Motorcycle BMW R-12 attached to a reconnaissance unit, of the elite
Division Grossdeutschland, in the background a Sd.Kfz. 222 Leichter
Panzerspahwagen. Juan Carlos Ciordia
The German reconnaissance units were the eyes and ears of the armored
units and one of the essential elements for the effectiveness of the
“Blizkrieg”. The BMW firm already produced motorcycles when the
German army asked him to design a machine capable of crossing through all kinds
of terrain conditions. BMW copied the technology developed by the firm Zundapp
in its model KS-750, with which the third wheel of the “side-car” was
attached to the rear wheel of the motorcycle, thus creating a true
three-wheeled vehicle.
The Grossdeutschland Panzer Division was the German Army’s
premier armoured formation. Staffed exclusively by volunteers, and attracting
the cream of Germany’s young officers, it quickly established a reputation for
excellence on the battlefield. But such elite status meant it was thrown into
desperate battles against the Red Army on the Eastern Front, which gradually
exhausted its reserves of tanks, armoured personnel carriers and men.
After Hitler launched his armies at the Soviet Union in June
1941, he increasingly called on so-called “fire brigade” units to spearhead
vital attacks or plug gaps in the line after overwhelming Soviet attacks had
shattered the German front after 1943.
While the panzer divisions of the Waffen-SS are most
commonly thought of as the “Führer’s fire brigade”, the German Army also
created its own elite armoured force. Originally only a motorized infantry
regiment, Grossdeutschland grew in the space of six years into a
panzergrenadier division and then into a huge armoured corps, nominally
containing four divisions and two brigades. The Grossdeutschland Panzer Corps
was destined never to fight together, and many of its units existed only on
paper.
The very name Grossdeutschland, or Greater Germany, summed
up the ethos of the unit. It was no ordinary line unit but the German Army’s
premier fighting force, containing its most experienced and professional
officers and soldiers. It became a matter of pride that the German Army could
field elite units to rival the panzer divisions of the Waffen-SS. The name
betrayed the ideological underpinning of the unit – its sole purpose was to
lead and win Hitler’s war of aggression, first in western Europe and then
Russia. Grossdeutschland was Hitler’s ambition to create a German state that
dominated continental Europe. Those nations or races that had no place in the
Führer’s plans were to be expelled or exterminated. By naming its elite unit
after Hitler’s maniac scheme, the German Army High Command clearly demonstrated
that it had signed up to their Führer’s crazed plans to create a “master race”.
Except for a few small elements, from 1941 onwards Grossdeutschland units
fought almost exclusively on the Eastern Front against the Red Army.
The Early Years
The origins of the Grossdeutschland lie in the German Army’s
Watch or Guard Troops, which were formed in 1934 to secure the High Command’s
buildings in Berlin. When the Waffen-SS was formed, the army decided to form a
rival elite force and the Guard Troops were expanded into a regiment, soon to
be named Motorized Infantry Regiment Grossdeutschland. This regiment, four
battalions strong, was lavishly equipped with trucks, light artillery, mortars
and flak and anti-tank guns.
It saw action for the first time during the campaign in
France and then spearheaded the German invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941.
Later that summer, it was in the thick of the action as German troops surged
into the Soviet Union, advancing into central Russia and then moving south into
the Ukraine as part of the force sent to encircle the huge Soviet army
defending Kiev. After a brutal winter, holding the front against the Soviet
counteroffensive around Moscow, it lost almost 1000 dead and more than 3000
wounded, but established its reputation as the one of the Wehrmacht’s most
professional and effective fighting units.
In the spring of 1942, orders were issued to expand the
regiment into a motorized infantry division, complete with 14 Panzer III and 42
Panzer IV tanks, 21 StuG III assault guns, as well as dozens of SdKfz 251
armoured halftracks, Marder 76.2mm self-propelled anti-tank guns, 88mm flak
guns, and towed 170mm and 150mm heavy artillery. The vast majority of the
division’s infantry still had to travel in soft-skinned trucks and halftracks,
so would dismount just outside enemy machine-gun range before going into action
on foot. One company of the panzer battalion was equipped with the new Panzer
IVF2, which sported the then new L/43 long cannon that was designed to defeat
the heavy armour of the Soviet T-34 tank.
The up-gunned and up-armoured Panzer IVF2s would spearhead
the Grossdeutschland’s advance during the coming summer offensive, dubbed
Operation Blue by the High Command. Its aim was to smash the Soviet armies in
southern Russia to open the way for German troops to seize the strategic oil
wells in the Caucasus. Grossdeutschland was assigned to the Fourth Panzer Army,
which was on the most northerly wing of five German armies.
During the advance to the River Don the Grossdeutschland
panzer crews had a taste of the easy victories experienced during the
Blitzkrieg years. The Soviet frontline troops put up the same lamentable
performance as the year before and the Germans were soon motoring eastwards. A
Soviet tank corps was ordered to counterattack and drive straight into the
Grossdeutschland, only to be engaged and devastated by the Panzer IVs and IIIs.
In the space of a week, some 200 Soviet tanks were knocked out and the Soviet
counteroffensive was smashed, trapping 100,000 Red Army soldiers. But the
attack was a desperate holding action and it worked. The bulk of the Soviet
troops escaped and the Grossdeutschland spent the next six weeks chasing ghosts
across the empty steppe. Fortunately for the division, it was diverted north to
help Army Group Centre around the Rzhev salient rather than joining the Sixth
Army for its doomed advance to Stalingrad. Nevertheless, it was not destined to
have an easy time. The Rzhev salient pointed towards Moscow and Stalin had
ordered a major offensive to destroy it. This was intended as a sequel to
Operation Saturn that had trapped the Sixth Army. The Grossdeutschland panzer
troops were formed into a hard-hitting reserve that rushed from one crisis
point to another, as the salient held through a miserable winter.
In January 1943 Grossdeutschland was ordered to be pulled
out of the line and moved south to join a major offensive to relieve the Sixth
Army. By the time the division made it to its assembly area near Kharkov it was
joined by the remainder of the newly formed Panzer Regiment Grossdeutschland,
which boasted a full battalion of 42 Panzer IVs and a company of 9 new Tiger I
heavy tanks. These 58-tonne (57-ton) monster tanks were armed with the deadly
88mm cannon that could destroy a T-34 at 2000m (2188yd). Almost as important,
the new arrivals were led by the regiment’s commander, Colonel Count Hyazinth
von Strachwitz, who was soon to become famous as the “Panzer Count”. He was
already a hero from World War I, when he had led a German raiding party into
Paris.
The division had only just escaped from encirclement in
Kharkov, when the newly reinforced panzer regiment was ordered to lead a major
German counterattack to turn back the Soviet winter offensive. Von Strachwitz led
his panzers forward with considerable dash during March 1943, pushing forward
at a great pace until it was engaged by the Soviet II Tank Corps. In the first
clash of a bloody week, 46 T-34s were knocked out by the Grossdeutschland’s
panzer regiment. The German offensive now started to gain momentum, with
village after village falling to von Strachwitz’s panzers. The following day
they ran into a network of Soviet anti-tank guns, called a “pak front” by the
Germans, in prepared positions and backed by a large number of infantry
bunkers. The Tigers came into their own, standing off and systematically
blasting the anti-tank guns out of their bunkers. Flamethrower tanks then
finished off the position.
As the attack rolled forward, on 16 March another 30 T-34s
were destroyed by the panzers when they surprised a Soviet tank brigade in its
assembly area. More Soviet tanks were thrown into the battle two days later,
but von Strachwitz heard the tanks coming and quickly deployed his panzers to
surprise the advancing Soviets. The panzers were driven into peasant huts to
hide them and von Strachwitz ordered his gunners to hold their fire. Soviet
tanks cautiously edged forward until they were actually inside the village.
With nerves of steel, the panzer crews held fire for several hours. When the
Soviet tanks exposed their side armour to the Germans, von Strachwitz fired his
88mm cannon, which took the turret off a T-34 with ease. This was a signal for
the rest of the regiment to open up. In a few seconds, 18 T-34s were in flames.
It was then that the Germans moved forward to attack. By the end of the day, 90
Soviet tanks had been destroyed. Soviet attacks continued for more than a week
as several infantry divisions and tank brigades were thrown at the
Grossdeutschland lines. All these efforts were rebuffed with heavy losses among
the attackers. At the end of March Colonel-General Heinz Guderian, the
Inspector-General of the Panzer Troops, came to view the Grossdeutschland’s
handiwork. With pride, von Strachwitz was able to show the father of the German
panzers a tank graveyard north of Kharkov containing hundreds of smashed Soviet
T-34s.
Kursk
As heavy rains turned Russia into a mud bath, both the
Germans and Soviets turned their attention to reorganizing and refitting their
forces for the coming summer campaign season. The Army High Command was
determined that Grossdeutschland would have the honour of spearheading
Operation Citadel to cut off the Soviet defenders holding the Kursk salient,
which jutted more than 80km (50 miles) into the German front. It became
fashionable among aristocratic, middle-ranking officers to join the
Grossdeutschland as a way to gain battle experience, medals and promotion. It
was also seen as important to ensure the German Army was not totally eclipsed
by the Waffen-SS. The rank and file soldiers were now some of the most
battle-hardened on the Eastern Front, while a higher than average proportion of
the junior officers were Nazi Party members.
Grossdeutschland was allocated two battalions of Panther
tanks, the newest and most modern tank in the German arsenal. It was developed
in response to the T-34 and featured sloped armour and a long-barrel 75mm
cannon that was almost as powerful as the 88mm carried in the Tiger. Hitler
considered the Panthers crucial to the success of Operation Citadel, and he
repeatedly put back the date of the offensive to ensure that 192 of the new
“wonder” tanks were ready to lead the attack.
The other elements of the division were also brought up to
strength during this period with extra deliveries of tanks, until its two
panzer battalions boasted 80 Panzer IVs and 15 Tigers. Enough armoured
half-tracks to fully equip Grossdeutschland’s armoured infantry, combat
engineer or pioneer and reconnaissance battalions were also delivered to the
division, together with self-propelled 150mm Hummel and 105mm Wespe howitzers.
Grossdeutschland was redesignated a panzergrenadier division in the days before
the Kursk offensive. With four battalions of tanks, the division was the most powerful
armoured formation on the Eastern Front in July 1943.
Grossdeutschland’s panzergrenadiers opened the division’s
attack on the Kursk salient on 5 July. The first objective was a key piece of
high ground needed to open a path for the panzers to roll forward to attack the
Soviets’ southern flank. The Tiger company led the attack with the new Panthers
poised close behind and almost immediately ran into a firestorm of anti-tank
fire. An interlocking network of pak fronts had been built by the Soviets all around
the Kursk salient. Several Tigers struck mines and had to slug it out with the
Soviet anti-tank gunners. To try to move the offensive forward, the Panther
tanks were committed, but many soon started to burst into flames. This was not
as a result of Soviet fire or mines – the new tanks were proving to have
teething troubles. They were, however, easily able to see off a counterattack
by a Soviet tank brigade equipped with American-built General Lee tanks.
This set the pattern for the next six days. Rather than
being a Blitzkrieg, Operation Citadel turned into a bloody war of attrition.
Grossdeutschland panzergrenadiers and panzers struggled forward to breach line
after line of Soviet defences. Each day they knocked out dozens of Soviets
tanks and guns, and took hundreds of prisoners. The cost was grievous, though,
with the Grossdeutschland Panzer Regiment only able to put 22 Panzer IVs, 38
Panthers and 6 Tigers into the field on 12 July. That was the day the Soviets
committed their tank reserves. Hundreds of T-34s surged forward and penetrated
the division’s front in several places. Panzer counterattacks restored the
situation.
The German attack rolled forward again the following day,
only to run into fresh pak fronts containing more than 100 dug-in tanks and
anti-tank guns. This was just too tough a nut to crack. Grossdeutschland’s
attack was now stalled.
During the course of the battle the division claimed to have
destroyed more than 263 Soviet tanks, 144 anti-tank guns, 22 artillery pieces
and 11 multiple rocket launchers. Grossdeutschland’s own tank losses were a
modest 10 Panzers IVs and 43 Panthers, but scores of other vehicles were
damaged and unfit for action. Less than a third of the tanks that went into
action on 5 July were ready for action. Losses among the division’s
panzergrenadiers were equally grievous.
With Operation Citadel bogged down the Soviets now launched
their strategic reserves against the northern German attack force. It was soon
reeling back in disorder, so Hitler ordered Grossdeutschland to be pulled out
of the line to move north to restore the situation. The division had barely
time to unload its vehicles and equipment from its railway flat cars when
another massive Soviet offensive broke through the German lines around Kharkov,
and so it was on its way southwards to help plug the gap in the line.
Holding the Line
Four Soviet armies had smashed open a breach 80km (50 miles)
wide in the Fourth Panzer Army’s front and more than 2000 T-34s were motoring
southwards. While the Waffen-SS panzer divisions Totenkopf and Das Reich
attacked from the south, Grossdeutschland and 7th Panzer were to hit the
northern flank of the Soviet advance. As the division gathered for its attack,
the newly-formed Tiger battalion joined von Strachwitz’s regiment. He had more
than 100 tanks, including some 40 Panthers, 40 Tigers and 30 Panzer IVs. The
Grossdeutschland started to be called a “super panzer division”, even though it
was officially still a panzergrenadier division, because it boasted the
strongest tank force in the German Army.
Once committed to action, the division found itself engaged
in a swirling tank battle against waves of hundreds of T-34s advancing across
an almost flat steppe. Tigers and Panthers picked off the Soviet tanks at
extreme range in cornfields, while the Grossdeutschland’s panzergrenadiers had
to fight off human-wave attacks of Soviet infantry. Daily kill rates of 40–50
T-34s were recorded during this period, creating major problems for the
division’s maintenance crews who had to institute a crash programme to repair
worn-out tank cannon barrels.
The counterattack at Achtyrka was a major tactical success
for Grossdeutschland, but the remainder of the German front was still weak and
a retreat to the River Dnieper was ordered. Grossdeutschland formed the
rearguard as Army Group South pulled back. The Soviets gave the Germans no
respite, though, and they were soon across this mighty river barrier. For three
months Grossdeutschland found itself being rushed from one crisis zone to another
as the Soviet steamroller ground forward. By March 1944, the German front had
been pushed back to the Romanian border and the Soviets at last seemed to run
out of steam, giving the Germans a chance to reform and regroup their battered
divisions. Grossdeutschland was now led by Lieutenant-General Hasso von
Manteuffel, perhaps its most famous commander. Although only 1.5m (5ft) tall,
the aristocratic officer was a bundle of energy and led his division from the
turret of a Panther tank.
By late April, von Manteuffel had been able to concentrate
his division around the border town of Targul Frumos and build up a strong
defensive position. His panzergrenadiers were deployed forward, holding a
network of trenches and bunkers to hold off the Soviet infantry. Artillery
batteries were positioned to sweep the division’s front with fire, and 88mm
flak guns were dug-in to deal with any enemy armour that broke through the
frontline. Von Manteuffel held his panzer regiment, with 25 serviceable Panzer
IVs, 10 Tigers and 12 Panthers, plus an assault gun battalion, with 25 StuG
IIIs, in reserve. He located his command post on a hilltop overlooking the
whole of his sector. The scene was set for a one of the classic defensive
battles on the Eastern Front.
After spending a day blasting the German lines with rolling
salvoes of artillery fire, the first Soviet tank attacks went in on 2 May. The
panzergrenadiers on the frontline allowed the first wave of 25 T-34s to pass
over their trenches and let the 88mms take them on. More than half fell to the
flak gunners and the remainder were easily finished off by panzers. Another
probe by 30 T-34s was destroyed for no loss by the assault gun battalion, which
ambushed them from a hull-down position on a ridge just behind the German front.
The Soviets than committed seven of their Josef Stalin II
heavy tanks armed with 122mm cannons, which began engaging von Manteuffel’s
panzer group at more than 3000m (3282yd) range. The Tigers were called up to
drive them off, but their 88mm rounds simply bounced off the armour of the new
Soviet tanks. They had to advance to under 1800m (1969yd) before they managed
to punch through the weaker side armour of four of the Josef Stalin tanks.
Pursuing Panzer IVs destroyed them as they turned tail.
Another Soviet thrust managed to break into a village on the
right flank of the division and then more T-34s surged into the breach. Von
Manteuffel led a Panzer IV company to the critical sector, knocking out 30
Soviet tanks and driving off the rest.
For two more days, this pattern was repeated with massive
Soviet tank and infantry attacks along the Grossdeutschland front. Time and
again, von Manteuffel’s frontline troops held their nerve until the panzers
rode to the rescue. On 5 May, the Soviets pulled back. They left the remains of
350 destroyed tanks, and von Manteuffel estimated a further 200 Soviet vehicles
were damaged. Just 10 German tanks were lost.
Last Stand
The following month, in June 1944, the biggest Soviet
offensive of the war smashed the German Army Group Centre and ripped open a
huge gap in the Eastern Front. German troops were driven from Soviet territory
and retreated back into Poland. By 1 August 1944 Red Army troops had reached
the Baltic, cutting off Army Group North around Riga. The situation was
desperate. Grossdeutschland was called upon to spearhead an effort to reopen a
land route to the trapped troops.
After safely unloading from its trains, the division was
first sent to destroy a Soviet Guards Tank Corps at Wilkowishken on the East
Prussian border with Lithuania. Some 350 tanks and other Grossdeutschland
armoured vehicles were launched into action, and soon found that they were up
against hundreds of heavily armoured Josef Stalin tanks, backed up by SU 100
and SU 122/152 heavy assault guns. Avoiding a head-to-head fight, von
Manteuffel manoeuvred his outnumbered tanks to fire on the weak side armour of
the Soviet vehicles. The Soviets eventually withdrew, leaving some 70 tanks and
60 anti-tanks guns behind.
Towards the end of August, the division was ready to
spearhead the drive to open a corridor to Riga. Some initial penetrations were
made but the Soviet defences were just too strong. When the attack ground to a
halt on 23 August, all the division’s tanks were out of ground to a halt on 23
August, all the division’s tanks were out of Panthers arrived could the panzer
regiment be considered fit for offensive action.
The Soviets had by now gathered 19 infantry divisions and 5
tank corps to renew the offensive and when they struck in October, the weak
divisions around Grossdeutschland collapsed. For several days the division was
effectively surrounded. Under protection of its Tigers and Panthers,
Grossdeutschland managed to form a rearguard to allow several other German
divisions to pull back into Memel. Grossdeutschland then withdrew, with Soviet
tanks hard on its heels. The town was dubbed a “fortress” by Hitler but this
was a myth. It was a hell-hole, bombarded relentlessly by Soviet guns.
Eventually its garrison, including the remnants of Grossdeutschland, were
withdrawn by sea to East Prussia.
As it reorganized in East Prussia during December 1944, the
division was ordered to detach several units to help form the Panzer Corps
Grossdeutschland. On paper this was supposed to contain the original
Grossdeutschland Division, the panzergrenadier divisions Brandenburg and
Kurmark, the Luftwaffe panzer division Hermann Goering, along with the Führer
Grenadier and Führer Begleit brigades. These units were never to go into action
together. Combat losses and supply shortages meant they never received anything
like enough equipment and men to replace the horrendous losses at the front.
When the next Soviet offensive broke in the middle of January 1945, a
much-depleted Grossdeutschland Division rolled into action for the last time.
Heavy fighting raged for weeks in the woods and forests of East Prussia as the
division steadily fell back towards Königsberg. On 17 March the last panzer
counterattack was launched by three of the division’s Tigers to protect its
precarious toehold on the Baltic coast. Their crews fought to the last to
screen the evacuation of their comrades to the Samland peninsula. For almost a
month the division’s survivors fought on here as infantry until they were
finally evacuated by ship to Denmark. In the space of three months more than
17,000 Grossdeutschland soldiers were killed in action. Only a few hundred men
of the division made it to the relative safety of British captivity.
It was typical of the Grossdeutschland Division that it went
down fighting. As the German Army’s elite panzer unit it was created to
spearhead Hitler’s war of conquest in the East. When the Blitzkrieg faltered,
time and again the division was thrown into the breach to hold the Eastern
Front together. Equipped with the latest and most powerful tanks Germany’s
factories could build, Grossdeutschland’s panzer regiment regularly achieved
amazing tactical success. Only in the autumn of 1944, when the Soviets fielded
huge numbers of their monster Josef Stalin tanks, did the division’s panzer
crews find themselves the prey rather than the hunters.
