32nd SS Volunteer Grenadier Division “30. January"

32nd SS Volunteer Grenadier Division “30. January"
Troop registration
active	January 30, 1945 to May 1945
Country	German Empire
Armed forces	Armed SS
Branch of service	Grenadiers
Type	division
structure	See outline
commander
list of	Commanders

The 32nd SS Volunteer Grenadier Division “30. January “ was set up on January 30, 1945 by order of January 26, 1945 on the Kurmark SS military training area from troops of the reserve army and the Schill combat group . The division fought initially in parts, later as an association, on the Eastern Front and was wiped out in the Halbe pocket. Small parts succeeded in breaking through to the 12th Army . These surrendered to American troops in Tangermünde on May 3, 1945 .

Installation and use

Originally, the division was planned as an armored infantry division, but due to the acute shortage of combat vehicles and fuel, it was reclassified as a grenadier division. Most of the personnel came from replacement units of the army, which were subordinate to Himmler in his function as commander in chief of the replacement army. The division was supplemented by the guards of the disbanded concentration camps .

The SS-Freiwilligen-Grenadier-Regiment 86 "Schill", which was set up in the summer of 1944 to suppress the Slovak uprising , formed the basis of the new division and was made up of teaching staff and from January 25, 1945 on the Kurmark military training area (near Lieberose in Brandenburg) Recruits, vacationers from the front as well as the training and replacement battalions 1, 9 and 16 of the SS Volunteer Grenadier Regiment 87 “Kurmark” added. The SS-Freiwilligen-Grenadier-Regiment 88 was formed in March from a combat group from the SS leadership school of the economic and administrative service and parts of the I./SS-Polizei-Regiment 34 of the Ordnungspolizei, members of the army and the Volkssturm .

The SS Artillery Regiment 32 was set up on January 30, 1945 at the Kurmark SS military training area and consisted mainly of units from the Prague SS Artillery Training and Replacement Regiment.

The SS pioneer battalion 32 was formed by members of the SS pioneer school in Hradischko, who had already served in the SS regiment "Schill", and filled with Hungarians and Romanians.

The Panzerjäger-Company of the SS-Regiment “Schill” together with the SS-Panzerjäger-Department 16 of the 16th SS-Panzergrenadier-Division “Reichsführer SS” formed the SS-Panzerjäger-Department 32, which thus has 22 assault guns III and 9 storm howitzers 42 , with a target strength of 14 StuGs.

In mid-March, the anti-aircraft department z. b. V. of the SS Leadership Main Office, which in the meantime was deployed as SS Flak Department 550 with the V. SS Mountain Corps , is subordinate to the division.

In February 1945 all available troops were ordered to the front, including the already formed units of the 32nd SS Volunteer Grenadier Division “30. January ”, especially the engineer battalion and units of the“ Schill ”regiment. It was not until the end of February that the division was set up as a closed association. In March, the division in Vogelsang was deployed against superior Soviet forces until it was ordered to serve as an army reserve in the Seelow area on April 12, 1945 . The attack by the Red Army on the Seelow Heights ultimately led to the inclusion of the 9th Army and also the 32nd SS Division. In the night of April 28th to April 29th, the remains of the division broke out of the Halbe pocket and managed to make their way to Tangermünde by May 3rd , where they surrendered to the 102nd US Infantry Division .

Intended structure

• SS-Freiwilligen-Grenadier-Regiment 86 "Schill"
• SS Volunteer Grenadier Regiment 87 "Kurmark"
• SS Volunteer Grenadier Regiment 88
• SS Volunteer Artillery Regiment 32
  • SS Panzerjäger detachment 32
  • SS Fusilier Battalion 32
  • SS Flak Division 32
  • SS Pioneer Battalion 32
  • SS News Department 32
  • SS Field Replacement Battalion 32

This large unit of the Waffen SS was set up late in the war and never reached its full strength.

Commanders

• January 30 to February 5, 1945: SS-Standartenführer Johannes Mühlenkamp
• 5th - 17th February 1945: SS-Standartenführer Joachim Richter
• February 17 to March 15, 1945: SS-Oberführer Adolf Ax
• March 15 to May 8, 1945: SS-Standartenführer Hans Kempin

literature

• Rolf Michaelis : The Grenadier Divisions of the Waffen SS. Part 3. Michaelis-Verlag, Erlangen 1995, pp. 6-56, ISBN 3-930849-05-4 .
• Rolf Michaelis: The 32nd SS Volunteer Grenadier Division. 2nd, revised edition. Michaelis, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-930849-39-0 .
• Tessin, Georg : Associations and troops of the German Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS in World War II 1939–1945 , Volume 5, The Land Forces pp. 31–70.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gordon Williamson: Die SS. Hitler's Instrument of Power, Kaiser, 2005, p. 246.