159th Infantry Division (Wehrmacht)

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159th Infantry Division

159th Infantry Division Logo.svg
active August 1939 to April 20, 1945
Country German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era) German Empire
Armed forces Wehrmacht
Armed forces army
Type Infantry Division
Installation site kassel
Commanders
list of Commanders

The 159th Infantry Division was a major military unit of the Wehrmacht during World War II .

Division history

159th Division and Division No. 159

The 159th Division was formed on August 26, 1939 from the "Commander of Replacement Troops IX" and formally set up on November 9, 1939 in Kassel in military district IX . On January 1, 1940, the name was changed to Division No. 159 . On January 11, 1940, the division was moved to Frankfurt am Main , also military district IX.

159th Reserve Division

On October 1, 1942, the division was reclassified and split into two reserve divisions, one of which was the 189th reserve division . The remainder of the division was renamed the 159th Reserve Division and moved to Bourg, assigned to Army Group D. In early 1943 the division was the LXXX. Army Corps subordinated to the 1st Army , later in the year until the beginning of 1944 then in the LXVI. Army Corps. At the beginning of 1944, the division was moved from central France to south-west France on the Atlantic coast, again assigned to the 1st Army. When he moved to Belfort in August 1944, he was assigned to Army Group G and the division was assigned to the 19th Army .

159th Infantry Division

On September 29, 1944, the division was reorganized again, which was crushed during the retreat fighting and at Belfort (see below). This was followed by a refresher on the 159th Infantry Division .

Calls

Use in the south of France

Then she was moved to Bourg in France and on January 8, 1944 to southern France and used to protect the Atlantic coast.

The command post was located in Labouheyre in the arrondissement of Mont-de-Marsan .

The division had the order to secure about 300 km of coast from the Spanish border to the mouth of the Gironde in the Atlantic. This included the expansion of the defenses and ongoing training in the coastal security service. The division consisted of four regiments, including the Infantry Regiment (Ind.) 950 , which was formed from Indian students in Germany and former Indian prisoners of war.

After the invasion in June 1944, individual battalions and companies were given up to the troops fighting in Normandy.

The Indian Legion was sent to Germany in August 1944, incorporated into the Waffen SS and then fought again in France in the Poitiers area .

In mid-August 1944, all parts of the Wehrmacht and the Todt Organization ( army , navy , air force , field command, labor service , etc.), insofar as they were in the southern Atlantic area, were subordinated to the division. This included around 40,000 German civilians (women and men) who could not be used in fighting.

Withdrawal from Bordeaux

The division commander Lieutenant General Albin Nake called his staff and the commanders of the division into a castle-like house that belonged to a winery owner and university professor in Bordeaux and discussed the possible alternatives with them: march north to the Angoulème area and then east towards the German border Defense in the only makeshift permanent places in Bordeaux and Bayonne , as well as marching south and internment in Spain. A clear majority was in favor of a march to the German border with all combat-able forces using all motorized vehicles. The remaining parts should also march northwards on foot, on bicycles and horse-drawn wagons.

It was clear to General Nake and his divisional staff that with around 50,000 people, of whom only around 10,000 were fit for action, the narrow tube near Bordeaux could only be passed if the French promised a safe conduct . Immediately after the commanders' meeting, General Nake therefore asked the Prefect of Bordeaux, Maurice Sabatier, for a meeting, which took place at night in the prefecture . In this meeting, the free withdrawal to the Angoulème area (about 120 km from Bordeaux) was promised under the following conditions:

  • Non-destruction of the port of Bordeaux
  • Non-destruction of the port of Bayonne
  • Non-destruction of the Mont-de-Marsan power station
  • Non-destruction of the Pont de Pierre bridge over the Garonne in Bordeaux.
  • Handover of clothing and food supplies
  • Leaving prisoners behind ( maquis )

With regard to the first three destructions, there was an express order from Hitler. Concern for the fate of the non-soldiers and the responsibility to bring back the fighting parts of the division without losses, however, prompted Nake to accept the prefect's offer. It was determined that the German troops should leave Bordeaux by midnight on August 27 and that French troops would move into the city from midnight on August 28. The French kept their promise.

The division marched through the city of Bordeaux while the French stood in silence on the roadsides. The division suffered no casualties, with the exception of one company that turned northeast against the orders and is therefore lost.

Marching group Elster

The management of the non-motorized parts was entrusted to Major General Botho Henning Elster , Field Commander of Mont-de-Marsan, to whom Nake had given a free hand in a one-to-one conversation and asked him to avoid all unnecessary losses. Elster later capitulated to the American troops in the Poitiers area. Mediated by members of the Resistance , Elster contacted the Americans and negotiated the terms. Since Elster had great distrust of the Resistance, he was allowed to keep the armament until the final handover. After a last march north of several days, Elster surrendered on September 16, 1944 with 18,850 soldiers and 754 officers on the Loire Bridge from Beaugency with full military honors to US General Robert C. Macon of the 83rd Infantry Division. For this, shortly before the end of the war, on March 7, 1945, he was sentenced to death in absentia by the Reich Court Martial for "dangerous and misunderstood humanity".

March to Besançon

The rest of the division with the motorized forces marched through Poitiers and Angoulème and reached the area north of Besançon on September 4th after about 1000 km of march. Up to this point the division was on its own. On September 4, 1944, while crossing the street in Vesoul , General Nake fell over a rope stretched between two vehicles and broke his shoulder and was no longer fit for duty. British newspapers reported that Nake was seriously wounded but not captured in an enemy air strike. But this does not correspond to the facts. The longest-serving regimental commander, Colonel Hölzel, was not ready to take over the leadership of the division, but rather did not want to leave his regiment in the difficult situation, Lieutenant General Otto Kohl , who previously worked as General of the Western Transport System, was replaced by Infantry General Ernst Dehner , used as a division commander. After the 11th Panzer Division had already left Besançon, Dehner ordered the division to be led into the city and held in order to give the German units the opportunity to build a new line of defense. Kohl only partially carried out the order from Dehner, who had meanwhile left the city. Two regiments took up position in the city on September 6, 1944, while the divisional staff and the 3rd regiment under the command of Colonel Hölzel remained on the heights north of Besançon against the order of Dehner. After four days of fighting against strong forces of the Allied forces, which attacked the city from the wooded heights, the two regiments surrendered and were taken prisoner. Only a few parts of the trapped troops were able to break out.

On September 29, 1944, the division was renamed the 159th Infantry Division. General Kohl was replaced on October 10th by Major General of the Reserve Friedrich-Wilhelm Dernen , who kept at least the Hölzel Regiment available as a combat-ready unit and the divisional staff, with which he was able to set up a reasonably powerful unit with new units after a short time. He was replaced on December 11, 1944 by Major General Heinrich Bürcky , who headed the division until he was captured on April 20, 1945.

Battle of the Burgundian Gap (Belfort Gap)

After the German troops had barely offered any resistance to the approaching Allied troops in France until September 1944, at the Burgundian Porte, a corridor of relatively flat terrain that forms between the Vosges and Jura on the Swiss border and a gateway to the Rhine, in The Belfort area was formed by the Dehner General Command, which officially received the name “General Command LXIII Army Corps” on November 15th. This army corps initially consisted of the 159th, 189th and 338th infantry divisions . After heavy fighting against superior Allied forces, which included the 1st French Army under its commander General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny , Belfort was captured by the Allies on November 20th and the German troops withdrew to the Alsace area after heavy losses -Lothringen back. Major General Heinrich Bürcky had become division commander on November 15, 1944 and remained so until his capture on April 20, 1945.

The 159th Infantry Division took up position in the area of Thann - Sennheim - Hartmannsweilerkopf . Initially, there was calm in Alsace and Lorraine until December 31, 1944; then the last German offensive on the western front began there with the company Nordwind . After heavy fighting against American and French troops west of Mühlhausen, in which the breakthrough of the 1st French Army, reinforced by an American tank division, was initially prevented from December 1945 to January 1945, the Alsace bridgehead was cleared . In the night of 7/8 In February 1945 the division crossed the Rhine near Neuchâtel .

Destruction of the division

By the end of February 1945 the division was refreshed, mainly including large parts of the 716th Infantry Division . As a reserve of Army Group G, the division was moved in night marches from February 22 to March 5, 1945 to the area south of Landau . Contrary to the original plan, which provided for use on the Siegfried Line north of the Hagen Forest, it was then relocated to the Boppard , St. Goar and Bacharach area . From March 9, 1945 the division became the LXXXIX. Army command under the General of the Infantry Gustav Höhne subordinated to the task of holding a front forty kilometers wide from Koblenz to Cochem . Kesselring visited the command posts of the 1st and 7th Army on March 13th. When SS-General Paul Hausser , the Commander-in-Chief of the Upper Rhine Army Group, and other commanders pointed out that the front could not be held, he replied that he had taken note of their concerns, but that he was only carrying out Hitler's orders have to hold the position.

American troops under the command of General George S. Patton advanced against the Moselle, breaching the position of the 159th Infantry Division and threatening the division in the rear. With a lot of luck, the division managed to cross the Rhine.

On the night of March 23, 1945, the 5th US Infantry Division crossed the Rhine near Oppenheim and quickly formed a bridgehead. The counterattack, in which the 159th Infantry Division was also involved, failed. The command post of the division was at the time in the main post office in Darmstadt , which Kesselring visited on the late afternoon of March 23 and promised support. Major General Siegfried Runge, who was designated as the leader for the counterattack, was killed by artillery fire on the evening of March 23, 1945 near Groß-Gerau . The counterattack failed because it took place without preparation and support and was fought against a superior enemy with inadequate means, especially a lack of ammunition.

On March 22nd, the division commander received the following order from the 7th Army: "Division is gathering at the disposal of the army in Reichenbach near Bensheim ". As things stood, it was not to be expected that substantial parts of the division could still be collected. After the fighting, the 159th Infantry Division practically ceased to exist as a combat unit.

The division headquarters was captured by the Americans on April 20 in Thuringia.

Veterans meeting in Sennheim / Alsace

In 1971, a meeting of members of the 159th Infantry Division took place in Sennheim , which was also attended by former officers of the Moroccan Division. The German side was represented by the former division commander Bürcky and the French side by the commandant Pierre Burger, the district court director in Colmar. In the presence of a French guard of honor and the French General Brulè, commander of the 152nd Infantry Regiment, wreaths were laid in front of the French and German cenotaphs in front of the French and German cenotaphs in memory of the French and German soldiers who died in Alsace in both World Wars . In this cemetery lie 5,758 fallen German soldiers of the First World War and around 1,500 fallen German soldiers of the Second World War. At a reception in the town hall, Mayor Xavier thanked Herrgott for the nobility of the divisional commander and his soldiers during the fighting and pointed out that they had saved the population from starvation at that time. The mayor asked the German guests to sign the city's golden book, with General de Gaulle's entry on the first page .

people

Division commanders
period of service Rank Surname
August 26, 1939 to May 1, 1942 Lieutenant General Albert Fett
May 1 to September 20, 1942 Lieutenant General Karl Sachs
September 20, 1942 to June 20, 1944 Lieutenant General Hermann Meyer-Rabingen
July 1 to September 6, 1944 Lieutenant General Albin Nake
September 6 to September 8, 1944 Major general Axel Schmidt
October 19 to December 11, 1944 Colonel d. Res. Friedrich-Wilhelm Dernen
December 11, 1944 to April 20, 1945 Major general Heinrich Bürcky
General Staff Officers (Ia)
period of service Rank Surname
August 1939 to the end of June 1944 unknown
Late June 1944 to April 20, 1945 Major i. G. Dr. Kurt Pickart

Outlines

The structure of the division changed several times. The following structure was taken from the French Wikipedia. Further structure overviews can be found in the books by Samuel W. Mitcham and Georg Tessin .

Division No. 159
  • Infantry Replacement Regiment 9 ( Marburg )
  • Infantry Replacement Regiment 15 ( Hanau )
  • Infantry Replacement Regiment 214 ( Aschaffenburg )
  • Infantry Replacement Regiment 251 ( Friedberg )
  • Artillery Replacement Regiment 9
  • Panzerjäger-Ersatz -teilung 9 ( Büdingen )
  • Pioneer Replacement Battalion 9 (Aschaffenburg)
  • Pioneer Replacement Battalion 19 (Hanau)
  • Railway Pioneer Replacement Battalion 3 (Hanau)
  • News Replacement Department 9 ( Hofgeismar )
  • Motor vehicle replacement department 9 (Hersfeld)
  • Motor vehicle replacement department 29 ( Fulda )
  • Driving replacement department 9 (Fulda)
159th Reserve Division
  • Reserve Infantry Regiment 214 (in May 1943 as Grenadier Regiment 870 to the 356th Infantry Division )
  • Reserve Infantry Regiment 251 ( St. Etienne , from May 1943 as Reserve Grenadier Regiment 251)
  • Reserve Grenadier Regiment 9 ( Lyon ) (in May 1943 from the 189th Reserve Division)
  • Reserve Artillery Division 9 ( Valbonne )
  • Reserve Engineer Battalion 15 (Tournon)
  • Reserve Division Supply Leader 1059 (Bourg)
159th Infantry Division
  • Grenadier Regiment 1209 (from Reserve Grenadier Regiment 9)
  • Grenadier Regiment 1210 (from Reserve Infantry Regiment 251)
  • Grenadier Regiment 1211 (from January 1945 from parts of Grenadier Regiment 933 of the 244th Infantry Division )
  • Fusilier Battalion 159
  • Artillery Regiment 1059 (from the Army Artillery Department 1181)
  • Artillery Department Büttner
  • Panzerjäger -teilung 1059 (from January 1944 with a tank destroyer company of the 716th Infantry Division )
  • Engineer Battalion 1059 (from Reserve Engineer Battalion 15 of the 159th Reserve Division)
  • News Department 1059
  • Field Replacement Battalion 1059
  • Supply units 1059

Literature and archive data

  • Federal Archives Msg 2/2951
  • Website Maparchive.ru (Russian with google translation function Divisions / 159. Reserve department digital [13] ). The website contains archive supplies from the American Historical Association. The NARA National Archives (NARA) has the most complete collection of German original documents.
  • Peter Lieb , Conventional War or Nazi Weltanschauungskrieg ?, 2007, p. 482 (withdrawal from France) online [14]
  • Francis Cordet , Carnets de guerre en Charente, 1939–1944, p. 307 ff, (withdrawal from France) online [15] with footnotes p. 345 and 348 online [16]
  • Pierre Miquel , Bordeaux 29 août 1944, Une reddition négociée, publié le 24/05/2004, (withdrawal from France) in L´ EXPRESS online [17]
  • Stephen Rusiecki, In Final Defense of the Reich: The Destruction of the 6th SS Mountain Division "Nord", Annapolis 2010, (Battle of the Rhine) S (Google eBook) [18]
  • Harry Yeide, Fighting Patton: George S. Patton Jr. Through the Eyes of His Enemies, Minneapolis 2011, pages 395ff, (Schlacht am Rhein) google-books [19]
  • Douglas Boyd, Voices from the Dark Years: The Truth About Occupied France 1940–1945 (Google eBook), 2015 (withdrawal of the division from Bordeaux) [20]
  • Albert Kesselring, soldier to the last day, Bonn 1953, pp. 345, 358 (Moselle defense, crossing at Oppenheim). The statement by Division Commander Bürcky of October 8, 1953 is in the Federal Archives (Msg 2/2951).
  • Duroc-Danner, Jean, Face aux Marocains - Italie, France, Allemagne., Offenburg 1945 (The author, a general staff officer of the 2nd Moroccan Infantry Division, describes the fighting on pages 198-217 from the perspective of the German enemy, among others in Alsace. An extract from the German translation and the statement by Division Commander Bürcky dated June 13, 1971 are in the Federal Archives Msg 2/2951)
  • Division No. 159 / 159th Reserve Division / 159th Infantry Division on EHRI portal from the Federal Archives
  • Samuel W. Mitcham (2007). German Order of Battle. Volume One: 1st - 290th Infantry Divisions in WWII. PA; United States of America: Stackpole Books. Pp. 209 + 210, ISBN 978-0-8117-3416-5

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Albert Bömeke (first lieutenant and 1st orderly officer of the division), letter to the general. aD. Meyer-Rabingen of October 27, 1953 (Bundesarchiv Msg 2/2951)
  2. ↑ a b c Kurt Pickart (Major i.G. and Ia of the Division), letter to the Federal Archives (Military Archives) in Freiburg from August 4, 1983, (Bundesarchiv Msg 2/2951)
  3. ↑ Peter Lieb , Conventional War or Nazi Weltanschauung War? , 2007, p. 482 online [1]
  4. ↑ Francis Cordet , Carnets de guerre en Charente, 1939-1944, p 307 ff, online [2] with footnotes S. 345 and 348 online [3]
  5. ↑ Pierre Miquel , Bordeaux 29 août 1944, Une reddition négociée , in L'EXPRESS online May 24, 2004
  6. ↑ Joachim Ludewig, Retreat, The German Retreat from France 1944, Kentucky 2012, pages 118, 181, google books preview [4]
  7. ↑ Peter Lieb , Conventional War or Nazi Weltanschauungskrieg ?, 2007, p. 456 ff online [5]
  8. ↑ The Canberra Times, Wednesday 13 September 1944, page 1, 2nd column, digital [6]
  9. ↑ Joachim Ludewig, Retreat, The German Retreat from France, 1944, Kentucky 2012, pages 242f, google books preview [7]
  10. ↑ Jeffrey J. Clarke and Robert Ross Smith, Riviera to the Rhine, Washington, DC, 1993, pp. 184 ff, digital full text [8]
  11. ↑ Steven J. Zaloga: Operation North Wind 1945: Hitler's last offensive in the West . Bloomsbury Publishing, 2012, ISBN 978-1-78200-264-2 , pp. 36 ( google.de [accessed on February 10, 2019]).
  12. ↑ a b c Heinrich Bürcky (retired major general and former division commander of the division), letter to Field Marshal Albert Kesselring dated October 8, 1953 with a statement on his book “Soldat bis zum letzte Tag” (Bundesarchiv Msg 2/2951)
  13. ↑ Stephen Rusiecki, In Final Defense of the Reich: The Destruction of the 6th SS Mountain Division "Nord", Annapolis 2010, S (Google eBook) [9]
  14. ↑ Harry Yeide, Fighting Patton: George S. Patton Jr. Through the Eyes of His Enemies, Minneapolis, pages 395ff, google-books [10]
  15. ↑ Harry Yeide, Fighting Patton: George S. Patton Jr. Through the Eyes of His Enemies, Minneapolis, 404, [11]
  16. ↑ Dr. Willy Paul, (former first lieutenant in the division's staff) report from June 3, 1971, (Bundesarchiv Msg 2/2951).
  17. ↑ Axel Schmidt died on September 8, 1944 near Basancon .
  18. ^ Heinrich Bürcky was captured on April 20, 1945.
  19. ↑ Wikipedia France "159e division d'infantry (Allemagne)", accessed on March 2, 2015 159e division d'infantry (Allemagne)
  20. ^ Samuel W. Mitcham , German Order of Battle: 1st-290th Infantry divisions in World War II (Google eBook), 2007, keyword "159th Infantry (formerly Reserve) Division" [12]
  21. ^ Tessin, Georg, Associations and Troops of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS in the Second World War 1939–1945 / Landstwehr Forces 131-200 / Volume 7, Osnabrück 1973 p. 114 f.