389th Infantry Division (Wehrmacht)
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389th Infantry Division |
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|---|---|
 Troop registration |
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| active | January 27, 1942 to May 1945 (surrender) |
| Country |
.svg){kind=small} German Empire
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| Armed forces | Wehrmacht |
| Armed forces | army |
| Type | Infantry division |
| structure | See outline |
| Installation site | Milowitz military training area near Prague |
| Second World War | War against the Soviet Union |
| Commanders | |
| list of | Commanders |
| insignia | |
| Troop registration number 2 |
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| Troop registration |
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The 389th Infantry Division was a major unit of the Wehrmacht and fought on the Eastern Front , including the Battle of Stalingrad .
Division history
The 389th Infantry Division was set up on January 27, 1942 as one of five so-called "Rheingold Divisions" of the 18th wave of deployment on the Milowitz military training area northeast of Prague from replacement troops from the military districts IX , XII and XIII . Older conscripts, some of whom had already participated in the Polish and Western campaigns , were called up again, although they were active in so-called war-important professions. This was a consequence of the high losses of the previous winter of the war. It was a "stretched unit".
The division had its first missions at the Battle of Kharkov and Isjum in May 1942 and took part in the advance of the 6th Army into the Donbogen . She bore the brunt of the offensive on the Stalingrad tractor factory on October 14, 1942, although she had already suffered major losses and was in a worn-out state. The division suffered devastating losses within a few days that could no longer be made up. The pioneers of the Pioneer Battalion 389 and the infantrymen of the infantry regiments 544 and 546 took part in Operation Hubertus . The division sank on February 2, 1943 in the Stalingrad pocket.
The 389th Infantry Division made up of vacationers and survivors of the old unit was reorganized as a combat group on February 17, 1943 in France . The upgrade to a full division and the transport to the Eastern Front took place in September 1943. After defensive battles with many losses on the Dnepr sector, the division found itself in a key situation on January 25, 1944, when it was on a front line south of the 72nd Infantry Division . Here she was massively attacked by the 2nd Ukrainian Front . The 57th Infantry Division , which, in cooperation with the 5th SS-PD, held a position north of the 72nd Infantry Division on the moorland drained by the Irdyn (Tjasmyn) river called the Irdyner Swamp near Smila , was brought in to support the 389th Infantry Division. However, it came too late and was only able to pick up the remains of the 389th ID, which had since been worn out. Since the 2nd Ukrainian Front then swung in to the north, these four divisions were separated from units operating further south, such as the 3rd PD , and pushed into the Cherkassy pocket.
After the outbreak, the division had to hand over parts to the 57th Infantry Division and was then refreshed and reorganized by the Milowitz shadow division from March 1944. This time the division was deployed to Army Group North in Latvia , where it took part in the battles of Courland until February 1945. Then she was moved across the Baltic Sea to West Prussia and used there with the 2nd Army / Army East Prussia.
The remnants of the division were taken prisoner by the Soviets at the end of the war on the Hela peninsula .
structure
- Infantry Regiment 544 ( Kassel )
- Infantry Regiment 545 ( Wiesbaden )
- Infantry Regiment 546 ( Nuremberg )
- Artillery Regiment 389 (4 divisions)
- Field Replacement Battalion 389
- Engineer Battalion 389
- Panzerjäger detachment 389
- Reconnaissance Department 389
- Fusilier Battalion 389
- Infantry Division Intelligence Division 389
- Infantry Division Supply Leader 389
Commanders
| period of service | Rank | Surname |
|---|---|---|
| February 1 to November 1, 1942 | Lieutenant General | Erwin Jaenecke |
| November 1, 1942 to January 31, 1943 (sick since January 19, 1943) | Major general | Erich Magnus |
| January 19 to February 2, 1943 (in charge of the tour) | Major general | Martin Lattmann |
| April 1 to November 11, 1943 (responsible for the tour until June 1) | Major general | Erwin Gerlach |
| November 12, 1943 to March 15, 1944 | Major general | Kurt Kruse |
| March 16 to April 1, 1944 (possibly entrusted with the tour) | Major general | Paul Herbert Forster |
| April 1 to September 30, 1944 | Lieutenant General | Walter Hahm |
| September 30, 1944 to March 25, 1945 | Lieutenant General | Fritz Becker |
Awards
Several members of the 389th ID received high awards such as the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross or the German Cross in Gold.
literature
- Wilhelm Hauck, The German Infantry Divisions Listed Years 1939–1945 , Volume 3, 1993, Podzun-Verlag, ISBN 3-7909-0476-7 .
- David M. Glantz: Armageddon in Stalingrad: September-November 1942 (The Stalingrad Trilogy, Volume 2) . University of Kansas Press, Lawrence 2009, ISBN 978-0-7006-1664-0 .
- David M. Glantz with Jonathan M. House, To the Gates of Stalingrad: Soviet-German Combat Operations, April-August 1942 (The Stalingrad Trilogy, Volume I), University of Kansas Press, Lawrence 2009, ISBN 978-0-7006- 1630-5 .
- Janusz Piekalkiewicz, Stalingrad, Anatomie einer Schlacht , 4th edition, Heyne-Verlag Munich 1992, ISBN 3-453-06012-1
- Army High Command 6, Diary No. 12 from May 23 to July 19, 1942, Federal Archives -Military Archives Freiburg-, RH 20-6 / 176.
- Army High Command 6, War Diary No. 13 / 1st Volume from July 20 - August 26, Federal Archives -Military Archives Freiburg-, RH 20-6 / 198.
- Georg Tessin : Associations and troops of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen SS in World War II 1939–1945 . tape 10 . The Land Forces 371-500 . Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 1975, ISBN 3-7648-1002-5 , p. 53 f . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
- Haupt, Werner: Kurland 1944/45 - the forgotten Army Group, Friedberg 1979.
Web links
- Organizational History of 371st through 719th German Infantry, Security and Panzer Grenadier Divisions 1939–1945 (PDF; 394 kB), Nafziger Collection, Combined Armed Research Library.
Notes and individual references
- ↑ Nikolaus von Vormann : Tscherkassy, 1954, pp. 22, 42, 43, 58, 62, 136-139
- ↑ Samuel W. Mitcham : German Order of Battle, Volume 2: 291st-999th Infantry Divisions, Named Infantry Divisions, and Special Divisions in World War II. Stackpole, 2007. p. 92.
