291st Infantry Division (Wehrmacht)
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291st Infantry Division |
|
|---|---|
 Troop registration |
|
| active | February 6, 1940 to January 1945 |
| Country |
.svg){kind=small} German Empire
|
| Armed forces | Wehrmacht |
| Armed forces | army |
| Type | Infantry Division |
| structure | See outline |
| Installation site | Insterburg , East Prussia |
| Nickname | Elk Division |
| Commanders | |
| list of | Commanders |
The 291st Infantry Division (291st ID) was a major military unit of the Wehrmacht during World War II .
Division history
The 291st Infantry Division was set up in February 1940 in Insterburg, southeast of Königsberg, on the Arys military training area as part of the 8th wave of deployment . A short time later she took part in the western campaign. To replenish the 306th ID , it surrendered the following battalions: I./IR 504, I./IR 505, I./IR 506 and III./AR 291. These were replaced.
In June 1941, the Division took under General Kurt Herzog during Operation Barbarossa as part of the XXVI. Army Corps of the 18th Army in the section of Army Group North took part in the attack on the Soviet Union. The elk division reached a marching speed of 70 kilometers within 34 hours while advancing through the Memelland and the Baltic states and was tasked with fighting units of the Red Army in the coastal region.
On June 24, 1941 there was heavy fighting in Libau with the 67th Rifle Division and marine shock troop units under Lieutenant von Diest. Libau and its fortifications did not fall after a bitter street fight until June 29, 1941 and the 291st Infantry Division was able to continue its advance on Riga , where they took the city together with the 1st Infantry Division.
In July and August 1941 the 291st Infantry Division secured the conquered territories in Estonia . Then she was the XXXVIII. Corps at the Oranienbaum bridgehead and broke into the first defensive belt around Leningrad in September 1941 near Ropscha and the Duderhofer Heights . Then they turned to Peterhof on the Gulf of Finland and destroyed a Soviet bunker line near Ropscha in the north of the Leningrad defensive belt.
In October 1941 it was deployed against the 2nd Shock Army under General Vlasov at the Volkhov position. In January 1942, ski battalions of this army broke through the defensive belt of 291st Infantry Division on the Tigoda River at temperatures of −42 ° C; on January 4, 1942, the regimental commander of the IR 505 Colonel Lohmeyer was killed by a Soviet mortar shell . His successor, Colonel Hesse, was able to close the break-in again. During the siege of Leningrad , the 291st Infantry Division was tied up in static position battles in the most severe weather conditions, which continued throughout 1942. In December 1942, the 291st Infantry Division made an unsuccessful attempt to liberate trapped units at Velikiye Luki .
In 1943, the 291st Infantry Division was deployed on the still relatively quiet section of the front north of Novgorod at the junction of Army Groups North and Central . During the winter, a grenadier battalion was converted into a ski battalion and later a cycling unit. In September 1943, the division was moved south to Ukraine to defend Kiev against the advance of the Red Army. She fought in the room for Korosten . In 1944 the division took part in the fighting to break out of the Hube Kessel . In January 1945 it was overrun and destroyed by Zhukov's 1st Ukrainian Front near Czestochowa on the Vistula River .
structure
- 504th Infantry Regiment
- 505th Infantry Regiment
- 506th Infantry Regiment
- Artillery Regiment 291
- Rapid Battalion 291
- Field Replacement Battalion 291
- Engineer Battalion 291
- News Department 291
- Division Supply Leader 291
people
| period of service | Rank | Surname |
|---|---|---|
| February 6, 1940 to June 10, 1942 | Lieutenant General | Kurt Herzog |
| June 10, 1942 to January 15, 1944 | Lieutenant General | Werner Göritz |
| January 15 to July 10, 1944 | Major general | Oskar Eckholt |
| July 10, 1944 to January 27, 1945 | Major general | Arthur Finger |
| period of service | Rank | Surname |
|---|---|---|
| February 8, 1940 to January 5, 1941 | Captain | Christian Mueller |
| January 5, 1941 to May 10, 1943 | major | Wilhelm von Roeder |
| May 1943 to 1944 | Colonel | Walther Freiherr von Uckermann |
| 1944 to April 1944 | major | Friedrich-Karl Walters |
| April to August 1944 | major | Helmut Eger |
| August 1 to September 30, 1944 | major | Eduard von Schuh |
| September 30 to November 20, 1944 | Colonel | Wilhelm Hess |
| November 20, 1944 to 1945 | Lieutenant colonel | Lothar Orlik |
- Carl Anders was in command of the 1st Battalion of the 505th Infantry Regiment from February 6, 1940 to October 28, 1940.
Awards
A total of 15 members of the 291st ID were awarded the Knight's Cross and 55 with the German Cross in Gold.
Well-known members of the division
- Wilhelm Heß (1907–1997), was from 1962 to 1968, as major general of the army of the Bundeswehr , commander in military area VI
literature
- Werner Conze: The history of the 291st Infantry Division 1940-1945. Podzun Verlag, 1953.
- French Maclean: Quiet Flows the Rhine: German General Officer Casualties in World War II. JJ Fedorowicz Publishing, 1996, ISBN 978-0-921991-32-8 .
- Georg Tessin : Associations and troops of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen SS in World War II 1939–1945. Volume 9. The Land Forces 281-370 . Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 1974, ISBN 3-7648-1174-9 .
Web links
- 200th through 370th German Infantry, Security, and Panzer Grenadier Divisions. Organizations and Histories 1939–1945 ( Memento from February 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 461 kB), Nafziger Collection, Combined Armed Research Library.
Remarks
- ↑ Fallen by Soviet tank fire near Czestochowa in Poland.
