Supply troops from the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS

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Standard of the supply units of the Wehrmacht in the weapon color "light blue"

The supply troops were a branch of the army of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS , which, according to the order of the High Command of the Wehrmacht of October 14, 1942, belonged to the supply troops of the army and formed the rear services of a large unit with administrative and medical units. It was used mainly during the Second World War from 1939 to 1945.

overview

During the First World War , the troops were supplied close to the front by hauled ammunition columns and trains from the army's field formations; the connection supply took place via railroad and motor vehicle formations, which belonged to the traffic troops and were directly subordinate to the Supreme Army Command .

From 1926 the motorization of the replenishment services was planned in the Reichswehr , but it only came into effect with the establishment of the Wehrmacht from 1935. Training and operational principles were initially taught at the driver training command of the cavalry school in Hanover , from 1937 the Army Supply School was established (from 1938 driving force school, from 1939 with driving force training department) as an independent training facility.

Operational principles

The delivery and removal of weapons and equipment at army groups and army level was usually carried out by rail or ship transport to the parking lots and branch parking lots, led by the quartermasters of the corresponding large units. Army, army and corps supply columns provided the transport to the equipment collection points of the subordinate large units.

From there on, the "supply services" of the operational divisions carried out supplies close to the front. These were led by the divisional supply leader ("Dinafü"), from 1942 commander of the supply troops. The Dinafü was responsible for the smooth supply of the troops and ordered the establishment and operation of catering, fuel and ammunition distribution points. He worked with the division director for managing troops (field bakery - and field butchery - companies ), the Division doctor ( hospital - and ambulance units ) and the corporate departments of fighting troops together in order to link with their utilities to supply up to ensure to the main battle line .

What is essential compared to today is that the supplies had to be brought up to the regiments , as they did not have their own logistic forces like every battalion with a staff and supply company and every brigade with a transport company. This turned out to be difficult, especially in combat on the move, as their locations changed more frequently as a result of the fighting.

On the march, the "Dinafü" formed common marching squadrons with the divisional supply columns and the rear services of the division ; However, the supply columns loaded with the basic load of artillery ammunition were integrated into the artillery columns as combat squadrons .

Structure and strength

Basic structure

The supply force included at division level

  • Supply columns (later the motor vehicle or driving departments), which took care of the transport of ammunition, food, weapons, clothing and equipment as well as the removal of damaged and looted equipment and empties and, in many cases, the removal of wounded soldiers and horses.
  • Supply companies for the fixed operation of distribution points and the handling of material.
  • Workshop companies for field repairs.

In 1944/45, the supply troops of the front divisions were increasingly combined into divisional supply regiments.

Supply columns

These included the small and large columns of motor vehicles and operating materials with medium and heavy flatbed trucks with a total payload of 30 or 60 tons, a driving range of 150 km per day and a cruising speed of 25 to 30 km / h, bound to roads and fixed paths. Except for the Air Force, special vehicles such as tankers were rarely used, so the fuel had to be transferred to 200-liter drums and 20-liter standard canisters and reloaded onto flatbed vehicles. Mainly the all-terrain 3-tonne trucks of the types Opel , Ford , Mercedes , Borgward , KHD and Büssing-NAG were used . For the most part horse-drawn, in rare exceptional cases even ox-drawn driving columns with a payload of 30 tons were used. When there was a high demand for men and horses, the driving columns achieved a much lower marching speed, but were not necessarily dependent on paved roads and an adequate supply of fuel. In addition to army field vehicles, the vehicles were often commercial or country-specific wagons such as " Panjewagen " or sleigh vehicles . In the mountains and away from roads, the loading took place on pack animals for about 50-80 kg load, on infantry vehicles and infantry carts , small field wagons, handcarts and mountain carts as well as sleds.

Supply companies

Unloading, transshipment and loading was carried out by the divisional supply company (at army level supply battalion), so that the driver and co-driver could use the necessary time for the technical service on the vehicles and the care of the horses.

Workshop companies

In addition, there were the field workshops operated by workshop companies, motor vehicle workshop trains and armorer trains, often based directly on the material distribution points.

Replenishment services

The supply services below the regimental level did not belong to the supply troops, but were integrated into the units and units and were under their command. In the companies , batteries and squadrons of the field army, supplies up to the soldiers were provided by the troops themselves with light columns and combat, food and baggage trains . These included the sergeant , the weapons and equipment sergeant who Feldküche squad , accounting officer , shoemakers , tailors , saddlers and - strung on horseback / units - the food champion .

War strength

The supply units, which were still mostly hauled when the war broke out, were increasingly motorized in the course of material mobilization through the arrival of numerous civilian cars and trucks. At that time, the strength of the supply force in the field and replacement army was around 244,000 soldiers and made up around 6% of the total strength of the army . It reached its greatest size in 1943 with around 350,000 men, including:

  • 191 divisional supply leaders with 180 divisional supply companies
  • 54 motor companies
  • 62 motor vehicle columns
  • 13 fuel columns
  • 85 horse-drawn driving squads
  • 398 hauled driving columns
  • 285 hauled light columns
  • 13 columns of mountain carts
  • 2 pack animal columns

In addition, the NSKK and the Speer Transport Corps provided transport capacities .

Use in World War II

Challenges at the front

Destroyed supply column in front of Moscow
Sled transport of supplies

The organization of the supply posed insoluble problems to the quartermaster and the supply troops, especially from 1941 onwards, which contributed significantly to the German defeat: In the east and in the Balkans , seasonal difficulties hindered or even brought the supply traffic to a standstill: In the summer, the dust generated in dry weather Unpaved slopes caused constant wear and tear on vehicles, in spring and autumn mud and floods made paths and slopes almost impassable, in winter the engines and gearbox parts of vehicles froze in extreme frost.

The railway network was too wide-meshed, and because of the different track gauges from the former Polish-Russian border, captured Soviet railway material had to be used.

The road network, which was also barely developed, consisted of a few motorways such as the Brest-Minsk-Moscow main line, mainly of taxiways, billet embankments and unpaved roads made by pioneers or RAD units ; Numerous swamps and watercourses had to be crossed, which slowed down and delayed the transports, facilitated ambushes and destruction by partisans and caused accidents due to constant fatigue of the drivers or overloading of the vehicles. In the area of ​​the particularly endangered Army Group Center , every third vehicle per supply trip failed in the summer of 1941.

The shortage of transport vehicles - the units deployed showed a shortage of around 6,000 vehicles at the beginning of the campaign - forced the improvised use of a colorful variety of civilian or captured trucks of all types that were only partially warworthy: around 40 of 200 divisions were already in the attack on Russia Equipped with British or French motor vehicles in June 1941; chronic problems with maintenance and spare parts supply were the result.

Impassable sections of the front could only be supplied by horse-drawn columns, often with wagons customary in the country. In the course of the operations, units and large units that had been cut off repeatedly - for example near Cholm , Demyansk and in the Crimea - had to be temporarily supplied by air transport, which, given the insufficient forces of the transport aircraft, contributed to the sinking of the 6th Army in Stalingrad .

In North Africa , supply organization was no less problematic. The sea and air transport from Italy to North Africa was exposed to targeted attacks by superior air and naval forces due to systematic intelligence through Allied espionage connections in the Italian fleet command and the deciphering of the German radio code . If the transports nevertheless reached one of the few destination ports near Tunis , Benghazi or Tobruk , the supply columns then had to bring the goods to the troops over extreme distances. Railway lines were hardly available. In addition, the supply troops not only had to transport large quantities of drinking water, but also the need for fuel and spare parts was immense, since the military operations were carried out almost exclusively with motorized units. Even more than in Russia, the engines suffered from the enormous amount of dust in the desert war; the heavy wear and tear on German and Italian trucks could only be compensated for by including prey vehicles. Supply columns were dependent on the Via Balbia as the only paved highway in Libya and sandy desert tracks, on which they were the target of enemy air attacks because of the dust plumes that were visible from afar and the uncovered terrain.

After the Allied landings in Italy and France , the increasing Allied air superiority paralyzed troop movements and supply traffic, and finally, if possible, they were only driven at night. The destruction of the logistical infrastructure - bridges, transshipment points, railway lines, depots and supply facilities - by bombing made it difficult to adequately supply the troops. During the Ardennes offensive at the end of 1944, the operations management was therefore dependent from the outset on the timely capture of Allied supplies of fuel in order to ensure that the troops were supplied.

Towards the end of the war, the losses, especially of combat vehicles, increased, as these failed more and more often due to a lack of ammunition, fuel and spare parts and had to be blown up or abandoned by their crews.

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Refulling on kfzderwehrmacht.de (English)
  2. ↑ During the war the Wehrmacht deployed around 2.7 million horses, see Germany's Armed Forces in the Second World War: Manpower, Armaments, and SupplyAuthor (s) from: Larry T. Balsamo: The History Teacher, Vol. 24 , No. 3, 1991, p. 267
  3. ↑ As of September 30, 1943
  4. ^ Martin van Creveld: Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton , Cambridge University Press, 1979, ISBN 0521297931 , p. 267
  5. ^ Paul Carell: Operation Barbarossa. Ullstein Verlag , Berlin 1968, p. 84.
  6. ↑ Germany's Armed Forces in the Second World War: Manpower, Armaments, and SupplyAuthor (s) from: Larry T. Balsamo: The History Teacher, Vol. 24, No. 3, 1991, p. 267
  7. ^ Antonino Trizzino: The betrayed fleet - tragedy of the Africa fighters. Atheneum Verlag , 1957.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Here in the sense of a union of artillery or engineering material or vehicles (see also the definition of “Park” ).