Jagdkommando

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A patrol of the Austrian-Hungarian known as “Strafunis”. Patrol corps

Since the 1890s, a hunting command was understood to be a military unit that was supposed to carry out particularly dangerous operations. The term came up in Germany in military science . This is the German translation of the Russian term achótnitschja kománda for units of the Imperial Russian Army . Hunting detachments had been introduced into the Russian Army on October 21, 1886. To distinguish them from normal soldiers, they wore green badges on their coats and coats. A hunting command of 64 men was set up per infantry regiment.

In the autumn of 1882, Streif Corps were set up in the Austro-Hungarian Army for the Hercegowina , which were popularly known as strafunis . They formed a kind of border police to Montenegro in order to prevent arms smuggling.

In the 1890s, hunting commandos were set up in some Prussian border corps with Russia, but these were later abolished. In Prussia, these were called patrol commands and were set up with the 2nd Army Corps. Such special units were also used during the Boxer Rebellion in China (1900). Commanders and military theorists, however, saw the units deprived of the best men. This type of deployment is typical for small warfare .

First World War

During the First World War , hunting commandos were set up in the Austrian army, which were mainly used in the Balkans .

An attack by Russian commandos on the night of November 28, 1915 with 800 guards cavalrymen on Newel Castle (Nevel) was significant , whereby the Russians had become aware through residents that a divisional headquarters stayed there for one night. By using feinting like singing German songs, part of the troop got into the castle, which was located in a dense forest and bush, killed the unguarded staff and took the division commander and pastor prisoner. On the German side 150 deaths were counted, while on the Russian side there were only a few. The Russian General Gyllenschmidt , who already used this type of combat in the Russo-Japanese War , is considered to be the initiator of the attack .

Hunting commandos were also used in the battles of the German Freikorps in the Baltic States - for example, in March 1919 under Lieutenant Gehlhar near Doblen . The 40-man Jagdkommando was equipped with machine guns, a light mortar and panjewar .

Second World War

In view of the experiences in the winter of 1941/1942, the first provisional ski-mobile infantry formations were set up on the Eastern Front. The success of the Siberian Red Army troops outside Moscow had shown the value of winter-mobile units in the lowlands. A first full battalion was formed on the orders of Army Group Center using personnel from the Winter Combat Schools Orel, Gschatz and the Fulpmes High Mountain School. In 1942 a total of twelve such independent units, also known as hunting commandos, were formed with battalion strength. These were later combined in the 1st Skijäger Division .

The Brandenburg Division of Defense presented Jagdkommandos as command units for combat operations behind enemy lines. These were subordinate to the armies or corps , but often used contrary to their mandate as a reserve against enemy breakthroughs, which often led to great losses or destruction.

The Wehrmacht , but also the SS , the SD , the Ordnungspolizei and the Waffen-SS set up and used hunting commandos to fight partisans in France, Poland, Russia and the Balkans. So the committed Jagdkommando Schubert in the September 2, 1944 Greece the massacre Chortiatis .

At the end of the Second World War, the Donau Jagdkommando was stationed in Vienna, a combat swimmer unit of the SS hunting associations under Otto Skorzeny , which was deployed on the Eastern Front and during the Ardennes offensive .

At the end of August 1942, the Army High Command issued guidelines for hunting commands in which the first operational principles were defined. This regulation was u. a. used by the high command of the Wehrmacht for the manual anti-gang fight of May 6, 1944, in which there is a separate subchapter on the use of hunting commands:

"86. The formation of hunting squads enables active gang control even with the smallest of forces. Hunting teams are also particularly suitable for violent reconnaissance. They are to be made available as intervention forces for all troops and agencies active in the fight against gangs and deployed at every opportunity. It is useful to have a hunting squad as a permanent facility.
Hunting squads have to prevent the gangs from calming down. They make it more difficult to set up the gangs and to support them. For their own forces, who are tied to a location in security or other tasks, they create an area free of boundaries.
87. The basic idea of ​​the fighting method is: By imitating the fighting style to get as close as possible to the gangs unnoticed and then to beat them surprisingly ... "

- C. Aubrey Dixon, Otto Heilbronn : Partisans. Strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare . P. 237.

Algerian war

The French army continued in the Algerian war Jagdkommandos ( "Commandos de Chasse" ) against partisans of the FLN one.

Riot police, Federal Border Police, Bundeswehr

The riot police of the federal states and the Federal Border Police, which were set up from 1950 onwards, were intended to defend against sabotage troops and gangs in the event of tension as part of the police fight and the covert fight until the 1970s . The use of hunting squads was planned for their capture. From 1965 the home security force (HSchTr) of the Bundeswehr was included in this task; However, it was mainly responsible for securing important civil and military objects and for defending against airborne companies. For the fight against enemy SOF forces and covertly operating enemy forces in civilian clothes - also as gangs - hunting squads should be formed for hunting in rear areas.

present

Military commando operations such as those carried out by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during World War II are still relevant to military operations today. Armed forces in many countries therefore now have special military units, including the Special Forces Command in Germany and the Federal Army Hunting Command in Austria .

A distinction is made between these special forces and the formation of a hunting command for hunting combat from a reinforced platoon as a special combat act, today in the Bundeswehr a type of combat by the infantry. This forms a hunting command only temporarily on the orders of the higher command.

The training to become a leader and trainer in hunting takes place within the framework of the lone fighter training . In the Bundeswehr, the use of hunting commands by hunters , paratroopers and mountain fighters of the Bundeswehr is practiced.

For training and exercises include seepage and life in the field of battle by ambushes and coups in particular against enemy command posts and supply columns and demolition of Geländeengstellen like street Engen or bridges, as the battle in the depth of the enemy region.

literature

  • OV: Hunting teams and exercises at night. In: New military papers. Weekly magazine for the army and navy. XXXX. Volume, 1892, p. 51ff.
  • Passauer: Infantry patrols in the style of Russian hunting commandos. Brief consideration of the organization, use, establishment and training in the German army. Darmstadt / Leipzig 1898.
  • [Eberhard] v. Tettau: Field service in the Russian army. Berlin 1893.
  • [Eberhard] v. Tettau: The hunting commandos in the Russian army. Organization and training. Berlin 1901.
  • Kramme, Haas: The infantry hunting commandos. Berlin 1903.
  • Liman von Sanders : Reconnaissance and security in front of the front by cavalry, independent patrols of the infantry, hunting units and mounted infantry. Berlin 1904.
  • [Eberhard] v. Tettau: The activity of the hunting commandos in the Russo-Japanese war. In: Military weekly paper. Jg. 1910, 69, columns 1653-1657.
  • W [illiam] Balck: Development of tactics in the world wars. 2nd Edition. Berlin 1922, p. 117.
  • Hermann Balck: Little War. In: Military Scientific Communications. Volume 3, No. 12, March issue 1923.
  • Bleidorn: Russian hunting command in the world war. In: Military weekly paper. 116th year 1931/32, No. 41, column 1602 ff.
  • Hermann Balck : A successful hunting team in the world wars. In: Military weekly paper. 116th year 1931/32, No. 46, Col. 1802 ff.
  • Arthur Ehrhardt : The guerrilla war. Historical experiences and future opportunities. Potsdam 1935 (2nd and 3rd editions. 1942, 1944).
  • P. Steffmann: Jagdkommandos. In: Military weekly paper. Volume 121, 1936/37, No. 17, column 880 f.
  • Von Liebermann: Guerrilla warfare in ice and snow. In: Ernst von Salomon (ed.): The book from the German free corps fighters. Berlin 1938, pp. 157–159.
  • Excerpt from the guidelines for fighting gangs of the High Command of the Wehrmacht of May 6, 1944, printed in: Brigadier C. Aubrey Dixon, OBE, Otto Heilbrunn: Partisanen. Strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare. Verlag für Wehrwesen Bernard & Graefe, Frankfurt a. M. / Berlin 1956, pp. 213-240.
  • Herbert Scheffler: Leaflets on police use. The police fight. Lübeck 1958.
  • Colonel Heinz Schemmel: operational principles in the fight against partisans. In: Defense. Journal for all military issues. VIII. 1959, No. 8, pp. 421-425.
  • [Alfons] Illinger: The Unterführer in the police department. A police tactical textbook and exercise book for individual and troop police. Revised by Wilhelm Schell, Police Council, 11th expanded edition, Lübeck 1962.
  • Erich Vorwerck: The homeland security force. Organization, development and training. In: Defense. Journal for all military issues. XV. Born in 1966, No. 4, pp. 202-207.
  • o. V .: The paratrooper platoon as a hunting command. In: Military training in words and pictures. Monthly for the Bundeswehr. 11th year 1968, no. 6, pp. 209-214.
  • N / A : Hunting teams on skis. In: Military training in words and pictures. Monthly for the Bundeswehr. 12th year 1969, no. 11, pp. 505-509.
  • N / A : Hunting Commands. (3 parts), in: Military training in words and pictures. Monthly for the Bundeswehr. 15. Jg. 1972, H. 3, pp 106-111; H. 4, pp. 156-158; H. 11, pp. 503-510.
  • Wolfdieter Hugnagl: Jagdkommando. Special units of the Austrian Armed Forces. Stuttgart 2001.
  • Nik Cornish, Andrei Karachtchouk: The Russian Army 1914-18. Botley / Oxford 2001.
  • M. Christian folder: Stormtroopers. Austro-Hungarian storm formations and hunting commandos in the First World War. Combat procedures, organization, uniforms and equipment. Vienna 2005.
  • Peter Lieb : Conventional war or Nazi ideological war? Warfare and the fight against partisans in France 1943/44, Oldenbourg, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-486-57992-5 .
  • Major in the BGS Ottmar Stöcker: "Jagdkommando". In: Troop Practice. Magazine for tactics, technology and training. 1962, pp. 24-25.
  • Captain Hans Koch: Partisan combat and hunting command. In: Troop Practice. 1962, pp. 378-380.
  • Keyword: Jagdkommando. In: Basic concepts for combat and combat. (Special issue military training in words and pictures ), Bonn 1965, p. 39.

Historical

  • Johann von Ewald : Thoughts of a Hessian officer on what to do when leading a detachment . First published in 1774.
  • Johann von Ewald: Treatise on the little war . First published in 1785.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Herder's Konversations-Lexikon. Vol. IV, 3rd edition. Freiburg i. Br. 1905, p. 979.
  2. ^ Kramme / Haas: The infantry hunting commandos. Berlin 1903
  3. ↑ Meyer's Large Conversation Lexicon. Vol. 10, Leipzig 1907, p. 141.
  4. ^ Georg von Alten: Handbook for Army and Fleet. 5th volume Berlin a. a. 1913, p. 12.
  5. ↑ Captain a. D. von Lieberman, 1919 leader of the Freikorps Volunteer Battalion von Lieberman in his 1938 essay Little War in Ice and Snow
  6. ↑ Michael Jung: Sabotage under water - The German combat swimmers in World War II . ES Verlag Mittler, ISBN 3-8132-0818-4 .
  7. ↑ F. John-Ferrer: The Doomed - German combat swimmers in action . Rosenheimer Verlagshaus (2012), ISBN 978-3-475-54147-6 .
  8. ^ Georges Fleury: La Guerre en Algérie . 2nd edition, Paris, 2006 p. 335. (French)