6th Mountain Division (Wehrmacht)

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6th Mountain Division

Troop identification of the 6th Mountain Division

Troop registration: The yellow edelweiss
active June 1, 1940 to May 8, 1945 (surrender)
Country German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era) German Empire
Armed forces Wehrmacht
Armed forces army
Branch of service Mountain troop
Type Mountain Division
structure see structure
garrison Großer Heuberg , Hohenzollerische Lande
Nickname Edelweiss in yellow
Second World War Western campaign

Balkan campaign

Battle for Greece

War against the Soviet Union

Murmansk front
Defense against the Petsamo-Kirkenes operation
Commanders
list of Commanders

The 6th Mountain Division was a large unit of the mountain troops of the Wehrmacht in World War II .

history

The division was set up on June 1, 1940 at the Heuberg military training area. In the French campaign , she went from the Rhine to the Saint-Dié area, then she was an occupying force in the Pontarlier area .

At the beginning of 1941 the troops were relocated to southern Romania and from there advanced to Athens in the Greek campaign . The division was also involved in the breakthrough of the Metaxas line . During the subsequent airborne battle for Crete , it was kept in reserve in the Athens area.

In the summer of 1941 it was refreshed in the Semmering area and then moved to Finland . In October 1941 the division replaced the 3rd Mountain Division in the Liza bridgehead and on the Murmansk front (see also Petsamo-Kirkenes operation ). There she remained in heavy defensive and positional battles and fighting enemy commandos behind the front until October 1944. Then there were retreat fights as part of the evacuation of Finland during the Lapland War as part of the 20th Mountain Army in the Kilpisjärvi area . At the beginning of 1945 Finland was finally evacuated, the troops withdrew as far as the Lyngenfjord and after the German surrender went into British captivity.

Commanders

structure

Regimental units

Mountain Infantry Regiment 141

  • subordinated since installation in May 1940
  • Association: I. – III. battalion
  • Units: 16 companies
  • Substitute provision : Gebirgsjäger-Ersatz-Bataillon I./139

Mountain Infantry Regiment 143

  • Subordinated since it was set up in June 1940
  • Association: I. (until January 1941), II. (Until September 1941), III. battalion
  • Units: 16 companies
  • Replacement provision:
    • Gebirgsjäger-Ersatz-Bataillon II./136 (from June 1940 to the end of 1940; 1943 to June 1944)
    • Gebirgsjäger-Ersatz-Bataillon I./136 (1941 to 1942; from June 1944)

118th Mountain Artillery Regiment

  • Subordinated since it was set up in June 1940
  • Association: I. (until January 1941), II., II. (Until September 1941), III., IV
  • Units: 11. Batteries
  • Replacement provision:
    • Mountain Artillery Replacement Department 111 (until October 1942)
    • Artillery Replacement Division II./112 (from October 1942)

Mountain Pioneer Battalion 91

  • Subordinated since it was set up in June 1940
  • Unit: I. – III. company
  • Substitute provision: Mountain Pioneer Replacement Battalion 82

Division units

Reconnaissance Department 112

  • subordinated since June 1940
  • Association: I. (equestrian, until October 1943), II. (Cycling), III. (heavy), IV Squadron
  • Units: 1 company
  • Replacement provision:
    • Cavalry Replacement Division 11, later Bicycle Replacement Division 11
    • Reconnaissance Replacement Department 2 (from 1943)

Mountain Tank Destroyer Division 47

  • since June 1940
  • Units: I.–II. company
  • Substitute provision: Panzerjäger-Ersatz -teilung 48

Mountain News Division 91

  • Subordinated since it was set up in June 1940
  • Units: I.–II. company
  • Substitute provision: Message Substitute Department 18

Mountain Resupply Leader 91

  • subordinated since installation in May 1940
  • Units: several columns, squadrons and companies
  • Substitute provision: Motor vehicle replacement department 18

Field Replacement Battalion 91

  • Subordinated since it was set up in April 1941
  • from September 1943 as field replacement battalion 118
  • Units: I.–V. company

Well-known members of the division

literature

  • Gebhard Bilgeri: Festschrift of the Association of Mountain Troop Memorials Vorarlberg , Association of Vorarlberg Mountain Troops Memorial , 1971
  • Georg Tessin : Associations and troops of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen SS in World War II 1939–1945. Volume 3: The Land Forces 6-14 . 2nd Edition. Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 1974, ISBN 3-7648-0942-6 .
  • Karl Ruef: Mountaineers between Crete and Murmansk: the fate of the 6th Mountain Division , Stocker, 1975
  • Karl-Heinz Golla: The fall of Greece 1941. Verlag ES Mittler & Sohn, Hamburg et al. 2007, ISBN 978-3-8132-0882-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Organizational History of the German Mountain and Ski Division 1939–1945. (PDF, 90kb) 6th Mountain Division. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on December 8, 2011 ; accessed on September 16, 2011 .
  2. ^ A b c Craig Stockings, Eleanor Hancock: Swastika over the Acropolis: Re-interpreting the Nazi Invasion of Greece in World War II . BRILL, 2013, ISBN 978-90-04-25459-6 ( google.de [accessed December 22, 2017]).