Hitler's Brandenburgers

by Lawrence Paterson

  Two light Flak weapons, two medium mortars.

  4th (Heavy) Company:

  Two craft of the Italian X Flotilla MAS Borghese;

  Six heavy Sturmboote 42;

  Twelve Linsen explosive motorboats with one light machine gun and various Flak weapons.

  The mission brief for the Küstenjäger Abteilung was for anti-partisan operations at sea and missions behind enemy lines against harbours and shipping. The Heavy Company contained the first German attempt at using explosive motorboats such as those established by the Italian Navy and would later be handed over to the Kriegsmarine’s Kleinkampfverbände.

  The Legionärbataillon ‘Alexander’ had been formed from the pool of Russian volunteers that had been gathered in Freiburg, though they later trained at Kranepuhl south of Brandenburg where they inhabited barracks of a Luftwaffe Flak unit. The 1st ‘White’ Company was composed of Russians and Ukrainians while the 2nd ‘Black’ Company was chiefly made up of men from Turkestan, Armenia and other regions of the Caucasus. Hauptmann Alexander Auch had been born in St Petersburg and spoke flawless Russian and while the initial cadre around which his battalion formed were German veterans from the Brandenburgers’ old 2nd Company, the remainder were eastern volunteers.

  Many German recruits who had been taken into the Brandenburgers during early 1942 were only now being attached to combat units as the formation reached divisional strength. Take for example the experience of Hinrich-Boy Christiansen. Born in Kiel in 1924, he finished his schooling at a Hamburg Gymnasium and enlisted in the 90th Motorised Reserve Battalion on 28 January 1942, beginning his training in Hamburg.

  A few days before the end of basic training [during March], I was suddenly ordered into the orderly room, where, in an adjoining room, I reported to a Leutnant. I was briefly asked for my CV, family, why I volunteered for the Wehrmacht, a few language skills were tested and then I was asked, to my joyful surprise, if I did not want to report to a special unit. Naturally, without the slightest idea of what this meant, I wanted to see what kind of special tasks it might be. What 17-year-old volunteer could resist such an offer? …

  But while most of my fellow recruits were being sent to the Eastern Front, we were sent back to Berlin by a Feldwebel, who did not give us any information about our trip’s destination. From there we continued by train the next day, until we arrived somewhere late in the evening and were loaded into a truck. In the dark, we could still see that it was a large-scale complex of barracks that lay in a forest setting. To our question of what was happening, we got the completely unmilitary answer: ‘Sleep for now. Roll call tomorrow morning is at about ten o’clock, then you will see.’

  Our suspense grew and we were not to be disappointed. We had just got up the next morning, when we heard a marching song on the road outside our barracks, but in a language we didn’t know. We staggered to the windows and saw to our weary astonishment a unit doing a stiff Prussian march, but in Russian uniforms. As soon as that had disappeared, something even stranger came along. The first thing we saw was a lean, proud rider in a Hauptmann uniform, whose narrow brown face was decorated with a mighty moustache. Behind this German officer, who had the appearance of a most unusual officer, were about forty or fifty men, who were eagerly trying, but without great success, to achieve something like a proper march without dropping their rifles. The most amazing thing was the fact that this troop was wearing German uniforms, but on their heads … a green turban.

  We were beginning to realise what a strange mob we had landed in. The place was the so-called ‘Regenwurmlager’ near Meseritz. This ‘near’, however, was slightly exaggerated. If we wanted to go to the cinema on Sunday afternoon, we had to walk about two hours there and back. Otherwise, there were only heath, forest and sand in the area.15

  Christiansen transferred to Brandenburg an der Havel for the completion of his training, a member of the 1st Battalion, and had volunteered to join the Fallschirmjäger Company during February 1943. However, as the wearer of spectacles, he was rejected much to his disappointment. Instead he was transferred to Düren and after two weeks’ guard duty in Berlin, he joined the 2nd Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Regiment, Brandenburg Division. His first combat posting would soon be to Witebsk, Belarus.

  Before the division had completely formed, Rittmeister Plitt’s 1st Abteilung/Verband 801 had already gone into action against partisans on the Eastern Front though following the final establishment, Plitt became commander of the redesignated 1st Battalion, 1st Regiment ‘Brandenburg’, still fighting partisans in the rear areas of Army Group North. His battalion was spread across a wide area and took part in extremely heavy fighting against strong enemy groups which were becoming bolder in their tactics. Partisan activity in Soviet territories under German control reached new heights during the second half of 1942 and into 1943. German-led pacification operations had begun from the moment of occupation but reached an intensity during autumn 1941 and managed to quell much partisan activity. With the front line moving east, the guerrillas found their situation intolerable with growing shortages of weapons and ammunition as well as medical supplies and food. The Red Army or Air Force could offer no support and there was virtually no radio communication possible to coordinate operations due to a lack of radios and operatives trained in their use. Scattered piecemeal attacks were little more than nuisances to the Wehrmacht by late 1941, generally brought under control by harsh reprisals from security and SS units.

  However, between February and September 1943 the so-called ‘Vitebsk Gate’ was opened by the Soviet 4th Shock Army after it ripped a hole 40km wide in the densely forested and marshy territory marking the junction between Army Groups North and Centre. The Soviet Toropets–Kholm Offensive encircled German forces at Kholm and Demyansk, while the breach created in the German lines allowed widespread reinforcement of partisan groups in Belarus, as well as considerable supplies of weapons, ammunition and 150 radio sets. It also allowed a flood of harvested food to flow eastwards to feed the Red Army. In anticipation of its eventual closure by German counter-attack, Soviet engineers were also able to transport enough materiel through the ‘gate’ to construct nearly fifty secret airstrips for future partisan supply missions. However, German forces were unable – and initially unwilling – to counterattack in an attempt to close the gaping hole in their front line as they were both understrength following an exhausting winter and more concerned at relieving forces trapped in the Kholm and Demyansk pockets. Though the gap was finally closed in September 1942, guerrilla forces in Belarus had replenished fighting strength and improved organisational skills that would remain undiminished for the remainder of the war.

  From Plitt’s battalion, Leutnant Heinemann took forty volunteers from his 4th (Light) Company behind enemy lines in Volltarnung to attempt to infiltrate Soviet partisan positions. The company was comprised of ex-Soviet prisoners, now considered Wehrmacht ‘legionnaires’ and beginning on 13 May, they made their way deep into enemy territory before an unexpected mutiny in the ranks derailed the mission. Heinemann’s position was perilous and, possibly aware of the rising number of defections amongst foreign Wehrmacht and SS personnel to the enemy, he had the nine ringleaders shot and returned with the remainder to German-held territory where twenty-four others deemed untrustworthy were reinterned as prisoners of war.

  Meanwhile, the battalion’s 3rd Company was involved in a surprise raid on a partisan bunker complex on 15 May in which Hauptmann Fritz Babuke was wounded during close-quarters fighting. His place was taken by Oberleutnant Schulte who, after being killed in an ambush that left his company with four dead and several injured, was in turn replaced by Leutnant Hebler.

  By July 1943 two more Brandenburger battalions had been sent to the Soviet Union: Oberleutnant Kriegsheim’s 1st Battalion and Hauptmann Grawert’s 3rd Battalion of the 3rd Regiment. Their primary purpose was initially the security of supply lines that straggled through forested marshland in which partisans had become increasingly active. The Brandenburge
rs were given the temporary designation of ‘200th Jäger Regiment’ as a cover with a more orthodox Wehrmacht service history should they be taken prisoner and, along with Jacobi’s regimental staff, both battalions were engaged in heavy fighting against guerrilla bands. The fighting was brutal and any captured Germans could expect little mercy from their enemy. Conversely, there was little compassion towards the partisans either. Vitebsk itself had been largely destroyed by the fighting, Kriegsheim’s 1st Battalion operating mainly to the south-west of the city. Hinrich-Boy Christiansen was involved in these battles:

  [Diary extract] 17.09.43: Afternoon mission. I see two dead women burning, which I had seen alive just a few minutes ago, it was not a pretty sight. One must get used to hitting civilians hard, especially women. Additionally, from my memory: It was two women who were captured with weapons in their hands, had tried to flee again and were wounded. There was also a young girl with them, whom I had to return to the company command post. It was one of the worst moments I had experienced as a soldier; this young, handsome girl, with whom I would have preferred to go out, now driving her through the forest with a gun, but at the same time knowing that she had probably tried, shortly before, to shoot me or a comrade.16

  Kriegsheim’s battalion had also suffered the unexpected blow in July of a mutiny by Soviet legionnaires of Oberleutnant Kohlmeyer’s 4th Company that had been billeted in a large collective farm at Sarethsje. Kohlmeyer had already had one narrow brush with disaster when he had been stopped by two Feldgendarmerie on the road between his own headquarters and that of the battalion command. Engaging the leading military police Feldwebel in conversation, it was perhaps an inbuilt sense of danger that first raised his suspicions before a small incorrect uniform detail confirmed it. Within seconds of being attacked themselves, Kohlmeyer and his driver opened fire and killed both men, later identified as German communists who had enlisted with the Soviet partisans.

  The Soviet mutineers of Kohlmeyer’s company were led by Alexander Lewa, a Russian who had emigrated to Serbia following the Bolshevik revolution and married a German woman. Believed above suspicion as a loyal Wehrmacht soldier, he had formed small intelligence sections in the company for transmitting information to partisans before launching his own surprise attack. A stunned survivor escaped the bloodbath that followed and raced to Kriegsheim’s headquarters by motorcycle, the battalion commander immediately taking his 2nd Company in full combat order towards Sarethsje. Approaching the stockaded farm stronghold, the first body to be found was that of Karl Kohlmeyer; the 28-year-old officer’s body had been riddled with bullets, a pistol near his open hand.

  All fourteen German members of the company had been shot, several after being captured while wounded and the signs of battle gave no doubt to experienced eyes that the attack had come from within the camp. Two trucks and forty-six legionnaires were missing, leaving eighty-two men, half of whom were dead or wounded and the remainder cowering in fear as the Germans approached. A reinforced platoon followed the tyre tracks and found both trucks abandoned in the forest, tracking the escapees until around midday on 19 July when they came under heavy fire from German MG42s. The mutineers had clearly been reinforced by partisans and the Brandenburgers were forced to withdraw.

  Morale in the battalion sank with the revelations, some officers asking for the remaining Russians to be shot as an example until Kriegsheim angrily reminded them that those who remained had not defected despite the risk of execution by their erstwhile comrades who had deserted to the partisans. An uneasy peace descended, though the 4th Company was ultimately disbanded, its survivors grouped into a new platoon. Kriegsheim was removed as battalion commander and transferred, his place taken by Hauptmann Wasserfall who in turn was later succeeded by Hauptmann Pinkert.

  Hundreds of kilometres to the south-east the battle of Kursk was fought and lost by German forces in late July, the Wehrmacht’s last attempt at regaining the initiative on the Eastern Front a failure. From that point onward they would be forced to constantly be reacting to Soviet advances rather than making their own. Hauptmann Grawert’s 3rd Battalion had been earmarked for operations against Soviet bridges as part of the Operation ‘Zitadelle’ Kursk offensive but these were cancelled as the attempt failed. The battalion was instead sent to the defensive fighting west of the Desna River at Zhokovka, 55km north-west of Bryansk, during September 1943.

  The Brandenburgers were visited personally by Generaloberst Walter Model, commander of the Ninth Army, on 12 September who reinforced them with Sturmgeschütz support as they protected the supply lines to the 296th Infantry Division at Foshnya, the main road under fierce Soviet attacks under cover of darkness. Over the next three days Grawert’s company took numerous prisoners, killed at least eighty enemy troops and destroyed an enemy tank. They also managed to recapture two German 88mm Flak guns that had fallen into enemy hands during the Wehrmacht’s retreat as well as other weapons and ninety horses.

  By 2 October Grawert’s men had been in action continuously and suffered casualties of two officers, three NCOs and twelve men killed, six officers, eleven NCOs and fifty-seven men wounded; only a single officer remaining unscathed. Reaching exhaustion, Grawert’s men were finally withdrawn to the area southwest of Minsk, to rest and undertake anti-partisan operations along the area’s railway lines and supply routes.

  Wasserfall’s 1st Battalion was involved in heavy fighting against enemy armoured units near Nevel as part of Third Panzer Army. They would not be withdrawn from the front-line trenches until the end of October and even then, it was only for a brief respite during which they engaged partisans behind the lines. Returning to the chaotic front they were shunted around as a ‘fire-brigade’ unit to plug holes torn in the German defences by relentless Soviet attacks. Luftwaffe field divisions that occupied adjacent sectors required occasional stop-gap groups of Brandenburgers to shore up their own lines. Hauptmann Gerhard Pinkert led ‘Kampfgruppe Wagner’ comprised of Brandenburg troops and elements of the 211th Infantry Division against Soviet spearheads in the severe defensive fighting as German troops struggled back towards the Polish frontier.

  The Russians of the ‘Alexander Battalion’ were committed to violent battles against partisans near Teterevino as part of Operation ‘Zitadelle’ before being forced to retreat following the Soviet counteroffensive. By November Auch’s men had been pushed as far back as Zhitomir, which fell to Soviet troops on 13 November. In a ferocious counter-attack, Auch’s troops stormed into house-to-house combat in support of the 7th Panzer Division that retook the burning city. Within his ‘Christmas Order’ (Weihnachtsbefehl) for 1943, Generalmajor von Pfuhlstein singled out the battalion for praise, noting that:

  Our veteran Russian legionnaires under Hauptmann Auch made possible the ordered withdrawal of German troops from the Zhitomir area by providing cover. Our legionnaires were the last to leave Zhitomir and they were the first to re-enter the city during the counter-attack.

  In January 1944, the two Brandenburg Battalions of the 3rd Regiment were sent to the vast swampland known as the Pripet marshes. During the invasion of the Soviet Union, the German armed forces had a marked tendency to avoid large areas of forest or wetlands as they were unsuitable for mobile warfare. Correspondingly there was little formal training in the close combat typical of such environments. Artillery support was nullified by swampy soil and required specialist training that was frequently lacking amongst artillery observers. Likewise, aerial bombardment required the attaching of extension-rod fuses (Vorsatzzuender) to produce any useful results. Armoured vehicles were clearly of no use in such terrain and therefore it was left to infantrymen to shoulder the burden. During the heat of summer, men were in constant humidity that rotted boots, uniforms and equipment while the fetid atmosphere produced swarms of mosquitoes. Amidst the pools of stagnant water, diseases such as diarrhoea, dysentery and typhoid became commonplace and spread almost unchecked. Digging-in became next to impossible in waterlogged soil and life was miserable for all but t
he hardiest troops. During winter the alternative hardships caused by sub-zero temperatures brought new misery.

  The forests and marshes that surrounded the Prip’yat’ River that flowed from west to east and drained into the Dneiper protected the central part of European Russia from any military invader. From the outset of ‘Barbarossa’ the marshes separated Army Group Centre from Army Group North with a gap that was never fully closed. Early SS operations in the area murdered thousands of Jews and executed scattered partisans but failed to hold the area for any length of time.

  It was from this direction that Soviet forces had attacked Rzhev and Vitebsk on the left flank of Army Group Centre.

  While the German advance had bypassed the marshes, the retreat was unable to do so. Brandenburgers were sent into the area centred on Haradnaja skirting the border between Belarus and the northern Ukraine. There they fought scattered partisan bands as several German divisions retreated into Poland. It was a miserable battlefield of small victories and constant casualties. Christiansen’s diary provides an example of one minor operation from March 1944:

  9.3.1944. Twenty-four hours of fighting lies behind me. On the evening of the 7th it started. We wanted to surround the village Jeziersk, which we are to attack. 4 km through the swamp … At a wide ditch which we must cross, [water comes up] to the belly. Later again we go through swamp and forest. When we leave the marsh on the road we are shot at. None of us return fire. But, we therefore do not have to wait for the agreed signal, since our intended surprise had probably failed. Nevertheless, at daybreak, we launch a storming attack. Everyone shouts a loud ‘Hurrah!’ In a cemetery, we hit the first strong resistance and suffer losses. Shooting at Ivan’s heavy machine gun with a telescopic sight. Heavy machine gun position is taken. Continue into the trenches. The first prisoners. Carry on with two men. Trench battle. Two more comrades are coming. Three prisoners. Then settling down. You can hardly walk on the return march.17