334th Infantry Division (Wehrmacht)

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334th Infantry Division

334th Infantry Division Logo 1.jpg

Troop registration
active November 1942 to May 1945
Country German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era) German Empire
Armed forces Wehrmacht
Armed forces army
Type Infantry Division
structure structure
Installation site Bamberg
Second World War Tunisian campaign , Italian campaign
Commanders
list of Commanders

The 334th Infantry Division was a major military unit of the Wehrmacht .

Division history

The division was formed in November 1942. It was unusual that their three regiments were drawn up from three different military districts . It had two infantry regiments as well as a mountain infantry regiment. Immediately after her formation she was transferred to Tunisia and assigned to the 5th Panzer Army there. There she was included in the Tunisian campaign after her arrival , as the Allies were advancing on Tunis and the supply ports of the Axis powers and the Axis powers threatened to be encircled in the winter of 1942/43. Together with the 10th Panzer Division and the “von Manteuffel” division , they successfully defended Tunis and northern Tunisia in the “Run for Tunis” in January 1943 as part of the “Company Eilbote”. Between February and March the division ("Kampfgruppe Krause") stayed in the northern Tunisian mountainous region and suffered heavy losses here. It was involved in the storming of Djebel Manson. She was separated from the rest of the army with the "Phalange africaine" volunteer organizations of the Vichy regime , which had been assigned to her, and surrendered to Allied troops in the Beja area on May 8, 1943, a few days before the fall of Tunis ( Medjez el Bab) in the Bizerta bridgehead .

The division was reorganized after its destruction in southern France on June 3, 1943. Contrary to the first list, this time all of their soldiers came from the military district of Nuremberg . On October 20, 1943, Lieutenant General Scheller took over the division that was brought to Italy. In the Army Group C used, it was found during the LXXVI. Armored Corps deployed in the section of the 10th Army on the Ligurian coast in the Genoa area. In early 1944 she was in the Association of LI. Mountain corps relocated south of Pescara to the Gustav Line between Orsogna and Guardiagrele east of the Majella massif . Parts of the division were used at Pontecorvo in the battle of Monte Cassino on the course of the rivers Liri and Sacco. After the fall of the Gustav Line, she withdrew to Umbria. On the Trasimeno Line or Albert Line, it was in position southwest of Castiglione del Lago on Lake Trasimeno . After the collapse of the Trasimeno line in the first days of July 1944, it was involved in retreat battles in the Val di Chiana and on the Pratomagno south of Arezzo . Then she was back in Genoa to freshen up.

From late July to late August, she was in the room Reggello - Pelago southeast of Florence in the partisan warfare used. At the end of August the division was moved to the area north of Prato . In October 1944, the XIV. Panzer Corps allocated, she took on the Gothic Line on the defensive battles in space Bologna , where she occasionally also the I Parachute Corps was subordinated. In northern Italy, in April 1945, the remnants of the division surrendered to the units of the 5th US Army .

War crimes

Members of various units of the division were involved in several war crimes in Italy between February and September 1944. Most of the victims were recorded in a counter-partisan operation north of Prato in Figline on September 6, 1944 by members of the 756 Grenadier Regiment, while 30 people were shot or hanged on the orders of Major Karl Laqua.

According to the Atlante degli Stragi Naziste e Fasciste in Italia project, which was financed by the German Federal Government and led by a historians' commission, around 100 people were killed by members of the 334th Infantry Division (Atlas of the Nazi and Fascist Massacres in Italy).

structure

Changes to the structure of the 334th ID from 1942 to 1943
1942 1943
754th Grenadier Regiment
755th Grenadier Regiment
Mountain Hunter Regiment 756 756th Grenadier Regiment
- Divisional Fusilier Battalion 334
334th Artillery Regiment
Panzerjäger detachment 334
Reconnaissance Division 334 -
Engineer Battalion 334
Divisional News Department 334
Divisional Supply Leader 334

Commanders

Division 334

334th Infantry Division

  • Lieutenant General Heinz Ziegler (May 24 to October 20, 1943)
  • Lieutenant General Walter Scheller (October 20 to November 27, 1943)
  • Lieutenant General Hellmuth Böhlke (February 1, 1944 to April 16, 1945)
  • Colonel (probably Heinz-Walter) Schenck (April 16 until the end of the war)

literature

  • Werner Haupt : The German Infantry Divisions , 3 volumes, Volume 3: Year of preparation 1939–1945, Dörfler Verlag 2005, ISBN 978-3-89555-274-8 .
  • Mitcham, Samuel W., Jr. (2007). German Order of Battle. Volume Two: 291st - 999th Infantry Divisions, Named Infantry Divisions, and Special Divisions in WWII . PA; United States of America: Stackpole Books. Pp. 40-42, ISBN 978-0-8117-3437-0 .
  • Peter Young: The Great Atlas for World War II Südwest Verlag, Munich 1974, pp. 122–130.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Percy E. Schramm (Ed.): War Diary of the High Command of the Wehrmacht, Volume III: 1943 edited by Walther Hubatsch, Bernard & Graefe Verlag für Wehrwesen, Frankfurt am Main 1965, Kriegsgliederungen pp. 262, 1402.
  2. ↑ Lo sfondamento della linea Albert, 2 luglio 1944. In: combattentiereduci.it. Retrieved September 30, 2019 .
  3. ^ A b Carlo Gentile : Itinerari di guerra: La presenza delle troupe tedesche nel Lazio occupato 1943-1944. Online publications of the German Historical Institute in Rome , Rome or JS32 PDF
  4. ↑ Percy E. Schramm (Ed.): War Diary of the High Command of the Wehrmacht, Volume IV: 1944/5, Bernard & Graefe Verlag für Wehrwesen, Frankfurt am Main 1965, Kriegsgliederungen pp. 1881, 1892, 1902.
  5. ↑ a b 334th Infantry Division. In: portal.ehri-project.eu. Retrieved September 30, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Figline Prato September 6, 1944 (Prato - Toscana). In: straginazifasciste.it. Retrieved October 30, 2019 (Italian).
  7. ↑ 334th Infantry Division. In: straginazifasciste.it. Retrieved October 30, 2019 (Italian).