183rd Infantry Division (Wehrmacht)

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183rd Infantry Division

active November 28, 1939 to November 2, 1943
Country German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era) German Empire
Armed forces Wehrmacht
Armed forces army
Branch of service infantry
Type Infantry Division
structure structure
Installation site Münsingen military training area
Commanders
list of Commanders

The 183rd Infantry Division (183rd ID) was a major unit of the army of the German Wehrmacht in World War II .

Division history

It was reorganized as a division of the 7th wave of deployment from November 28, 1939 in Defense District V on the Münsingen military training area from replacement units from Home Defense District XIII . The assignment of field replacement battalions 10, 17 and 46 in January 1940 brought the division to full combat strength. Further training took place until May 1940, after which the division moved from May 22nd at the disposal of the Army High Command to Luxembourg , which was already occupied in the western campaign , from where it joined the 16th Army when it breached the Maginot Line and in the Conquest of Lorraine was used. The division marched from Diedenhofen to Aachen by July 10, 1940, and from there was transferred by rail to the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia , where it continued to train with the 2nd Army. At the beginning of April 1941, the 183rd Infantry Division moved with the 2nd Army to the Graz area and took part in the attack on Yugoslavia from April 6, 1941 , where they occupied the area between the Drava and Save . The division remained there as an occupation force until June 10, 1941. The 183rd Infantry Division was then moved back to the Graz / Styria area and from there, after the attack on the Soviet Union began , from August 4, 1941 to the Suwalki - Grodno area . It advanced on Wilna and on via Dünaburg and Newel to Welisch .

The first combat mission of the 183rd Infantry Division as part of the German-Soviet war was from 20 September 1941 at the Association of the 4th Army in defense of Yelnya One sheet and in the double battle of Vyazma and Bryansk . The division fought its way across Dorogobush and the Nara River to Naro-Fominsk , where the offensive came to a standstill. In the Battle of Moscow , the division continued to fight as part of the 4th Army and suffered great losses through the winter with temperatures of -30, -37 and -42 ° C. In defensive battles on the Nara, south of Moshaisk and on the Vorja and Istra rivers , the division was able to hold its positions for more than a year.

At the end of January 1943 Hitler's decision was made to have the large front arc from Vyazma - Rzhev evacuated in order to save strength after the great losses, especially at Stalingrad . The 183rd Infantry Division withdrew as part of the 4th Army from March 7, 1943 on shorter front lines east of Spas-Demensk . Soviet attacks on the new positions until the end of March 1943 were repulsed. With the successful withdrawal operation of the company “Buffalo Movement” , a front shortening of 370 km was achieved for the area of Army Group Center .

Another phase of trench warfare follows . Then the 183rd Infantry Division D was directly subordinate to the 4th Army and could be relieved from the front for the first time since the beginning of the Eastern War. From July 17, 1943, after the failure of the Zitadelle operation , the division had to join the 2nd Panzer Army and then the 9th Army to defend the Orel Arch. Ultimately, it was not possible to hold the German positions, so a withdrawal movement was initiated on the Hagen position east of Bryansk , in which the division participated from August 10, 1943. From August 28th she was detached from the front and moved by rail to Army Group South in the Konotop - Bachmatsch break- in area, where she was able to delay the advance of the Red Army in the association of the 4th Panzer Army, but not stop it. On September 12th, the 183rd Infantry Division was mentioned in the Wehrmacht report. After Army Group South had ordered the withdrawal of its entire front on the Melitopol - Dnieper line to the north of Kiev on September 15, 1943 , the division withdrew, crossed the Dnieper from September 22, and moved into positions north of Kiev. In October 1943 the combat group of the 183rd Infantry Division had to retreat further on the Teterew River .

By order of October 22, 1943, the 183rd Infantry Division was merged with two other, badly battered infantry divisions ( 217th and 339th ) into a "Corps Detachment C". The preparation of the Corps Division C was made officially on November 2, 1943. The same day ended the history of the 183rd Infantry Division.

By order of July 20, 1944, the 183rd Infantry Division was to be re-established by renaming Corps Department C, but this did not happen due to the enclosure and destruction in the Brody pocket during the partial collapse of the front of Army Group Northern Ukraine .

As part of the 32nd wave of formation, from September 15, 1944, a new formation as the 183rd Volksgrenadier Division was made from a smaller part of the approximately 5000 survivors of Corps Department C and from the Shadow Division Döllersheim at the Döllersheim military training area. The designation initially intended as the 564th Volksgrenadier Division was dropped. The 183rd Volksgrenadier Division was relocated to the Siegfried Line on the Western Front on September 16, 1944 without any further training , where it was deployed north of Aachen . In the association of the 7th Army , then the 5th Panzer Army, the division prevented the breakthrough through its front sections, but had to retreat to positions east of Aachen , which it was able to hold until February 1945. The withdrawal to the Lower Rhine near Düsseldorf followed . The inclusion of Army Group B in the Ruhr basin in April 1945 led to the surrender of the 183rd Volksgrenadier Division on April 12, 1945 under its last commander, Major General Hinrich Warrelmann , in the Gummersbach area .

people

Commanders

Prominent relatives

structure

Structure 1940 :

  • 330 Infantry Regiment
  • 343rd Infantry Regiment
  • 351th Infantry Regiment
  • Artillery Regiment 219

planned structure 1944 :

  • Grenadier Regiment 311
  • 330 Grenadier Regiment
  • Grenadier Regiment 691
  • Division Fusilier Battalion 183
  • Artillery Regiment 219
  • Engineer Battalion 219
  • Panzerjäger detachment 219
  • Infantry Division Intelligence Division 219
  • Division Supply Regiment 219

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 .
  • Ernst Schnabel: Path and Fate of the 183rd Infantry Division. History of the Franconian-Sudeten German 183rd Infantry Division. Division group 183 in the corps department C. 183. Volks-Grenadier-Division 1939–1945, published by the comradeship of the former 183rd ID eV, Nuremberg, self-published in 1988.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Samuel W. Mitcham : German Order of Battle, Volume 1: 1st-290th Infantry Divisions in World War II. Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg 2007. ISBN 0-8117-3416-1 . P. 237.