Hitler's Brandenburgers

by Lawrence Paterson

  Benesch divided his company into two sub-units, the first fifty men to be landed aboard five DF S230 gliders towed by Ju 52s from the airstrip at Pärnu, their short flight covered by Messerschmitt Bf 110s of ZG26 ‘Horst Wessel’, which were also tasked with neutralising Soviet anti-aircraft batteries. The second part of his company was to land by sea from various small craft, the main German amphibious landings taking place to the north. Benesch himself was aboard the first glider to put down, the landing smooth though they came down 800m short of their expected landing zone and under immediate sustained fire from well-entrenched Soviet troops. There was no sign of the seaborne force which had, in fact, been forced back to port by strong currents and rough seas. Elsewhere, the weather conditions badly affected the main German infantry landings, although, in larger landings vessels, they continued nonetheless.

  The Brandenburgers that had landed were immediately thrown on to the defensive as extra Soviet troops arrived by truck to join the fight. The heavily defended bunkers facing the Germans proved impossible to approach and before long Benesch had his men form a defensive hedgehog position under heavy counter-attack as they began withdrawing slowly towards the eastern coast. The supporting Bf 110s were relatively ineffectual and at 1600hrs a message was flashed from the cockpit of one aircraft by semaphore that boats would shortly attempt a landing to retrieve the Brandenburgers, though the men ashore saw none. Meanwhile, two of the Luftwaffe glider pilots were dead and casualties were mounting amongst the assault troops. Kriegsmarine gunfire and attacks by Junkers Ju 88 aircraft helped keep the Soviet troops at bay until, approximately two hours later, three Ju 52 aircraft passed overhead and dropped nine rubber dinghies, four of them straight into Soviet hands. Benesch was instructed to use the vulnerable boats to head eastwards at sea where they would be met by Vorpostenboote.

  With too few boats for the number of men, Benesch and his troops waited until darkness and used the inflatables as stretchers for the wounded, sporadic enemy fire causing few problems as the Soviets appeared unwilling to give chase. The five rubber boats – designed to carry four occupants each – were launched from the long sandy beach, nine wounded men placed aboard with as many other men as they could carry while the remainder took turns swimming alongside. Battling strong currents, they made their way out to sea, one dinghy becoming separated and drifting back towards land where the occupants were reportedly captured and all but two of them executed. The remainder finally contacted German ships at 0700hrs the following morning. As well as the two glider pilots, eleven of Benesch’s men had been killed in the attempted attack. Despite their failure, the Baltic islands were finally secured by German troops on 21 October and by the end of the battle the Soviets had lost approximately 19,000 men captured and 4,700 killed while German casualties amounted to 2,850 men. Benesch’s company was pulled out of the action and returned to their base and later reconstituted as the 11th Company, though their commander was detached to spend time in Finland as liaison officer for ‘Kompanie Trommsdorf’ (see below).

  Brandenburgers in Finland

  Finland had declared war on the Soviet Union three days after the launch of Operation ‘Barbarossa’ and in the Arctic Circle they played a major role in Operation ‘Silberfuchs’ (‘Silver Fox’) that comprised a two-stage pincer attack to take and hold the vital Soviet port of Murmansk. The first phase began on the opening day of ‘Barbarossa’ when, in the Arctic Circle, Germany committed two Gebirgs Divisions (2nd and 3rd, who together constituted the Wehrmacht’s Norwegen Armee Korps) to move east from Kirkenes and occupy the Finnish nickel mines at Petsamo. From there, they began the second phase on 29 June together with Finnish forces, making initial headway before becoming bogged down in an entrenched stalemate that would remain virtually stagnant for the next three years.

  To the south, the Wehrmacht’s XXXVI Army Corps (169th Division and 6th SS Gebirgs Division ‘Nord’) attacked towards Kantalahti on 1 July, launching a frontal attack on Salla that was taken within a week while the Finnish II Corps advanced from Kuusamo in support, their goal being to cut the Murmansk railway at Kandalaksha. However, once again despite initial success, the offensive eventually stalled by September in the face of strong Soviet defences as well as unexpected diplomatic pressure from the United States. While the Finnish military was keen to retake territory lost to the Soviet Union during the 1940 ‘Winter War’, it appears that they had far less appetite for any kind of war of conquest beyond their original borders. Whatever motivation may have existed for such an undertaking was surely subdued following receipt of a diplomatic note from the United States to Finland’s President Risto Heikki Ryti in which Finland was urged to ‘stop all offensive operations and withdraw to the 1939 border’. Furthermore, the note declared, ‘should material of war sent by the United States to Soviet territory in the north by way of the Arctic Ocean be attacked en-route either presumably or allegedly from territory under Finnish control, in the present state of opinion in the United States, such an incident must be expected to bring about an instant crisis between Finland and the United States’.1 Though they loudly protested such an ultimatum, Ryti’s government knew that they could not risk antagonising the United States and Finnish troops were quietly reined in, demands also being made to the Wehrmacht that any Finnish units ‘on loan’ should be immediately placed back under direct Finnish military command. Both Murmansk and the Murmansk railway continued their operations unimpeded.

  The double-track railway line that linked Leningrad to Murmansk was a major conduit of Allied Lend-Lease supplies during the first year of the Soviet war, predominantly, though not wholly, American. Indeed, by December 1941 British tanks landed in Soviet Arctic ports comprised over 25 per cent of the Red Army’s medium and heavy tank strength. Luftwaffe attacks on the line periodically managed to cut the track, but these breaks were soon repaired and were a nuisance rather than a serious threat. In Berlin, the Abwehr’s Leutnant Trommsdorf had already formulated plans for the establishment of a specialised mountain troop unit to undertake missions on the Finnish front; particularly the cutting of the Murmansk railway.

  Training of the specialised unit was carried out in Wünsdorf (Zossen) south of Berlin. The Heeressportschule at which the German Olympic team of 1936 had trained was located there and Trommsdorf attempted to recruit several of the finest skiers in the German armed forces. Some accounts have cited that this included a skiing gold medal winner of the 1936 Winter Olympic Games, but Franz Pfnür (Gold Medal for Alpine Skiing) subsequently joined the SS and there remains no record of his being seconded to the Brandenburgers. Between eighty and ninety men were gathered for ‘Kompanie Trommsdorf’ including demolitions specialists, water purification engineers, a meteorological technician and dog handlers who looked after forty sled dogs provided by the Heereshundeschule (Army Dog School) at Sperenberg.

  During early 1942, they were transported to Finland and placed under the command of General Dietl who attended the company’s initial exercises in their new environment. He was apparently not very impressed with what he saw and ordered Trommsdorf to move his troops north of Rovaniemi, the administrative capital of Lapland. There they were to properly acquaint themselves with the conditions of the northern front, six Finnish NCOs from the SS Freiwilligen-Bataillon Nordost being taken on board to provide further and more effective instruction for the Brandenburgers.2 Their first combat assignment was finally given at the end of March when they were detailed to be part of Operation ‘Lutto’, an attack to disrupt the lines of communication used by General Vladimir I. Shcherbakov’s Fourteenth Army on the Karelian front. Trommsdorf’s unit was combined with Gebirgsjäger of the 3rd Battalion/136 Gebirgsjäger Regiment (2nd Gebirgs Division) and Finnish troops under the command of Hauptmann Otto Stampfer. The Brandenburgers were to forge ahead of the main body of ‘Kampfgruppe Stampfer’ and infiltrate behind Soviet lines, cutting communications and generally interfering with logistics between the Russians’ supply depot at Ristikengt and their front-line t
roops. However, poor coordination in heavy snow meant that by the time the Brandenburgers arrived at the planned rendezvous point with the Kampfgruppe, Stampfer’s men had already gone into action and mounted a frontal assault on Soviet positions rather than wait for the Brandenburgers. Casualties were heavy with little gain and Stampfer retreated, leaving Trommsdorf’s men to also fight their way back to German lines, becoming disorientated and lost before being rescued by a Gebirgsjäger patrol. Trommsdorf, a former university lecturer in civilian life, had shown commendable theoretical knowledge of operations in such a harsh environment. However, he was soon shown to be clearly unsuited to the physical task itself, described by Spaeter as ‘an intellectual type with thick metal-rim glasses’ and already past the age of 30 and so he subsequently returned to Germany, his initial replacement as company commander the South Tyrolean Leutnant Alfred Sölder who in turn was superseded by Oberleutnant Otto Hettinger.

  Almost as soon as the Brandenburgers had returned to the German lines they were involved in fighting against a new Soviet advance near the town of Kiestinkiand and distinguished themselves in the defensive combat by shoring up a flagging battle line. In June, they were withdrawn to rest and refit at Rovaniemi, taking the opportunity to analyse the failings of their previous mission. The Finnish SS men were on hand to offer winter survival advice as well as improving the Brandenburgers’ cross-country speed and limiting use of weapons to a level comparable to Finnish methods of silence before action. Men were taught how to pack all personal utensils and equipment in such a way as to create no noise while moving. Finnish troops could move in relatively large formations with minimal sound. A favoured Finnish technique for attacks was to do so in small bounds; moving several yards, lying down, moving on again and repeating until they had reached close range, and the Brandenburgers perfected the skill.

  Their planned raid against the Murmansk railway line began on 18 August 1942. By that stage, the company had been redesignated 15th (Light) Company, Lehrregiment ‘Brandenburg’ z.b.V. 800 (made official on 2 August) and though Hettinger remained company commander, the most experienced man of the group, SS Scharführer Kaarlo Paananen, led the incursion. Alongside a small number of Soviet deserters, there were several more Finns attached to the raiding party, thirteen from the Finnish Army’s long-range patrol unit Osasto Paatsalo (Detachment Paatsalo) that had been formed for such guerrilla operations behind enemy lines. In total, three loosely grouped teams departed from the area of Juumo in collapsible kayaks supplied with small outboard motors, the first party comprising most of the company headed by Oberleutnant Hettinger, then Feldwebel Schneider and finally a group led by the overall leader, Scharführer Paananen. They travelled along the interconnected rivers and lakes of central Karelia, the two-man kayaks connected in pairs by rope as they headed east. The company was armed with a mixture of German, Finnish and Soviet automatic weapons, fighting knives and close-combat weapons and heavier machine guns, wearing Soviet uniforms, rubber boots and camouflage jackets without insignia.

  Progress was slow, with the kayaks carried overland between the rivers and tributaries. They eventually reached the Knyazhegubskoye Reservoir whose expanse they crossed in low-lying mist that concealed them from Soviet patrols. After travelling nearly 160km over extremely inhospitable terrain, the Brandenburgers had reached striking distance of the Murmansk railway line and established a camp on a small island near the lake’s western bank on 24 August. Patrols were despatched by Hettinger to scout the railway line itself and three bridges were chosen for destruction. The attacks took place under cover of darkness. However, sentries at the northernmost bridge sighted the approaching Brandenburgers, who only managed to set fire to the wooden structure with reserve petrol from the kayaks before being forced to retreat by Soviet reinforcements, their explosive charges remaining unused.

  Security troops at other bridges and tunnels were immediately placed on alert, Hettinger intercepting the Soviet radio messages and thus able to warn his remaining two teams. The second bridge measured nearly 400m in length, Finnish commandos killing the sentries silently at the southern end before explosives were planted in three places along the span. Despite nearby Red Army troops becoming alerted to their presence at the last moment, a stretch of nearly 75m of bridge was demolished as the Brandenburgers successfully withdrew with two men slightly wounded. The third bridge was also successfully destroyed, the central span blown to pieces along with several Russian troops at 0230hrs.

  Returning to their island camp, their retreat was hindered first by a strafing Soviet aircraft that injured two men and then by large motor boats carrying Red Army troops that swept by the concealed kayaks later that night. Despite later brushes with ambushing Soviet troops and weather that alternated between sleet, fog and rain, on 29 August 1942, the Brandenburgers once again reached Finnish lines east of Lake Seyeminki, but not without further casualties. During the voyage on Paanajärvi, Sölder’s group began by carrying their kayaks which had taken damage from Soviet gunfire. Attempting to cross the lake in two groups using two motorised pontoons as propulsion, strong winds blew up that capsized the pontoons, throwing the men into the frigid water where some were drowned, dragged under by their heavy equipment. Robert Kauder and one other were hauled ashore unconscious, Sölder using artificial respiration to revive Kauder. At severe risk of exposure, the men struggled to light a fire with wet matches, though eventually a flame took hold and they began to dry out. Most of their equipment had been lost and they were stranded for six hours in the lakeside forest before help arrived.

  All surviving Brandenburger and SS members of the raiding party were awarded the EK II. However, as with the air raids on the railway, the damage was soon repaired though the maintenance stretched from initial estimates of hours to two weeks, after which over-hasty and inexact restoration unintentionally derailed at least two locomotives. Nonetheless, the effect on the Soviet military machine was negligible. The 15th (Light) Company remained in Finland until December 1942 as a reserve unit for the Twentieth Army before returning to Neuhaus in Austria

  Reorganising the Regiment, June 1942

  By the end of the 1941 it was obvious that Operation ‘Barbarossa’ had fallen short of its goals. The Soviet Union had not collapsed. On the contrary, the Wehrmacht had been forced onto the defensive after suffering tremendous losses in their advance to the suburbs of Moscow. To Oberstleutnant von Haehling, it had become equally apparent that the covert nature of Brandenburger deployment was becoming a secondary consideration and they were being more frequently used as light infantry and therefore entirely dependent on the ‘parent’ unit to which they were attached for conventional heavy-weapon support. The Abwehr appeared to be taking less interest in the direction of the regiment and how it was employed and so began a period of restructuring and internal redirection to enable the regiment to continue to function while also creating elements equipped with standard heavier weapons more familiar to Wehrmacht infantry units. On 26 June 1942, he submitted a report to Lahousen at Abwehr II detailing the steps that he had taken during the first months of the year in reorganising those units that had returned from the front and listing the ‘ten commandments’ of Brandenburger employment that he hoped the Wehrmacht would follow.

  General Duties.

  The mission of the Lehrregiment ‘Brandenburg’ z.b.V. 800 is that of covert military operations against targets of tactical, strategic, or military-economic importance. These take place where other units of the fighting forces cannot yet operate … The taking of transportation facilities, especially bridges, is of primary importance.

  The special operations of the Lehrregiment ‘Brandenburg’ z.b.V. 800 require military stratagems of all kinds to deceive the enemy and seize from him objectives of military importance. Exploiting the success of these special operations tactically and strategically is the role of the commanders of troops following.

  Guidelines for operations:

  1.The units of Lehrregiment ‘Brandenburg’ z
.b.V. 800 are exclusively combat instruments of a war of movement. Their employment in the vanguards of motorised and armoured units is therefore the rule. Their employment in rearguards can be appropriate and necessary in some cases.

  2. The units of Lehrregiment ‘Brandenburg’ z.b.V. 800 are to be withdrawn from the front upon instigation of positional warfare. Lengthier periods of defensive fighting are to be used by elements of Lehrregiment ‘Brandenburg’ z.b.V. 800 for accelerated testing of and conversion to, new methods of fighting. Only in this way will the element of surprise be assured in the future against an ‘alerted’ enemy.

  3.Since its troops have been selected for special operations, are specially trained and are difficult to replace, the employment of the entire regiment or its units in the role of standard infantry is warranted only in extreme emergencies and, then, only temporarily.

  4.The combat unit for special operations by the Lehrregiment ‘Brandenburg’ is the company. It is divided into two ‘half-companies’ each capable of independent action and one heavy platoon. The total strength of the company is 300 men.

  5.The companies of Lehrregiment ‘Brandenburg’ are placed at the disposal of Army Groups or Armies. The focal point of combat determines their use and this can change accordingly.