101st Jäger Division (Wehrmacht)
The 101st Jäger Division was a light infantry Division of the German Army in World War II. It was formed in July 1942 by the redesignation of the 101st Light Infantry Division, which was itself formed in December 1940. The Walloon Legion was briefly attached to this division from December 1941 to January 1942.[1] The Division took part in the Battle of Kharkov, the Battle of the Caucasus, and the retreat into the Kuban, where it suffered heavy losses fighting both the Red Army and partisans. The division was then involved in the battles in the Kuban bridgehead before being evacuated.[2] The 101st was subsequently transferred to the lower Dnieper River in late 1943. It was part of the 1st Panzer Army that was surrounded in March 1944; it formed the rear guard for the XLVI Panzer Corps during the breakout of the Kamenets-Podolsky pocket. The division then retreated across Ukraine. In October 1944, it was moved to Slovakia and took part in the Battle of the Dukla Pass.
| 101st Jäger Division | |
|---|---|
| Active | 1941–1945 |
| Country | Nazi Germany |
| Branch | Army |
| Type | Infantry |
| Size | Division |
| Engagements | World War II |
| Commanders | |
| Notable commanders | Erich Marcks |
During the last year of the war, it fought in Hungary and Austria; by the end of the war, it had been reduced to the size of a Kampfgruppe.
Background
The division was raised, as the 101st Light Infantry Division (German: 101. Leichte Infanterie-division), on 10 December 1940 near Prague in the German-dominated Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Its home station was initially at Heilbronn and later at Karlsruhe, both in Wehrkreis V, located in the Baden-Württemberg region of Germany. Roughly one-third of the initial strength of the unit was transferred from the 35th Infantry Division,[3] which had participated in the invasion of France and the Low Countries earlier that year, including fighting in Belgium and around Dunkirk. It had then served as part of the occupation forces on the Belgian coast.[4]
The principal fighting units of the four light infantry divisions raised during the 12th "wave" of recruitment for the German Army – one of which was the 101st Light Infantry Division[5] – were two infantry regiments of three battalions each, an artillery regiment consisting of one motorised battery of 15 cm sFH 18 heavy field howitzers and three battalions of 10.5 cm leFH 18 light howitzers, and a reconnaissance battalion consisting of a bicycle company and a horse-mounted cavalry company. What motor vehicles they were issued with had usually been captured.[6] They were equipped as "pursuit" divisions.[5] The division joined General der Infanterie Hans-Wolfgang Reinhard's LI Army Corps once established.[7]
Operations
The division remained with LI Army Corps during the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, attacking from Austria into northern Yugoslavia as part of the 2nd Army.[8][9] However, only some elements of the division were allocated to LI Army Corps on 5 April – the day before the invasion began – and the rest was not transferred to LI Army Corps control until 10 April,[10] by which time the very limited Yugoslav resistance had been completely broken.[11] With the Yugoslavs defeated, the division was transferred to LII Army Corps, which was part of the 17th Army. After a brief period under LV Army Corps, part of the 6th Army deployed in occupied Poland, the division returned to LII Army Corps in time for the invasion of the Soviet Union in June.[12]
The division was committed to the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, as part of Army Group South. It fought in the Battle of Uman in Ukraine from mid-July to mid-August,[3] during which Army Group South encircled and annihilated the Red Army's 6th and 12th Armies.[13] and was transferred to Army Group South reserve in mid August.[12] It transferred back briefly to LII Army Corps in September, before being re-allocated to LV Army Corps – now with 17th Army – later that month.[12] In early October, the division was briefly transferred XI Army Corps, before being transferred back to LV Army Corps and then to XVII Army Corps by early November.[14] During this period the division fought in the Battle of Kiev and First Battle of Kharkov.[3] In early December, the division was transferred to the reserve of the 17th Army.[15]
The division then fought through the winter battles of 1941–1942.[3] In early January 1942, the division was transferred to LII Army Corps,[16] with which it had begun Operation Barbarossa.[12] At the end of that month, half the division was transferred to the XXXXIV Army Corps, while the remainder stayed with LII Army Corps. In late April, the remainder of the division transferred to the XXXXIV Army Corps.[17] The division fought in the Second Battle of Kharkov in May 1942, and the capture of Rostov in July of that year. It was then committed to the Battle of the Caucasus which raged from July 1942 until the retreat into the Kuban bridgehead in early 1943. In the latter operation, the division suffered heavy losses, both from the Red Army and partisans.[3]
The division was evacuated across the Kerch Strait and transported through Crimea to the lower Dnieper River in the latter part of 1943, where it fought at Nikolajew and Vinniza. In March 1944, the division was surrounded along with the 1st Panzer Army, and formed part of the rearguard when XXXXVI Panzer Corps conducted its successful breakout from encirclement. The division was praised for its conduct during the withdrawal across northern Ukraine, it fought in the Carpathian campaign, and was then withdrawn to the German client state of the Slovak Republic in late 1944. It was deployed south in early in 1945, buy which time two of its Jäger battalions were made up of Osttruppen – recruited in the Soviet Union. The division fought rearguard actions during the withdrawal through Hungary and Austria. Reduced to kampfgruppe strength by the end of the war, it managed to surrender to US forces in the German-annexed Sudetenland.[3]
Commanders
The following officers commanded the division:[18]
- Generalmajor then Generalleutnant Erich Marcks (10 December 1940 - 26 June 1941)
- Generalleutnant Josef Brauner von Haydringen (26 June 1941 - 11 April 1942)
- Oberst then Generalmajor Erich Diestel (11 April 1942 - 1 September 1942)
- Oberst then Generalmajor then Generalleutnant Emil Vogel (1 September 1942 - 12 July 1944)
- Generalleutnant Dr. Walter Assmann (12 July 1944 - 8 May 1945)
Order of battle
The order of battle of the division was as follows:[3]
- 228th Jäger Regiment
- 229th Jäger Regiment
- 85th Artillery Regiment
- 101st Reconnaissance Battalion
- 101th Engineer Battalion
- 101st Panzerjäger (Anti-tank) Battalion
- 101st Signals Battalion
- 101st Field Replacement Battalion
- 101st Divisional Supply Troops
- 101st Pack Mule Battalion
Notable members
- Willi Heinrich, author of The Willing Flesh (1956), which was turned into the movie The Cross of Iron (1977), served in the division.
Footnotes
- ^ De Bruyne, Eddy. For Rex and for Belgium: Leon Degrelle and Walloon Political & Military Collaboration 1940-45.
- ^ Command Magazine, Hitler's Army: The Evolution and Structure of German Forces, Da Capo Press (2003), ISBN 0-306-81260-6, ISBN 978-0-306-81260-6, p. 264
- ^ a b c d e f g Mitcham 2007b, pp. 157–158.
- ^ Mitcham 2007a, p. 63.
- ^ a b Mitcham 2008, p. 442.
- ^ Niehorster 2022b.
- ^ McCroden 2019, p. 652.
- ^ Schreiber, Stegemann & Vogel 1995, p. 491.
- ^ Mitcham 2008, p. 392.
- ^ Niehorster 2022a.
- ^ U.S. Army 1986, p. 53.
- ^ a b c d McCroden 2019, p. 664.
- ^ Nuzhdin 2015, p. 450.
- ^ McCroden 2019, p. 685.
- ^ McCroden 2019, p. 394.
- ^ McCroden 2019, p. 987.
- ^ McCroden 2019, p. 665.
- ^ Mitcham 2007b, p. 158.
References
- McCroden, William T. (2019). McCroden, William T.; Nutter, Thomas E. (eds.). German Ground Forces of World War II: Complete Orders of Battle for Army Groups, Armies, Army Corps, and Other Commands of the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS, September 1, 1939, to May 8, 1945. California: Casemate Publishers. ISBN 978-1-61121-101-6.
- Mitcham, Samuel W. (2007a). German Order of Battle, Volume One: 1st–290th Infantry Divisions in WWII. Mechanicsburg: Stackpole Books. ISBN 978-0-8117-3416-5.
- Mitcham, Samuel (2007b). German Order of Battle: 291st-999th Infantry Divisions, Named Infantry divisions, and Special Divisions in World War II. Mechanicsburg: Stackpole Books. ISBN 0-8117-3437-4.
- Mitcham, Samuel W. (2008). The Rise of the Wehrmacht: The German Armed Forces and World War II. ABC-CLIO. pp. 66–67. ISBN 978-0-275-99641-3.
- Niehorster, Leo (2022a). "Balkan Operations Order of Battle German Forces 2nd Army 5th April 1941". Leo Niehorster. Retrieved 2 October 2022.
- Niehorster, Leo (2022b). "Light Infantry Division (12th Wave)". Leo Niehorster. Retrieved 2 October 2022.
- Nuzhdin, Oleg (2015). Уманский "котёл": Трагедия 6-й и 12-й армий [The Uman "Cauldron": The Tragedy of the 6th and 12th Armies] (in Russian). Moscow: Яуза-каталог [Yauza-Catalog]. ISBN 978-5-906716-41-5.
- Schreiber, Dr. Gerhard; Stegemann, Bernd; Vogel, Detlef (1995). The Mediterranean, South-East Europe, and North Africa, 1939-1941 : from Italy's Declaration of Non-belligerence to the Entry of the United States into the War. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-822884-4.
- U.S. Army (1986) [1953]. . Washington, D.C.: United States Army Center of Military History. OCLC 16940402. CMH Pub 104-4. Archived from the original on 19 June 2009. Retrieved 31 May 2014.