Werner Graf von Bassewitz-Levetzow

Werner Henning-Friedrich Ernst Graf von Bassewitz-Levetzow (born June 7, 1894 in Bristow ; † August 20, 1964 in Gestorf ) was a German officer, most recently sea ​​captain in World War II and commander of the 2nd Marine Infantry Division .

family

Werner von Bassewitz-Levetzow came from the old Mecklenburg family von Bassewitz . His parents were Count Carl von Bassewitz-Levetzow and Countess Margarete von der Schulenburg . One sister was Ina Marie, the wife of Prince Oskar of Prussia . He was married to Elisabeth von Knebel Doeberitz , with whom he had four children. From his father he inherited the Altmark estates of Kläden and Darnewitz in the Stendal district , which he owned until the expropriation in 1945.

Military career

First World War

When the First World War broke out , Bassewitz joined the Prussian Army as a volunteer on August 2, 1914 and was first lieutenant in the 1st Guard Dragoon Regiment "Queen Victoria of Great Britain and Ireland" towards the end of the war .

Interwar period

From 1930 to 1934 Bassewitz served in the Eastern Border Guard . From June 1935 he took part in reserve exercises of the Wehrmacht as a reserve officer and on September 20, 1935 he was promoted to captain of the reserve . On April 1, 1937, he was transferred to the 96 Infantry Regiment and on November 1, 1937 as chief of the 11th Company to the 94 Infantry Regiment.

Second World War

On August 28, 1939, as part of the general mobilization , he was given command of the 1st Battalion of this regiment. In this position he took part in the attack on Poland and the French campaign. On November 8, 1940 he was promoted to major , on September 11, 1942 to lieutenant colonel of the reserve. On December 1, 1942, he was appointed commander of the 96th Grenadier Regiment, but this order was lifted five days later and Bassewitz was sent on leave until February 8, 1943. On February 15, 1943, he finally received this command and fought with him in the association of the 32nd Infantry Division (Lieutenant General Wilhelm Wegener ), which was deployed in the front arc around Newel in northwestern Russia. On June 9, 1943, he was promoted to colonel of the reserve. On April 10, 1944, Bassewitz was transferred to the OKH's Führerreserve and sent on vacation.

On August 7, 1944, he again took command of the Grenadier Regiment 96. In the heavy fighting of the 32nd Infantry Division, now under Lieutenant General Hans Boeckh-Behrens , from August 13 to 28 at Saliniecki, south of Trusli and in the Berzini area in the Baltic States , where all further Soviet attempts at breakthroughs were repulsed, Bassewitz and his regiment stood out in particular. For this mission, Colonel Bassewitz received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on September 17, 1944 .

Just eleven days later, on September 28, he was on leave of absence for Lieutenant General Boeckh-Behrens with the command of the 32nd Infantry Division and then from December 24, 1944 to January 9, 1945, as a substitute for Lieutenant General Herbert Wagner with the 132nd Infantry Division , which fought enclosed in the formation of the I. Army Corps near Kolpino in the Kurland pocket . On February 1, 1945, he was reassigned to the leader reserve and at the same time he was assigned to the 17th division leader course.

On April 10, 1945, he transferred from the army to the navy and, with the rank of sea captain, was entrusted with the leadership of the 2nd Marine Infantry Division as the successor to Vice-Admiral Ernst Scheurlen , who fell on April 8th . This large unit, which had been assembled in great haste in March at Glückstadt and Itzehoe from available naval personnel, had almost no heavy weapons at its disposal. From April 7, 1945, the division was in action in the Aller section between Verden and Walsrode , parts of it in the Nienburg area . Here she was involved in heavy defensive battles with many losses on the Aller between Verden and Rethem as well as in the Essel - Schwarmstedt bridgehead . After fighting retreat from April 15, 1945, the division, with only around 3000 of its originally almost 13,000 men, was in the area south of Bremen on April 20, 1945 , moved to the Cuxhaven area and then on April 28 across the Elbe to Meldorf , and fought in the last days of the war in the area of Albersdorf and Hemmingstedt . The remnants of the division, only a few hundred men, surrendered to the British troops on May 6th and were interned in the internment room Eiderstedt , Section B (= Norderdithmarschen district).

Awards

• Iron Cross (1914) 2nd and 1st class
• Cross of honor for front fighters
• Clasp for the Iron Cross, 2nd and 1st class
• Medal Winter Battle in the East 1941/42
• German cross in gold on July 23, 1942
• Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on September 17, 1944

literature

• Rolf Klodt: At sea and on land. On the history, missions and uniforms of the German marines, marines, the naval security force and the naval protection forces. Report Verlag, Bonn 2008, ISBN 978-3-932385-28-5 .
• Ulrich Saft: War at home. The bitter end between Weser and Elbe. 4. revised Edition. Verlag Walsrode Ulrich Saft, Walsrode 1992, ISBN 3-9801789-3-5 .
• Hans H. Hildebrand: The organizational development of the navy together with staffing 1848 to 1945. Biblio-Verlag, Osnabrück 2000, ISBN 3-7648-2541-3 .
• Lawrence Paterson: Black Flag: The Surrender of Germany's U-Boat Forces. MBI Publishing, 2009, ISBN 978-0-7603-3754-7 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Genealogical manual of the count's houses. (= Genealogical handbook of the nobility. Vol. 18). Part A, Volume 3. Starke, Limburg 1958, p. 10.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Veit Scherzer : Knight's Cross bearers 1939–1945. The holders of the Iron Cross of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm and armed forces allied with Germany according to the documents of the Federal Archives. 2nd Edition. Scherzers Militaer-Verlag, Ranis / Jena 2007, ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2 , p. 204.