Panzer Division Müncheberg

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Panzer Division Müncheberg

active December 5, 1944 to May 8, 1945
Country German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era) German Empire
Armed forces Wehrmacht
Armed forces army
Branch of service Armored troop (armed forces)
Type Panzer Division
structure structure
garrison Berlin , Frankfurt (Oder) and Potsdam
Second World War Battle of the Seelow Heights , Battle of Berlin
Commanders
Major general Werner Mummert (March 9 to May 8, 1945)

The Müncheberg Panzer Division was a major military unit of the Wehrmacht . The division took part in the Vistula Battle and later in the defense of Berlin.

Division history

Areas of application:

The Panzer Division (short: Pz.Div. ) Müncheberg was set up on March 5, 1945 in military district III (Berlin, Frankfurt (Oder) and Potsdam) . It was composed mainly of the 103rd Panzer Brigade , which was disbanded on March 6, 1945. Werner Mummert , a highly decorated veteran and until now commander of the 103rd Panzer Brigade, was given the command of the newly established division. Although the large association did not reach the full target strength, it was equipped with modern equipment. On April 5, 1945, he received ten Panther type G tanks with Sperber infrared systems (FG 1250), as well as a company of tank grenadiers , which were also equipped with this infrared system. In addition, the division received super-heavy Jagdtiger and Tiger-Panzer II, version B. By March 12, 1945, the Pz.Div. only 6,836 men. On March 18, 1945, the Pz.Div. an infantry - battalion of the 1st SS Panzer Division "Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler" assumed to be field-usable form. When the Red Army approached the town of Müncheberg in Brandenburg on its advance westward , the Pz.Div. Müncheberg affiliated to the mobile reserve of the 9th Army under General Theodor Busse and thus represented part of the Army Group Vistula under Colonel General Gotthard Heinrici . It was first deployed to the front on March 22, 1945 in Cottbus and a little later with the XXXIX. Panzer Corps under General der Panzertruppe Karl Decker in the coastal corridor during the battle for Küstrin . From March 22 to 25, 1945, the Pz.Div. Müncheberg together with the 25th Panzer Grenadier Division 200 Soviet tanks. On March 25, the Red Army completed the containment of German troops at Küstrin , which was to be averted again on March 27 with a final German counter-offensive. There were heavy losses due to the shelling of the Soviet artillery. The Pz.Div. Müncheberg was badly worn and had to be freshened up again. The eastern front was on the verge of collapse.

Battle for the Seelow Heights

On April 7, 1945, the Pz.Div. Müncheberg in the Hardenberg position on the Seelower heights . The units equipped with infrared night vision devices such as the I. Department / 29. The Panzer Regiment under Lieutenant Rasim as well as tank grenadiers also equipped with IR devices opened a night attack on Soviet units that had dug in along the Reitweiner Spur, a mountain range occupied by Soviet troops. This was the first use of IR devices in war history. Marshal Zhukov ordered his army to use strong searchlights in the twilight to locate the buried Germans, as a counter-effect, the silhouettes of the Soviet tanks emerged, which could thus be easily destroyed. It was thanks to this fact that the Wehrmacht was able to hold its positions on the Seelow Heights for a few days. The Pz.Div. Müncheberg destroyed a large number of Red Army main battle tanks with the help of its 8.8 and 12.8 cm self-propelled anti-tank guns. On April 19, 1945 the resistance of the 9th Paratrooper Division broke out on the right side of Pz.Div. Müncheberg collapsed and the Wehrmacht's line of defense collapsed. From April 16, 1945 Pz.Div. Müncheberg is involved in continued fighting with the 11th SS-Freiwilligen-Panzergrenadier-Division Nordland on Berlin after the lost battle for the Seelow Heights and the retreat.

Battle for Berlin

In rearguard battles for the city of Müncheberg, the Pz.Div. Müncheberg heavy losses. The remains of the division were to hold a defensive position in the northeast sector of Berlin near the Spree . During this phase, the unit had only 12 tanks and 30 half-tracks. On the afternoon of April 25, 1945, General of the Artillery, Helmuth Weidling, assigned Mummert the defense sections “A” and “B” as commander of the Müncheberg Panzer Division.

On this day, the unit was already - "forced to withdraw" - after a chaos of commands, first on the way to Alexanderplatz and after revocation at 10 o'clock in the Tempelhof airport area. There she was ordered to go to Alexanderplatz again, but a little later she was “marching back to Hallesches Tor under air raids. Heavy losses. [...] Defensive battles in Dircksenstrasse, Königstrasse, on the central market and in the stock exchange. First fights in the S-Bahn shafts. Russians are trying to get into our back through the shafts. The shafts themselves overcrowded with civilians. "

"26th April - Red Night. Heavy artillery fire. Eerie silence. We are shot at from many houses. Probably foreign workers. [...] Around 5:30 am, another terrible barrage. Attacks with tanks and flamethrowers. Retreat to the Anhalter Bahnhof. Defense of Askanischer Platz, Saarlandstrasse and Wilhelmstrasse. Remnants of the tank division "Nordland" near us . Three times in the course of the morning I inquired about Wenck's Army . Your tips should be in Werder. Incomprehensible."

- Diary of the tank officer near Müncheberg. In: Gosztony: Eyewitness reports , p. 269.

A flooding of the train shafts (see: History of the Berlin U-Bahn ) describes the diary under the date April 26, 1945:

"... New command post at Anhalter Bahnhof . Platforms and counter rooms resemble an army camp. […] Women and children crowd into niches and corners. Others sit on their folding chairs. They listen to the noise of the fighting. The impacts shake the tunnel ceiling. Pieces of concrete break off. The smell of powder and billows of smoke in the shafts. S-Bahn hospital trains slowly rolling on. Suddenly a surprise. Water splashes into our command post. Scream, cry, curses. People fighting over the ladders that lead through the air shafts to the surface. Gurgling water flows through the shafts. The masses fall over the thresholds. Leave children and wounded behind. People are trampled underfoot. The water reaches for them. It rises a meter and more until it slowly disappears. Horrible panic for hours. Many drowned. Cause: Pioneers, on somebody's order, blew up the bulkheads of the Landwehr Canal between Schöneberger Bridge and Möckern Bridge in order to flood the shafts against the underground advance of the enemy. Heavy fighting over the earth all the time. In the late afternoon to the Potsdamer Platz station. Command post on the 1st floor, since the lower shafts are still high under water. "

- Müncheberg diary. After: Gosztony: Eyewitness Reports , p. 270.

"27. April - Persistent attacks during the night. Russians try to break through to Leipziger Strasse. Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse will be withdrawn. Likewise the Köthener Straße. Increasing disintegration and despair. [...] Potsdamer Platz is a field of rubble. The amount of smashed vehicles cannot be missed. The wounded are still in the shot sankas. Dead everywhere. Mostly run over by tanks and trucks and horribly mutilated. […] The heaviest fire on the city center at nightfall. At the same time attacks against our positions. We can no longer hold ourselves at Potsdamer Platz and move underground to Nollendorfplatz around 4 a.m. On the opposite lane, the Russian marches through the shaft to Potsdamer Platz. "

- Müncheberg diary. In: Gosztony: Eyewitness reports , p. 271 f.

This relocation took place early in the morning on April 28, 1945.

On April 30, 1945 (the day of Hitler's suicide) the Pz.Div. Müncheberg and the 18th Panzer Grenadier Division together with the heavy SS Panzer Division 503 , which was equipped with Tiger II main battle tanks , on the Westkreuz, Halensee and Kurfürstendamm line in action.

On May 1, 1945, the division was against the Tiergarten pushed back, they together with the flak tower defended the Berlin zoo ( "Zoobunker"). Thousands of civilians sought protection from air raids and artillery fire at the Berlin-Zoo flak tower. The last still functional Tiger-I tank of the Pz.Div. Müncheberg was left standing on Unter den Linden not far from the Brandenburg Gate. Mummert wanted to escape with the survivors of his combat group to the west via the subway to Spandau and ignored Weidling's order to cease all fighting. Mummert ordered the breakout and was later considered missing. Years later he was seen in a Soviet gulag .

The Pz.Div. Müncheberg and the 18th Panzer Grenadier Division fled west and on May 3, 1945 they reached the Charlottenbrücke over the Havel in Spandau, which was shot at by the Soviet artillery, so that only a few members of the division managed to cross. A large part of the division was taken prisoner by the Soviets, while other parts, which were located further to the west, were taken prisoner by the Americans.

Reception history of the diary

Jürgen Thorwald's diary was cited as a source early on : Das Ende an der Elbe , Stuttgart 1950; still with Erich Kuby : The Russians in Berlin . Munich 1965 (as well as in the SPIEGEL series of the same name, also published in 1965, 21–24 / 1965 by E. Kuby) - although the same is true, but with a different wording and sentence structure. The text in Peter Gosztony (ed.): The fight in Berlin in eyewitness reports is extensively quoted and the wording is more reliable . Düsseldorf 1970. (identical to Thorwald quotes). In no case was the location of the source indicated. The diary is not known to the Bundesarchiv-Military Archive in Freiburg.

The diary was fundamentally questioned by an author: Karen Meyer: The flooding of the Berlin S-Bahn tunnel , Berlin 1992. It is about the depiction of the relocation of the command post from Potsdamer Platz “underground to Nollendorfplatz”. Karen Meyer: “At this point, the report from the Müncheberg Division reveals itself to be unreliable, because in practice it was only possible to go through the subway shaft to just behind Bernburger Strasse Line led as an elevated railway to Nollendorfplatz. ”(P. 13) And:“ In view of the many other unreliable information in the division chronicle, one should not rely on the data given there ”(p. 14) With this argument, she concludes in her conclusions Demolition of the Landwehr Canal effectively eliminates the document.

The date '26. April 1945 'in the Müncheberg diary seems to be the only known written record of the time when the Landwehr Canal was blown up at the same time. But there are doubts as to whether the source contained stringent dates or the assumption that individual sheets were incorrectly assigned. In many aspects, however, the source is important for the reconstruction of the course of the struggle for Berlin - not only because of its originality .

people

Division commander of the Panzer Division Müncheberg:
period of service Rank Surname
March 9, 1945 to May 8, 1945 Major general Werner Mummert
General Staff Officer (Ia) of the Müncheberg Panzer Division:
period of service Rank Surname
March 5 to May 1945 major Helmut Thoma

structure

Changes in the structure of the Müncheberg Panzer Division from March 1945 to April 1945

planned March 1945 Eastern front structure April 1945
Staff Panzer Regiment Müncheberg Coburg Panzer Regiment
Panzer division Kummersdorf I. Division / Panzer Regiment 29
Müncheberg tank department Müncheberg tank department
Panzergrenadier Regiment Müncheberg 1 Panzergrenadier Regiment Müncheberg 1
Müncheberg 2nd Panzer Grenadier Regiment Müncheberg 2nd Panzer Grenadier Regiment
Müncheberg Panzer Artillery Regiment Müncheberg Panzer Artillery Regiment
Panzer Reconnaissance Company Müncheberg Armored Scout Company Müncheberg
Field Replacement Battalion Müncheberg heavy army tank destroyer division 682
Panzer Pioneer Company Müncheberg Müncheberg Pioneer Company
- Field Replacement Battalion Müncheberg
Panzer News Company Müncheberg Panzer News Company Müncheberg
Tank supply troops Müncheberg Supply troops Müncheberg

Remarks

  1. ↑ Quotes from the "diary of (the) tank officer (s) who, under the command of General Mummert, participated in the retreat from the Oder to Berlin in the Müncheberg division". Quoted from P. Gosztony (ed.): Kampf um Berlin in Augenzeugenberichten , dtv, Munich 1985, p. 268 f.
  2. ↑ The flooding of the north-south tunnel is discussed today under the date May 1 or 2, 1945. Since the date difference to the writer of the diary is several days, it may be due to another, similar process (water ingress) or to an incorrect dating, whereby according to an indication the original of the diary was on the one hand undated, on the other hand a German back translation from an English language Source should be. The whereabouts of the diary is currently unknown.

literature

  • Peter Gosztony (Ed.): The battle for Berlin in eyewitness reports , Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1985. First edition: Karl Rauch Verlag, Düsseldorf 1970. ISBN 3-423-02718-5 .
  • Hans-Joachim Eilhardt: Spring 1945: Fight for Berlin and escape to the West . Helios Verlag, Aachen 2003, ISBN 3-933608-76-7 .
  • Jürgen Thorwald: The end on the Elbe . Bertelsmann Lesering, Gütersloh 1959. In it: Diary entries Walter Kroemer-Pecoroni, Zweibrücken.
  • Tony LeTessier: The fight for Berlin 1945. From the Seelower heights to the Reich Chancellery . Ullstein, Berlin / Frankfurt am Main 1991, ISBN 3-550-07801-3 .
  • Tony LeTessier: Breakthrough on the Oder. The advance of the Red Army in 1945 . Berlin / Frankfurt am Main 1995, ISBN 3-550-07072-1 .
  • Hein Johannsen: Werner Mummert. The life of a Saxon officer . Libergraphix, Gröditz 2012, ISBN 978-3-95429-001-7 .
  • Bernd Krömer: "60 years ago - Berlin fell", diary Walter Kroemer, Ordonnanzoffizier in the Pz.Div. Müncheberg, monthly magazine "Kameraden", April 2006

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Panther1944.de Detailed information on the infrared equipment ( Memento of the original from August 22, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed February 24, 2013 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.panther1944.de
  2. ↑ http://www.curme.co.uk/seelow.htm
  3. ↑ Peter Gosztony (Ed.): The fight for Berlin 1945 in eyewitness reports . Karl Rauch Verlag, Düsseldorf 1970. Quoted here from Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1985, p. 260. In the meantime in a new edition in 2012.
  4. ↑ Notes on identifying the unit under: Discussion page Panzerdivision Müncheberg .
  5. ↑ http://www.diedeutschewehrmacht.de/pz%20div%20muencheberg.htm
  6. ↑ at special disposal