23rd Panzer Division (Wehrmacht)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

23rd Panzer Division

Troop registration

Troop registration
active September 1941 to May 1945
Country German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era) German Empire
Armed forces Wehrmacht
Armed forces army
Type Panzer Division
structure structure
Nickname Eiffel Tower Division
Second World War German-Soviet War , Winter Storm Company
Commanders
list Commanders

The 23rd Panzer Division was a major unit of the army of the German Wehrmacht in World War II .

Division history

Areas of application:

The 23rd Panzer Division (PD) was set up in France in September 1941 and relocated to the Eastern Front in April 1942, where it was subordinated to Army Group South . It was deployed in the Kharkov area and had its first enemy contact with Lossewo, Pechanoje, Ternowaja and Taranowka. At Volnjansk it was made available for the case of Blau , the German summer offensive in 1942. The 23rd PD received orders from the Oskol to advance on the Don and Voronezh . Via Rossosh , Chertkowo and Millerowo it reached the Don at Mikolajewskaja. The instructions were to get to the Caucasus . After passing the river Sal , the stations were Manych , Proletarskaya, Baschanta , Ipatowo , Voroshilovsk up to the Kuban and the Kuma near Mikolajewskaja. Fierce fighting broke out on the Terek near Prochladny and Nalchik- Ordzhonikidze. The advance came to a standstill here, and the division commander, Major General Erwin Mack , was killed on August 26, 1942 near Novo Poltawskoje, together with three of his staff officers, by a direct hit by a mortar shell when he was on the front section of the Panzergrenadier Regiment 128 visited.

Later, in December 1942, the 23rd PD was involved in the unsuccessful attempt to free the encircled 6th Army in Stalingrad in Operation Wintergewitter . The relief attack on Stalingrad was repulsed. In 1943 the 23rd PD had to withdraw near Proletarskaya, southeast of Rostov . In 1943 she was involved in heavy defensive battles, especially around Rostov's main train station, and had to give up the city against the advancing Red Army. The withdrawal movement ran to the Mius position at Alekssejewka and Demidowka, there it was relieved and had to be refreshed in Makejewka. The retreat led gradually through the Ukraine from Dnepropetrovsk and Kremenchug to Krivoy Rog . In the summer of 1944, in view of the successful advance of the Red Army and the Kesselschlacht am Pruth and Jassy , she withdrew first to Poland and then to the Margaret Position in Hungary. There she took part in the spring awakening operation as part of the Lake Balaton offensive and after its failure withdrew fighting to Austria, where she was taken prisoner by the Western Allies at the end of the war.

people

Division commanders of the 23rd PD:
period of service Rank Surname
September 25 to November 16, 1941 Lieutenant General Hans Freiherr von Boineburg-Lengsfeld
16.-22. November 1941 Major general Heinz-Joachim Werner-Ehrenfeucht
November 22, 1941 to July 20, 1942 Lieutenant General Hans Freiherr von Boineburg-Lengsfeld
July 20 to August 26, 1942 Major general Erwin Mack
August 26 to December 26, 1942 Lieutenant General Hans Freiherr von Boineburg-Lengsfeld
December 26, 1942 to October 25, 1943 General of the armored force Nikolaus von Vormann
October 25 to November 1, 1943 Major general Ewald Kräber
1st - 18th November 1943 Major general Heinz-Joachim Werner-Ehrenfeucht
November 18, 1943 to June 9, 1944 Major general Ewald Kräber
June 9, 1944 to May 8, 1945 Lieutenant General Josef von Radowitz
Gustav-Albrecht von Sayn-Wittgenstein was a nobleman and 5th prince of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg. He served with the 23rd PD as General Staff Officer (Ic) in the rank of Rittmeister. He was reported missing on the Eastern Front in 1944 and officially dead in 1969.
von Boineburg-Lengsfeld was division commander of the 23rd PD. After the general staff officer of the 23rd PD Major Reichel was shot down by Soviet troops in his plane, and the attack plans for the attack on Stalingrad fell into the hands of the enemy, von Boineburg-Lengsfeld, Lieutenant Colonel Gerhard Franz and General Georg Stumme had to face a court martial. Von Boineburg-Lengsfeld acquitted of all three defendants and was then reinstated as division commander of the 23rd PD.
Austrian commander of Panzer Pioneer Battalion 51, later an officer in the Austrian Armed Forces, most recently military commander of Lower Austria with the rank of brigadier.

structure

Changes in the structure of the 23rd PD from 1942 to 1943
1942 1943
  • Panzer Regiment 201
  • 23rd Panzer Regiment
  • Rifle Brigade 23
    • Rifle Regiment 126
    • Rifle Regiment 128
  • Panzer Grenadier Regiment 126
  • Panzer Grenadier Regiment 128
  • Reconnaissance Department 23
  • Artillery Regiment 128
  • Panzer Artillery Regiment 128
  • Panzerjäger detachment 128
  • Army Flak Artillery Department 278
  • Field Replacement Battalion 128
  • Field Replacement Battalion 128
  • Panzer Pioneer Battalion 51
  • News Department 128
  • Panzer News Department 128
  • Supply Force 128
  • Tank Supply Troops 128

literature

  • 23rd Panzer Division. In: Veit Scherzer (Ed.): German troops in the Second World War. Volume 6. Scherzers Militaer-Verlag, Ranis / Jena 2010, ISBN 978-3-938845-27-1 , pp. 201-239.
  • Ernst Rebentisch: On the Caucasus and the Tauern - The History of the 23rd Panzer Division (1941–1945). Self-published, 1963.
  • 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

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ Tributary of the Don
  2. ↑ in the " Kalmücken Steppe "
  3. ↑ by Soviet mortar fire in Pyatigorsk killed
  4. ↑ wounded in Verkhne Kumski and evacuated
  5. ↑ http://www.gedenkstaette-breitenau.de/rundbrief/RB-29-61.pdf