Meanwhile, Hauptmann Gerlach had finally arrived in Qatrun with his Spitfire, having nearly been shot down by German Flak gunners near Tripoli after the transit flight from Sicily. Arriving at the forward Brandenburg airstrip three weeks after the patrols had already left, Gerlach commenced reconnaissance flights of the region and remained unmolested by French anti-aircraft gunners as the Spitfire had been repainted with RAF markings. He determined that the mountains to the south were heavily occupied by Free French troops, who appeared to have their headquarters in Bardai and Wour, near the border. During flights as far as Lake Chad, Gerlach observed a steady stream of military traffic on the roads headed north.
By the time that the last ground column had returned to Qatrun, Leipzig could compile a clear estimation of enemy dispositions and strengths to the south. He was also able to confirm to Rommel that any attempted German advance against the Free French positions would require a large conventional force of at least three divisions with substantial air support. Anything smaller would be unable to seize the mountain passes and would face danger from flanking attacks. However, his radioed report coincided with the battle at Alam el Halfa as Rommel attempted – and failed – to outflank the Allies’ El Alamein positions. With his reports despatched and no clear indication of what to do next, Leipzig flew to meet with Rommel in person and request reinforcements to conduct operations aimed at seizing the Tibesti heights. However, there were no forces to be spared as the Afrika Korps had already exhausted almost every last reserve. It was during this meeting with Rommel that Conrad was able to greet his brother Hellmut, Rommel later wryly observing to his driver that ‘That brother of yours must get out of North Africa quickly! Otherwise the English will think that we have to send cripples to the front.’27
Despite their success, the situation to the south as reported by Leipzig was of little concern to Rommel. He had battered his exhausted Afrika Korps against the withdrawing Allies relentlessly, capturing Mersa Matruh by the end of June and driving his men forward to try to overrun the disorganised remains of the Eighth Army before they could regroup at El Alamein. The German supply lines were stretched to breaking point, his men asleep on their feet and his few remaining functioning tanks and vehicles in desperate need to refit. Though plans were in the early stages of preparation for Koenen’s ‘Tropical Company’ to revert to their traditional role and begin infiltrating British lines in order to capture bridges for the final advance on the Suez Canal, it appears that they returned as infantry to the operational area of the 90th Light Division. The division took severe casualties as it stumbled forward in a front assault against entrenched South African troops as part of Rommel’s diversionary attack against the El Alamein defensive perimeter. He was employing his now-familiar technique of feint combined with a flanking manoeuvre, but this time to no avail. The 90th was beaten to a standstill as the Allies took the initiative during what is now known as the ‘first battle of El Alamein’. During the afternoon on 10 July, the 90th, reinforced with whatever strength was available, possibly including Koenen’s company, fought along the coast road and railway track, Oberleutnant Otto Müller of the 13th Company killed in the fighting. Helmut Spaeter lists four other Brandenburgers killed between 15 July and 6 August in the region of El Alamein: Gefreiter Hans Lohse (15 July; though the only Hans Lohse shown in official German records to have died on that day was killed aboard U-576 off the North American coast); Oberschütze Jaspar-Hans Lütje (15 July); Gefreiter Hans Kleckers (15 July); and Pionier Heinrich Meili (5 August). He also records the death of Stabsarzt Dr Wolfgang König at the Sismanoglion military hospital in Attika, Greece, on 1 August.
By then, both sides had fought to a halt in the oppressive heat of the Egyptian summer. Though constant patrolling and artillery harassment kept men alert and never fully released the pressure of enemy contact, exhausted stalemate had been reached as a new commander arrived to take charge of the British Eighth Army. The Brandenburgers that had been involved in the fighting dug in, Oberleutnant Bisping’s Kommando positioned in slit trenches on the coastline and augmenting their food supplies with fish retrieved by hand after being stunned and brought to the surface with hand grenades. The Axis supply network had still not managed to catch up to the front line and was under increasing pressure from Allied air attacks.
Coupled with those difficulties was the fact that Malta had not yet been attacked and conquered, despite assurances by OKW that it would be dealt with once Tobruk had fallen. Rommel was requested to go on the defensive during the planned attack (Operation ‘Herkules’) to allow Luftwaffe assets to be redirected to the Malta operation, but his relentless pursuit of what he perceived to be a broken Allied army as it retreated pell-mell towards Alexandria meant that he refused to relax his offensive pressure. Nevertheless, in preparation for ‘Herkules’, the Brandenburgers of 1st Platoon of the Leichte Pionierkompanie (Light Engineer Company) under the command of Oberleutnant Armin Kuhlmann had been assigned to the attack on Malta originally scheduled for 30 June 1942, Kuhlmann and his men held on standby while transferred to the Adriatic for amphibious training.
The Light Engineer Company had begun their metamorphosis into seaborne raiders during February 1942, led at that time by Hauptmann Max Horlbeck who, in turn, handed command to Oberleutnant Herbert Kriegsheim. The complement of one officer, twenty-six NCOs and 163 men had transferred to the naval training vessel Gorch Fock in Swinemünde during that month. Though undergoing naval training, they remained firmly under the command of Lahousen’s Abwehr II as an independent component of the Brandenburger Regiment – the Kriegsmarine operated their own amphibious units that would later evolve into naval infantry and the Kleinkampfverbände (Small Battle Units). Within the Light Engineer Company were five frogmen (Kampfschwimmer), led by the celebrated pioneering German diver Friedrich Hummel. These specialists constituted a smaller sub-group within the company that concentrated on the demolition skills required for their trade while the remainder learned the specific techniques required for effective amphibious operations. It was this company’s 1st Platoon that transferred under the command of Oberleutnant Armin Kuhlmann to Brindisi in preparation for ‘Herkules’, the planned invasion of Malta, while the remainder of Kriegsheim’s unit eventually moved to Odessa once their time aboard Gorch Fock was over, rebased later at Nikolayev to complete their training on the Black Sea coast from where they would eventually mount their first combat operations. By late 1942 the company had relocated back to Langenargen on Lake Constance where they were officially designated the Küstenjäger Abteilung z.b.V. 800 ‘Brandenburg’, remaining at roughly battalion strength and an equivalent of the British Special Boat Service. The Abteilung comprised a headquarters, two companies equipped with Type 41 Pionierlandungsboote (Engineer Landing Craft) and Type 42 Sturmbooten (Assault Boats), a third with former French private motor yachts and the 4th (Heavy) Company equipped with twelve ‘Linsen’ explosive motor boats and two control boats, as well as a small group of trainee frogmen (though these men would later be grouped together as the Meeresjäger Abteilung ‘Brandenburg’ in 1943). They also operated a number of small torpedo boats (Schneiderboote).
Kuhlmann’s platoon, meanwhile, had been tasked with a seaborne assault on the defences of Valletta, but they were left in an extended training limbo as the operation was continually postponed. Malta and its British naval forces that used the island as a base remained a thorn in the side of Axis supply lines across the Mediterranean, somewhat ironically due to Rommel’s unwillingness to halt his advance in order to allow the switching of air support to ‘Herkules’. That same advance had now run out of supplies, due in no small part to the effect of a functioning naval and air base at Malta, and was brought to a halt virtually within sight of Alexandria.
In the meantime, the men of Operation ‘Dora’ were recalled from Qatrun to the north where they were reunited with the remainder of the ‘Tropical Company’ and began to receive reinforcements as Koenen’s formation was expanded during the lull i
n combat operations. The ambitious and successful ‘Dora’ was finally over and Oberleutnant Conrad von Leipzig was indeed transferred from North Africa, posted back to Germany to take command of the now fully formed Küstenjäger Abteilung. It was during their journey north from Qatrun on 15 January 1943 that Leipzig’s men encountered a Rhodesian patrol of the LRDG. Captain Ken Lazarus was leading sixteen men in five Chevrolet trucks, designated ‘S1’, when Gerlach’s Spitfire sighted them.28 The Brandenburgers laid an ambush in the inhospitable terrain of the steep-sided Wadi Zemzem and successfully attacked the Rhodesian LRDG group, the only time that the two specialist formations fought in direct combat in North Africa. At least half of the Rhodesian trucks were destroyed and a Rhodesian navigator named Hendersen killed, while the ‘Dora’ men lost an armoured car.
CHAPTER 7
Rebuilding
‘Guerrilla war is a kind of war waged by the few but dependent on the support of many.’
Basil H. Liddell Hart
Far to the north of the North African battleground, the invasion of the Soviet Union had, inevitably, cost the Brandenburg Regiment their highest casualties of the war thus far. However, it was not just the Red Army that had inflicted such losses but a great many ‘friendly fire’ incidents, with Brandenburgers in Soviet uniforms killed by their own side in a mixture of poor communication with local Wehrmacht units and the unavoidable ‘fog of war’. There was also a worrying trend of deploying the Brandenburgers as traditional light infantry or shock troops rather than capitalising on their specialised strengths as infiltration and commando units. Wherever possible, once the initial missions of ‘Barbarossa’ were complete, Canaris had the companies withdrawn to Germany for refitting and restructuring.
By September 1941 most the regiment had returned to their respective bases. In North Africa, Koenen’s men were active alongside the Afrika Korps. The 6th Company was still engaged in the drive on the Crimea alongside the 22nd Luftlande Division and Oberleutnant Dr Kniesche’s 9th Company had gone into action during the middle of September. In the Baltic Sea, the regimental 16th Company took part in Operation ‘Beowulf II’; a combined air-landing and amphibious assault on a Soviet heavy coastal artillery emplacement on the Estonian island of Saaremaa (known to the Germans as Ösel).
Near the shores of the Black Sea, the 6th Company operated in the vanguard of the 22nd Luftlande Division. Oberleutnant Meissner left the company during July, to be replaced temporarily by Siegfried Grabert, before the more permanent commander Oberleutnant Hans-Gerhard Bansen was promoted from command of the 1st Half-Company to take charge in August. Bansen’s company was then detached from the 22nd Division and transferred east as Odessa was bypassed and placed under siege. On 28 October, Bansen was tasked with taking part in the breakthrough on the Perekop isthmus that linked the Crimean Peninsula with the Soviet mainland. The company continued to fight in the grinding Crimean battles that followed, including the initial failed attacks on the fearsome Soviet Maxim Gorki artillery emplacement in December 1941. As Sevastopol came under siege, Bansen’s men were moved to the coast where they were repeatedly engaged in eliminating small Soviet landing parties attempting to infiltrate behind German lines and prevent the advance to the Kerch Peninsula.
The 6th Company was also augmented with volunteers from the Tamara II unit that had been formed by the Abwehr from Georgian volunteers, most of them captured during ‘Barbarossa’. Lahousen originally envisioned the unit as a sabotage troop for actions behind enemy lines in Georgia, Tamara I numbering sixteen men trained by an NCO from the 5th Company, Lehrregiment ‘Brandenburg’ and Tamara II of eighty men commanded by Leutnant Dr Kramer of Abwehr II. After formation in Austria and initial training in Romania, ‘Tamara’ was transported to the Crimean to the area of the mountain Demerdzhi, between Simferopol and Alushta. Once there they underwent further training in conditions as close as possible to those found in the Caucasus, improving their reconnaissance and sabotage skills. Special attention was also placed on weapons training, mountain guerrilla warfare tactics and night navigation.
Kramer’s men took part in fighting in the Crimea, the unit increasing in numbers and adding an additional thirty men mainly drawn from the Brandenburger Regiment. In December 1941, approximately twenty members of Tamara II were transferred to 6th Company for insertion behind enemy lines in Sevastopol. However, Soviet amphibious landings on the Crimean coast during January 1942 acted as a spoiling attack and the company was involved in defensive fighting against the new threat, bloody combat taking place at Yevpatoria. After the attackers were repulsed, Tamara II was stationed around Yevpatoria as security troops, before moving towards Kerch with the 6th Company during April.
During early August, Tamara recruited further members from prisoner of war camps in Feodosiya, 120 men now amalgamated into the ranks of 6th Company, which was withdrawn for a period of training before moving to Simferpol while the remaining Tamara men were later made part of the ‘Bergmann Battalion’. Manstein was determined to break Sevastopol’s defences and wanted to use Russian-speaking members of 6th Company with sabotage and intelligence-gathering experience. Bansen led a group of his men in an attack on the northern side of Sevastopol, held by the Soviet 8th Marine Brigade. To achieve surprise, the Brandenburgers dispensed with the customary preliminary artillery bombardment and infiltrated the Soviet positions before a follow-up main assault began. The Brandenburgers posed as Soviet reconnaissance troops returning from German lines and successfully opened gaps in the defences and, by the morning of 17 December 1941, attacking troops were able to drive strong wedges between the Soviet marines and adjacent infantry units on the northern side of the Sevastopol pocket.
The siege of Sevastopol had months left to run and the 6th Brandenburg Company were involved alongside the reconnaissance battalion of the 22nd Luftlande Division, Bansen being awarded the German Cross in Gold on 9 July 1942. The shattered city of Sevastopol finally fell that month, after which Bansen’s company returned to its base at Baden bei Wien. Manstein later remarked: ‘The Brandenburgers I’ve met on the battlefields of Russia, were not just soldiers, but patriots who, hearing the call, came together under our flag, wherever they may be.’
Meanwhile, Oberleutnant Dr Kniesche’s 9th Company had arrived at the Eastern Front from Düren during the middle of September. Attached to the 2nd SS Division (motorised) ‘Reich’, they would take part in Operation ‘Taifun’ (‘Typhoon’), the assault on Moscow. The ‘Reich’ Division had already fought huge encirclement battles that had destroyed swathes of Red Army units and had earned the distinction of being the German unit to have penetrated furthest to the east, while also absorbing terrific punishment from increasingly stubborn defenders. By the time of ‘Taifun’ they were already exhausted and understrength, but the offensive began on 2 October, ‘Reich’ and the 9th Company beginning to move two days later. Their advance led them through Gshatsk (now known as Gagarin), bludgeoning through dogged defence from the Red Army. On 8 October, snow began to fall. Snow turned to sleet which turned to autumn rain and soon the Brandenburgers and SS troops were battling through thick glutinous mud towards their goal. The destructive fighting decimated battalions of the SS division until it was virtually unable to function as an effective fighting force. Finally, on 4 December, with the harsh Russian winter setting in, the SS Motorcycle Battalion’s 1st Company reached the terminus of the Moscow tram system, the Soviet capital appearing to be on the brink of falling. Exhausted, Dr Kniesche’s accompanying Brandenburgers were redeployed away from the front line, Leutnant Ramstetter taking the 1st Half-Company and Leutnant Kirnich the 2nd Half-Company to safeguard the rear areas of LI Army Corps near Volokolamsk, north-west of Moscow. It was a fortuitous posting as the Soviet forces counter-attacked and hurled the SS division back from Moscow, beginning a winter defensive ordeal for which the German forces were woefully ill-prepared.
During September 1941, before the arrival of winter in the sector of Army Group North, mainland Estonia was large
ly under German control. However, there remained strong Soviet garrisons on the islands of Saaremaa, Külasema and Hiiumaa (Dagö), the location of which allowed control of naval transit to and from the Gulf of Riga with heavy artillery. The low-lying islands had been heavily fortified by their Soviet garrison that comprised over 20,000 men, including naval troops, engineers and regular infantry.
For the capture of these islands, Army Group North formulated two distinct plans; ‘Beowulf I’, to be launched from Latvia, or ‘Beowulf II’ from the western coast of Estonia. While the battle for Tallinn was still raging, the decision was made to launch ‘Beowulf II’ using elements of three infantry divisions and men of Hauptmann Benesch’s 16th Company Lehrregiment ‘Brandenburg’. Three diversionary attacks would also be mounted – ‘Südwind’, against Koiguste Bay, Sutu Bay and Kuressaare on Saaremaa; ‘Westwind’ against Vormsi and Saaremaa’s offshore islands; and ‘Nordwind’ directed against Hiiumaa Island. ‘Beowulf II’ was finally launched on 8 September with an attack on Külasema Island, the Brandenburgers being held in reserve until the assault on Saaremaa that began on 14 September, their mission being the neutralisation of Soviet coastal artillery on the eastern Kübassaare peninsula.
Hitler's Brandenburgers Page 23
