Rudolf Heinrich Lang
*25.10.1898 Neustadt / Donau
+27.07.1969 Murnau
Vater: Heinrich Lang, Steueramtmann
Mutter: Maria Lang, geb. Nirschl
30.06.1928 Heirat mit Klothilde Fronhofer
2 Söhne (*1931/1935) [another son died at birth in 1929]
Promotions:
20.03.1918 Leutnant mit Patent vom 16.03.1918 (17)
01.05.1925 Polizei-Oberleutnant
01.04.1933 Polizei-Hauptmann
01.08.1935 Hauptmann mit RDA vom 01.05.1933 (2a)
18.01.1937 Major mit RDA vom 01.01.1937 (61)
01.06.1940 Oberstleutnant (36)
17.12.1941 neues RDA vom 01.04.1939 (13a) erhalten
01.02.1942 Oberst (75)
Career:
19.10.1916 Eintrtt in das Ersatzbataillon des [bayerischen] Infanterieregiments 22
23.07.1917 in der 4. (MG) / Infanterieregiment 22
20.03.1918 Zugführer in der 4. (MG) / Infanterieregiment 22
17.08.1918 Kompanieführer
23.08.1918 Ordonnanzoffizier im Stab des I. / Infanterieregiment 22
08.11.1918 Bataillonsadjutant
09.09.1919 Adjutant beim Stab des II. [bayerischen] Armeekorps
02.10.1919 bei der Abwicklungsstelle des Infanterieregiments 22
03.01.1920 Adjutant der Abwicklungsstelle
07.02.1920 in der Nachrichtenabteilung 23
30.09.1920 Übertritt zur bayerischen Landespolizei in die Polizeiabteilung Oberpfalz
09.10.1922 bei der Landespolizei Regensburg
30.04.1930 Führer der Fahrzeugabteilung der Kraftwagenwerkstatt Nürnberg
01.06.1932 Führer der Kraftfahrabteilung der Schutzpolizei Regensburg
01.10.1933 Chef der Sonderwagenstaffel bei der Landespolizei München
22.03.1935 Chef der 14. / Landespolizeiabteilung München
01.08.1935 Übertritt ins Heer
15.10.1935 Chef der 14. (PzAbw) / Gebirgsjägerregiment 99 (Augsburg)
10.11.1938 Kommandeur der Panzerabwehrabteilung 44 (München)
25.03.1942 mit der Führung des Gebirgsjägerregiments 99 beauftragt
10.04.1942 kommandiert zur Panzertruppenschule
15.05.1942 Kommandeur des Schützenregiments 69
01.07.1943 Führerreserve OKH (VII)
06.08.1943 Führerreserve Heeresgruppe Mitte
09.08.1943 Kommandeur des Panzergrenadierregiments 101
01.11.1943 Führerreserve OKH (VII)
16.11.1943 kommandiert zum 8. Divisionsführerlehrgang (bis 14.12.1943)
05.01.1944 mit der Führung der 3. Panzerdivision beauftragt
25.05.1944 Führerreserve OKH (VII)
15.08.1944 Kommandant von Marienburg
24.11.1944 Führerreserve OKH (VII)
Awards and Decorations:
15.11.1917 EK II
04.08.1918 Verwundetenabzeichen in Schwarz
01.10.1918 Bayerischer Militärverdienstorden 4. Klasse mit Schwertern
06.08.1919 EK I [?]
16.01.1924 Deutsches Turn- und Sportabzeichen in Bronze
01.12.1934 Ehrenkreuz für Frontkämpfer
02.10.1936 Dienstauszeichnung IV. bis II. Klasse
31.10.1939 Spange zum EK II
18.06.1940 Spange zum EK I
16.01.1941 Sturmabzeichen
23.08.1941 Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes, as Oberstleutnant and Kommandeur Gebirgs-Panzerjäger-Abteilung 44 / 1.Gebirgs-Division
01.11.1941 Offizierskreuz mit Schwertern des Ordens Stern von Rumänien
xx.xx.1942 Kroatischer Kriegsorden der Krone des Königs Zvonimir I. Klasse mit Schwertern
28.07.1942 Order of the Star of Romania in the grade of officer with swords on the ribbon of the Cross for Military Virtue
11.08.1942 Ostmedaille
13.04.1943 Großoffizierskreuz von Tunesien
12.07.1943 Italienische Tapferkeitsmedaille in Silber
02.12.1943 Ärmelband Afrika
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Oberst Lang was probably the best known Oberst in the German army for a brief while. He wrote a two-part account of his combat experience in North Africa, which you can obtain at http://www.fold3.com: Oberst Rudolf Lang, “Battles of Kampfgruppe Lang in Tunisia (10. Pz.Div.) December 1942 to 15 April 1943, Part I” MS # D-173, not dated, National Archives. Oberst Rudolf Lang, “Report of the Fighting of Kampfgruppe Lang (10. Pz.Div.) in Tunisia from December 1942 to 15 April 1943,” MS # D-166, 6 June 1947, National Archives.
From the book "Fighting Patton" by Harry Yelde:
Rudolf Lang, 10. Panzer-Division, at that moment was in command of a Kampfgruppe attached to the 334. Infanterie-Division opposite the British to the north near Ksar Mezouar. Lang’s command was a small but powerful force including the regimental staff and I. Bataillon/Panzergrenadier-Regiment 69; I. Bataillon/Panzergrenadier-Regiment 86; a battalion of the 21. Panzer-Division’s Regiment 104; the Marsch-Bataillon 26 [March Battalion, Separate Infantry Battalion]; Kampfstaffel Rommel; an Italian infantry battalion and artillery battery; a 15cm field artillery battery from the Panzer-Artillerie-Regiment 90; a battery of 17cm guns; two batteries of 8,8; an antitank company; and the Tiger tanks of the 501st and some from the 504th Heavy Tank battalions.
Lang, a trim, bespectacled Bavarian, was born on 25 October 1898 in Neustadt an der Donau. He was a brave man, and he had been awarded the Knight’s Cross in the Caucasus while commanding the 44th Antitank Battalion, part of the 1. Gebirgs-Division. He probably became available for service elsewhere (namely Africa) because, try as it might, the mountain division had been unable to get its antitank guns through the mountain passes where it was fighting. The night of 22 March, Lang received orders to travel to the headquarters of Heeresgruppe Afrika south of Sousse and to report to Arnim personally to receive a new assignment. Arnim already knew Lang well and had personally witnessed the colonel’s tactical brilliance in the fighting against British and American forces at Longstop Hill in December. After a bitter and complex seesaw battle across the strategic heights near Medjez el Bab, Lang had personally led the main strike force in a counterattack on Christmas Day that had firmly established German control over the feature.
Arnim had summoned Lang because it appeared that the Italian defenses had collapsed before Patton’s northern thrust that day near Sened. The deployment of German combat echelons from the headquarters of Italian First Army could not stop the Americans, and the Axis line to the north of Sened was cut off and out of contact, along with four Italian infantry battalions. Arnim was painfully aware that “mobile American elements”—the 1st Armored Division—had reached Maknassy on 22 March and were poised to achieve a breakthrough to the coastal plain.
The very survival of Italian First Army was at stake. Only thirty-four miles separated American troops from the sea.
The morning of 23 March, Oberst Lang reported to Arnim. The Americans were threatening the rear of First Army, the general told him, and Brigadier Imperiali, commanding the Italian troops cut off by the attack, had fallen out of communication. Lang was to head to the crucial pass through the Eastern Dorsal near Maknassy to deal with the situation. He was nominally under the command of Imperiali, but Arnim made clear that the responsibility was his.
Lang set off, and his efforts to track down the Italian general proved fruitless. Italian troops were streaming to the rear in confusion. Lang found some energetic young officers from a German 8,8 cm Flak battalion and ordered them to see that not another additional man or vehicle fled eastward.
Lang proceeded toward the pass. American artillery crashed about his car, and he abandoned the vehicle and proceeded on foot, dripping with sweat, with only his adjutant. The pass was still in Axis hands, defended mainly by eighty men from Kampfstaffel Rommel’s Begleitkompanie (bodyguard company) under the command of Major Franz Medicus. The major had one 8,8cm gun and one antitank gun with which to hold off the 1st Armored Division. The detachment had already been fiercely engaged. The American tanks, thankfully, had run into a minefield. The enemy infantry had overrun one position, and the pass had seemed lost until the reserve—a mere half platoon of engineers and a few communicators—had counterattacked and chased the Americans off. A second breakthrough was stopped only after hand-to-hand fighting, and a third when a sergeant had jumped to man the antitank gun after the crew had fallen and fired into the American ranks. Medicus and his band were exhausted.
Lang ordered the men to hold a while longer and assured them that help was on the way. The man was in his element, a trained mountain fighter, who knew how to use high-velocity guns in such terrain, and who had to hold a pass. He turned back, found the flak officers, who had rounded up a considerable number of Italians, and organized a straggler line. He ordered two batteries of 8,8cms forward to provide antitank defense.
Vaerst, meanwhile, sent four infantry battalions supported by artillery toward the pass, plus fifteen Tiger tanks and two battalions of 8,8cm guns, all but the last of which already belonged to Lang’s own Kampfgruppe.
The first troops to join Lang were his two battalions from the Panzergrenadier regiments 69 and 86. Both battalions had already proved themselves in offensive and defensive operations. Lang sent Major Friedrich-Wilhelm Buschhausen’s 1st Battalion, Panzergrenadiers 69, to join Medicus in the pass and ordered Hauptmann Haut’s 1st Battalion, Panzergrenadiers 86, to form a line to the north of the pass as far as Wadi el Leben, a streambed that when dry provided a rough passage through the mountain chain. He radioed Arnim that the pass was still in friendly hands. Judging by American reports of battalion-sized enemy reinforcements appearing, these reinforcements entered the battle about 1800 hours.
Lang finally tracked down Imperiali, who as it turned out had been at the front under fire trying to rally his men. The arrival of two experienced German battalions stiffened the line, and by dusk the Axis troops had repulsed five American attacks.
Vaerst recalled:
[The arriving troops and] vigorous leadership of a regimental commander [Lang] stopped the enemy, who by this time was much superior in force. The fighting here developed along the lines of mobile warfare and was marked by frequent shifts in the tide of battle. In some places, the Kampfgruppe was attacking, but as a rule it was on the defensive, even with its tanks. Numerous enemy tanks were knocked out without our suffering any losses to speak of.
The enemy artillery fire was powerful and accurate. The Stuka Staffel intervened in the defensive action successfully—this probably being the last time aircraft took part in ground fighting in Africa. . . .
In constituting this Kampfgruppe, the Fifth Panzer Army used up its last reserves and weakened its western front by withdrawal of troops there. From this point on, Fifth Panzer Army had no freedom of maneuver.
The arrival of additional Tigers from the 501st Heavy Tank Battalion and Lang’s battery of 170mm guns, which could fire shells to a range of 27 kilometers, greatly aided Lang’s efforts. Kampfstaffel Rommel’s reconnaissance battalion arrived and set up to protect the north flank at Wadi el Leben. A “Tunisia Battalion”—a march battalion with no supporting heavy weapons—settled in on Lang’s left wing. As Vaerst indicated, a nearby airbase provided support from Stukas on request.
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Lang’s Kampfgruppe had become the centerpiece of the German effort to keep Patton trapped in front of the Eastern Dorsal range. American attacks all but ceased on 29 March, just as German ammunition was running out and one last hard bash would have broken through. The Tigers were sent to help the hard-pressed Division "Hermann Göring" farther north, and some of the 10th Panzer Division’s own tanks replaced them. Arnim transmitted his praise, and von Vaerst personally congratulated Lang. Kesselring paid him the high honor of visiting his command post. “All the credit for making it possible for the troops on the southern sector to fight without being threatened from the flanks or rear belongs to Oberst Lang,” recalled Kesselring. OKW noted Lang’s deeds in its war diary. Even the enemy knew he was important: intelligence officers at 18th Army Group knew his name and the approximate location of his headquarters.
Lang's career seemed on track until he was mFb 3. Panzerdivision in early 1944. Then Kirchner and Bayerlein intervened and wrote to Guderian, declaring Lang unfit for command. Bayerlein even made him responsible for the defeat in Tunisia. Schmundt agreed, and after a short stint as Kommandant von Marienburg, Lang disappeared in the Führerreserve, never to be reassigned or even promoted.
Translation of Bayerlein's comment:
"Based on my knowledge of his performance in Tunisia and in the East, I consider Oberst L. as unfit to command the 3. PzDiv. His lack of understanding for the Panzerwaffe in Tunisia led to a disaster among the subordinated tanks. The troops gave him the sobriquet of Panzer-Killer because his faulty deployment caused the loss of numerous tanks, particularly Tigers."
Oberst Lang lost seven Tigers in "Ochsenkopf" (and got several more badly damaged). The summarise of the events that Bayerlein was apparently referring to:
Lang's battle group had the most important mission in "Ochsenkopf", the capture of Beja. They set off at short notice without adequate reconnaissance. This was not Lang's fault.
On descending into a valley they met stiff British resistance at Sidi N'sir. There was artillery sited by the road ahead of them, but out of sight; and infantry on hilltops, spotting for the guns. Lang considered charging the British guns with his tanks, but torrential rain had set in and his tanks could not move quickly on the soft ground, which the British had mined. They could move only on the road, already blocked by destroyed Panzers.
So he had his medium tanks move off into the fields and around the hills to find positions where they could see the British guns. Meanwhile his troops attacked the British infantry on the hills; with the spotters gone, he would be free to move tanks up close to the British guns and prepare a charge.
But the capture of the hills took most of the day because they were determinedly defended by the artillery. The troops on the hills were able to call down precise strikes on the Germans attacking them.
As far as I can discover, Lang did not have his tanks open fire on the artillery when they found vantage points. Instead he had everybody hold fire until he could charge along the road, which in turn required him to capture the hills and clear them of spotters, which was a bottleneck that held him up all day. Meanwhile his battle group with 17 Tigers was stretched out for kilometers along the road behind him, unable to do anything.
When this plan came to fruition, and the British artillery was overrun, it was in the evening darkness under the rainstorm. The battle group settled down at Sidi N'sir for the night - nowhere near their objective, Beja. The element of surprise had been lost.
Could Lang have pushed through more quickly?
After this one-day delay should he have continued with the mission, which now required his tanks to follow a secondary road for 15km through a valley, with no opportunity to turn left or right, and the ground made near impassable by rain? It was prime terrain for an ambush. And indeed, the British had managed to set up an ambush at Kzar Mezouar. Here they had tanks, artillery and air support.
Lang lost a Tiger the next morning when his battle group arrived at the ambush site. And now he was in an even worse position than at Sidi N'sir. These guns were not sited by the road, vulnerable to his tanks; they were hidden on the hillsides all around. The terrain was bare rolling fields with almost no trees, nowhere to hide from aircraft. Lang's battle group were sitting ducks.
He tried to push through.
A fierce battle ensued for several days. The Germans could not make much progress. Continuous and very heavy artillery fire was the defining feature of the battle for them. But their worst enemy was the rain. Their vehicles were still confined to the road, only wide enough for two tanks. An immobilised Tiger could be an obstacle that could prevent the tanks in front of it from pulling back. Engineering crews risked their lives to clear the way. And it was to no avail because the way only led to more danger. From the relative safety of the final hill that hid them from view, the German force was able to thrust forward only two kilometers, subject to artillery fire every step of the way. The few tanks that achieved that distance, had to fall back only hours later. There was simply no possibility of breaking through into safer terrain.
Lang continued this fight until he had lost seven Tigers and many other tanks.
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