Ritterkreuzträger of Artillerie (Artillery)

German artillery formed the backbone of Wehrmacht fire support throughout the Second World War, remaining the primary cause of battlefield casualties despite the popular focus on Panzers and aircraft. At the outbreak of hostilities each Infanterie-Division fielded an Artillerie-Regiment consisting of three leichte Abteilungen equipped with the 10,5 cm leFH 18 light field howitzer and one schwere Abteilung armed with the 15 cm sFH 18 heavy field howitzer, for a total of thirty-six light and twelve heavy pieces. These guns, horse-drawn in most formations, provided the continuous barrage needed to break enemy resistance during the Polish campaign of 1939 and the rapid advances through France in 1940. On the Eastern Front from 1941 onward the same Artillerie-Regimenter faced immense challenges of distance, mud and extreme cold; batteries under the command of an Oberst or Oberstleutnant were frequently attached to individual Infanterie-Regimenter for close support, while Heeresartillerie units of the general headquarters pool reinforced critical sectors with additional 10 cm Kanone 18 and 21 cm Mörser 18 batteries. During the defensive battles around Voronezh in 1942 and the subsequent retreat to the Dnjepr, General der Artillerie Ernst-Eberhard Hell, commanding the VII. Armee-Korps, concentrated the fire of several Artillerie-Abteilungen to destroy nearly one thousand Soviet tanks and break through successive encirclements. In Normandy in 1944 Heeresküstenartillerie-Regimenter such as the 1261 under Oberst Gerhard Treipel and independent Abteilungen under Majore employed a mixture of German leFH 18, captured French and Soviet pieces to shell the invasion beaches for days after D-Day. Although outranged by certain Soviet guns and increasingly short of ammunition and prime movers, the crews of the Artillerie-Regimenter continued to deliver devastating concentrations until the final collapse in 1945, demonstrating the enduring tactical importance of well-directed field howitzer fire in both offensive Blitzkrieg and prolonged defensive warfare.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HEER


General der Artillerie Siegfried Thomaschki (1894-1967) was born on 20 March 1894 in Miswalde, East Prussia, as the third child of Protestant pastor Paul Thomaschki and Elisabeth née Schucht. After graduating from the Collegium Fridericianum he entered the Imperial German Army on 4 March 1913 as Fahnenjunker in the 2. Ostpreußisches Feldartillerie-Regiment Nr. 52, was commissioned Leutnant in 1914 and served throughout the First World War as battery officer and adjutant, earning the Iron Cross Second and First Class while being wounded three times. Remaining in the Reichswehr he advanced through artillery staff and command posts, becoming Oberst and commander of Artillerie-Regiment 3 by 1939. He led the regiment in the Polish and French campaigns, then as Artillerie-Kommandeur 123 on the northern sector of the Eastern Front, receiving the German Cross in Gold. On 26 January 1942 he assumed command of the 11. Infanterie-Division, being promoted Generalmajor on 1 March 1942. Under his leadership the division stubbornly defended the Kirishi bridgehead on the east bank of the Volkhov River, a narrow foothold only four kilometres wide and two kilometres deep, against 154 Soviet assaults between 5 June and 5 September 1942; this epic defence, later nicknamed the “Verdun of the North,” earned him the Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes on 1 November 1942. Further masterful defensive fighting around Sinyavino in July–August 1942, during which the division was again mentioned in the Wehrmachtbericht, led to the award of the Eichenlaub on 11 September 1943 while he was Generalleutnant and still commander of the 11. Infanterie-Division. He subsequently served as Höherer Artillerie-Kommandeur 303, briefly commanded Kampfgruppe Thomaschki, and from December 1944 led the X. Armeekorps in the Courland Pocket, rising to General der Artillerie on 1 March 1945. He surrendered to Soviet forces on 8 May 1945, was convicted as a war criminal and held until 1955. Thomaschki died on 31 May 1967 in Bad Neuenahr.

Source :
https://www.junobeach.org/canada-in-wwii/articles/artillery/german-artillery/

Ritterkreuzträger of 31. Infanterie-Division "Löwen-Division"

The 31. Infanterie-Division, nicknamed the Löwen-Division due to its emblem displaying the Brunswick lion, was established in October 1936 in Braunschweig within Wehrkreis XI. Mobilized in late August 1939 under Generalleutnant Rudolf Kaempfe, the formation originally consisted of Infanterie-Regiment 12, Infanterie-Regiment 17, Infanterie-Regiment 82, and Artillerie-Regiment 31. During the Polish campaign in September 1939, it breached frontier fortifications as part of XVI. Armeekorps under 10. Armee, before being transferred west in 1940 to participate in the invasion of Belgium and France through XI. Armeekorps. In June 1941, reassigned to Panzergruppe 2 under Heeresgruppe Mitte for Unternehmen Barbarossa, the division crossed the Soviet border under Generalmajor Kurt Kalmuekoff, engaging in encirclement actions around Bialystok, Minsk, and Smolensk before driving toward Moscow. Over the following winters, command shifted through several distinguished officers, including Generalmajor Gerhard Berthold, Oberst Friedrich Hoßbach, and later Generalleutnant Kurt Pflieger. The division endured brutal attritional fighting in the Rzhev salient, Orel, and Gomel, suffering heavy casualties while its subordinate infantry regiments were reorganized as Grenadier-Regimenter. In the summer of 1944, during the Soviet Operation Bagration, the unit found itself surrounded near Mogilev and was virtually annihilated alongside the remnants of 4. Armee; its commander, Generalmajor Willifrank Ochsner, went missing and fell into Soviet captivity. Officially disbanded in July 1944, its remnant personnel formed the nucleus of the newly created 31. Grenadier-Division, which fought in Courland and Prussia until final surrender.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

RITTERKREUZTRÄGER


General der Infanterie Friedrich Hossbach (1894-1980), born on 21 November 1894 in Unna, entered the Prussian army as Fähnrich in the 2. Kurhessische Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 82 on 29 October 1913 and was promoted to Leutnant in 1914. He served throughout the First World War, ending as Oberleutnant on the staff of the XVIII. Armee-Korps. Remaining in the Reichswehr after the war, he rose through the ranks and from 1934 to 1938 served as Adjutant der Wehrmacht bei Adolf Hitler, during which he authored the famous Hossbach-Niederschrift recording Hitler's expansionist plans of 5 November 1937. Dismissed in the Blomberg-Fritsch crisis for warning Werner von Fritsch of accusations against him, Hossbach returned to troop command as Kommandeur of Infanterie-Regiment 82. During the Westfeldzug, as Oberst, on 12 June 1940 near Dieppe he personally led a rapid intervention against Allied troops embarking by sea, bringing up a Pak-Zug that forced the transports to flee and enabled the capture of about 4200 British and French soldiers along with substantial materiel; later he secured a bridgehead over the Loire. For these and other successes in the French campaign he received the Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes on 7 October 1940. Promoted to Generalleutnant, he took acting command of the LVI. Panzerkorps in August 1943 and distinguished himself in defensive fighting near Spass-Demensk, along the Desna river and at Gomel, earning the Eichenlaub to the Ritterkreuz on 11 September 1943 as the 298th recipient. Advanced to General der Infanterie and Kommandierender General of the LVI. Panzerkorps, he later commanded the 4. Armee from July 1944 until dismissed by Hitler in January 1945 for ordering a breakout from East Prussia against explicit orders. Surviving an assassination attempt in April 1945, he was captured by American forces, released in 1947, and died in Göttingen on 10 September 1980.

Source :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/31st_Infantry_Division_(Wehrmacht)

Ritterkreuzträger of 10. SS-Panzer-Division "Frundsberg"

The 10. SS-Panzer-Division "Frundsberg" was a German Waffen-SS armoured division formed in early 1943, initially as SS-Panzergrenadier-Division 10 and briefly titled "Karl der Große" before receiving its permanent honor name in October 1943 after the 16th-century Landsknecht commander Georg von Frundsberg. Raised mainly from young conscripts drawn from the Reichsarbeitsdienst, the division trained in occupied France under successive commanders including SS-Standartenführer Michael Lippert, SS-Gruppenführer Lothar Debes and SS-Gruppenführer Karl Fischer von Treuenfeld. Its first combat came in April 1944 near Tarnopol in Ukraine, where it helped relieve German forces trapped in the Kamenets-Podolsky pocket. Transferred westward, the division joined the II. SS-Panzerkorps alongside the 9. SS-Panzer-Division "Hohenstaufen" and fought in Normandy from late June 1944, opposing British Operation Epsom around Caen, defending Hill 112 during Operation Jupiter, and later participating in the chaotic battles of Operation Bluecoat and the Falaise pocket, suffering heavy losses before withdrawing through Belgium. Reconstituted near Arnhem, it played a key defensive role during Operation Market Garden in September 1944, particularly around Nijmegen, again under SS-Brigadeführer Heinz Harmel, who commanded from April 1944 until late April 1945. After further fighting in Alsace during Operation Nordwind in January 1945, the division returned to the Eastern Front, engaging Soviet forces in Pomerania and Saxony. Encircled in the Halbe Pocket, remnants under SS-Obersturmbannführer Franz Roestel broke out, retreated through Moritzburg and reached the Teplice area in Czechoslovakia, where the division surrendered to American forces in May 1945. Its order of battle centred on SS-Panzer-Regiment 10, SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 21 and SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 22, supported by reconnaissance, artillery, pioneer and anti-tank units typical of a late-war SS Panzer formation.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SCHWERTERTRÄGER


SS-Brigadeführer Heinz Harmel (1906-2000) was born in Metz in the German Empire as the son of a military physician and pursued a career in the armed forces from an early age, volunteering for the SS-Verfügungstruppe in 1935 as an SS-Oberscharführer in the SS-Standarte „Germania“ before becoming a company commander in the SS-Standarte „Der Führer“, with which he fought in the Battle of France in 1940, earning both classes of the Iron Cross; in 1941 he took part in the Balkans Campaign and Operation Barbarossa, assuming command of the SS-Infanterie-Regiment „Deutschland“ of the SS-Division „Das Reich“ in December of that year and receiving the German Cross in Gold on 29 November 1941 for distinguished service. As SS-Obersturmbannführer and commander of the SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment „Deutschland“, Harmel was awarded the Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes on 31 March 1943 for his outstanding leadership during the fighting south of Kharkov in February 1943, when on his own initiative he personally led a reinforced battalion with a Panzer-Kompanie in a daring night assault through Pereschtschepino, annihilating a surprised Soviet regiment that left some 1500 dead, then expanding the bridgehead by capturing Dimitrijewka-Golubowka after hard combat while directing operations from an armoured radio car under anti-tank fire, actions that halted the enemy advance and enabled the subsequent attack of the SS-Panzergrenadier-Division „Das Reich“ on Pawlograd. Promoted to SS-Standartenführer, he received the Eichenlaub on 7 September 1943 for his conduct on 30 July 1943 during the assault against the Soviet Mius bridgehead, where, fighting from the foremost line despite heavy minefields and flanking fire that disabled several Sturmgeschütze, he repeatedly inspired his men to capture Hill 203.9 near Stepanowka and then immediately ordered the I. Bataillon into the heavily defended village itself, continuing the advance on foot after his vehicles struck mines and ensuring a vital penetration that prevented far greater casualties. In April 1944 Harmel took command of the newly formed 10. SS-Panzer-Division „Frundsberg“, becoming one of the youngest divisional commanders in the Waffen-SS; after fighting in Normandy and the Falaise Pocket he led the division in the successful defence against the Allied airborne Operation Market Garden around Nijmegen and Arnhem in September 1944, for which, as SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen-SS, he was awarded the Schwerter on 15 December 1944. Subsequently engaged in Alsace, Pomerania and the Oder front, he was later dismissed from command but formed an ad hoc battle group before surrendering to British forces in Austria in May 1945; after release he lived quietly in Krefeld until his death at the age of 94.

Source :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10th_SS_Panzer_Division_Frundsberg