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NOTE ON
NOMENCLATURE
German
infantry divisions were called just that: Infanterie-Division.
Though all infantry regiments were retitled
as grenadier regiments (Grenadier-Regiment) in
1942, their parent divisions retained the Infanterie
designation. Mountain infantry divisions were called
Gebirgsjäger-Division
and the light infantry
divisions raised in 1941 were called
Jäger-Division.
(Jäger
is the traditional German term for light infantry.) The
divisions of the 32nd Wave, raised in 1944-45, were called
Volksgrenadier-Division. The second-line divisions
raised for occupation duties and coastal defense bore the
suffex (bo) for bodenständig
(static), indicating that they lacked sufficient transport
to move as a unit. The Sicherheits-Division
(security division) was configured for security and
anti-partisan operations in the rear areas of the armies,
especially in the USSR.
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During World War Two
the German Army and the Waffen-SS (the military
branch of the SS) raised a total of 330 infantry divisions
. There were in
addition a number of Luftwaffe (Air Force) and Navy ground
combat divisions, formed from surplus personnel. If this
total seems impressive, it must be borne in mind that the
German divisions were very variable in quality. Nor did all
infantry divisions have an identical organization—this in
sharp contrast to the highly standardized British and
American infantry divisions.
When the war began, the German Type
1939 Infantry Division was similar in structure to its
American and British counterparts, consisting of three
infantry regiments with three battalions each: the so-called
triangular organization. Additional infantry divisions were
mobilized in “deployment waves” (Aufstellungswellen), and
the divisions of each wave were structured according to the
tables of organization in force at the time of their
mobilization. The tables themselves were drawn up in accord with the
manpower and equipment available at the time, and in
addition there were several revisions to the standard
authorized organization that was, in theory though not in
practice, applicable to all divisions.
On 1 September 1939
the German Army had 85 infantry divisions available: those
of the 1st through the 4th Waves. The 1st Wave embodied the
35 active infantry divisions of the peacetime Army. Their
personnel consisted of 78% active soldiers, 12% Class I
reservists (12-24 months training), 6% Class II reservists
(2-3 months training) and 4% Landwehr (militia)
soldiers (mostly World War I veterans). The 2nd Wave
embodied the Army's sixteen first-line reserve divisions, manned in
peacetime by cadres and brought up to strength on
mobilization. Their personnel consisted of 6% active
soldiers, 83% Class I reservists, 8% Class II reservists and
3% Landwehr soldiers. The 3rd Wave embodied the
twenty Landwehr divisions,
which were maintained in peacetime at approximately 50%
strength and brought up to strength on mobilization. Their
personnel consisted of 1% active soldiers, 12% Class I
reservists, 46% Class II reservists and 42% Landwehr soldiers.
The 4th Wave embodied the first fourteen war mobilization
divisions (planned in 1938; mobilization ordered on 31 August 1939).
Almost half of their personnel were Class II reservists and
a quarter of the rest were in formed Landwehr units,
the precise breakdown being 8% active soldiers, 21% Class I
reservists, 47% Class II reservists and 24% Landwehr soldiers.
Command pennant
of the 86. Infanterie-Division. The
divisional insignia was also painted on vehicles.
In terms of training,
only the divisions of the 1st and 2nd Waves were considered
fully fit for active service. The divisions of the 3rd Wave
were considered to be ready for subsidiary missions only and those of
the 4th Wave were judged to require further training
before being committed to action. As for weapons, only the
divisions of the 1st Wave were fully equipped. The other
divisions lacked their authorized 150mm infantry guns, 20mm
antiaircraft guns and 50mm and 81mm mortars. Particularly
among the 4th Wave divisions, the weapons issued were
often older models such as the MG 08/15 light machine gun of
World War I vintage. Their field artillery battalions were
mostly equipped with unmodernized World War I-vintage guns
and howitzers, or with weapons taken over from the former Czech Army.
Though some of its elements, e.g.
the antitank (AT) battalion, were motorized, the infantry
division relied largely on horses to move guns and supplies.
The artillery was horse drawn; the division trains (supply
and transportation) had both motor vehicles and horses. The
infantry marched on foot. Trucks were in short
supply, a situation that got no better as the war
progressed. Even in 1939 many divisions could not be
provided with all the motor vehicles authorized by the
official tables of organization. Extensive use was made of
requisitioned civilian vehicles and captured enemy
vehicles, notwithstanding the serviceability and maintenance
problems this caused.
By May 1940 five more waves
embodying 41 infantry divisions had been mobilized, and
though they preserved the basic triangular configuration,
they were not organized identically. This was due mostly to the equipment shortages that plagued the
German Army throughout the war. The nine divisions of the
5th and 6th Waves received 81mm mortars but no 75mm or 150mm
infantry guns; their artillery consisted entirely of former
Czech Army howitzers and guns. Those of the 7th Wave had no
mortars or 150mm infantry guns and only 24 x 105mm howitzers
in their artillery regiments. In the 7th, 8th and 9th Waves, the
separate AT and
reconnaissance battalions were
replaced by a composite battalion with one AT company and
one bicycle infantry company. The 9th Wave divisions were
mobilized initially with an artillery component consisting
of a single battery: 6 x 75mm field guns captured from the
Polish Army.
Some waves produced
divisions for special purposes. Those of the 15th Wave, for
example, were the first of the so-called static (bodenständig)
infantry divisions. As the designation implies, these
divisions were configured for occupation duties and static
defense. As raised they had two regiments, each with three
battalions, plus a single artillery battalion. Generally the
static divisions received lower-quality manpower, were armed
with older or captured weapons and lacked sufficient transport to
move as a unit. The 16th Wave consisted of four security (Sicherungs)
brigades, soon merged into two security divisions.
Seven more such divisions were raised outside the wave
system, mostly by converting existing
infantry divisions. The security divisions embodied
a “reaction group”—essentially an infantry regiment with an
attached light artillery battalion—and a
variable number of second-line militia (Landesschützen)
battalions and military government units. Usually they also
had an attached motorized battalion of the
Order Police.
Troops of a security division in
Russia, 1942 (Photo: World War Photos)
A serious
problem for the German Army—increasingly so as the war
dragged on—was the shortage of manpower. Thanks to this, the
size of the standard infantry division had progressively to
be reduced. Incremental cuts were made between 1941 and
1943, lowering the infantry division's authorized strength
from around 17,500 to 15,000, but by late 1943 it was clear
that much more drastic reductions were
necessary. The result
was the Type 1944 Infantry Division
(Infanterie-Division Kriegestat
44).
One battalion was
removed from each infantry regiment, leaving the division
with a total of six, and the platoons of the rifle companies were reduced
from four squads to three. The reconnaissance battalion
was eliminated, being replaced by a so-called fusilier
battalion with heavy weapons. One infantry company of this battalion,
mounted on bicycles, was the division's reconnaissance unit.
The Type 1944 division's authorized strength was
12,772, representing an overall manpower cut of 27% and a
31% cut in infantry strength. The loss of manpower was
partially offset by increasing the division’s firepower with
more machine guns, heavy mortars and infantry antitank
weapons.
In mid-1944, twin
catastrophic defeats in Normandy and Byelorussia effectively
destroyed over 60 divisions. To replace them some 50 new
infantry divisions were raised: the so-called People's
Grenadier Divisions (Volksgrenadier-Division).
Twenty-six VG divisions were new units of the 32nd Wave;
the rest were rebuilt divisions that had been shattered in
combat. Manpower was again cut, this time to 10,072, and though automatic
weapons were issued on a big scale, the VG division's
firepower was lower than that of the Type 1944 division. The
quality of these hastily raised divisions was variable, the
conscripts who filled out their ranks having received
minimal training. VG divisions formed around a core of
veterans tended to perform well; others were little better
than armed mobs. the Type 1945 Infantry Division (Infanterie-Division
Kriegestat 45)
was similar to the VG division, albeit with a lesser
allotment of automatic weapons; few if any were raised in
time to see combat before the war ended.
Sketch diagram, probably made by a
staff officer, depicting the organization of the 361. Volksgrenadier-Division.
(Bundesarchiv)
In all there were 38
waves of infantry divisions raised during the war—the last
of them as late as April 1945. Additionally there were
numerous infantry divisions and brigades raised outside the
wave system on an emergency basis, usually by rebuilding
divisions that had been destroyed in combat, filling them up
with conscripts or drafting in personnel from other units,
or by upgrading regiments and brigades. An example of the
latter was the 1. Skijäger-Division,
formed on the Eastern Front in 1944 by expanding the 1. Skijäger-Brigade to division strength. The infantry
divisions of the Waffen-SS and the Luftwaffe were also
raised outside the wave system, and usually their
organization differed from that used by the Army at the
time.
After a few weeks—sometimes just a
few days—of service at the front, divisions were well below
their authorized strength. Personnel killed, wounded or
evacuated sick could seldom be replaced on a one-for-one
basis and even when that was possible, divisions received
sketchily trained conscripts in exchange for experienced
veterans. When a division was "burned out," the usual
practice was to withdraw it to some quiet area for
rebuilding. Many exhausted divisions from the Eastern Front
were sent to France for this purpose—before D-Day turned
that country into an active theater of operations.
Toward the end of
the war, with the enemy at the gates of the Reich, the
Army's
replacement, training and mobilization system broke down
completely. Men were snatched from here, there and
everywhere to bolster the ranks of skeleton divisions: from
the Luftwaffe, the Navy, the Labor Service, the Hitler
Youth. New divisions with sonorous titles like Scharnhorst and Ferdinand
von Schill were thrown together and expended in a
frantic, futile attempt to stem the tide. It was the
culmination of a long process of decline, the last gasp of
an army driven to the limit of its endurance.
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