22nd Infantry Division (Wehrmacht)

22nd Infantry Division
Troop registration from 1943 (based on the " Bacon flag " of the Bremen garrison location)
active	October 15, 1935 to May 8, 1945
Country	German Empire
Armed forces	Wehrmacht
Armed forces	army
Branch of service	infantry
Type	Infantry Division
structure	structure
garrison	Bremen
motto	"Proud - Strong - Loyal"
Commanders
list of	Commanders

The 22nd Infantry Division (temporarily than 22 Airborne Division , from the beginning of 1945 as 22 people Grenadier Division was named) an Infantry - Division of the Army of the German Wehrmacht .

history

1935–1939 - formation and mobilization

The division was set up on October 15, 1935 in the Stader Strasse barracks in Bremen , mobilized in August 1939 as part of the first wave of deployment and used in the attack on Poland from September .

1939–1940 - Participation in the western campaign

In October 1939, the division's soldiers were trained for airborne operations together with paratroopers from the 7th Flieger Division . It was used from September 1939 to May 1940 in Poland and on the Siegfried Line, and from May 1940 to June 1941 in the Netherlands . In May 1940, parts of the division took part in airborne landings in Rotterdam and The Hague (Operation “Fall fortress”), in particular with motorcycle units and infantry .

1941–1942 - Operations on the Eastern Front

As part of Operation Barbarossa , the German attack on the Soviet Union, the 22nd Infantry Division was part of the 11th Army and operated from June 1941 to July 1942 in the southern section of the Eastern Front .

In August 1941, the pioneers of the division at Beryslav enabled the 11th Army to cross the Dnepr . On August 26, 1941, reconnaissance units took the western part of the village after heavy house-to-house fighting. Then the Pioneer Regiment 690 managed under heavy Soviet shelling and air strikes, the transition with assault boats across the 700 meter wide at this point Dnieper. After the forcible capture of a bridgehead on the eastern side, the pioneers built a pontoon bridge at Beryslaw for the passage of the entire 11th Army by September 1, 1941 . The 22nd Infantry Division was then assigned a front section in the Nogai Steppe , where they had to fend off a Soviet counterattack.

On October 17, 1941, the division fought for access to the Crimea in the Isthmus of Perekop . After attacks by Soviet Ilyushin warplanes, the division initially holed up in the uncovered salt steppe. On October 18, 1941, the battalions of the IR 65 penetrated the enemy position system, while the attack of the IR 47 collapsed in barbed wire obstacles and heavy defensive fire. Only a relief attack by the IR 16 made it possible to storm the hill, which then became known as the "megalithic tomb of Assis". On June 9, 1942, the division under Major General Wolff's first attempt to capture Fort Stalin off Sevastopol failed. The experiment was repeated on June 13, 1942 by the IR 16. The Soviet bunker positions on the second line of defense were taken individually in close combat until June 17, 1942, with the support of the engineers and flamethrowers . A little later, the IR 65 conquered the fort "Siberia" and the IR 16 the forts "Ural" and "Volga" as the last obstacles, so that the division was the first German unit to reach Severnaya Bay.

Temporary airborne status / deployment in North Africa

After participating in the Crimean campaign and the conquest of Sevastopol , the division, which was used as a pure infantry unit in the Soviet Union , regained airborne status and also received the "mot.trop." (Motorized unit for use suitable in the tropics), as it was intended to be relocated to North Africa. On March 30, 1942, it was classified as "fully suitable for defense" with nine battalions with 50% of the combat strength and full divisional artillery. She had to be refreshed for offensive tasks. In August 1942 the division was relocated to Greece and was commissioned to secure the coast and garrison the island in Crete . On October 1, 1942, the 22nd ID lost its airborne status.

The Grenadier Regiment 47 and the II./AR 22 were combined to form "Kampfgruppe Buhse", then transferred to North Africa in October 1942 and placed under the 5th Panzer Army . On February 26, 1943 the unit was renamed Panzergrenadier Regiment 47 and placed under the 21st Panzer Division . In May 1943 the regiment near Tunis was destroyed.

1942–1944 - Crete and Dodecanese

The division was used from July 1942 to September 1944 in Crete and the Dodecanese . The parts of the division remaining on Crete conquered the Aegean islands Kalymnos , Leros , Kos (all in the Dodecanese) and Samos in October 1943 under the command of Lieutenant General Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller in the so-called Dodecanese campaign , in the fight against Italian and British troops.

On April 26, 1944, Major General Heinrich Kreipe , Müller's successor as division commander, was kidnapped by a special command of the British SOE and brought to Great Britain . Müller was ordered back and appointed in command of the so-called "Fortress of Crete" and had bloody retribution perpetrated on several Cretan villages, including Anogia .

The division remained in Crete until September 1944, when it was evacuated from Greece during the German withdrawal.

1944–1945 - Participation in retreat fights in the Balkans and Austria

From September 1944 to March 1945 she took part in the German withdrawal fights in the Balkans and Austria . In March 1945 it was renamed the 22nd Volksgrenadier Division . At this point the division was in retreat to the Drava . The bulk of the division came into Yugoslav captivity only after the armistice on May 11, 1945 . The rear parts of the division surrendered to the British at Klagenfurt .

organization

Commanders

period of service	Rank	Surname
October 15, 1935 to November 10, 1938	Lieutenant General	Adolf Strauss
November 10, 1938 to October 10, 1941	Major General / Lieutenant General	Hans Graf von Sponeck
October 10, 1941 to August 1, 1942	Major general	Ludwig Wolff
August 1, 1942 to September 28, 1942	Major general	Friedrich-Wilhelm Muller
September 28, 1942 to October 5, 1942	Colonel	Hans Baethmann (m.st.Fb)
October 5, 1942 to October 20, 1943	Lieutenant General	Friedrich-Wilhelm Muller
October 20, 1943 to February 1, 1944	Colonel	Hans Baethmann (m.st.Fb)
February 1, 1944 to February 15, 1944	Lieutenant General	Friedrich-Wilhelm Muller
February 15 to April 26, 1944	Major general	Heinrich Kreipe
May 1, 1944 to April 15, 1945	Lieutenant General	Helmut Friebe
April 16, 1945 to May 15, 1945	Major general	Gerhard Kuehne

General Staff officers

period of service	Rank	Surname
October 15, 1935 to July 5, 1937	Lieutenant colonel	Kurt Waeger
July 5, 1937 to March 1, 1939	major	Theodor Busse
March 1 to August 26, 1939	Lieutenant colonel	Werner Ehrig
August 26, 1939 to June 1, 1943	Lieutenant colonel	Heinz Langmann
June 1, 1943 to February 15, 1944	Lieutenant colonel	Hans-Joachim Liesong
March 5, 1944 to March 1945	Lieutenant colonel	Rolf Ewald

Breakdown

Changes in the structure of the 22nd Infantry Division from 1939 to 1945

1939	1942	1943-1945
16th Infantry Regiment	16th Grenadier Regiment
47th Infantry Regiment	Grenadier Regiment 47
65th Infantry Regiment	Grenadier Regiment 65
Artillery Regiment 22nd
Engineer Battalion 22nd
Anti-tank department 22	Panzerjäger detachment 22
News Department 22
Reconnaissance Department 22		Panzer Reconnaissance Division 122
Observation Department 22
	Fla-Battalion (mot) 22
Field Replacement Battalion 22nd
Infantry Division Supply Leader 22nd

The artillery regiment 22 consisted of the I. to III. Department as well as I./AR 58.

Well-known members of the division

• Hans Graf von Sponeck (1888–1944), division commander from 1938 to 1941, was accused of co-conspiracy in the assassination attempt of July 20, 1944 and executed in 1944
• Johann Freihsler (1917–1981) was Federal Minister for National Defense of Austria from 1970 to 1971 .
• Friedrich Hohn (1908-1944), was a German local politician and full-time district administrator in the Bersenbrück district
• Ludwig Stubbendorff (1906–1941), was an Olympic champion in equestrian sport
• Hermann Wulf (1915–1990), was from 1965 to 1971, as Brigadier General of the Army of the Bundeswehr , commander of the Army Officer School II

literature

• Friedrich-August von Metzsch: The history of the 22nd Infantry Division 1939–1945 (=  The German Divisions, 1939–1945 . Volume 22 , part 4). HH Podzun, Kiel 1952, DNB  453349935 , LCCN  90-016426 .
• Bruns: Grenadier Regiment 16. 1939–1945 (path of the field regiment in World War II) records based on the diary of his last Kdrs. Colonel d. R. Bruns. Self-published, Potenburg 1959.
• Rudolf Buhse: From the history of the Grenadier Regiment 47. Summary of 42 articles from 1951–1965 in: Mitteilungsblatt fd Kameraden des former Gren.Rgts. 47 , 1982.
• Bruce Quarrie: German Airborne Divisions: Blitzkrieg 1940–1941. Osprey Publishing, 2004, ISBN 978-1-84176-571-6 .
• Georg Tessin : Associations and troops of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen SS in World War II 1939–1945. Volume 4. The Land Forces 15–30 . 2nd Edition. Biblio-Verlag, Osnabrück 1976, ISBN 3-7648-1083-1 .

Web links

• Historic.de

Remarks

1. ↑ "Fortress Holland".
2. ↑ carried the name of the Oldenburg Infantry Regiment until October 15, 1935.
3. ↑ was reorganized on August 6, 1942 as motorcycle rifle battalion 13.