, 1916, the soldiers of the regiment witnessed a noteworthy incident. In the section of the association, the flying ace Oswald Boelcke crashed after colliding with another German aircraft in a dogfight. Boelcke was killed in the crash.

losses

Memorial for the fallen soldiers of the regiment in Chemnitz Zeisigwald , erected in 1925 by Heinrich Straumer
total Officers NCOs Teams
Liked or missed 3,391 66 378 2,947
Wounded 7,298 163 801 6.334
captivity 1,066 27 121 918
Total losses 11,755

The ratio of the casualties to the target strength provides information about the severity of the fighting in the war years 1914/18. Assuming a head strength of 3,000 to 3,500 soldiers, the regiment was completely destroyed three to four times.

Whereabouts

After the end of the war, the regiment was demobilized in Chemnitz on December 20, 1918 and then dissolved.

The tradition in the Reichswehr was taken over by the 7th Company of the 11th (Saxon) Infantry Regiment in Leipzig by decree of the Chief of the Army Command General of the Infantry Hans von Seeckt on August 24, 1921 .

Commanders

Rank Surname date
Colonel Arndt von Hausen 0April 1, 1900 to February 24, 1901
Colonel Friedrich Müller February 25, 1901 to May 12, 1906
Colonel Richard von Zenker May 13 to November 22, 1906
Colonel Karl Philipp Ludwig Werner November 23, 1906 to May 16, 1907
Colonel Clemens Ullrich May 17, 1907 to September 22, 1911
Colonel Max Morgenstern-Döring September 23, 1911 to March 12, 1914
Colonel Hermann Stephany March 13 to August 30, 1914
Colonel Karl Firnhaber September 18, 1914 to May 14, 1915
Colonel Otto von Welck May 15, 1915 to September 4, 1916
Colonel Otto von Berger 0September 5, 1916 to March 26, 1917
Lieutenant colonel Max from the gate March 27, 1917 to January 9, 1919

barracks

The regiment's barracks were located on the southern edge of the Zeisigwald on the northern edge of the Sonnenberg on today's Heinrich-Schütz-Straße. The Reichsmilitary Treasury received the 120,000 m² area as a gift from the municipal authorities in 1899 . The first barracks were built three years later. The street in front of the barracks was named “Planitzstraße” in honor of the former Minister of War Karl Paul Edler von der Planitz . The industrial area bordering the former barracks area still bears the name Planitzwiese today. A second street at the barracks was christened "Hausenstrasse" after the first commander, Arndt Klemens Lothar Freiherr von Hausen. At the same time as the barracks were built in 1901/06, the garrison hospital was set up on Zeisigwald (today the remains of it belong to the Zeisigwaldkliniken Bethanien Chemnitz ). On October 1, 1905, the 3rd Royal Saxon Uhlan Regiment No. 21 "Kaiser Wilhelm II., King of Prussia" was transferred to the Chemnitz barracks. In the same year, the first expansion of the barracks with a cavalry barracks took place. In 1909 barracks were built for the MG company as well as a washing facility and the provisions office.

After the demilitarization by the Treaty of Versailles , the barracks complex was used for public institutions, such as the national police. The garrison hospital became a public hospital. After general conscription was reintroduced in 1935, the area was taken over by the Wehrmacht . The former Uhlan barracks became the Kirchbach barracks for the 2nd division of the 60th Artillery Regiment and the 24th Artillery Command, the infantry barracks became the King Albert barracks for the 1st Battalion of the 102nd Infantry Regiment and the 13th and 14th Infantry Guns Anti-tank company.

After the end of the Second World War, the barracks were moved into on May 26, 1945 by the 841st Chernovtsian Guards Artillery Regiment of the 11th Red Banner Guards Panzer Division. The military hospital was handed over to the city of Chemnitz as a hospital, the former barracks in Chemnitz-Ebersdorf served as the new military hospital . In 1947 “Planitzstrasse” was renamed “Leninstrasse”. The stationed troops changed several times in the following years, mostly artillery and rocket troops, at peak times up to 4,000 men, were stationed in the barracks on "Lenin Street". From 1990 to 1993 the Soviet / Russian troops withdrew.

By 1996 the area was completely demunitioned and the buildings gutted. Most of the barracks buildings were demolished despite being listed . Only two outbuildings were renovated. The city of Chemnitz is planning to build a large school complex on the former barracks site.

  • Karl Paul Edler von der Planitz, namesake of the street in front of the barracks

  • South view of the barracks from Planitzstrasse

  • West view of the barracks with Planitzstrasse

  • South view with Planitzstrasse

  • Ulan barracks

literature

  • Festschrift for the regiment day of the former 15th Infantry Regiment No. 181. Adam Verlag, Chemnitz 1924.
  • Saxon. State Ministry of the Interior (ed.): Saxon State Handbooks 1728 to 1934. digital reprography, 2001.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b AG-Sonnenberg: On the military history of the Sonnenberg - Part 1. Accessed on April 18, 2013 .
  2. ↑ Festschrift for the regiment day of the former 15th Infantry Regiment No. 181. Chemnitz 1924, p. 9.
  3. ↑ Festschrift for the regiment day of the former 15th Infantry Regiment No. 181. Chemnitz 1924, p. 16.
  4. ^ Jürgen Kraus : Handbook of the units and troops of the German army 1914-1918. Part VI: Infantry. Volume 1: Infantry Regiments. Publishing house Militaria. Vienna 2007. ISBN 978-3-902526-14-4 . P. 273.
  5. ^ Günter Wegmann (Ed.), Günter Wegner: Formation history and staffing of the German armed forces 1815-1990. Part 1: Occupation of the German armies 1815–1939. Volume 2: The staffing of the active infantry regiments as well as the hunter and machine gun battalions, military district commands and training managers from the foundation or list until 1939. Biblio Verlag. Osnabrück 1992. ISBN 3-7648-1782-8 . P. 388.
  6. ↑ a b c AG-Sonnenberg: On the military history of the Sonnenberg - barracks history from 1918 to today. Retrieved April 18, 2013 .