Two MTBs transported the Corsican agents from Malta and they made landfall on 6 April after the correct recognition signals were received from the darkened shoreline. After landing, as the party attempted to leave the beach, they were lured into an ambush by one of Rudloff’s men and swiftly captured. Despite specific orders that none of the saboteurs were to be harmed, their commander Captain Brun was shot in the heat of the moment by an excited soldier, dying in hospital of his wound several days later. Obeying specific instructions, Rudloff handed the captives over to the SD, though on the strict agreement that they would only be interrogated in the presence of Abwehr officers. Intervening directly with Rauff against the Corsicans’ execution – and in direct contravention of Hitler’s ‘Commando Order’ – Rudloff was able to virtually smuggle the men to Europe and subsequent internment as prisoners of war. Rudloff took possession of their wireless equipment and continued to transmit false information to the Allies that included fictitious attacks on ammunition dumps, grounded aircraft, transport units and Axis communication links.
The troops that Rudloff had used to intercept the Corsicans were Arab volunteers of the Kommando Deutsch-Arabischer Truppen. In 1942, General Felmy and his Chief of Staff, together with Admiral Canaris, had held a conference in Berlin with the former Iraqi Prime Minister Rashid Ali and then another in Rome with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, a Palestinian Arab nationalist and Muslim leader in Mandatory Palestine. During these talks the future of Felmy’s existing German-Arab Sonderverbänd troops was discussed, both Ali and the Grand Mufti believing them misplaced in their current position in the Soviet Union as they had been trained and ideologically equipped for war in the African desert. However, despite these opinions relayed to Hitler by Felmy in conference at the Führer’s Ukrainian headquarters, the situation remained unchanged for some time. The increasingly disgruntled Arab troops had been in action in the Soviet Union until the Allied ‘Torch’ landings fortuitously prompted the transfer of at least the Arab training battalion (3rd Battalion, Sonderverbänd 287) to Palermo, Sicily. Meanwhile, the remainder of Sonderverbänd 287 and 288 were scheduled for transfer back to North Africa, its members given permission to wear an insignia bearing the emblem of a sun rising behind palm trees. Felmy’s Sonderverbänd F was also renamed Generalkommando z.b.V. (Corps Headquarters for Special Employment) on 25 September at Stalino in line with its impending change of theatre.
Meanwhile, in Africa, the arrival of large numbers of German troops in the Tunisian bridgehead resulted in an unexpected increase in the number of Arab volunteers for Wehrmacht service; a combination of idealists and unemployed opportunists. During December 1942, Oberbefehlshaber Süd, Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring, created an administrative command called the Kommando Deutsch-Arabischer Truppen (KODAT). The Arab training battalion was then moved from Sicily to Tunisia to supervise the induction and instruction of recruits, the men equipped with Wehrmacht uniforms wherever possible, though most were outfitted in captured stocks of French 1935-model khaki uniforms without badges and with a white armband on the right arm bearing the words ‘Im Dienst der Deutschen Wehrmacht’ (‘In the Service of the German Armed Forces’). Sleeve shields emblazoned with the words ‘Free Arabia’ were also issued as quickly as they could be manufactured.
Recruits were organised into separate companies for Tunisians, Algerians and Moroccans, each commanded by German senior NCOs or officers with a small number of Wehrmacht ex-Foreign Legionnaires rated as NCOs in the company to provide a professional backbone to each cadre. Though equipment and training facilities were limited, each company numbered approximately 150 men by the end of 1942. With no heavy weapons and most small arms taken from captured French material, the KODAT troops were predominantly tasked with guarding the coast. By February 1943, sufficient quantities of German weapons had reached Tunisia for the companies to be expanded each to battalion strength; two Tunisian battalions, one Algerian battalion and one Moroccan battalion, each of three infantry companies and one heavy weapons company equipped with mortars and heavy machine guns. Attached to the 5th Panzer Army, KODAT’s training was severely disrupted when the unit’s commander Major Hans Schober and Oberstleutnant Hermann Meyer-Ricks of Generalkommando z.b.V., who had been given the original task of raising the formation, were killed by low-flying enemy aircraft on 24 February. With Felmy’s other Arab units still involved in unexpectedly heavy fighting along the Mius River in southern Russia, there were no current staff available to replace the two dead officers and so, with men experienced in Arab–German relations difficult to find, Oberst Theodor von Hippel was transferred from his Abwehr post to take command.
During mid-February, Hippel’s men took part in Fifth Panzer Army’s attack towards Tebessa which bogged down in short order, before the KODAT troops were forced on to the defensive. Tunisian soldiers were placed in the centre of the Mareth Line but with disastrous results due to their inexperience and lack of training. Taken to their positions during the hours of darkness, the troops lit fires to keep warm and were immediately shelled by German artillery. Alarmed by the gunfire, Allied units facing them were placed on immediate alert and soon attacked, overrunning the Tunisians who were withdrawn from the front line and thereafter used for constructing defensive positions towards the rear.
During mid-April, some of the KODAT German personnel and all trained Muslims were reinforced by ex-Foreign Legion troops and consolidated as a Kampfgruppe near Ferryville, comprising two infantry companies and one heavy company with howitzers, Flak weapons, heavy machine guns and an anti-tank platoon.
The troops appear to have fought effectively in the northern sector of the Tunisian front until disbanded in the last chaotic days of the German presence in North Africa. On 8 May 1943, the unit’s supply train was disbanded and records destroyed and the survivors, numbering less than a hundred men, awaited evacuation to Italy or were later taken into captivity. Amongst those captured by American troops was Theodor von Hippel, father of the Brandenburgers.
The End in North Africa
Before the destruction of the Germans’ remaining Tunisian bridgehead, Koenen’s ‘Tropical Battalion’ saw action against both British and American troops. During February, his Brandenburgers took part in Operation ‘Frülingswind’ as part of Generaloberst Hans-Jürgen von Arnim’s Fifth Panzer Army, the operation launched on 14 February in northern Tunisia. Attacking along the Faid pass, German and Italian troops initially mauled the Americans at the battle of Sidi Bou Zid and subsequent recapture of the strategically located town of Sbeitla. The Brandenburgers lost four men killed in the fighting but accumulated twenty-seven captured medium tanks, sizeable quantities of ammunition, twenty-three guns and 700 prisoners at the peak of the battle. To the south, Rommel had launched his own offensive on the following day, Operation ‘Morgenluft’, that shattered American forces at Kasserine, his master plan being to push on and capture Tebessa. However, despite their respective successes both offensives gradually petered out, largely as a result of personal hubris. The relationship between Arnim and Rommel was particularly frigid; Rommel regarding his counterpart who had recently transferred to North Africa from Russia as ‘a traditional Reichswehr soldier, addicted to a monocle and high boots’ while the latter viewed Rommel as a ‘jumped-up, publicity-seeking second-rater’. Their individual egos and ambitions caused both offensives to be completely uncoordinated operations, when a single decisive stroke might well have inflicted lasting damage to the Allies. Rommel had indeed devised an offensive scheme that could have hit the British First Army with enough force to send them reeling back into Algeria, while the overstretched and exhausted Eighth Army advancing from Libya would have been relatively powerless to intervene. However, Arnim refused to endorse the idea and relinquish control of what was his first independent command. Correspondingly, one combined armoured strike became two mismatched attacks, both beaten back to their starting lines. Despite Rommel thereafter being promoted to overall command of the newly ordained ‘Heeresgru
ppe Afrika’ to defend Tunisia with Fifth Panzer Army and Italian First Army, the last meagre opportunity to hold the position had been squandered.
Nonetheless, Axis forces continued to fight. Bad weather that hampered Allied operations assisted the fighting defence, the area held by Koenen’s Brandenburgers facing the advancing British First Army. During early April, the 2nd Lancashire Fusiliers attacked and captured the heights of Djebel Ang, struggling over the difficult terrain. General Sir Kenneth Anderson, GOC First Army, wrote in his despatches:
This mountain land is a vast tract of country, every hill in which is large enough to swallow up a brigade of infantry, where consolidation on the rocky slopes is very difficult, in which tanks can only operate in small numbers, where movement of guns and vehicles is very restricted and where the division had to rely on pack mules for its supplies and to carry wireless telegraphy sets, tools and mortars.
As a combined group of Fusiliers and 5th Northamptons then attempted to push on to take the dominating mountainous area known as Tanngoucha and its key village of Heidous, they were hit by a severe counter-attack in thick mist at about 0430hrs on 15 April by the 1st Battalion of the 962nd Afrika Regiment and Koenen’s Tropical Abteilung (operationally attached to 334th Division, Fifth Panzer Army). In the fierce fighting that followed, two British companies suffered severe casualties and virtually a third of them were captured in the thick fog, the remaining British troops being forced to retreat. At 2000hrs the next evening as a fresh British battalion prepared to mount a renewed attack, Brandenburg men reached an escarpment immediately above the British headquarters and began to throw grenades into the midst of the men below. In the confused melee that drew in British engineers, anti-aircraft gunners, clerks and drivers, the Germans were finally dislodged and forced to retreat. The slugging match that was the battle for Tanngoucha continued until 3 May when it was finally taken by 38th (Irish) Brigade.
During February, the dramatic reorganisation of the Brandenburg Regiment as it evolved to divisional level was well underway when yet another change was forced upon them. On 8 February Oberst Haehling von Lanzenauer died in hospital in Schömberg in the Black Forest, from a lung infection and jaundice that he had contracted on the Eastern Front.7 As a replacement, the former commander of 154th Infantry Regiment and Knight’s Cross holder Generalmajor Alexander von Pfuhlstein was confirmed.
He had been proposed to Canaris by General Oster. A very obstinate Prussian, typical Reichswehr officer, though he was an unconcealed foe of the Nazi regime. I know that Oster, with and via Pfuhlstein, followed a special purpose with the Brandenburg Division.8
Pfuhlstein was a man of strong convictions and character, though those principles did not include belief in National Socialism or its ambitions for Germany. The eldest of three children, Pfuhlstein had served in the First World War as a Fähnrich in the Prussian 4th Foot Guards Regiment before being commissioned and going on to win both classes of Iron Cross and the wound badge in black. After joining the Luftwaffe in 1933 he returned to the Army in August 1935. However, his reputation was for pessimism that manifested itself in often bitter sarcasm, General der Infanterie Kurt Brennecke labelling him a ‘difficult character’.
During the 1930s he had served as part of Oster’s Abwehrstelle Hannover and had engaged in conspiratorial discussions with his chief, examining the options that existed for the removal of Hitler and destruction of his regime. However, wartime posting to combat and the award of the Knight’s Cross as commander of the 154th Infantry Regiment following heavy fighting in the Demyansk pocket had transformed Pfuhlstein into a purely military-minded officer, unbeknownst to Oster and Canaris. He later went as far as disavowing any attempts to ‘politicise’ his Brandenburg unit, which led to much animosity towards such officers as Friedrich Heinz whom he viewed as a Machiavellian intriguer, rather than an effective combat officer.
After his confirmation as commander of the Sonderverbänd, Pfuhlstein visited Koenen’s command in Tunisia, assisting in the restructuring of the ‘Tropical Company’. During February, fresh men and equipment for the Küstenjäger Abteilung had arrived, transported by rail from Germany to southern Italy, then onwards by freighter to Palermo and ultimately Tunisia. Included in the new intake was Oberleutnant Dr Kurt Wagner who took command of the company which was now provided with two heavy Sturmboote – originally intended for use by the fledgling Küstenjäger for Caspian Sea operations and crossing the Volga River – and a pair of small torpedo carriers, the ‘Schneider boats’.
When Pfuhlstein left North Africa, he took Koenen with him for return to Germany and use of his front-line expertise in the expanding Sonderverbänd Brandenburg, overall command of the ‘Tropical Company’ passing to Oberleutnant Hoffmann who was assisted by his adjutant Oberleutnant Blödern. Dr Wagner continued to direct the Küstenjäger based at Ferryville under the tactical control of Korvettenkapitän Friedrich Kemnade’s 3rd S-boat Flotilla. The Brandenburger boats patrolled the Tunisian coast near Bizerte on security duties and mounted minelaying off Tabarka near the Algerian border, at least three men killed and five seriously wounded during the latter operation. When Tunis fell to the Allies on 7 May, the Küstenjäger assisted in the operation of Luftwaffe Siebel Ferries to evacuate sick and wounded men across La Goulette under enemy artillery fire to German lines in the north and evacuation aboard the last available Ju 52 aircraft leaving the Tunisian bridgehead.
Rommel’s final offensive was launched on 6 March 1943, when he attacked the Eighth Army at the Battle of Medenine using three panzer divisions. However, forewarned by Ultra intelligence from Bletchley Park, Montgomery deployed a daunting screen of anti-tank guns that destroyed fifty-two irreplaceable panzers. The offensive was called off after three days and Rommel transferred back to Germany, his command handed over to his rival Arnim and the ‘Desert Fox’ never returning to Africa.
With the final Axis collapse only days away, both Schneider boats were blown up by their crews while the Sturmboote began ferrying escaping troops to Sicily, using the cover of darkness to avoid the overwhelming Allied air superiority. They sailed, led by Dr Wagner, from Ferryville through Lac de Bizerte on the morning of 8 May as French troops entered the outskirts of Bizerte itself. Wagner headed east towards Cap Zabib, bringing his boats alongside the small fishing harbour’s pier, where they came under repeated air attack by B 26 and P 40 aircraft though suffering only minor damage. The collapse of Heeresgruppe Afrika was evidenced by the hundreds of disorganised men that arrived at the coast, abandoning vehicles and heavy weapons as panic set in upon the realisation that there was no great ‘sea lift’ to take them to Sicily. The two Brandenburger boats were apparently threatened by armoured troops demanding passage at gunpoint before some form of military discipline was restored.
Wagner was ordered to collect the staff of Fifth Panzer Army, now under the command of General Gustav von Vaerst, in headquarters bunkers near Bizerte. While he remained with the boats, Oberleutnant Kuhlmann made the collection overland, returning after two hours to find both Kurt Wagner and his boat’s Oberbootsmannsmaat Rudolf Ludewig dead, killed in continuing air attacks. Assuming command, Kuhlmann finally left the bitter scene of German defeat in Tunisia. As the two Brandenburg boats sailed for Sicily they transported fifty-three staff officers of the Panzer Army – primarily specialists and General Staff officers bound for the Eastern Front – though their commander Vaerst was not amongst them. After sharing a last fine cigar with Kuhlmann he had politely asked him to communicate a message to Berlin: ‘A General will not leave his command post when tens of thousands of Germany’s best soldiers are uselessly consigned to captivity and facing an uncertain fate. My presence with them is now more important than the return to a home in which this German General no longer believes.’ Kuhlmann also took an unassuming Arab with him; Achmed el Bedoiu who had been Dr Kurt Wagner’s batman and who, with no desire to remain in North Africa, subsequently became Kuhlmann’s.
After a successful crossing, the Sturmboote
made landfall in Trapani, the Brandenburger men and their boats later transported by rail to Langenargen on Lake Constance, where the Küstenjäger Abteilung was undergoing training with Conrad von Leipzig and beginning further expansion. On 26 May Vizeadmiral Eberhard Weichold (Marinegruppenkommando Italy) subverted any potential intended role for the Brandenburger’s Küstenjäger in operations against what was now Allied-controlled North Africa:
[VA] Weichold has investigated how attacks on the enemy communication lines in North Africa could be carried out by harassing squads. The operations can be carried out on an extensive coast and would tie down considerable enemy forces. Vice Admiral Weichold considers the men of the special division ‘Brandenburg’ unsuitable for this task, since it is a question of purely military offensive actions for which dashing volunteers are needed. The Chief of Staff, Naval Staff considers it necessary that the command of operations of this type be in the hands of a naval officer with a staff of officers from all the armed services. The operations must be conducted over sea and will consequently be dependent on this element so that successful execution of such operations could only be expected if under the responsible command of a naval officer. The Chief of Staff, Naval Staff is going to submit suggestions to the Chief, Naval Staff accordingly.9
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