Division group

As Division Group in were World War II temporary combat units of the German army called. They were about regimental strength .

Lineup

From 1943 onwards, the high infantry losses on the Eastern Front were poorly compensated. Although the strength of the Wehrmacht's personnel grew steadily, the young recruits were mostly used to reorganize and replace the armored forces . As a result, the ratio of fighting troops to the supply services in many infantry divisions was no longer correct. For this reason, on November 2, 1943, “burned out” divisions were disbanded for the first time and the infantry troops were merged into division groups. A division group had the strength and structure of an infantry (or grenadier) regiment, but kept the number of the division or was named after the commander.

The three battalions of the division groups were designated as regimental groups with the old numbers in order to continue the tradition here as well. Usually three divisional groups with an artillery regiment and auxiliary troops were combined into a so-called corps department (which was practically a division).

Installation examples

• On November 2, 1943, the 113th Infantry Division in the central section of the Eastern Front was disbanded. While the divisional staff and parts of the rear services were used for realignments in France, the infantry regiments each formed a battalion (regimental group) of division group 113 in the 337th Infantry Division .
• In July 1944 the 337th Infantry Division was destroyed at Mogilew . The remnants formed the division group 337 in the corps department G. This was then renamed on September 1, 1944 in 299th Infantry Division .

Examples of division groups of the Wehrmacht

• Gaudecker division group
• Division group Hassenstein
• Division group year
• Krause division group
• Divisional group Kräutler
• Division group Rintelen
• Division Group of Ledebur
• Voigt division group
• Division group Innsbruck -Nord under Hans Böhaimb
• Division group 112 from the beginning of November 1943 to the beginning of February 1944 under Hans-Joachim Fouquet
• Division group 251 from the beginning of November 1943 to April 1944 under Eugen König
• Division group 256 under Albrecht Wüstenhagen

literature

• Veit Scherzer (Ed.): German troops in World War II. Volume 1: Formation history of the army and the reserve army 1939 to 1945. Scherzers Militär-Verlag, Ranis and Jena 2007, ISBN 978-3-938845-11-0 .
• Rolf Hinze: Eastern Front Drama 1944 - Army Group Center retreat fights. Motorbuchverlag, Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-613-01138-7 .
• Wolfgang Lange: Corps Department C from the Dnieper to Poland. Vowinckel Publishing House, 1961.