The 4. SS-Polizei-Panzergrenadier-Division, originally formed in October 1939 at Truppenübungsplatz Wandern as the Polizei-Division from thousands of drafted members of the Ordnungspolizei who retained their police ranks and insignia rather than fully joining the SS, was created under Generalleutnant der Polizei Karl Pfeffer-Wildenbruch to circumvent Wehrmacht recruitment limits on the SS while allowing policemen to fulfill military obligations; equipped mainly with captured Czech material and trained as a horse-drawn infantry formation, it first saw combat in June 1940 during the Battle of France under Army Group C, crossing the Aisne River and Ardennes Canal before fighting in the Argonne Forest. Transferred to Army Group North for Operation Barbarossa in 1941, it engaged in heavy combat near Luga in August, suffering over 2,000 casualties including the death of commander Arthur Mülverstadt amid swampy terrain assaults that ultimately helped encircle Soviet forces, then moved to the Volkhov River sector where, after formal transfer to the Waffen-SS on 24 February 1942 (becoming the SS-Polizei-Division with personnel adopting SS insignia), it contributed to the destruction of the Soviet 2nd Shock Army in the Battle of Lyuban and spent the remainder of the year on the Leningrad front. In early 1943, after further fighting south of Lake Ladoga and a successful defense at Kolpino, portions of the division were withdrawn westward for conversion to a motorized Panzergrenadier formation (with Polizei-Panzergrenadier-Regimenter redesignated as SS-Panzergrenadier-Regimenter 7 and 8), leaving a Kampfgruppe on the Eastern Front until mid-1944 while the main body, now designated 4. SS-Polizei-Panzergrenadier-Division, was sent to Greece under Heeresgruppe E for anti-partisan operations; there it committed numerous war crimes, including the Distomo massacre of 10 June 1944 in which troops under Fritz Lautenbach killed 214 civilians, the Kleisoura massacre, and further atrocities during Operation Kreuzotter that destroyed villages and killed hundreds. Recalled in August–September 1944 to face the Red Army near Belgrade and in Hungary, the division suffered severe losses during the Budapest Offensive, fighting retreats through Szolnok, Hatvan, and into Slovakia with strength reduced to mere hundreds of men and few operational guns, before being shifted north to Pomerania in early 1945 for the planned Army Detachment Steiner relief of Berlin (which never materialized), becoming encircled at Danzig, evacuated via the Hela Peninsula to Swinemünde, and finally fighting across the Elbe to surrender to American forces near Wittenberge-Lenzen in May 1945.
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EICHENLAUBTRÄGER
SS-Obergruppenführer Alfred Wünnenberg (1891-1963) was born on 20 July 1891 in Saarburg, Alsace-Lorraine, in the German Empire, and entered military service on 25 February 1913 as a Fahnenjunker in the Infanterie-Regiment „Vogel von Falckenstein“ (7. Westfälisches) Nr. 56 of the Prussian Army; during the First World War he served as a Kompaniechef, was wounded on both the Western and Eastern fronts, trained as a pilot from June 1916, and flew as an Aufklärungsflieger with Feld-Flieger-Abteilung 47 from August 1917, earning the Eisernes Kreuz 2. Klasse on 10 February 1915 and 1. Klasse on 9 September 1915 along with other decorations including the Königlich Preussisches Flugzeugbeobachter-Abzeichen and the Ritter des Königlicher Preussischer Hausordens von Hohenzollern mit Schwertern. After the war he briefly served with Grenzschutz Ost and a Freikorps in Oberschlesien before joining the Preußische Schutzpolizei as a Polizei-Oberleutnant in September 1920, rising through various police commands and training roles in Essen, Potsdam-Eiche, Krefeld, Köln, Charlottenburg, Hindenburg, Beuthen, Gleiwitz, Saarbrücken, Bremen, and Mannheim, joining the NSDAP on 1 May 1933 (Mitgliedsnummer 2.222.600) and the SS (SS-Nr. 405.898), and by December 1938 serving on the staff of the Inspekteur der Ordnungspolizei in Stuttgart. On 2 October 1939 he became Kommandeur of Polizei-Schützen-Regiment 3 of the Polizei-Division (later SS-Polizei-Division) with the rank of SS-Standartenführer and Oberst der Schutzpolizei, participating in the Western campaign of 1940 and the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941; for his leadership in the Luga sector—particularly his personal bravery on 11 August 1941 in capturing the hills at Stojanowschtschina (taking seventeen enemy tanks and numerous heavy bunkers), his advance on 23 August to seize Ssyrez, the hills west of it, and the heights at Turowo that enabled the capture of Luga, and his regiment’s breakthrough of the outer defensive lines of Leningrad on 13 September by securing bridges and key positions while advancing toward Pushkin via the Ishora position—he was awarded the Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes on 15 November 1941 as SS-Standartenführer and Oberst der Schupo. He assumed command of the SS-Polizei-Division on 15 December 1941, and for his successful leadership of the division at the Volkhov, where he closed the ring around the Volkhov pocket by attacking through extremely swampy terrain to achieve surprise against an enemy expecting an advance along the road, he received the Eichenlaub zum Ritterkreuz (91st award) on 23 April 1942 as SS-Brigadeführer and Generalmajor der Polizei. Promoted further to SS-Gruppenführer and Generalleutnant der Polizei in July 1942 and then to SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS und Polizei in July 1943, he briefly commanded the IV. SS-Panzer-Korps from 10 June 1943 until 31 August 1943, after which he succeeded Kurt Daluege as Chef des Hauptamtes der Ordnungspolizei, a post he held until the end of the war (and briefly as Chef der Deutschen Polizei in the final days); he fled via the Rattenlinie Nord to Flensburg, was interned as a POW in Dachau in 1946, released in 1947, and died on 30 December 1963 in Krefeld, West Germany.
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RITTERKREUZTRÄGER
SS-Obergruppenführer Walter Krüger (1890-1945) was born on 27 February 1890 in Straßburg, Alsace-Lorraine, in the German Empire, the son of a Prussian army officer and older brother of the later high-ranking SS leader Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger. He attended the cadet schools at Karlsruhe and Berlin-Lichterfelde before joining the Imperial German Army in 1908 as a Leutnant in the 2. Badisches Grenadier-Regiment Kaiser Wilhelm I. Nr. 110. During the First World War he served in various units including the Alpenkorps, rose to Hauptmann and Bataillonskommandeur, and received both classes of the Eisernes Kreuz as well as the Ritterkreuz des Königlichen Hausordens von Hohenzollern mit Schwertern. After the armistice he fought with Freikorps units in the Baltikum and the Ruhrgebiet, briefly served in the Reichswehr, and left active service in 1920 to pursue civilian occupations including banking. In 1935 he entered the SS-Verfügungstruppe with the rank of SS-Obersturmbannführer, helped form the II. Bataillon of the SS-Standarte „Germania“, and later instructed at the SS-Junkerschule Bad Tölz. During the Second World War he first served as Ia of the SS-Polizei-Division in the Western campaign, then took command of that division on the Leningrad front in August 1941. For the outstanding achievements of his division in the advance that secured the fall of Luga and Krasnowardeisk he was awarded the Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes on 13 December 1941 as SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen-SS. After serving as Inspekteur der Infanterie in the SS-Führungshauptamt he assumed command of the SS-Panzergrenadier-Division „Das Reich“ in April 1943. During Operation Citadel near Belgorod in July 1943 and the subsequent fighting on the Mius front he led the division with great energy, breaking through fortified Soviet lines, destroying large numbers of tanks, restoring critical situations through personal intervention and counterattacks, and contributing decisively to the destruction of enemy forces and the recapture of the German defensive line; these successes earned him the Eichenlaub on 31 August 1943 as SS-Gruppenführer und Generalleutnant der Waffen-SS. Later appointed Kommandierender General of the IV. SS-Panzerkorps and then Befehlshaber der Waffen-SS in the Reichskommissariat Ostland, he was promoted to SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS in June 1944. On 25 July 1944 he took command of the VI. Waffen-Armeekorps der SS (lettisches) within Heeresgruppe Nord. In the Third Battle of Courland in late December 1944, when Soviet forces broke through the front of Gruppe Henze and threatened the northern wing of the 16. Armee, Krüger ruthlessly redistributed his scarce reserves, committed elements of the 93. Infanterie-Division and later a Kampfgruppe of the 4. Panzer-Division in decisive counterattacks against the enemy main effort, relieved encircled units, inflicted heavy losses including more than one hundred tanks, and restored a firm defensive line after eleven days of crisis, thereby preventing an operational breakthrough. For these defensive successes as Kommandierender General of the VI. SS-Freiwilligen-Armee-Korps he received the Schwerter on 11 January 1945. After the German surrender he attempted to break out westward from the Courland Pocket with a small group of soldiers; surprised by a Soviet patrol in a forest near Liepāja on 22 May 1945, he took his own life.
Source :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4th_SS_Polizei_Panzergrenadier_Division
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