Elector Regiment

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Regiment Kurfürst (also "Lehr-Regiment Kurfürst") was the cover name for the competence and training center of the German military secret service during the war years from 1943 to 1945.

history

The 5th regiment was excluded from the decision of April 1, 1943 to detach the Brandenburg Division from the military secret service ( Abwehr / Abroad Office ). It initially remained under the name "(Lehr) Regiment Kurfürst" in the Abwehr until it was captured by the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) in mid-1944 .

From June 1, 1944, most of the Abwehr / Abroad Office became the Reich Main Security Office, namely the Foreign Intelligence Service Amt VI (Chief: Walter Schellenberg ) under the new name "Amt Mil" (Chief: Colonel G. Georg Hansen ) and thus subordinated to the authority of the SS , which thereby consolidated their sole right to sabotage and espionage. Within the Mil-Office, to which the "Elector Regiment" belonged, there was the Mil-D office (chief: Major i. G. Naumann), in which all sabotage-technical facilities of the former Abwehr and the associated Abwehr II staff were combined.

The Kurfürst regiment was not a troop in the strict sense of the word, but rather a card index master regiment in which the personnel were administered according to records, but the people themselves were assigned to the most diverse troop units and scattered on all fronts for individual and small command special tasks. The Kurfürst regiment also included all trainers and teachers from the Abwehrkampfschule Quenzsee near Brandenburg , as well as other highly qualified specialists and experts who could be used for the recruitment and training of spies , sabotage and special combat troops. The Kurfürst regiment did not carry out its own operational combat missions. In today's technical term, the Kurfürst regiment would be called the “center of competence” of the defense. Even after the war ended, the “electors” were in great demand as specialists and were wooed by the victorious powers for their own services. (e.g. from the USA under the term OPERATION BRANDY ). A member of the regiment was, for example, the combat swimmer instructor Alfred von Wurzian .

In the training regiment, most of the training courses of the military intelligence service ran, namely courses for junior officers in the field of reporting service and offensive service, courses for "defense assistants" of both branches, officer applicant courses, special courses for sabotage and decomposition.

The main contents of the mostly 6-week courses were world view and history, foreign studies, secret reporting service. Excursions should also be carried out, such as to a prisoner of war camp ( Luckenwalde ) and a concentration camp.

Mid-1944 moved the regiment elector with the new Office Mil-D of Brandenburg in the Solms Castle of Baruth / Mark (code name "Belinde") 60 kilometers south of Berlin . In the autumn of 1944 the Kurfürst regiment moved to Kamenz near Dresden . The special agents trained there had the entry "Message Replacement Department Meise" in their pay book for camouflage.

The head of the agent school in Kamenz was a Major Meyer and his deputy was a Captain Novotnik.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Examples of curricula for the Elector Regiment can be found e.g. B. in the Federal Archives in file R 58/117.

Web links

literature

  • Müller, Norbert (edit.): The Foreign Office / Defense in the High Command of the Wehrmacht. A documentation. Koblenz, Federal Archives , 2007. Page 457. ISBN 978-3-86509-767-5
  • Witzel, Dietrich F .: Abwehr II command units in the Second World War. In: Military History Research Office (Hrsg.): Military history supplement to European military history. Issue 5, October 1990.