The 9. Panzer-Division was a German Army armoured formation of the Wehrmacht that existed from 3 January 1940 until its final dissolution in April 1945, originating from the 4. Leichte Division formed in Vienna after the Anschluss from Austrian Bundesheer mobile units and headquartered in Wehrkreis XVII. Redesignated and expanded into a full panzer division with Panzer-Regiment 33, two panzergrenadier regiments (Panzergrenadier-Regiment 10 and 11), Panzer-Artillerie-Regiment 102 and supporting elements including Kradschützen-Bataillon 9 and Panzer-Aufklärungs-Abteilung 9, it first saw major action in the Battle of the Netherlands in May 1940 as the sole mechanized force of the 18. Armee, racing to link up with Fallschirmjäger at the Moerdijk bridges and advancing toward Rotterdam and Dordrecht before participating in the subsequent Battle of France under Panzergruppe Guderian, covering more ground than any other German division and reaching Lyon by the French armistice. After refitting it took part in the 1941 Balkans Campaign as the armoured spearhead of the 12. Armee, helping separate Greek and Yugoslav forces, then joined Operation Barbarossa with XIV. Panzerkorps of Heeresgruppe Süd, breaking through the Stalin Line, participating in the Uman and Kiev encirclements that netted hundreds of thousands of Soviet prisoners, capturing the Dnieper dam at Zaporizhia, and later advancing under Panzergruppe Guderian to help encircle Bryansk and seize Kursk in November 1941. It endured the Soviet winter offensives of 1941–42 near Shchigry, counterattacked around Voronezh during Case Blue in July 1942, fought in Operation Mars near Rzhev, and suffered severe losses at the Battle of Kursk in July 1943 as part of XLVII. Panzerkorps of the 9. Armee, losing dozens of tanks in a single air attack and advancing only about 15 km before withdrawing; thereafter it conducted a costly fighting retreat across Ukraine to the Mius front, Bryansk, and the Dnieper, dwindling by early 1944 to a handful of operational tanks. Withdrawn to Nîmes in France for rebuilding and reinforced with elements of the 155. Reserve-Panzer-Division, it was rushed north after D-Day, arriving in time to be nearly annihilated in the Falaise Pocket in August 1944, reduced to roughly 1,500 men and five tanks yet still covering the retreat of Heeresgruppe G. Partially reconstituted, it fought around Aachen, Geilenkirchen and the Peel Marshes, participated in the Battle of the Bulge with XLVII. Panzerkorps of the 5. Panzerarmee (with attached schwere Panzer-Abteilung 301), and later contested the Remagen bridgehead and the approaches to Cologne, by March 1945 reduced to a few hundred men and a dozen tanks; after futile resistance in Cologne its remnants were trapped in the Ruhr Pocket and largely surrendered to American forces in April 1945, with a small surviving Kampfgruppe absorbed into other units of the 11. Armee in the Harz Mountains before the formal disbandment of the division on 26 April 1945.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SCHWERTERTRÄGER
Generalmajor Walter Gorn (1898-1968) was born on 24 September 1898 in Bieganin near Posen in the Kingdom of Prussia and enlisted as a Kriegsfreiwilliger in the West Prussian Grenadier-Regiment „König Wilhelm I.“ Nr. 7 during the First World War, seeing action on the Western Front before serving with machine-gun units and later joining Freikorps formations in the Baltic; after demobilization he entered the Schutzpolizei in 1920, rising through the ranks to Hauptmann by 1934 and transferring into the Wehrmacht in 1935 as commander of a company in the 3. Kradschützen-Bataillon of the 3. Panzer-Division. In the Second World War he served on the staff of the XIX. Armeekorps during the Polish campaign, then as Major took command of the I. Bataillon of Schützen-Regiment 10 (later redesignated Panzergrenadier-Regiment 10) of the 9. Panzer-Division; on 8–20 April 1941 during the invasion of Yugoslavia he led a mixed Abteilung in a bold advance from Gostivar toward Debar in Macedonia, overrunning strong Yugoslav resistance, capturing seven enemy batteries together with nine further batteries, twelve anti-tank guns and large quantities of matériel, liberating some 800 Italian prisoners whom he promptly rearmed and incorporated into his force, thereby establishing contact with Italian troops and earning the Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes on 20 April 1941. Promoted Oberstleutnant and given command of Kradschützen-Bataillon 59, he fought in the fierce defensive battles around Voronezh in the summer of 1942, where his greatly depleted unit of only about fifty-five combat-effective men repeatedly repulsed heavy Soviet assaults, for which he received the Eichenlaub (113th award) on 17 August 1942. Taking over Panzergrenadier-Regiment 10, he distinguished himself in the winter battles of Rzhev, particularly near Sychyovka along the Vazuza and south of Loshki, where his regiment helped free the encircled 129. Infanterie-Division and destroy cut-off Soviet forces, resulting in the award of the Schwerter (30th award) on 8 June 1943 while he was Oberst. Later promoted Generalmajor, he commanded the 561. Grenadier-Division (subsequently Volksgrenadier-Division) in East Prussia and Lithuania against Operation Bagration and the subsequent Soviet offensives, then briefly the 710. Infanterie-Division in Austria before surrendering to American forces at Steyr on 8 May 1945; released from captivity in 1947, he died in Rosenheim on 10 July 1968.
Source :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9th_Panzer_Division_(Wehrmacht)
No comments:
Post a Comment