6th Flak Division

The 6th Flak Division was a major combat unit of the German Air Force in World War II .

history

Initially set up as the Stettin Air Defense Command on August 1, 1938 in Stettin under the command of the later Major General Alexander Kolb , the Air Defense Command was relocated to Hanover on July 1, 1939 . Here it was under the command of the Luftgau Command XI . In Hanover, in the course of the numbering on August 1, 1939, the command was also given the designation Air Defense Command 6.

On February 1, 1940, Major General Wolfgang Rüter succeeded Kolb. With him, the command also saw the beginning of the western campaign in May 1940. It was also to be relocated to the western front in the further course, but first came to Oldenburg in Holstein , then to Brussels and finally to Waterloo . On October 5, 1940, the top command changed again. The later lieutenant general Job Odebrecht took the place of Rüters . Air Defense Command 6 remained stationed in Waterloo until the summer of 1941 and was relocated to Hindenburg ( Silesia ) as part of the preparations for the Barbarossa company to take over the airspace protection of the Upper Silesian industrial area. The designation command was retained until August 31, 1940. After that, on September 1, 1941, the former Air Defense Command 6 became the 6th Flak Division.

For a reason that was no longer comprehensible (probably due to the great initial successes of the Wehrmacht in the Soviet Union), the 6th Flak Division was immediately relieved of its task and relocated back to Belgium. It was not until April 1, 1942, that the division was relocated to the Eastern Front in order to take over the leadership of the flak forces there in the area of the 16th Army . The flak units subordinate to her there achieved considerable success in the hard battles until March 1943, in particular around the Demjansk bridgehead and south of Lake Ladoga (see also Ladoga battles ). The number of enemy targets shot down since June 1941 rose to 482 aircraft and 253 armored fighting vehicles of all kinds by March 1943. In addition, the batteries had to destroy 423 enemy bunkers and three railway trains. The regiments that were not assigned to the division at this time are not known. On November 19, 1942, Lieutenant General Werner Anton took over command, which he held until the end of the war. On November 1, 1943, the division consisted of the following units:

Anti-aircraft regiment 43
Flak Regiment 136 (later entry and delivery in summer 1944)
Anti-aircraft regiment 151

In December 1944, the 6th Flak Division was divided as follows:

41st Flak Regiment
Anti-aircraft regiment 43
Anti-aircraft regiment 151
Flak Regiment 164

In the course of the withdrawal of the Wehrmacht, the 6th Flak Division was then moved to Aizpute , where it moved to its command post, which was still held in March 1945. The division's regiments had their last major appearance in the Kurland Basin , where a total of 112 aircraft were shot down, which was mentioned in the Wehrmacht report on January 1, 1945 . Flak regiments 41 and 164 were given the honorary name Flaksturmregiment by Hermann Göring on February 22, 1945 . Also with this honorary name several flak associations were honored in the following weeks, which were allowed to call themselves Flaksturmverband from this point on . On April 27, 1945 the 6th Flak Division still consisted of 36 heavy and 37 medium and light batteries. On May 8, 1945, the day of the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht , most of the regular staff of the 6th Flak Division was taken prisoner by the Soviets . However, a small group of people could still be disembarked from the boiler and brought west. There he surrendered to the US Army .

Individual evidence

^ Karl-Heinz Hummel: The German flak cartillery 1935-1945. Your major formations and regiments . VDM, Zweibrücken 2010, ISBN 978-3-86619-048-1 , p. 57, 58 .

[1] Karl-Heinz Hummel: The German flak cartillery 1935-1945. Your major formations and regiments . VDM, Zweibrücken 2010, ISBN 978-3-86619-048-1 , p. 57, 58 .