Hitler's Brandenburgers

by Lawrence Paterson

  6.Whenever possible a company of the Lehrregiment is to be assigned to only one division. Dividing the company between more than two divisions endangers its fighting strength and is to be categorically rejected.

  7.The strength and composition of forces assigned to each combat mission depends on the situation and the objective.

  8.From the moment companies of the Lehrregiment ‘Brandenburg’ enter an Army’s zone, they are tactically and, as far as the operation is concerned, disciplinary subordinate to it. Otherwise responsibility for the welfare and care of personnel stays with the regiment even during the operation.

  9.Commitment of Brandenburger units occurs exclusively and responsibly per the directives of the fighting forces.

  10. As a rule, as part of each mission, the Lehrregiment ‘Brandenburg’ will assign a liaison officer [Verbindungs-Offizier] to the command responsible for that action. The liaison officer will inform the operationally responsible unit command of the strength, organisation and fighting method of the regiment’s units.3

  The gulf that had been developing between the Abwehr and the Lehrregiment was becoming increasingly apparent. Canaris’ initial desire to have the Brandenburgers as a potential backbone to any kind of anti-Nazi insurrection was clearly misguided as the regiment employed highly motivated and frequently idealistic young soldiers. The original ‘old guard’ of ex-Freikorps men and First World War veterans had started to give way through transfer or casualties to younger officers as the regiment became entangled in the large-scale battles in the Soviet Union and North Africa. Haehling successfully formalised the alteration of the regiment’s composition and Spaeter’s unit history provides an illustrative breakdown of the 5th Company following his reorganisation:

  Commander: Oberleutnant Zülch

  Medical Officer: Oberarzt Dr Schmid

  Company Headquarters: Feldwebel Ladendorff

  1 Half-Company 2 Half-Company

  (Leutnant Lau) (Leutnant Steidl)

  I Einsatz (approx. platoon size): I Einsatz:

  Leutnant Seuberlich Leutnant Pils

  1st Rifle Squad 1st Rifle Squad

  2nd Rifle Squad 2nd Rifle Squad

  Pionier Group Pionier Group

  Anti-Tank Rifle Troop Anti-Tank Rifle Troop

  Flamethrower Troop Flamethrower Troop

  Light Mortar Troop Light Mortar Troop

  II Einsatz: Oberfeldwebel Schmalbruch II Einsatz: Leutnant Lorencuk

  (Organised as I Einsatz) (Organised as I Einsatz)

  Half-Company Logistic Train Half-Company Logistic Train

  (Feldwebel Wolfsberger) (Oberfeldwebel Goller)

  Heavy Platoon

  (Oberfeldwebel Martl)

  Heavy Machine Gun Platoon: Feldwebel Ortner

  Heavy Mortar Platoon: Feldwebel Majoni

  Anti-Tank Rifle Platoon: Feldwebel Stemmberger

  Company Logistics Train: Hauptfeldwebel Röttges

  Paymaster: Oberzahlmeister Stein

  Replacements were brought into the regiment and by June 1942, those units still in Germany began to deploy to the East to take part in the planned summer offensive.

  In the interim, the 197 men of the Leichte Pionierkompanie Brandenburg had begun their naval training aboard the Gorch Fock in Swinemünde under the eye of Kriegsmarine instructors. It was a diverse group of men that included volunteers from each of Germany’s three Wehrmacht service arms and the SS. Alongside the small craft specialists were a core of men trained in amphibious assault, primarily of Caucasian and Baltic ethnicity. Their landing exercises that took place on the Baltic coast at Bansin earned them the nickname ‘Küstenjäger’.

  By June 1942 the 1st Platoon was in Brindisi preparing for the invasion of Malta while the remainder of the special company were transferred first to Odessa and then on to Nikolayev to prepare for impending amphibious operations. They arrived in transport belonging to 2nd Battalion and were soon involved in exercises for a planned offensive across the Kerch Strait. The Leichte Pionierkompanie was intended for coastal raids and river crossings, initially equipped with Sturmboote and small landing craft. By the time of ‘Case Blue’ (the summer 1942 offensive), it was commanded by Hauptmann Horlbeck and, with 1st Platoon in Brindisi, 2nd Platoon (Oberleutnant Kriegsheim) and 3rd Platoon (Oberleutnant Dr Wagner) made their way with all their equipment to the Crimea by rail. Amongst the men was a Kriegsmarine liaison officer and the colourful Friedrich Hummel. A former long-distance yachtsman, merchant navy sailor, Hamburg police officer and member of the SD, Hummel had been recruited by the Abwehr in November 1939, transferred to the Lehrregiment shortly thereafter and working as an instructor on all matters nautical. He would later form the first German frogman units – Kampfschwimmer – and eventually end the war with Skorzeny’s SS Jagdkommando alongside other former Brandenburgers. His role with the Leichte Pionierkompanie remained instructional as they underwent final training in conquered Soviet territory.

  The Leichte Pionierkompanie – or Küstenjäger Abteilung as it would be known from the end of 1942 – was related to, but different from, another nautical branch of the Brandenburg Regiment established later. In December 1943 Hummel was involved in the formation and training of the Meeresjäger Abteilung ‘Brandenburg’ that comprised solely frogmen for sabotage and demolition missions. Initial volunteers numbered approximately sixty and included twenty-one men from the Kriegsmarine and twenty-four from the Abwehr, as well as Fallschirmjäger, Gebirgsjäger and Waffen SS troops who had been members of Sondereinsatzverbande z.b.V. ‘Oranienburg’. Amongst the naval recruits, the majority were world-class champion sportsmen, several who had taken part in the 1936 Olympics. The initial intake began training at Valdagno, Italy, using a swimming pool within a restricted military area. The intense training and sporting activities were concealed by the Abwehr using the pretence of a rehabilitation unit for wounded troops.

  Hauptmann Fritz Neitzert – a Brandenburger Gebirgsjäger – was the Abteilung’s commander, ground-breaking frogman Alfred von Wurzian the chief instructor and his ‘right-hand’ Obergefreiter Richard (‘Ritchie’) Reimann. During March 1944, Friedrich Hummel took command of the Meeresjäger and by order of OKW on 15 April, the Meeresjäger Abteilung were amalgamated with the newly established Kleinkampfverbände der Kriegsmarine commanded by Konteradmiral Hellmuth Heye, the Brandenburger unit becoming Lehrkommando 700 and all men transferred officially into the Navy which would specialise in such units.

  CHAPTER 8

  ‘Case Blue’/Operation ‘Braunschweig’: The 1942 Summer Offensive in the Soviet Union

  ‘Never forget that no military leader has ever become great without audacity’.

  Carl von Clausewitz

  The bane of Hitler’s ability to wage war was a lack of resources, particularly oil, either refined or unrefined. Pre-war German oil supplies originated from three sources: imported crude or petroleum products from overseas, domestic production in Germany and Austria, and synthetic oil produced domestically, primarily from coal. During the last full year of peace, 1938, German consumption of oil totalled 44 million barrels. Although well below the level of other industrialised nations such as Great Britain or the United States, at least 60 per cent of that total was derived from foreign imports. The outbreak of war resulted in increased demand while also cutting off supply from most foreign sources following the institution of the British naval blockade. In September 1939, German stockpiles totalled 15 million barrels. Despite some measure of seized stock from the campaigns of 1940 and the first half of 1941, OKW estimated in a study made during May 1941 that Germany’s oil supply would be exhausted by August. Romania’s Ploieşti oilfields became Germany’s chief external supplier, their 2.8 million barrels provided in 1938 increasing to 13 million barrels in 1941, almost half of the nation’s entire output. Nonetheless, it was below German expectations and there was no sign of available increase as the oilfields themselves were gradually becoming depleted. Hitler was forced to put the seizure of oil at the top of hi
s list of military objectives or face inevitable defeat. On 1 June 1942, he told the assembled officers of Army Group South that ‘if I do not get the oil of Maykop and Grozny then I must end the war’.1 Before the invasion of the Soviet Union, Stalin had also supplied limited quantities of oil from the rich fields of the Caucasus and by summer 1942 it was these fields that became the object of a renewed German military drive.

  On 15 April Hitler issued Directive Number 41 in which he outlined the general plan for the summer offensive designated Fall Blau (‘Case Blue’). The central Wehrmacht forces were to stand on the defensive before Moscow while in the north Leningrad was captured, linking German and Finnish forces. Meanwhile a two-pronged attack was to be mounted by Army Group South which was divided in half; Army Group A making the crucial drive into the Caucasus towards the Baku oilfields via those in Maykop and Grozny (Operation ‘Edelweiss’) while Army Group B advanced towards Stalingrad to cover the former’s northern flank (Operation ‘Fischreiher’). The Caucasus possessed plentiful supplies of other resources such as coal, peat, nonferrous and rare metals, wheat and corn, but the ultimate prize was oil. To the north, Stalingrad remained a secondary concern, its value that of a Soviet logistical hub. In the Führer directive were clear objectives suited to the Lehrregiment ‘Brandenburg’:

  Should opportunities arise during these operations to establish bridgeheads to the east or south of the Don River, particularly by the capture of undemolished bridges, advantage will be taken of them. In any event, every effort will be made to reach Stalingrad itself, or at least to bring the city under fire from heavy artillery so that it may no longer be of any use as an industrial or communications centre.

  It would be particularly desirable if we could secure either undamaged bridges in Rostov itself or other bridgeheads south of the Don River for later operations.

  In spring 1942 the regiment was almost entirely devoted to ‘Case Blue’, the order of battle in June 1942 being as follows:

  Commander: Generalmajor Alexander von Pfuhlstein.

  Adjutant: Leutnant Adrian von Fölkersam.

  Operations Officer: Oberleutnant Wülbers.

  Intelligence Officer: Oberleutnant H. Pinkert.

  1st Battalion (Major Wilhelm Walther), based in Brandenburg an der Havel.

  1st Company (Hauptmann Babuke), to be attached to 14th Panzer Division/III Motorised Corps.

  2nd Company (Oberleutnant G. Pinkert), to be attached to 23rd Panzer Division/XL Motorised Corps.

  3rd Company (Hauptmann John), to be attached to 3rd Panzer Division/XL Motorised Corps.

  4th (Light) Fallschirmjäger Company (Oberleutnant Kürschner), placed on alert in Roven’ky. 160 Hitler’s Brandenburgers

  2nd Battalion (Major Paul Jacobi), based in Baden bei Wien.

  5th Company (Oberleutnant Zülch), to be attached to III Motorised Corps.

  6th Company (Oberleutnant Bansen), engaged in fighting in the Crimea (later transferred to France).

  7th Company (Oberleutnant Oesterwitz), to be attached to SS Division ‘Wiking’/XIV Motorised Corps.

  8th Company (Oberleutnant Grabert), to be attached to 13th Panzer Division/XIV Motorised Corps.

  3rd Battalion (Rittmeister Franz Jacobi).

  9th Company (Oberleutnant Dr Kniesche), still deployed with LI Army Corps near Smolensk.

  10th Company (Oberleutnant Ronte), to be attached to V Army Corps/Seventeenth Army.

  11th Company (Oberleutnant Hütten), reconstituting from 16th Company, deployed in August.

  12th Company (Oberleutnant Schäder), to begin anti-partisan operations for Army Group Centre.

  Regimental Units:

  Leichte Pionierkompanie Brandenburg (Hauptmann Horlbeck), soon to be designated Küstenjäger Abteilung, training on Lake Constance (transferred to Crimea in July).

  Tropical Company (Oberleutnant von Koenen), in action in North Africa.

  15th Company, ‘Light Company’, engaged in Finland (the redesignated ‘Trommsdorf/Finnland Company’).

  The regiment had also lost men to the establishment of several ‘foreign legions’ for use by the Wehrmacht during the pending offensive. The Abwehr’s ‘Tiger B’ was one such, formed on 18 October 1941, at a training camp in Rembertów. The organisation comprised six companies of troops – one Caucasian and five others of Central Asians – that had been built around a cadre of trained troops of the Brandenburg Regiment. Tiger B was created as a unit to undertake sabotage missions behind enemy lines, gather intelligence and attempt to induce regional uprisings against Soviet rule in their various homelands. Though bolstered with Brandenburg troops they were – and remained – separate from the regiment itself; redesignated the Turkestanisch-Kaukasisch-Mohammedanische Legion (Turkistani-Caucasian-Mohammedan Legion) on 13 January 1942. Towards the end of March, they were subdivided into three constituent parts all initially active in the General Government of Poland: Turkestanisches Infanterie-Bataillon 450 (later transferred to the Waffen SS), Kaukasisch-Mohammedanische Legion (subsequently renamed once more as Aserbeidschanische Legion on 22 July 1942), and the Turkestanische Legion.

  The Brandenburgers would not be the only German commando forces in operation for ‘Case Blue’. During mid-April, Lahousen had attended a meeting with Adolf Hitler and Alfred Jodl in which the Abwehr were directed to make full use of their own ‘partisans’, former prisoners of war who had been recruited into the German forces. Soviet prisoners who volunteered were either used in their original uniforms or outfitted as civilians and began filtering behind enemy lines as early as May to wreak havoc in Red Army rear areas. On 22 May, Abwehr agents were also parachuted into Voronezh, Stalingrad, Krasnodar and other key areas where they sabotaged railway lines, power stations and pipelines while Operation ‘Hannover’ was launched by 350 White Russians of Sonderverbänd Graukopf on 22 May around Army Group Centre. Though they inflicted heavy casualties on the Red Army, the savage fighting left only a hundred survivors to return to the German lines. In the Caucasus, the Sonderverbänd Bergmann was formed from 200 Germans and 550 former Soviet prisoners of war or deserters who were ethnically Georgian, Armenian, north Caucasian and Azerbaijani. Commanded by Theodor Oberländer, the Bergmann troops remained part of the standard Army hierarchy, their apparent designation as an Abwehr force purely made as a form of cover.

  The Brandenburger troops who were to take part in ‘Case Blue’ moved east to their respective operational areas during June and July. Walther’s 1st Battalion was subordinated to Army Group B for the drive towards Stalingrad while the remaining battalions would accompany Army Group A into the Caucasus. The 2nd Battalion entrained in Vienna and headed east via Odessa, gathering in the region of Nikolayev in the southern Ukraine by 10 July, while the 3rd Battalion’s 10th and 12th Companies and their Battalion Headquarters reached Stalino (now Donetsk), north-west of Rostov-on-Don. The regimental staff assembled first at Roven’ky before also moving forward to Stalino.

  ‘Case Blue’ began on 28 June 1942 with Army Group B’s Fourth Panzer Army beginning its advance from the vicinity of Kharkov towards the Soviet transport and communications centre of Voronezh on the Don. General der Panzertruppe Friedrich Paulus’ Sixth Army also began to move, Oberleutnant Gerhard Pinkert’s 2nd Company leaving Kursk on the first day of July and racing ahead of the armoured columns to seize bridges over the Don River, frequently merging with the familiar sight of retreating Soviet troops. On 30 June, ‘Case Blue’ was renamed Operation ‘Braunschweig’ as initial advances encouraged German hopes for the offensive, the Red Army once again seeming to be falling back in chaos. However, as the Brandenburgers penetrated up to 100km behind enemy lines using the confusion as cover, it was not just the Soviets who frequently mistook them for Red Army troops and Pinkert’s men were repeatedly shelled by their own approaching forces, causing needless casualties and affecting morale.

  Hauptmann Werner John’s 3rd Company was at the spearhead of the 3rd Panzer Division in Volltarnung of Soviet infantry uniforms aboard two Amer
ican Dodge trucks that had been captured from the Red Army. Ranging up to 80km behind enemy lines, the company was stopped at the entrance to a small village near Millerovo by a vigilant Soviet guard post and subsequently questioned by a Red Army Political Commissar. John was amongst those men of the party who did not speak Russian and posed as a battle-weary truck driver while those men fluent in the language disembarked to chat with local villagers and enemy soldiers milling around. The party’s combat interpreter explained their presence as a special unit returning from a covert mission against the advancing Germans. For three quarters of an hour the suspicious Commissar interrogated the interpreter until the latter exclaimed in frustration: ‘If you don’t believe me, ask the Army!’ ‘If I had a telephone connection, I would have already done so!’ came the reply.

  Nonetheless, he was finally satisfied and the Brandenburgers re-boarded their truck for departure, fully briefed on local Soviet strongpoints in order that their journey might be conducted securely. Ironically, it appears to have been the American trucks that had attracted the Commissar’s attention as they were still relatively scarce in the Soviet front lines. John and his men in due course successfully returned to German lines with valuable information obtained without once firing their weapons and further operations were planned based on this intelligence.

  The 3rd Panzer Division established a bridgehead over the lower Don River near Konstantinovsk on 23 July and the 2nd and 3rd Companies continued to take and hold small bridges as they swung south towards the Caucasus. John’s 3rd Company took the bridge at Konstantinovsk before racing on and capturing a crossing of the smaller Sal River to the south, where Hauptmann Babuke’s 1st Company was advancing steadily east in front of the 14th Panzer Division which had pushed its way into the northern outskirts of Rostov-on-Don. The 13th Panzer Division and SS ‘Wiking’ Division of XIV Motorised Corps were bludgeoning their way into the city itself through gaps torn in the Soviet defensive lines by supporting infantry formations. Both the 2nd and 3rd Companies (attached to 23rd and 3rd Panzer Divisions respectively) would be redirected south towards Grozny alongside their ‘parent’ units as Hitler began an unnecessary chain of logistical changes and shifts of objective that would only serve to dilute his offensive. Such micromanagement at the very highest level would become the bane of Wehrmacht operations.