4th SS Police Panzer Grenadier Division

Police Division SS Police Division 4th SS Police Panzer Grenadier Division
Troop registration
active	October 1, 1939 to spring 1945
Country	German Empire
Armed forces	Armed SS
Branch of service	Panzergrenadiers
Type	division
structure	See outline
commander
list of	Commanders

The 4th SS Polizei Panzergrenadier Division , set up as a police division , later renamed SS Police Division , during was World War II, a mechanized infantry - Division of the Waffen-SS , originally from volunteers of the Order Police composed.

history

By order of Adolf Hitler on September 18, 1939, a police division was set up from members of the Ordnungspolizei . In his function as Reichsführer SS and chief of the German police, Heinrich Himmler ordered the formation of battalion staffs on October 1, 1939. The three police rifle regiments with nine battalions structured Police Division for three months on the military training area Hiking trained and then supplemented by the army seconded Artillery Regiment 300 and the divisional news department 300, end of February 1940, the Relocated Upper Rhine Front.

Police division

In the western campaign , the police division was in early June 1940 as part of the XVII. Army corps deployed in the Argonne Forest , especially in the breakthrough battles on June 9 and 10, 1940 near Rilly-sur-Aisne and Voncq . After the end of the campaign, the police division remained stationed as an occupation force in France , where it was trained as a storm division while its staff were rejuvenated. For this purpose and for the formation of a police artillery regiment and a police intelligence department, the division received 327 officers and 9,599 men from the 26,000-man contingent that had been allocated to the police as replacements.

Alfred Wünnenberg as the commander of the 3rd Police Rifle Regiment in Northern Russia in November 1941

The police division was deployed in the area of Army Group North during the attack on the Soviet Union . After arriving from France, she was subordinated to the 1st Army Corps and crossed the border into Lithuania on June 30, 1941. After a march of 1,000 km, it broke through the tenaciously defended bunker positions near Luga and thus contributed to the enclosure of Leningrad . In the course of the fighting, the commander of the division Lieutenant General Mülverstedt fell. By September 1, 1941, the Police Division had more than 1,000 dead and over 2,000 wounded. After the conquest of Krasnogwardeisk in mid-September 1941, the division took up positions in the Pushkin - Pulkowo area in order to cut off supplies to Leningrad. After the Volkhov battle began , the division was sent there on Hitler's orders to seal off the Soviet intrusion at the interface between the 16th and 18th Armies.

SS Police Division

By order of February 10, 1942 (SS-FHA 604/42), the police division was transferred to the Waffen-SS on February 24, 1942 . The units of the division now had the addition of SS , their members received SS ranks. In late 1942, the division was again deployed in front of Leningrad and suffered so heavy losses in early 1943 in the course of the Soviet Operation Iskra that in early April 1943 parts of the division were relocated to the Heidelager SS military training area. There it was reorganized into a Panzergrenadier Division and finally renamed the 4th SS Police Panzergrenadier Division .

Kampfgruppe Bock

At the front in front of Leningrad, a combat group from the SS Police Artillery Regiment, three weak SS Police Grenadier battalions and smaller units under the command of SS Standartenführer Bock remained behind. The grenadier battalions formally formed the third regiment of the 4th SS Police Panzer Grenadier Division on October 21, 1943 , but remained in service on the Eastern Front until March 1944. The combat group remained in the old positions in front of Leningrad until November 1943, but was then subordinated to the L. Army Corps , which assigned it a section in front of the Oranienbaum bridgehead . Shortly before the start of the Leningrad-Novgorod operation of the Red Army on January 12, 1944, however, the combat group was pulled out of the front and transferred to the Volkhov . By the beginning of March 1944, the combat group had to withdraw to the so-called " Panther position " via Luga and Pskow with heavy losses . There it was still exposed to Soviet attacks and was almost completely destroyed by the end of March. The remnants of the combat group were initially collected at the Kurmark SS military training area and joined the 4th SS Police Panzer Grenadier Division in June 1944, which had since been relocated to Greece.

4th SS Police Panzer Grenadier Division

While the remaining combat-ready teams had been grouped together in the Bock combat group, in April 1943 a start was made in the Heidelager camp to create an armored infantry division from the remnants of the division, around 2,500 men. Parts of the division that was being set up were used against Polish partisans. In July 1943 parts of the division were relocated to the Balkans, first to Serbia and later to Greece. There, the division was subordinated to Oberfeldkommandantur 395 and renamed the 4th SS Police Panzer Grenadier Division on October 22, 1943 . As part of the renaming, the addition of police to the units of the division was dropped . In Greece, the division was supposed to perform security tasks in addition to training and in particular to fight the partisans of ELAS and EDES .

Until the summer of 1944, the division's units were widely dispersed. Again and again, bystanders were victims of bloody reprisals, euphemistically referred to as "expiatory measures". The Distomo massacre in particular caused a sensation: on June 10, 1944, 218 residents were murdered there because units of the division had been attacked by partisans near the village. On April 5, 1944, members of the 7th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment had murdered at least 270 residents in Klisoura, western Macedonia , after two SS men had perished on the nearby highway.

In September 1944 the division was relocated to the Belgrade area. In the meantime, the Soviet troops had occupied Romania, which had changed sides after the royal coup . By the end of January 1945, the division withdrew to the Divín area on the Slovak-Hungarian border under the constant attacks of Soviet troops .

From February 1, 1945, the division was relocated to Pomerania, where it was concentrated in the Stargard area. Since the planned German offensive was called off, the division should be deployed on the front near Danzig at the end of February . Until mid-March 1945, she defended a section north of Danzig near the Hel Peninsula .

Harzer Combat Group

In April 1945, a combat group was formed from the remains of the unit evacuated across the Baltic Sea and deployed in the area north of Berlin . The combat group withdrew to the west via Kyritz and Perleberg in order to become a US prisoner of war in the Ludwigslust - Schwerin area .

War crimes

Members of the 4th SS Police Panzer Grenadier Division were responsible for violations of martial law and crimes against humanity . a. due to retaliatory measures taken against civilians involved in the fight against partisans in Greece. The best known case is the retaliatory action of June 10, 1944 in Distomo , in which 218 civilians, including pregnant women, toddlers and infants, were shot, beaten or slashed with bayonets . Over 200 preliminary proceedings were carried out after the war in Germany against members of the Pol. Div. initiated - there was no conviction in any case.

→ Main article : Distomo massacre

structure

As a police division (1939)

• Police Rifle Regiment 1
• Police Rifle Regiment 2
• Police Rifle Regiment 3
• 300 Artillery Regiment
  • Police antitank - Department
  • Police pioneer - Battalion
    • Cycling - Company
  • News - Department 300
  • Supply troops 300

As 4th SS Police Panzer Grenadier Division (1943)

• SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 7
• SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 8
• SS Artillery Regiment 4
  • SS assault gun division 4
  • SS Panzer Division 4
  • SS tank destroyer division 4
  • SS Flak Department 4
  • SS News Department 4
  • SS Panzer Reconnaissance Department 4
  • SS Pioneer Battalion 4
  • SS Division Supply Leader 4
  • SS tank repair department 4
  • SS Economic Battalion 4
  • SS medical department 4
    • SS Police Veterinar Company 4
      • SS war reporter platoon 4
      • SS-Feldgendarmerie-Troop 4
  • SS Field Replacement Battalion 4

Commanders

• October 1, 1939 to November 21, 1940 SS group leader and lieutenant general of the police Karl Pfeffer-Wildenbruch
• November 22, 1940 to August 10, 1941 SS-Gruppenführer and Lieutenant General of the Police Arthur Mülverstedt
• August 10 to August 11, 1941 Major General Maximilian Siry (in charge of the tour)
• August 11 to December 15, 1941 SS-Brigadführer and Major General of the Waffen-SS Walter Krüger (in charge of leadership)
• December 15, 1941 to May 7, 1943 SS-Brigadführer and Major General of the Police Alfred Wünnenberg
• May 7, 1943 to June 18, 1944 SS-Oberführer Fritz Schmedes
• July 20 to August 25, 1943 SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Binge (assigned to lead the combat group)
• August 25 to October 26, 1943 SS-Brigadführer Fritz Freitag (combat group)
• October 26, 1943 to April 1944 SS-Standartenführer Friedrich-Wilhelm Bock (combat group)
• June 18 to July 13, 1944 SS-Standartenführer Karl Schümers
• July 13 to July 22, 1944 SS Brigadefuehrer and Major General Herbert-Ernst Vahl
• July 23 to August 18, 1944 SS-Standartenführer Karl Schümers (in charge of the tour)
• August 18 to August 23, 1944 SS-Standartenführer Helmut Dörner (in charge of the tour)
• August 24 to November 27, 1944 SS Brigadefuhrer and Major General of the Waffen SS Fritz Schmedes
• November 28, 1944 to May 2, 1945 SS-Standartenführer Walter Harzer

Veterans organization

The Comradeship of the Police Division - 4th SS Pole. Pz. Gren. Div. was the veterans organization of the SS division. Every year the comradeship published an extensive circular, issued by the troop comradeship police division . For years the comradeship met in Marktheidenfeld am Main in Franconia . In addition to socializing, the meetings included wreath-laying and church services. There was a collaboration with the Austrian Comradeship IV .

The comradeship dissolved on December 31, 2000, the newsletter was discontinued with issue 55 of December 2000. A donation of DM 10,000 from the association's assets was given to the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge in mid-2000 for the expansion of the German war cemetery Solgubowka near Saint Petersburg .

Web links

• Online finding aid from the Federal Archives for the RS 3-4: 4th SS-Police-Panzergrenadier-Division

literature

• Rolf Michaelis : The Panzer Grenadier Divisions of the Waffen SS. 2nd Edition. Michaelis-Verlag, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-930849-19-4 .
• Rolf Michaelis: The Use of the Ordnungspolizei, 1939–1945. Police battalions, SS police regiments . Michaelis, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-930849-45-1 , Die 4. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division, p. 107-114 .
• Georg Tessin : Associations and troops of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen SS in World War II 1939–1945. Volume 2. The Land Forces 1–5 . 2nd Edition. Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 1973, ISBN 3-7648-0871-3 .
• Georg Tessin: The troops and staffs of the order police. On the history of the Ordnungspolizei 1936–1945. Part II . In: Hans-Joachim Neufeldt, Jürgen Huck, Georg Tessin (eds.): Writings of the Federal Archives . tape 3 . Federal Archives, Koblenz 1957.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Georg Tessin : The troops and staffs of the order police. On the history of the Ordnungspolizei 1936–1945. Part II. In: Hans-Joachim Neufeldt; Jürgen Huck; Georg Tessin (Ed.): Writings of the Federal Archives . tape 3 . Federal Archives, Koblenz 1957, p. 24 .
2. ^ Rolf Michaelis: The use of the Ordnungspolizei, 1939-1945. Police battalions, SS police regiments . Michaelis, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-930849-45-1 , Die 4. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division, p. 107 .
3. ↑ Wünnenberg wears the uniform of a Colonel of the Schutzpolizei , his SS membership is indicated by the double Sig rune below the left breast pocket.
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Rolf Michaelis: The deployment of the Ordnungspolizei, 1939–1945. Police battalions, SS police regiments . Michaelis, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-930849-45-1 , Die 4. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division, p. 108 .
5. ↑ ^{a b c d} Rolf Michaelis: The deployment of the Ordnungspolizei, 1939–1945. Police battalions, SS police regiments . Michaelis, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-930849-45-1 , Die 4. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division, p. 110 .
6. ↑ ^{a b} Rolf Michaelis: The use of the Ordnungspolizei, 1939–1945. Police battalions, SS police regiments . Michaelis, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-930849-45-1 , Die 4. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division, p. 112 .
7. ^ Rolf Michaelis: The use of the Ordnungspolizei, 1939-1945. Police battalions, SS police regiments . Michaelis, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-930849-45-1 , Die 4. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division, p. 111 .
8. ↑ Anestis Nessou: Greece 1941-1944. German occupation policy and crimes against the civilian population - an assessment according to international law . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-89971-507-1 , p. 225 .
9. ^ Rolf Michaelis: The use of the Ordnungspolizei, 1939-1945. Police battalions, SS police regiments . Michaelis, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-930849-45-1 , Die 4. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division, p. 113 .
10. ^ Rolf Michaelis: The use of the Ordnungspolizei, 1939-1945. Police battalions, SS police regiments . Michaelis, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-930849-45-1 , Die 4. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division, p. 114 .
11. ↑ During the bloodbath of Klissoura on April 5, 1944, the same SS unit, together with the Bulgarian militia, shot 280 men, women and children to avenge partisan attacks on two German soldiers. Bloodbath in the mountain town. In: Der Spiegel , 1998 / No. 1, p. 43.
12. ^ Legal foundations of the claims of Greek victims of National Socialist crimes (Distomo, Kalavrita, Klissoura, Kommno etc.) . hwp-hamburg.de. Archived from the original on April 30, 2008. Retrieved June 26, 2010.
13. ↑ Mark C. Yerger : German Cross in Gold Holders of the SS and Police. Volume 5: Police Division and Police Units. R. James Bender Publishing, San Jose, CA 2010, ISBN 1-932970-16-9 , pp. 42-44.