73rd Infantry Division (Wehrmacht)

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73rd Infantry Division

Association badge of the 73rd Infantry Division

Association badge
active August 26, 1939 to April 17, 1945
Country German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era) German Empire
Armed forces Wehrmacht
Armed forces army
Type Infantry Division
structure structure
Installation site Nuremberg
Nickname "Kleist Division"
Second World War attack on Poland

Western
campaign Balkan campaign
German-Soviet war

Commanders
list of Commanders

The 73rd Infantry Division (73rd ID) was a major unit of the army of the German Wehrmacht during World War II .

Division history

The division was set up on August 26, 1939 as part of the 2nd  wave of deployment from parts of the 17th Infantry Division in Military District XIII in Nuremberg and used as a reserve of the 4th Army during the attack on Poland . In the western campaign in 1940 she initially participated as a reserve of the 16th Army , in the second phase in the association of the 12th Army . It was then used as an occupation force in Alsace .

At the beginning of 1941 the company was moved to Romania . The division then advanced to Bulgaria, from where in April they took up the attack on Yugoslavia as part of the 12th Army . She then stayed in Macedonia for a short time and then prepared in the Jassy area for the imminent attack on the Soviet Union . Here she was used in the association of the 11th Army and penetrated through Kishinev , Nikolayev and Kherson to the Isthmus of Perekop . After breaking through to the Crimea , she took part in the fighting there until she was handed over to the 1st Panzer Army in December and then used on the Mius front.

In the summer of 1942 she advanced over the lower Don into the Kuban region (see: Case Blau ) and, now subordinate to the 17th Army , took part in the battles for Novorossiysk . After the German withdrawal from the Caucasus, she was involved in the defense of the Kuban bridgehead . After the bridgehead was cleared in autumn 1943, it was temporarily used by the 6th Army in the Melitopol area. In the spring of 1944 it was withdrawn to the Crimea and was defeated during the battle for the Crimea that followed . Only remnants of the division could be evacuated to Romania across the Black Sea .

On June 16, 1944 the division was reorganized in Hungary and in August it was transferred to the IV. SS Panzer Corps on the Vistula , where it was destroyed during the fighting in the Warsaw area in September 1944. The Army Group Center had the 73rd Infantry Division requested to the bridgehead Praga keep east of the Vistula, which was eventually discarded. In January 1945 the division was supposed to strengthen the defense of the Thorn Fortress and therefore united with the remaining parts of the Warsaw Fortress Division . After being reorganized as a combat group , it fought until it was destroyed again near Danzig in April 1945. The division headquarters was evacuated from Danzig, but arrived when the steamer Goya was sunk by a Soviet submarine on the night of April 16-17, 1945 about life.

date Army Corps army Army Group Location
September 1939 reserve - North Poland
October 1939 XII 1st Army C. Saar Palatinate
December 1939 - January 1940 reserve OKH Eiweiler , Saar Palatinate
May 1940 16th Army A. Luxembourg
June 1940 XXIII 12th Army France
July 1940 XXXIII C. Belfort , France
August 1940 XXV France
September - October 1940 XXV 1st Army
November 1940 LX D.
December 1940 - February 1941 XI
March 1941 XXX 12th Army - Romania
April to May 1941 XXXX Greece
June 1941 reserve Yugoslavia
July 41 OKH south Iassy
August - October 1941 LIV 11th Army Nikolayev , Perekop
November - December 1941 XXXXII Crimea
January 1942 reserve 1st Panzer Army Mius , Taganrog
February - May 1942 XIV Mius
June 1942 -
July 1942 LVII
August 1942 XXXXIX 17th Army A. Caucasus
September 1942 - September 1943 V Novorossiysk
October 1943 XXIX 6th Army Melitopol
November - December 1943 XXXXIV
January - February 1944 3rd Romanian Army
March 1944 V 17th Army Kerch , Crimea
April 1944 Southern ukraine Sevastopol
May 1944 - reserve Romania
June - July 1944 Reorganization - - Debrecen , Hungary
August 1944 IV. SS 9th Army center “Praga”, Warsaw
September 1944
October - November 1944 XXXXVI Modlin , Warsaw
December 1944 - January 1945 A.
February 1945 - March 1945 XXVII 2nd Army Vistula West Prussia
April 1945 reserve OKH - West Prussia, Danzig

structure

Changes in the structure of the 73rd ID
1939 1942 1943-1945
170th Infantry Regiment 170th Grenadier Regiment
186th Infantry Regiment Grenadier Regiment 186
Infantry Regiment 213 Grenadier Regiment 213
Artillery Regiment 173
Anti-tank department 173 Panzerjäger detachment 173
Reconnaissance Department 173 Cycling Squadron 173 Fusilier Battalion 73
Engineer Battalion 173
News Department 173
Field Replacement Battalion 173
Supply units 173

people

Commanders of the 73rd ID
period of service Rank Surname
September 1 to 29, 1939 General of the artillery Friedrich von Rabenau
September 29, 1939 to October 29, 1941 General of the Infantry Bruno Bieler
November 1, 1941 to February 1, 1943 General of the Infantry Rudolf von Bünau
February 1 to September 7, 1943 Major general Johannes Nedtwig
September 7, 1943 to May 13, 1944,
then imprisonment of war		 Lieutenant General Hermann Boehme
June 26 to July 29, 1944,
then imprisonment		 Lieutenant General Friedrich von Franek
July 30th to September 7th, 1944 Colonel Kurt Hähling (in charge of the tour)
September 7, 1944 to April 10, 1945 Major general Franz Schlieper
Staff officers (Ia) of the 73rd ID
period of service Rank Surname
August 26, 1939 to March 10, 1940 major Robert Macher
March 10, 1940 to June 10, 1942 major Georg Buntrock
June 10 to August 1942 major Dr. Ornamental bird
August to September 1942 major Fritjof Heyse
September 1942 to March 1, 1943 Captain Roland Wagner
March to December 1943 major Rudolf Japs
December 1, 1943 to September 25, 1944 Lieutenant colonel Otto Becker
September 25, 1944 to April 5, 1945 major Franz Lang

Well-known members of the division

  • Kurt Hähling (1897–1983) was a member of the Dresden District Assembly for the NDPD from 1953 to 1963 and deputy chairman of his party
  • Lieutenant Colonel Otto Hitzfeld , Regiment Commander IR 213 (* May 7, 1898 Schluchsee ; † December 6, 1990 Dossenheim )
Hitzfeld was regimental commander of IR 213 in 1941 and distinguished himself in 1943 through the fighting of the 73rd Infantry Division in the Kuban bridgehead. Hitzfeld later received the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords and later became known for his contribution to the resistance movement against Hitler.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e cf. Georg Tessin : Associations and troops of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen SS in World War II 1939–1945. Volume 6. The Land Forces 71-130 . 2nd Edition. Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 1979, ISBN 3-7648-1172-2 , p. 14th ff . ( ff. # v = onepage restricted preview in the Google book search).
  2. ^ Hans Jürgen Pantenius: Last battle on the Eastern Front: from Döberitz to Danzig 1944/1945: Memory and experience of a young regimental commander . Mittler ES + Sohn GmbH, 2002, ISBN 978-3-8132-0741-5 , p. 118 ( google.de [accessed October 20, 2018]).
  3. ↑ Was not reorganized after the destruction in the Crimea and was completely replaced by Grenadier Regiment 70 on June 16, 1944.