35th Infantry Division (Wehrmacht)
|
35th Infantry Division |
|
|---|---|
 Troop registration |
|
| active | October 1, 1936 to May 8, 1945 |
| Country |
.svg){kind=small} German Empire
|
| Armed forces | Wehrmacht |
| Armed forces | army |
| Type | Infantry Division |
| structure | See outline |
| garrison | Karlsruhe |
| Nickname | Fish division |
| Commanders | |
| list of | Commanders |
The 35th Infantry Division (35th ID) was a major military unit of the Wehrmacht .
Division history
Application locations :
- Siegfried Line : September 1939 to May 1940
- Belgium and France : May 1940 to June 1941
- Eastern Front , Central Section: June 1941 to November 1942
- Eastern Front, Southern Section: November 1942 to April 1943
- Eastern Front, Central Section: April 1943 to April 1945
- East Prussia : April to May 1945
The division was set up in Wehrkreis V on October 1, 1936 in Karlsruhe . After mobilization as part of the 1st wave in 1939 and relocation from the Upper Rhine between Rastatt and Kehl to the Lower Rhine , the division marched through Belgium to the French Channel coast in the western campaign .
In June 1941 it was relocated for Operation Barbarossa via East Prussia to the Eastern Front. As part of Army Group Center , she took part in operations near Smolensk and Vyazma in 1941 . In November / December 1941 she fought in the battle on the front arch of Klin near Moscow and partially broke through the Moscow protective position on the Istra reservoir and the Moscow-Volga Canal . It penetrated up to 22 kilometers from the Russian capital, but had to stop further attack operations because of the onset of winter and the sharp fall in temperatures.
In 1942 the 35th Infantry Division was part of the 4th Army and took part in the Battle of Rzhev near Gschatsk . In 1943, the 35th Infantry Division withdrew from Gschatsk via Jelnja to Mogilev as part of the enterprise's Buffalo Movement . There were defensive battles on the taxiway from Moscow to Smolensk. In 1944 she fought near Bobruisk in Belarus , withdrew to the Pripet swamps and was able to break through towards Pinsk . From there she fought at the Narew bend until she withdrew completely to West Prussia . In April 1945 the 35th Infantry Division was destroyed on the Hela peninsula near Danzig .
Participation in Wehrmacht crimes
At the beginning of the withdrawal movement, the division was involved in "one of the most serious crimes of the Wehrmacht ever", the murder of 9,000 disabled civilians from the Osaritschi concentration camp in March 1944. Soldiers of the division fired while escorting the deportees - the members of the Wehrmacht Forced recruited people - into the camps and when they were guarded there “often for the slightest reason or for no reason, even for children (...) even at attempts by internees to drink from the swamp water.” The division commander, Lieutenant General Johann-Georg Richert, was therefore sentenced to death in the Minsk Trial in 1946. Osaritschi represents an extreme case in the handling of the division with useless eaters , but is at the end of a chain of selection measures against the disabled . The division had previously forcibly recruited and carried workers for the withdrawal on the one hand, and on the other hand "a) people suspected of epidemics and sick people in Jater, b) unfit for work, old people, children, invalids, etc. in Malkow" and as a "deportation to the Soviets ”.
people
| period of service | Rank | Surname |
|---|---|---|
| October 12, 1936 to November 24, 1938 | Lieutenant General | Hubert Schaller-Kallide |
| November 24, 1938 to November 25, 1940 | General of the Infantry | Hans Wolfgang Reinhard |
| November 25, 1940 to December 1, 1941 | Lieutenant General | Walther Fischer von Weikersthal |
| December 1, 1941 to September 10, 1942 | Major general | Rudolf Freiherr von Roman |
| September 10, 1942 to April 1943 | Lieutenant General | Ludwig Merker |
| April to June 8, 1943 | Lieutenant General | Otto Drescher |
| June 8 to November 5, 1943 | Lieutenant General | Ludwig Merker |
| November 5, 1943 to April 9, 1944 | Lieutenant General | Johann-Georg Richert |
| April 9, 1944 to May 11, 1944 | Major general | Gustav Gihr |
| May 11, 1944 to May 1945 | Lieutenant General | Johann-Georg Richert |
| May 1945 | Major general | Ernst Meiners |
- Hans Wulz served in the 35th Infantry Division, was awarded the German Cross in Gold and later was General of the National People's Army of the GDR
- Ludwig Ferdinand Prince zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg was Lieutenant Colonel and Regimental Commander of Reconnaissance Department 35, was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross and fell on November 22, 1943 near Shitomir .
- Conrad Heuss , nephew of the later Federal President Theodor Heuss, was in command of the Fusilier Regiment 34 and fell near Danzig.
Awards
A total of 26 members of the 35th ID were awarded the Knight's Cross and 114 with the German Cross in Gold.
structure
| 1939 | 1942 | 1943-1945 |
|---|---|---|
| 34th Infantry Regiment | Fusilier Regiment 34 | |
| Infantry Regiment 109 | Grenadier Regiment 109 | |
| 111th Infantry Regiment | Grenadier Regiment 111 | |
| Artillery Regiment 35 | ||
| Anti-tank department 35 | Panzerjäger detachment 35 | |
| Engineer Battalion 35 | ||
| News Section 35 | ||
| Infantry Division Supply Leader 35 | Commander of Infantry Division Supply Forces 35 |
|
| Reconnaissance Department 35 | Cycling Department 35 | Fusilier Battalion 35 |
| Observation Department 35 | - | - |
| Field Replacement Battalion 35 | ||
The artillery regiment 35 consisted of the departments I to III, as well as the I. department of the artillery regiment 71. The infantry regiment 34 carried until October 1, 1934 the name Infantry Regiment Heilbronn.
Well-known members of the division
- Heinz Scharff (1920–2014) was the fifth General Troop Inspector of the Austrian Armed Forces from 1981 to 1986
literature
- Ernst Otto Bräunche (ed. On behalf of the Karlsruhe City Archives): The Second World War - Last or Chance of Remembrance? Opposition to the memorial of the 35th Infantry Division in Karlsruhe; Symposium on November 6, 2014 in the Ständehaus memorial . Info-Verlag, Karlsruhe 2015, ISBN 978-3-88190-823-8 ( PDF )
- Klaus Froh & Rüdiger Wenzke : The generals and admirals of the NVA: A biographical manual . Ed .: Military History Research Office . 5th, through. Edition. Ch. Links Verlag , Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-86153-438-9 .
- Georg Tessin : Associations and troops of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen SS in World War II 1939–1945 . 2nd Edition. tape 5 . The Land Forces 31-70 . Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 1977, ISBN 3-7648-1107-2 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Dieter Pohl : The Rule of the Wehrmacht: German Military Occupation and Local Population in the Soviet Union 1941–1944 . Oldenbourg, Munich 2008, p. 328 f. (Quote there); René Rohrkamp : Ozarichi 1944 - The participation of the 35th Infantry Division in a war crime against civilians . In: Ernst Otto Bräunche (ed. On behalf of the Karlsruhe City Archives): The Second World War - Last or Chance of Remembrance? Opposition to the memorial of the 35th Infantry Division in Karlsruhe; Symposium on November 6, 2014 in the Ständehaus memorial . Info-Verlag, Karlsruhe 2015, pp. 15–28.
- ^ Christian Gerlach : Calculated murders. The German economic and extermination policy in Belarus 1941 to 1944 , Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 1998, p. 1097 f.
- ↑ Hans Heinrich Nolte : Osarici 1944 . In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (Ed.): Places of horror. Crimes in World War II. Primus, Darmstadt 2003, pp. 186–194, here p. 191.
- ^ Christian Gerlach: Calculated murders. The German economic and extermination policy in Belarus 1941 to 1944 , p. 1099 f.
