717th Infantry Division (Wehrmacht)

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Troop registration number of the 717th Infantry Division

The 717th Infantry Division was a German infantry division during World War II .

Division history

The division was set up on April 11, 1941 as part of the 15th wave of formation on the military training area Bruckneudorf and in Neusiedl am See for the military district XVII and then deployed as an occupation force in Yugoslavia and Serbia with the 12th Army .

From January to April 1943, the division took part in the Battle of the Neretva . From mid-February 1943, older cohorts were exchanged for younger cohorts from military district XI , XIII and XVII. This was followed by the reclassification.

On April 1, 1943, the 717th Infantry Division in Croatia was reorganized and renamed the 117th Jäger Division . The 117th Jäger Division was then used in Croatia, from June to September 1944 in Greece and the Peloponnese . From October followed among others, the Corps Schneckenburger and later in the Army Group E subordinate Army Group F of use in Serbia with the withdrawal on Bosnia (November / December 1944) and Croatia (January to March 1945) in the region Lower Danube . Until March 1945, the division fought in Army Group E under the XXI. Mountain Corps during the Lake Balaton Offensive . Subsequently assigned to the 6th Army , the division came to Austria via the southern railway and was assembled in the Mürz valley . In mid-April 1945, a counter-offensive against the Soviet cavalry and rifle units could be carried out together with units of the 1st Panzer Division and the 1st People's Mountain Division and the 9th Mountain Division was relieved. In early May 1945; the division was assigned to the 1st SS Panzer Corps in the 6th SS Panzer Army ; used to defend the section south of Wilhelmsburg to Rohrer Sattel . In the end, however, the withdrawal followed a short time later. In May 1945, the division in the room came Steyr in Austria in US captivity .

War crimes

The occupying divisions 704th Infantry Division , 714th Infantry Division , 717th Infantry Division, and 718th Infantry Division were responsible for a variety of war crimes in the occupied territory.

In October 1941, the division was involved in the Kraljevo and Kragujevac massacres , with between 4,000 and 8,000 civilians being murdered in “reprisal” for German casualties, depending on the sources. It is one of the most serious war crimes committed by the Wehrmacht in Serbia. This was preceded by fights between the division and partisans, which the division even managed to enclose in the city of Kraljevo in mid-October .

In mid-April 1942, the 737th Infantry Regiment took part in a partisan action under the code name Operation Trio . Also on Peloponnese end were carried out in 1943 operations against partisans and after the company Kalavryta in the massacre of Kalavryta several places were destroyed and executed around 500 people by the Division for retaliation. The Agía Lávra monastery was also destroyed. The order for this retaliation was given by division commander Karl von le Suire . Von le Suire was never prosecuted for this war crime.

Walter Manoschek has made several publications on the 717th ID and 117th Jäger Division in the Balkans.

Commanders

structure

1941

  • 737 Infantry Regiment with three battalions formed by Division No. 177 ( Vienna )
  • 749 Infantry Regiment with three battalions formed by Division No. 187 ( Linz )
  • Artillery Division 670 with three batteries
  • Divisional units 717 with only one engineer and one intelligence company each

1943

  • 737 Hunter Regiment
  • 749 Jäger Regiment
  • Artillery Regiment 670
  • Engineer Battalion 117
  • News Department 117

1944

In December 1944 the fortress infantry battalions 1004 and 1005 were added

1945

In March 1945 the Army Coastal Artillery Regiment 944 was accepted.

Web links

literature

  • Hermann Frank Meyer : From Vienna to Kalavryta - The bloody trail of the 117th Jäger Division through Serbia and Greece . Bibliopolis , 2002.
  • Samuel Mitcham (2007). 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 , pp. 252 + 253.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Carsten Gansel, Matthias Braun: It's about Erwin Strittmatter or From the dispute about memory . V&R unipress GmbH, 2012, ISBN 978-3-89971-997-0 , p. 353 ( google.de [accessed on July 11, 2020]).