18th Flak Division

Air force soldiers in the Soviet Union in 1942 with the 88-millimeter anti-aircraft gun

The 18th Flak Division was a major combat unit of the German Air Force in World War II .

The command staff of the 18th Flak Division was set up from the dissolved command staff of the II Flak Corps on April 10, 1942 with a command post in a forest camp near Smolensk . The division command was subordinate to the Air Force Command East , in whose area all flak forces were now to be led via the newly established division. The later Lieutenant General Richard Reimann became the first division commander . As of April 1942, the division comprised the following regiments:

The original strength of seven regiments could not be maintained for very long, however, and regiments 21, 34 and 101 were eliminated in May 1942. Up until February / March 1943, the regiments of the 18th Flak Division were involved in several skirmishes, for example at Rshew , where the Flak Regiment 101,105 was able to shoot down Soviet tanks. In the meantime there had been a first change in the division's management level. Reimann was succeeded by Major General Prince Heinrich Reuss , who took over the division on March 10, 1943. At the end of 1943, the regiments of the 18th Flak Division again distinguished themselves in the heavy battle for the Smolensk runways, so that the division was named in the Wehrmacht report on November 25, 1943 . In the course of the general German withdrawal, which began in early 1944, the leadership of the division was replaced. On February 1, 1944, the later major general Colonel Adolf Wolf came for Prince Reuss . With him at the helm, the 18th Flak Division experienced the collapse of Army Group Center, which began with the Soviet operation Bagration on June 22, 1944. Within a few months, the Soviet units succeeded in smashing 28 of 38 German divisions. In the middle of all this, the 18th Flak Division, which got into the pocket near Vitebsk during these days . Among other things, the flak regiment 34 and 101 with up to seven flak divisions in Bobrisk , divisions in Orsha and Mogilew and Vitebsk itself. On June 25, 1944, Lieutenant General Alfons Hitter and General Friedrich Gollwitzer, as commander of the trapped troops, ordered the immediate breakout, contrary to Hitler's orders, but this failed. Of the trapped parts of the 18th Flak Divisions, very few managed to fight their way back to the German lines on their own. However, all guns were also lost.

The forces of the 18th flak divisions remaining outside the pocket were still at the mercy of combat, which extended to the East Prussian border in the Augustow - Schirwindt - Schlossberg area until September 1944 . The severely decimated forces of the 18th Flak Division amounted to just three regiments on September 1, 1944 (6th, 34th and 125th). At the beginning of October, in the meantime the division was involved in renewed fighting together with the 3rd Army in East Prussia and Courland, there was a final change in the command level. For Wolf, Colonel Günther Sachs took over the division command and then held it until the end of the war. At the beginning of October 1944, the division's forces could be replenished by adding two new flak regiments. On the one hand, the flak regiment 116 and the flak regiment 138 came under the command of the 18th Flak Division . The 18th Flak Division was named again in the Wehrmacht report on October 22, 1944, for its continued success in defending against the Soviet armed forces, especially in anti-tank defense . By the beginning of 1945, the division's regiments had to withdraw to the Deime - Heilsberg line. At the end of January 1945, their command post was in Königsberg , where the division was subordinated to the Air Force Command East Prussia and took over the command of all flak forces of the Air Force deployed in this area. Due to the development of the situation, however, the command post soon had to be given up and relocated again, this time to Stuthenen . At the beginning of February, the division still had 51 heavy and 36 medium and light batteries . There were also seven headlight batteries. In mid-March 1945 the command post of the division headquarters was relocated to Lochstadt due to the situation . At that time the division was structured as follows:

Flak Regiment 77 Fresh Spit
Flak Regiment 81 Koenigsberg
Flak Regiment 116 east of Fischhausen and the
Flak Regiment Gürke Samland , then north of Fischhausen.

Last days of war and end of war

At the beginning of April 1945, the 81 flak regiment in the Königsberg fortress was finally lost. Only a hundred could still make their way to the German lines. Most of them, around 1,500 soldiers, went into Soviet captivity. The units located in Fischhausen lost almost all of their anti-aircraft guns by mid-April. The flak regiment 116 was almost completely destroyed. Their remnants (around 1,000 men) then reached Pillau on foot, where they were initially deployed as air defense on the Fresh Spit and the port facilities until the end of the war. On May 7, 1945 they were relocated to Hela to protect the port there. Their remains were disembarked the next day with the staff of Flak Regiment 77 to the west from Helau, where they arrived in Kiel on May 12, 1945 and were interned there on May 14, 1945.

In mid-April 1945, the 18th Flak Division was then subordinated to Flak Regiment 136 , which was then used in the Vistula lowlands. The divisional headquarters of the 18th Flak Division, meanwhile entrusted with their tasks by the withdrawal of the Air Force Command East Prussia, was to organize the shipping of the remaining units and units from April 21, 1945, according to its will, but this proved to be difficult. Your command post was last also in Hela. A part of the divisional headquarters left Hela on May 7, 1945 by sea, but was provided by Soviet naval units. The next day, May 8, 1945, the last staff members of the divisional headquarters left Hela.

The remnants of Flak Regiment 136 (approx. 450 men) were subsequently taken prisoner by the Soviets. The same applies to the 3,000 or so men of the Gürke flak regiment who took over the defense of Hela in the last days of the war. Overall, the 18th Flak Division has lost 3,075 men since the beginning of the fighting in East Prussia from September 1944. In addition there were 4,120 wounded.

Individual evidence

^ Karl-Heinz Hummel: The German flak cartillery 1935-1945. Your major formations and regiments . VDM, Zweibrücken 2010, ISBN 978-3-86619-048-1 , p. 87-91 .

[1] Karl-Heinz Hummel: The German flak cartillery 1935-1945. Your major formations and regiments . VDM, Zweibrücken 2010, ISBN 978-3-86619-048-1 , p. 87-91 .