The
Fallschirm-Panzer-Division 1. Hermann
Göring (1st Paratroop Panzer
Division Hermann Goering - abbreviated
Fallschirm-Panzer-Div 1
HG) was an élite
German
Luftwaffe armoured division.
The HG saw
action in North Africa, Sicily, Italy
and on the
Eastern front. The
division was the creation of
Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring and increased in size
throughout the war from an
Abteilung
(battalion) to a
Panzer corps.
Creation and early history
When
Adolf Hitler's
NSDAP swept to power in Germany in 1933,
World War I fighter
ace Hermann Göring was
appointed as Prussian
Minister
of the Interior. In this capacity, all
Police units in Prussia came under Göring's
control.
On 24 February 1933, with the intention of creating a police unit
of unswerving loyalty to the
NSDAP regime,
Göring authorized the creation of
Polizeiabteilung
z.b.V. Wecke (Police Battalion
for special purposes Wecke).
The unit was named after its commander,
Prussian World War I veteran and
early NSDAP member Major der Schutzpolizei Walther Wecke.
The abteilung was based
in the Berlin
-Kreuzberg
neighbourhood, and quickly began to build a
reputation as a ruthless and brutal Nazi enforcement
unit. Working in conjunction
with Göring's secret police, the Gestapo
, the unit
was involved in many attacks against Communists
and Social democrats, and was responsible for
the capture and arrest of many of those opposed to the
Nazis.
In June 1933, Göring expanded the Abteilung and transferred control
of the unit from the Berlin Polizei to the newly reformed
Landespolizei (
State
Police). The unit was correspondigly renamed
Landespolizeigruppe Wecke z.b.V..
In January
1934, under pressure from Hitler and Himmler, Göring gave Himmler's SS
control of
the Gestapo. To reinforce the position of his remaining
unit, Göring increased its size and created the requirement that
all members must pass a military training program. The reformed
unit was called
Landespolizeigruppe General Göring
(State Police Group General
Goering). When Ernst Röhm's SA
began to
make demands to the NSDAP leadership, Hitler ordered Göring's
LPG Wecke and Himmler's Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler
to take action.
During the Night of the Long Knives, LPG
Wecke and the Leibstandarte executed many major SA
leaders, removing the formation as a threat to the
NSDAP.
Luftwaffe control - early campaigns
In 1935, Göring was promoted to command of the
Luftwaffe. Unwilling to leave his favourite unit
behind, he ordered it transferred to the Luftwaffe, renaming the
unit
Regiment General Göring in September
1935.
The unit was now sent for re-training and re-equipping as a
Luftwaffe unit. During this period, the
I.Jäger-Bataillon
and
15. Pionier-Kompanie were sent to
Döberitz
for
parachute training. These units were separated from the
regiment in March 1938 and redesignated
I./ Fallschirmjäger-Regiment
1, the first of the
Fallschirmjäger (airborne)
units.
By early 1936, the regiment was again ready for action. By this
time, all organised resistance to the NSDAP had either been crushed
or left Germany, and so the regiment was put to work as a personal
bodyguard for Göring and providing
flak
protection for Hitler's Headquarters.
When
Germany annexed Austria
in the
Anschluss of March 1938, the
regiment was one of the first units to cross the border.
Similarly, during the invasion of the
Sudetenland in October 1938 and the occupation of
Prague in March 1939, the
General Göring was among the
first units in the German occupation force.
During the
invasion of
Poland, only a small part of the regiment was involved in the
fighting. The majority of the unit was to stay in Berlin to
continue their duties providing flak protection and guards for
Göring and the NSDAP leadership. During
the invasions of Denmark and
Norway, elements of the regiment (a guard battalion, a
motorcycle company and a flak component) took part in the campaign
and acquitted themselves well.
The main body of the regiment had been moved west to the
German-Dutch border using the false designations
FlaK-Regiment
101 and
FlaK-Regiment 103.
During Fall Gelb, this force took part in the invasion of
The
Netherlands
and Belgium
.
The
imposing fortress Eben
Emael
was captured and neutralised by fallschirmjägers,
many of whom had previously served in the General
Göring.
After the capitulation of the Netherlands, the regiment was broken
up into several small
Kampfgruppen and
these were attached to the
Panzer
divisions spearheading the advance. The regiment again
acquitted itself well, especially the flak troops, who often
operated in an anti-armour capacity. In an engagement at
Mormal Wood, heavy
8.8 cm
FlaK 18s engaged French tanks at ranges of only a few yards.
During this battle, the regiment gained a reputation for
steadfastness under fire.
After the
surrender of France, the regiment was stationed on the Channel
coast, before being moved back to Paris
to provide
flak protection for the city. Late in 1940, the regiment was
moved back to Berlin to resume its former duties as honour guards
and flak protection.
Barbarossa - North Africa
In early 1941, the regiment was reorganized as a motorized
regiment. During this time, it was redesignated
Regiment
(mot) Hermann Göring, as Göring had been promoted
to Reichsmarschall.
After this restructuring, the regiment was
moved east to take part in the
invasion of the Soviet Union.
When
Mussolini's disastrous invasion of Greece caused the delay of
Barbarossa and the German
invasion of the Balkans and
Greece
, the
regiment was stationed in the Romanian
oilfields near Ploieşti
to provide flak protection.
Barbarossa got underway on 22 June 1941, and during the campaign,
the regiment was attached to the
11.Panzer-Division, a part of
Army Group South.
The regiment saw
action around the areas of Radziechow,
Kiev
and Brjansk
, destroying many Soviet tanks with their
8.8 cm flak guns. At the end of 1941, the regiment was
returned to Germany for rest and refit, having suffered moderate
casualties in the campaign. The Schützen-Bataillon
Hermann
Göring remained at the front until May 1942.
In July 1942 the regiment was upgraded to
brigade status and redesignated
Brigade
Hermann Göring.
In October 1942, while the brigade was
still being restructured, it was decided to further upgrade the
status of the Hermann Göring to a full division.
The division would be organized along the lines
of a Heer Panzer division.
Göring arranged for veteran Heer panzer crewmen
to be transferred to his division, and brought the mechanized
infantry component up to strength with the addition of the 5.
Fallschirmjäger-Regiment.
While the
division was in formation, the Second
Battle of El Alamein
had forced Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel's Afrika
Korps to retreat from the Egyptian
-Libyan
border back
towards Tunisia
. Still not fully formed, the
Hermann
Göring, under the banner of
Kampfgruppe
Schmid, under the command of
Generalmajor
Joseph Schmid, was sent to Tunisia
piecemeal in an attempt to bolster Rommel's force. KG Schmid
surrendered along with the rest of
Panzer Army Afrika. With this action, the
division lost all of its combat units and many of its command
units. Göring immediately ordered the division to be
reformed.
Panzer Division - Sicily - Italy
Several units of the
Hermann Göring Division which had
been completing training or awaiting transfer to Tunisia were to be
used for the basis for a reformed Division. The division was to be
designated
Panzer-Division Hermann
Göring. By
mid-June, the new division was ready for combat, and was shipped to
Sicily to defend against the expected Allied
invasion. When
the Allies launched Operation Husky
on 10 July 1943, Hermann Göring was in place to defend
the island. The division's
efforts were hindered by the surrender of the majority of the
Italian defenders.
The division was engaged
at Gela
and Priolo
Gargallo
, but heavy
Allied air and naval superiority forced the German divisions to
retreat to Messina
.
During Operation
Lehrgang, the German evacuation of Sicily, the Hermann
Göring formed part of the rearguard, being one of the last
units to leave Sicily for the
mainland.
When the Italian government surrendered to the Allies, the division
took part in the
operations to disarm
Italian troops. When the Allies
landed at Salerno on 9 September, the
division, being stationed in the Salerno area, was thrown into the
fight.
When the German defence began to yield, the
division executed a fighting withdrawal towards the Volturno
-Termoli
line. After holding the line for as long as
possible, the division fell back to the
Gustav Line, where it was finally pulled out of
the line for rest and refit.
Art rescue controversy
As the
Allies pushed further north, towards the abbey
of Monte
Cassino
, the division's workshop detachment, under the
command of Oberstleutnant Julius Schlegel, volunteered their services
to the monks to remove the abbey's precious artworks. The
monks agreed, and the division's vehicles were used to transfer the
irreplaceable works of art, including paintings by
Da Vinci,
Titian and
Raphael and the remains of St. Benedict himself.
The cargo
was deposited at the Vatican
and was so spared destruction in the Battle of
Monte Cassino
. Because of the Göring's reputation as a
looter of artworks, a detachment of SS
military police were sent to the abbey to
arrest and execute Schlegel. It was only through the persuasion of
the monks and the intervention by the divisional commander on his
behalf that Schlegel escaped punishment, and the operation
continued. In thanks, the monks of Monte Cassino celebrated a
special
mass, and presented Schlegel
with an
illuminated scroll
recognizing his efforts.
After the war, Schegel was arrested as a
suspected war criminal and looter, and it was only after the
personal intervention of British
Field Marshal Harold
Alexander that he was released.
When the Allies landed at
Anzio in
February 1944, the division was rushed to the area and took part in
the battles against the invasion force, and for a time was employed
opposite the
1st Special Service
Force.
From February to April 1944, the division
saw fighting at Cisterna, on the Rapido River and at Minturno
.
Transfer to the east
In April 1944, the division was pulled out of the line to the area
around
Toscana to be reorganized as
Fallschirm-Panzer-Division 1. Hermann
Göring (1st Parachute-Panzer-Division Hermann
Goering). The change resulted
in no major change in the organization of the division, however
during this time away from the front the division was refitted and
received replacement troops and vehicles, bringing it back up to
strength after over 8 months of continual
combat. Arrangements
were made for the division to be shipped to France to prepare for
the expected allied
invasion.
The
allied offensive towards Rome
on 12 May meant that these plans were canceled and the
Hermann Göring was thrown back into the line.
Executing a fighting withdrawal towards Rome, the division held off
the allied forces while the last German troops were evacuated, and
on
4 June fell back behind the Italian
capital, which had been declared an open city to prevent its
destruction.
The Hermann Göring settled in,
defending against allied probing attacks towards Florence
. On
15 July the
division was ordered out of the line to prepare for transport to
the
Eastern Front.
During this period, several veteran cadres were drawn from the
division for the formation of
Fallschirm-Panzergrenadier-Division
2. Hermann
Göring, the division's sister formation currently being
formed in Radom
.
Also, the majority of the division's supply units were removed, as
were many of its staff officers. These units were to go towards the
creation of Fallschirm-Panzerkorps
Hermann Göring, under
which the two
Hermann Göring divisions were to
operate.
Battle of Radzymin
The division was to be attached to the newly formed
Heeresgruppe Weichsel, currently
defending the ruins of
Warsaw
turned into
a fortress "
Festung Warschau"
according to German propaganda. The division arrived at the
Vistula front in mid-September and was
immediately thrown into action, fighting alongside the veteran
5.SS-Panzer-Division
Wiking on the
Vistula
River between
Modlin and Warsaw. During
heavy fighting, the division, along with the
Wiking,
effectively destroyed the Red
Army's 3rd Tank Corps.
The advent of the Warsaw Uprising brought the Soviet
offensive
to a halt (probably intentionally on Stalin's order for the rising
to fail), and relative peace fell on the front line as the
underground Armia Krajowa fought
itself to extinction.
East Prussia - defeat
The
Fallschirm-Panzerkorps Hermann Göring
was activated in early October 1944, and the
Hermann Göring Panzer division, along with its sister Panzergrenadier division, was transferred to
the command of the corps. The
Panzerkorps was then transferred to the East Prussia-Kurland
region to halt the Soviet offensive which had already achieved the
isolation of Army Group North in
the Kurland Pocket and was now aimed
at the capture of East Prussia.
The Panzerkorps was involved in heavy defensive
fighting near Gumbinnen, and when the Soviet assault petered out in
late November, the Panzerkorps set up static defensive
lines.
The massive Soviet
Vistula-Oder
Offensive trapped the
Hermann Göring Panzerkorps in
the
Heiligenbeil Pocket along
with the rest of the
4.Armee. In
February, the
Heer's élite
Panzergrenadier-Division
Großdeutschland was attached to the corps.
Despite
several breakout attempts, the Panzerkorps had to be evacuated by
sea to Swinemünde
in Pomerania. Upon
landing, it was thrown back into combat, defending the
Oder-Neisse line against Soviet attacks
through mid-March. To bolster the corps' strength, the elite
Panzergrenadier-Division
Brandenburg was attached to the unit.
In April,
the remnants of the Hermann Göring Panzerkorps was sent to
Silesia, and in heavy fighting was slowly
pushed back into Saxony
. On
April 22, the Fallschirm-Panzer-Division 1.
Hermann Göring
was one of two divisions that broke through the inter-army boundary
of the
Polish 2nd Army (Polish
People's Army or LWP) and the Soviet 52nd Army, in an action near
Bautzen, destroying parts
of their communications and logistics trains and severely damaging
the Polish (LWP) 5th Infantry Division and 16th Tank Brigade before
being stopped two days later.
By early
May, the Panzerkorps was positioned near the Saxon capitol of
Dresden
. The remains of the corps began breakout
attempts to the west, in order to surrender to the Americans who
were currently halted on the
Elbe. Despite
valiant breakout attempts, the corps was encircled, and although
several small groups successfully made it through to the west, the
majority of the corps surrendered to the Soviets on 8 May 1945.
As
Luftwaffe men, along with the Waffen-SS
and Polizei units, were seen by the Russians as war criminals, due
to their involvement in atrocities committed on Eastern Front, the
majority of the survivors of the Panzerkorps would not return from
the Gulags of the Soviet Union
.
War crimes
According
to a British Government report,
the Hermann Göring Division was involved in several
reprisal operations during its time in
Italy . One of these occurred in the surrounding of
the village of Civtella in Val di Chiana
on 6 June 1944 where 250 citizens were
killed.
Circa 800 soldiers from the division took part in fighting during
the
Warsaw Uprising in the Wola
district, where mass executions of civilians occurred in connection
with Hitler's orders to destroy the city . The units were:
- II./Fallschirm-Panzer-Regiment "Hermann Göring" (20 PzKpfw IV
tanks)
- III./Fallschirm-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 2. "Hermann
Göring"
- IV./Fallschirm-Panzer-Artillerie-Regiment "Hermann
Göring"[110954]
Polish sources claim soldiers of the
Herman Goering
Division used civilians as human shields against tanks .
Commanders
Fallschirm-Panzer-Korps Hermann Göring
- Generalleutnant Wilhelm Schmalz (4 Oct 1944 - 8 May 1945)
Unit lineage
- Polizeiabteilung z.b. V. Wecke
- Landespolizeigruppe Wecke z.b. V
- Landespolizeigruppe General Göring
- Regiment General Göring
- Regiment (mot) Hermann Göring
- Brigade Hermann Göring
- Division Hermann Göring
- Panzer-Division Hermann Göring
- Fallschirm-Panzer-Division 1. Hermann Göring
- Fallschirm-Panzerkorps Hermann Göring
Orders of Battle
Regiment General Göring, 1939
Regimentstab
- Musikkorps
- I. (schwere) Flak-Abt.
- II. (leichte) Flak-Abt.
- III. Scheinwerfer-Abt.
- IV. (leichte) Flak-Abt.
- Wachbataillon
- Reiterschwadron
- 9. Kompanie
- 10. Kompanie
- 11. Wachkompanie
- Ersatz- Abteilung
- (schwere) Eisenbahn Flak-Batterie
- (leichte) Flak-Batterie
Division Hermann Göring, November 1942
- Divisionsstab
- Panzer-Regiment Hermann Göring
- Panzergrenadier-Regiment 1 Hermann Göring
- Panzergrenadier-Regiment 2 Hermann Göring
- Panzer-Aufklärungs- Abt. Hermann Göring
- Flak-Regiment Hermann Göring
- Panzer-Artillerie- Regiment Hermann Göring
- Panzer-Pionier- Btl. Hermann Göring
- Panzer-Nachrichten- Abt. Hermann Göring
- Feldersatz-Bataillon Hermann Göring
- Divisionkampfschule Hermann Göring
- Nachschub-Abt. Hermann Göring
- Instandsetzung-Abt. Hermann Göring
- Verwaltungstruppe Hermann Göring
- Sanitäts-Abt. Hermann Göring
Fallschirm-Panzer-Division 1 Hermann Göring, May
1944
- Divisionsstab
- Stabskompanie
- Feldgenerarmerietrupp
- Fallschirm-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 1 Hermann
Göring
- Fallschirm-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 2 Hermann
Göring
- Fallschirm-Panzer-Regiment Hermann Göring
- Fallschirm-Panzer-Aufklärungs-Abteilung 1 Hermann
Göring
- Fallschirm-Panzer-Füsilier-Bataillon 1 Hermann
Göring
- Fallschirm-Panzer-Artillerie-Regiment 1 Hermann
Göring
- Fallschirm-Panzer-Pionier-Bataillon 1 Hermann
Göring
- Fallschirm-Panzer-Nachrichten-Abteilung 1 Hermann
Göring
- Fallschirm-Panzer-Feldersatz-Bataillon 1 Hermann
Göring
- Feldpostamt 1 Hermann Göring
Fallschirm-Panzerkorps Hermann Göring, November
1944
- Stab der Korps
- Feldgendarmeriezug
- Flugbereitschaft
- Kriegsberichtertrupp
- Fallschirm-Flakregiment Hermann Göring
- Fallschirm-Panzersturmbataillon Hermann Göring
- Fallschirm-Panzerkorpspionierbataillon Hermann
Göring
- Fallschirm-Panzerkorpsnachrichtenabteilung Hermann
Göring
- Nachschubabteilung Hermann Göring
- Instandsetzungsabteilung Hermann Göring
- Verwaltungsbataillon Hermann Göring
- Sanitätsabteilung Hermann Göring
- Korpsfeldpostamt Hermann Göring
- Fallschirm-Panzer-Division 1. Hermann Göring
- Fallschirm-Panzergrenadier-Division 2. Hermann
Göring
See also
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