The 297. Infanterie-Division was formed on 31 January 1940 in the area of Bruck an der Leitha in Wehrkreis XVII as a division of the 8. Welle, drawing its cadres largely from Austrian personnel of earlier formations, and consisted of Infanterie-Regiment 522, Infanterie-Regiment 523, Infanterie-Regiment 524, Artillerie-Regiment 297 and the usual divisional support units. It served only as a reserve during the western campaign of 1940 and spent the following year on occupation duties in the Generalgouvernement before being committed to the Eastern Front with Heeresgruppe Süd at the start of Unternehmen Barbarossa in June 1941. Under successive corps of the 6. Armee it advanced through Ukraine, taking part in the capture of Schitomir, the Uman pocket, the battle for Kiev and the subsequent fighting around Charkow and the Donets basin. In the summer of 1942 the division joined the advance of Fall Blau, fighting in the great bend of the Don and moving south of Stalingrad while temporarily subordinated to the 4. Panzerarmee. From November 1942 it formed part of the IV. Armeekorps within the 6. Armee and was trapped in the Stalingrad pocket, where it conducted bitter defensive operations until its remnants, commanded by Generalmajor Moritz von Drebber after General der Artillerie Max Pfeffer had been captured, surrendered on 25–26 January 1943. A new 297. Infanterie-Division was ordered into existence in March 1943, first assembled as a Kampfgruppe near Bordeaux and then fully reconstituted in Serbia under Generalleutnant Friedrich-Wilhelm Deutsch. From September 1943 the reformed division served in Albania under the XXI. Gebirgs-Armeekorps of the 2. Panzerarmee, combating partisans and securing the coast against possible Allied landings. In late 1944 it withdrew through Montenegro and Bosnia with Heeresgruppe E, fighting continual rearguard actions against Yugoslav forces, and continued the retreat into Croatia. The division finally laid down its arms in the area of Cilli and Radkersburg in May 1945 and passed into Yugoslav captivity.
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EICHENLAUBTRÄGER
Major Willy Riedel (1909-1982) was born on 10 November 1909 in Liegnitz in the Province of Silesia and after an apprenticeship as a joiner joined the police in 1929 before transferring to the Wehrmacht where he initially served as a Zugführer in Infanterie-Regiment 84 during the Polish campaign and later as an Oberleutnant and Kompaniechef in the same regiment during the western campaign. Toward the end of 1941 he was posted to Infanterie-Regiment 524 of the 297. Infanterie-Division and by the autumn of 1942 had become Kommandeur of its III. Bataillon. For his leadership during the division’s advance on Stalingrad, when he repeatedly placed himself at the head of his battalion and continued to direct operations even after being wounded twice, he was awarded the Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes on 8 October 1942 while still holding the rank of Hauptmann. In the subsequent fighting south of Stalingrad he again distinguished himself by preventing an imminent enemy breakthrough; despite having already been wounded twice he formed a Stoßtrupp that threw Soviet troops back from the vicinity of his command post and later, at the end of November 1942, led his Kampfgruppe in clearing numerous resistance nests and closing a dangerous gap in the front line. These actions earned him the Eichenlaub to the Ritterkreuz on 25 January 1943 as the 186th recipient, still as Hauptmann and now Kommandeur of the redesignated III. Bataillon of Grenadier-Regiment 524, and he was simultaneously promoted to Major. Severely wounded by a grenade splinter shortly afterward, Riedel was taken prisoner by Soviet forces on 28 January 1943 in a field hospital near Stalingrad; while in captivity he joined the Nationalkomitee Freies Deutschland in 1944. Released in 1947 he returned to Germany and entered the Volkspolizei of the German Democratic Republic, later serving in the Kasernierte Volkspolizei and rising to the rank of Oberst in the Nationale Volksarmee, where he briefly commanded the 6. motorisierte Schützendivision from October 1956 to December 1957 before transferring to the Institut für Deutsche Militärgeschichte in Potsdam. Riedel died in Potsdam on 10 February 1982 and was buried at the Neuer Friedhof.
Source :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/297th_Infantry_Division_(Wehrmacht)
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