97th Jäger Division (Wehrmacht)

97th Jäger Division
active	December 10, 1940 to May 1945
Country	German Empire
Armed forces	Wehrmacht
Armed forces	army
Branch of service	infantry
Type	Infantry Division
structure	structure
Installation site	Bad Tölz
Nickname	Spielhahnjäger division
Commanders
list of	Commanders

The 97th Jäger Division (97th JD) was a major unit of the army of the German Wehrmacht in World War II .

Division history

Installation and relocation in the emergency room

The division was set up on December 10, 1940 in military district VII between Murnau and Rosenheim as the 97th light infantry division and was filled with mostly combat experienced soldiers. The division headquarters was stationed in Bad Tölz , which is why this city is the home of the division. The Spielhahnfeather proposed by Major Weyrauther (IIa of the division) was chosen as the association symbol , from which the later name Spielhahnjäger-Division went back. On May 20, 1941, the advance personnel of the division was relocated to Slovakia , and the rest of the association followed on May 23. The troops were unloaded in Pressburg and until May 28th they were transferred to southern Poland, to the Lancut and Rzeszów areas , where extensive marches and combat exercises were carried out. By June 22, the division was completely relocated to the east side of the San River, where it moved into its staging area for the upcoming Barbarossa operation .

Advance battles

Until the attack began, at least the common soldiers had not been prepared for a war against the Soviet Union for reasons of secrecy. They were told they were marching now to the Caucasus and then on to the Iraqi oil wells - with the approval of the Soviet government. The actual facts only became clear to them when the resistance began. The division penetrated into Ukrainian territory as part of the 17th Army of Army Group South and occupied Magierów as the first target. This was made easier by the fact that the tanks on the opposite side only had training ammunition and could thus be "easily" switched off unprepared - the Wehrmacht report still spoke of the "heroic tank battle of Magierow". In the subsequent pursuit of the defeated enemy, the division broke through Bolt position of Zolkiew, advanced via Kulikow to the southeast, penetrated the Stalin line south of Latyczów and took part in the Battle of Uman . At the end of August 1941, the division crossed the Dnieper River , built a bridgehead and pushed through Krassnograd by early November and Lozovaja to Artemowsk before. the following winter long lay to April 1942, the Division in Greater fend Artemowsk and had numerous Soviet counterattacks. with the onset of the spring offensive in mid-May, the division crossed the river Donets and participated in the destruction of the Soviet bridgehead at Isjum , with which she contributed significantly to the victorious battle of Kharkov . On July 6, 1942, the 97th Light Infantry Division was renamed the 97th Jäger Division. As part of the 1942 summer offensive , the division crossed the Don and Manych rivers , occupied Armavir , crossed the Kuban and conquered the strategically important oil fields of Maikop before it penetrated the West Caucasus to the Pschisch Valley and was brought to a standstill by strong Soviet troops has been.

Withdrawal struggles

At the beginning of 1943 the division was relocated to the south-east of Krasnodar in a hurry to prevent the German units in the Caucasus from being cut off after the defeat of the 6th Army at the Battle of Stalingrad . In the months that followed, the division fought off to the Kuban bridgehead and fought heavy defensive battles there, particularly at Abinskaya, Krymskaya and Moldavanskoje. After retreating to the Kleine Gothenburg , the division was transferred from the Taman Peninsula via the Kerch Strait to the Crimea in early October 1943 . In mid-October the division was relocated to the center of gravity of the Wotan position in the Melitopol area and from there withdrew fighting via Alexandrowka, Samolowski, Nikolajewka and Lopatki to the Dnepr crossing in the Bolshaya-Lepaticha area, where they fought for three months could hold all enemy attacks. After the separation across the Dnieper, the division had created one of the conditions for the Schörner group to fight through from the Nikopol bridgehead by taking Bolshaya-Kostromka . The further route of retreat led via Moldavia to Romania , where the division was relieved and deployed east of the Polish city of Kielce to strengthen the defense of the Vistula-San line. In September 1944 it was moved to the area east of Košice , where further heavy defensive battles were waged. At the beginning of 1945 the division fought in the Upper Silesian industrial area and near Ratibor before it retreated to the area of the Protectorate and learned about the total German surrender in May.

resolution

However, the division refused to surrender and lay down arms and instead attempted to reach the US lines to the west. The reason for this was not only the Czech partisans who had already massacred the surrendering German troops, but also the fear of Soviet captivity and rumors that the war against the Soviet Union would continue with the Americans . At Deutsch Brod , however, the division encountered the Linz-Prague barricade built by the Soviet troops and split up into several marching columns, which now tried to reach the US lines independently. However, many of these columns were captured by the Soviets or are considered missing, including those with the division commander Major General Robert Bader.

Commanders (without representatives)

Major General Walter Weiß : December 1940 to January 1941
Lieutenant General Sigismund von Förster : January to April 1941
Major General Maximilian Fretter-Pico : April to December 1941
Lieutenant General Ernst Rupp : January 1942 to May 1943
Lieutenant General Ludwig Müller : June to December 1943
Lieutenant General Friedrich-Carl Rabe von Pappenheim : December 1943 to March 1945
Major General Robert Bader : March 1945 to the end of the war

structure

97th Jäger Division
- Jäger Regiment 207
- Jäger Regiment 204
- Artillery Regiment 81
- Reconnaissance Department 97 (called Cycling Department 97 between June 1, 1942 and April 1, 1943)
- Engineer Battalion 97
- Panzerjäger detachment 97
- Replenishment Division 97
- Administrative Services 97
- Field Replacement Bataillon 97 (from September 1, 1943 referred to as Field Replacement Bataillon 81)
- Infantry Division News Division 97
- Medical Services 97
- Veterinary Company 97

Awards

EK I with award certificate of a soldier of the 81st artillery regiment of the division, awarded on January 20, 1944 by division commander Friedrich-Carl Rabe von Pappenheim

The 97th Jäger Division was one of the most awarded troop units in the Wehrmacht. By November 15, 1944, 12,158 Iron Crosses (1468 of them 1st class) had been awarded to soldiers in this division, making the number of awards more than 70% above the army average in other divisions.

34 soldiers of the division were knight's cross bearers , eight of them also received the oak leaves for the knight's cross. In addition, 68 German Crosses had been awarded by December 10, 1943 .

A memorial was erected on the Studentenbühl near Bad Tölz for the approximately 10,000 fallen soldiers of the division.

literature

Ernst Ott: Jäger am Feind, history and sacrifice of the 97th Jäger Division 1940–1945, Verlag der Kameradschaft der Spielhahnjäger, Munich 1966.
Ernst-Ludwig Ott: Die Spielhahnjäger 1940–1945, picture documentation of the 97th Jäger Division, Podzun-Pallas-Verlag, Friedberg 1982.
Ernst-Ludwig Ott: Spielhahnjäger - brave and conscientious to the end, continuation or addition to the division history of the 97th Jäger Division, 1990.

Individual evidence

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