356th Infantry Division (Wehrmacht)

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356th Infantry Division

Troop registration number of the 306th Infantry Division

Troop registration
active May 1, 1943 to May 1945
Country German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era) German Empire
Armed forces Wehrmacht
Armed forces army
Branch of service infantry
Type Infantry Division
structure structure
Installation site Toulon in France
Second World War Italian campaign
Eastern Front
Commanders
list of Commanders

The 356th Infantry Division was a major military unit of the Wehrmacht .

Division history

The infantry division was set up on May 1, 1943 in Toulon in France and then stationed there.

In November 1943 the association was moved from France to Italy on the Ligurian coast between Ventimiglia and Genoa . In the spring of 1944, units of the division were used to fight partisans in northern Italy between Liguria and Piedmont . The reconnaissance department was moved to the Anzio - Nettuno area at the end of January 1944 and took part in the Battle of Anzio at Cisterna di Latina and Velletri . From mid-February to the beginning of March it was then used on the Monti Aurunci near Castelforte and the Monti Ausoni near Coreno Ausonio on the Gustav Line . The 1st Battalion of the 871 Grenadier Regiment was also moved to the Gustav Line on the Garigliano River at the beginning of March and fought there until the end of March.

In June 1944 the division was relocated to Tuscany and then deployed to the Goths in Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna . In July 1944, the division south of Florence near Greve in Chianti was involved in fierce defensive battles against attacking South African units with which the Allies began their attack on Florence.

In January 1945, the division was relocated first to Hungary and then to the Eastern Front and suffered very heavy losses here.

In May 1945, the division came in Wiener Neustadt in US captivity .

War crimes

Members of various units of the division were involved in several war crimes in Italy between January and August 1944. Most of the victims claimed 97 dead in an anti-partisan campaign on April 6, 1944 in the Benedicta monastery near Bosio in the province of Alessandria in the Ligurian Apennines in which members of the grenadier regiments 869 and 871 were also involved. During the massacre in the Fragheto district in the municipality of Casteldelci on April 7, 1944, carried out by members of the 5th Company of the 2nd Battalion Grenadier Regiment 871, the majority of the 31 victims were women and children.

According to the project Atlante degli Stragi Naziste e Fasciste in Italia, which was financed by the German Federal Government and led by a historians' commission, by the end of the war in Italy, members of the 356th Infantry- Division killed.

structure

  • Grenadier Regiment 869
  • Grenadier Regiment 870
  • 871st Grenadier Regiment
  • 356th Artillery Regiment
  • Engineer Battalion 356
  • Field Replacement Battalion 356
  • Fast division 356
  • Reconnaissance Department 356
  • Divisional News Department 356
  • Divisional Supply Leader 356

source

people

Division commanders of the 356th ID
Rank at that time Surname Period
Lieutenant General Egon von Neindorff May 1, 1943 to May 15, 1943
Lieutenant General Karl Faulenbach May 15, 1943 to October 1944
Colonel Kleinhenz October 1944 to February 1945
Colonel New Year from Saldern February 1945 until dissolution

literature

  • Carlo Gentile: Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS in Partisan War: Italy 1943–1945. Schöningh, Paderborn 2012, ISBN 978-3-506-76520-8 . (Cologne, Univ., Diss., 2008.)
  • Mitcham, Samuel W., Jr. (2007a). 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. ISBN 978-0-8117-3437-0 .
  • 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 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ 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 JS 32–33 PDF
  2. ↑ Italia in Guerra. In: goticatoscana.eu. Retrieved September 23, 2019 (Italian).
  3. ↑ Benedicta Bosio April 6, 1944 (Alessandria - Piemonte). In: straginazifasciste.it. Retrieved September 29, 2019 (Italian).
  4. ↑ Carlo Gentile : I crimini di guerra tedeschi in Italia. Einaudi, Turin 2015 ISBN 978-88-06-21721-1 pp. 118-119
  5. ↑ Fragheto Casteldelci 04/07/1944 (Rimini - Emilia-Romagna). In: straginazifasciste.it. Retrieved September 23, 2019 (Italian).
  6. ↑ 356th Infantry Division. In: straginazifasciste.it. Retrieved October 29, 2019 (Italian).
  7. ↑ 356 ID. German Historical Institute in Rome, accessed on September 23, 2019 .