German Units
German Frogmen in Action II
German frogmen enter the water as they begin one of their river raids. There was little time to rest upon their newly-acquired laurels. From the beginning of the Allied landings in Normandy to the eventual collapse of the German front in France the K-Verbände frogmen would undertake twenty-four missions, the majority of them successful. Amongst the frogmen’s achievements were the…
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Luftwaffe versus Operation Torch
Dornier Do-217M and Fritz X. The German response to “Torch” led to a major transfer of bombers and fighters into the theater. As early as November 4, Luftflotte 4 gave up a fighter group to the Mediterranean. Moreover, the North African invasion forced the Germans to shut down attacks on…
Initial Heavy Tank Battalions Organisation
Heavy Tank Company, K.St.N. 1176d Dated 15 August 1942. Heavy Tank Battalion, Organization D, 1942-43. While the Army ordnance department was developing the heavy tank, the Army General Staff made plans to field heavy tank companies when production began. Initially, the plan for the heavy tank company included three platoons,…
Plan Unthinkable and German Armed Forces
Operation Unthinkable – Churchill’s Plans to Invade the Soviet Union In the spring of 1945 the Red Army continued its advance towards Western Europe, reaching the Adriatic in the south and approaching to within 100 miles of the River Rhine in the west. Meanwhile Germany was shattered and the great…
Sixth Army – Trapped
The young fighter pilot Count Heinrich von Einsiedel, a great-grandson of Reich Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in the maternal line, was flying over Stalingrad on a clear, warm day on 24 August 1942, looking for signs of enemy activity. ‘A light haze lay over the steppes,’ he wrote, ‘as I…
FRIEDRICH VON KOENEN, (1916–1944)
The commander of a North African Abwehr unit during World War II, Friedrich von Koenen was born in Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland) on 28 June 1916. Raised in German South West Africa (now Namibia) he joined the Abwehr’s emerging Brandenburg Division in 1941 and assumed command of the Tropenkompanie (Tropical…
THE WILLEMSBRUG. ROTTERDAM. MAY 10TH 1940.
The capture of the Willems Bridge at Rotterdam was an important first day objective for German air landing and Paratroops taking part in the invasion of Holland. These comprised a Railway Bridge and a road bridge known as Willemsbrug. The former was of limited use to the invasion forces because…