Bio of Oberst Gregor Baunach (1911-1945)

Gregor Baunach

Date of Birth: 12.01.1911 - Karbach bei Marktheidenfeld, Bayern (German Empire)
Date of Death: 01.05.1945 - MIA (Missing in Action) in the Greater Berlin area (Germany)

Battles and Campaigns: Battle of France (1940), Operation Barbarossa (1941), Battle of Białystok–Minsk (1941), Battle of Smolensk (1941), Battle of Moscow (1941), Battle of Rzhev (1942), Battle of Courland (1944-1945), Battle of Berlin (1945)

Promotions:
00.00.1929 Schütze
00.00.1931 Oberschütze
00.00.1933 Gefreiter
00.00.1934 Unteroffizier
11.11.1937 Feldwebel
00.00.1939 Hauptfeldwebel
30.05.1940 Leutnant der Reserve
18.01.1942 Oberleutnant der Reserve
01.10.1942 Oberleutnant
10.03.1943 Hauptmann
20.04.1944 Major, RDA 01.03.1944 (60a)
00.01.1945 Oberstleutnant
00.00.194_ Oberst

Career:
01.10.1929 14.Kompanie / 21. (Bayrerische) Infanterie-Regiment
01.03.1930 3.Kompanie / 21. (Bayerische) Infanterie-Regiment
01.10.1934 7.Kompanie / Infanterie-Regiment Amberg
01.10.1936 5.Kompanie / Infanterie-Regiment 41
05.11.1938 11.Kompanie / Infanterie-Regiment 86 (motorisiert)
26.08.1939 3.Kompanie / Infanterie-Regiment 187
00.00.193_ Offiziers-Anwärter-Auswahl-Lehrgang, Infanterieschule
09.02.1940 Zugführer in 5.Kompanie / Infanterie-Regiment 187
14.10.1940 Führer 3.Kompanie / Infanterie-Regiment 187
15.12.1940 Führer I.Bataillon / Infanterie-Regiment 187
00.00.194_ Chef 3.Kompanie / Infanterie-Regiment 187
15.06.1942 4.Kompanie (MG) / Infanterie-Regiment 187
01.02.1943 Führer I.Bataillon / Grenadier-Regiment 187
02.03.1943 - 14.06.1943 Kommandeur III.Bataillon / Grenadier-Regiment 187
00.00.194_ Stab Feld-Ersatz-Bataillon 187
00.00.194_ Kommandeur III.Bataillon / Grenadier-Regiment 187
14.04.1944 Kommandeur I.Bataillon / Grenadier-Regiment 173
26.07.1944 Führer Grenadier-Regiment 173
01.10.1944 Kommandeur Grenadier-Regiment 173
22.01.1945 Lehr-Offizier Infanterieschule Döberitz
00.00.1945 - 01.05.1945 Lehrgruppen-Kommandeur, Lehrstab I

Awards and Decorations:
11.05.1940 Eisernes Kreuz II.Klasse
27.06.1940 Infanterie-Sturmabzeichen in Silber
01.07.1940 Eisernes Kreuz I.Klasse
00.00.1941 Dienstauszeichnung der Wehrmacht II.Klasse (18 Jahre)
07.03.1942 Deutsches Kreuz in Gold
07.08.1942 Medaille "Winterschlacht im Osten 1941/42" (Ostmedaille)
01.04.1943 Nahkampfspange in Bronze
07.07.1943 Verwundetenabzeichen in Silber
00.00.1944 Nahkampfspange in Silber
05.09.1944 Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes, as Major and Kommandeur I.Bataillon / Grenadier-Regiment 173 / 87.Infanterie-Division
28.11.1944 Nahkampfspange in Gold
00.00.1945 Ärmelband Kurland

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Gregor Baunach was born in the small Bavarian town of Karbach on 12 January 1911. He was determined to be a soldier as long as he could remember and entered the pre-war German military, the Reichswehr, in 1929, when he turned 18. After an initial assignment in the 21. (Bayerisches) Infanterie-Regiment, he served in Infanterie- Regiment 29, where he advanced to Gefreiter and then Unteroffizier. After having served eight years, Baunach was promoted to Feldwebel and served as an assistant platoon leader in Infanterie-Regiment (mot.) 86. He continued to prove himself, eventually serving as the First Sergeant of the 3./Infanterie-Regiment 187.

With the onset of general mobilization in conjunction with the start of the war in 1939, there was a corresponding and urgent need for additional officers. Senior noncommissioned officers were frequently selected for officer training, and Baunach was no exception. He was detailed to attend a pre-selection course for officer candidates at one of the infantry schools. He passed all of his coursework with good results and was commissioned as an officer.

Because of his officer training, Baunach did not see combat in Poland. For the campaign in the west, Reserve Leutnant Baunach was assigned a platoon in the 5./Infanterie-Regiment 187. This regiment was part of the 87. Infanterie-Division. It was to prove to be a division with “heart” and not just only because of its divisional insignia!

In May 1940, the division was positioned on the Belgian border along the Westwall, perhaps better known to English-speaking readers as the “Siegfried Line”.

The division was soon in northern France as part of the XXXX. Armee-Korps, thanks to the airborne occupation of important areas such as bridges and transportation nodal points. Involved in assaults and house-to-house fighting with his platoon over and over again, Leutnant Baunach also experienced the occupation of the French capital in June 1940. The pictures of soldiers of his division parading through the Arc de Triumph were seen around the world. Gregor Baunach received both levels of the Iron Cross, as well as the Infantry Assault Badge, for his magnificent leadership of his platoon and several successful engagements against French infantry. After a long, pleasant period of occupation duties in France, the 87. Infanterie-Division was moved to the East in seemingly endless transport trains. The goal was the Soviet Union. In June 1941, the “big adventure of the Eastern Campaign” started.

From the very first day of commitment, Gregor Baunach experienced a determined and bitterly fighting enemy. Even though hundreds of thousands of Red Army men surrendered in the summer and fall months and had been forced to give up in gigantic pockets and entire field armies disappeared, the determination of the Red Army could still be felt.

By then, Baunach had become Company Commander of the 3./Infanterie-Regiment 187. He was involved in the fighting at Vilna, the encirclement of Bialystok and at the victories at Smolensk and in the Wjasma Bridgehead. It was during the fighting along the Istra River, where the grenadiers of the regiment were involved in casualtyintensive position warfare, that Baunach and his men first made the acquaintance of the T 34, the “scourge of the infantry”.

This tank was maneuverable and heavily armored. In the winter fighting, it frequently appeared with a coat of whitewash. Thanks to its wide tracks, it could negotiate snow and sucking mud well. On more than one occasion, these armored attackers were only put out of action at the last second—by antitank guns, artillery firing over direct sights or by tank hunter/killer teams. It was during those unequal struggles against the 25-ton opponents that Leutnant Baunach was frequently all the way at the front. By doing so, he earned the respect of his men. Baunach was wounded in September 1941 but remained with his regiment. In the spring of 1942, the regiment had survived severe winter fighting and was in position—tired and decimated—along the Gshatsk.

On 18 January 1942, Baunach was promoted to reserve Oberleutnant. When the battalion commander was killed, he was entrusted with its acting command. He was the senior company commander in the battalion at the time. For his performance of duty during those difficult times, the Bavarian was presented with the newly created German Cross in Gold on 7 March 1942.

The central sector of the Eastern Front was dominated in 1942 by defensive fighting on the part of the German Armed Forces and with continuous offensives on the part of the Red Army against the bulge in the front in the Wjasma—Rshew area. On some occasions attacking with the equivalent of three field armies all at the same time, the Red Army was always turned back, but the defending 4. Armee and 9. Armee were occasionally on the verge of defeat. The main line of resistance broke repeatedly. Regiments and even whole divisions were cut off, only to be hacked out of encirclement at the last minute by armored formations. During these dramatic times, Oberleutnant Baunach was in command of the 4. (MG)/Infanterie-Regiment 187.

Some weeks it was “just” a matter of withstanding Soviet barrage fire; other weeks, it meant engaging several complete rifle regiments that moved out against the German positions. Raids and counterattacks brought some relief, but they also always cost good men. Baunach himself was slightly wounded several times. In February 1943, he was again in acting command of his battalion. On 10 March, he was finally promoted to Hauptmann, although he had been on the rolls as an active officer since 1 October 1942. Within the regiment, the soldier of 14 years was recognized as a straight-forward and conscientious officer, who possessed a warrior’s spirit. Since he had risen to his position from the bottom, Baunach knew how to handle his men and noncommissioned officers perhaps better than a career officer. His men thanked him in return by their superior performance of duty and morale.

On 2 March 1943, Baunach was transferred to assume command of the III./Grenadier-Regiment 187 (as the regiment had been redesignated). By then, he had assembled enough creditable days for the Close Combat Clasp in Bronze. After months of intense fighting, the threatened bulge at the front had to be evacuated in the spring of 1943. Baunach’s battalion performed as the division’s rearguard for the operation. Without having to fight off enemy attacks, he and his men reached the new positions at Welish.

In June, however, Hauptmann Baunach was badly wounded by an impacting artillery round within the battalion positions and had to spend months in a hospital. While Baunach was hospitalized, the Division Commander, Generalleutnant Walter Hartmann, received the Oakleaves to the Knight’s Cross for the performance of his forces. This magnificent officer, who had received amputations on two occasions since being severely wounded in 1941(!), later assumed command of a corps. By the end of the war, he had also been awarded the Swords to the Knight’s Cross. Baunach knew the general personally as a result of visits to the front, and Baunach valued him as a commanding officer.

Baunach was not fully capable of performing duties until February 1944. He had barely returned to his III./Grenadier-Regiment 187, when the Red Army launched a new series of intense attacks. Always at the hot spots of the defensive actions or the immediate counterattacks, Hauptmann Baunach was soon awarded the Close Combat Clasp in Silver and, as a result, stood out from many officers of his rank and position. On 20 May 1944, the well-tested veteran of the East was promoted to Major.

The fighting of the previous few months had cost the “Heart” Division the core of its regiments: experienced company commanders, long-serving noncommissioned officers and numerous enlisted veterans. When the Soviet summer offensive was unleashed against the central sector of the Eastern Front on 22 June 1944 and Heeresgruppe Mitte suffered more than 300,000 losses in a few weeks, the casualties seemed never-ending and Baunach’s battalion was reduced to a Kampfgruppe.

But the Major always succeeded in getting his small band of warriors out of lost positions at the last minute—sometimes also being able to save the few remaining operational artillery pieces and heavy machine guns—and occupying new ones. Not infrequently, a small combat patrol had to clear an already occupied crossroads in the regiment’s rear to allow a withdrawal to the west. In the course of the retreat, the 87. Infanterie-Division wound up in the sector of Heeresgruppe Nord and fought in the fall of 1944 at Polosk and then, finally, on Estonian territory.

The division was finally pulled out of the front and received a battlefield reconstitution. In the course of these efforts, Major Baunach was designated as the commander of the I./Grenadier-Regiment 173.

On 5 September 1944, Baunach received the surprising news that he had received the Knight’s Cross for his performance during the difficult withdrawal movements and engagements. He had always been able to turn back Soviet attacks and, together with other Kampfgruppen, had also been able to conduct immediate counterattacks to throw the enemy off balance.

In the winter of 1944/1945, Baunach and his battalion fought with the regiment in the center portion of the division’s frontage in the series of battles for the Kurland Pocket. They fought against numbers they had never encountered before, not outside of Moscow, Rshew or Vitebsk. Constantly supported by “Stalin Organs”, heavy artillery and the hated Sturmovik close-air-support aircraft, magnificently equipped and motivated elite Soviet regiments attacked the positions of the battalion. As the result of heavy and seesaw defensive fighting at Skupdas, along Lake Libau, at Krote and at Jeci, Major Baunach’s close-combat days continued to add up. When he received the Close Combat Clasp in Gold on 28 November 1944, the special regulations for recipients of this high award went into effect. Despite protests from his Division Commander, Baunach was immediately flown out of the pocket.

Unfortunately, the assignment to the Infantry School at Döberitz (near Berlin) did not save the life of the highly decorated veteran. When the school was disbanded in the final weeks of the war and its cadre was sent to the fighting in Berlin as an ad hoc Kampfgruppe, Major Baunach was reported as missing in action. It is uncertain whether he was killed in the pocket, was wounded in an attempt to break out and subsequently taken prisoner or had already been killed before the collapse in the pocket.

It was not until decades after the war that he was officially declared dead...

Gregor Baunach as Oberleutnant d.R.



Gregor Baunach after receiving the Deutsches Kreuz in Gold but before receiving the Ritterkreuz.

This picture was taken from the documentary "Berlin 1945 - Tagebuch einer Großstadt", and it shows from left to right: Oberstleutnant Gregor Baunach (Lehr-Offizier Infanterieschule Döberitz und Lehrgruppen-Kommandeur Lehrstab I) and French volunteer Waffen-Hauptsturmführer Henri-Joseph Fenet (Kommandeur Sturm-Bataillon / 33.SS-Freiwillige-Grenadier-Division "Charlemagne"). Fenet would receive the Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes on 29 April 1945 for the outstanding leadership of his French volunteers during the final fighting for Berlin. Decoration presented by SS-Brigadeführer Mohnke in the Reichs Kanzlerei between 20-30 April 1945. Awarding has been established through rersearch by the Ordensgemeinschaft der Ritterkreuzträger. Of the awarding itself, no evidence was found in the Bundesarchiv.

Source :
"Face of Courage, The 98 Men Who Received the Knight's Cross and the Close-Combat Clasp in Gold" by Florian Berger
https://forum.axishistory.com/search.php?keywords=fenet&t=29879&sf=msgonly
http://www.ritterkreuztraeger.info/rk/b.html
https://www.tracesofwar.com/persons/1791/Baunach-Gregor.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20110105184215fw_/http://ritterkreuztraeger-1939-45.de/Infanterie/B/Ba/Baunach-Gregor.htm