Who is this Ardennes soldier?

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Blue Jay
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Re: Ardennes : name & unit of Rottenführer with Sturmgewehr

#16

Post by Blue Jay » 01 Jul 2011, 20:40

... this is a picture of the figure. I've currently assembled it and he's ready to be painted ...
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Harro
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Re: Ardennes : name & unit of Rottenführer with Sturmgewehr

#17

Post by Harro » 02 Jul 2011, 10:31

Blue Jay wrote:Although the man in the picture is a Rottenführer by rank (clearly visible in the photographs), he has been on some forums given the identity of Unterscharführer Josef Pries of the cyclists platoon of the Stabs company of SS Aufkl Abt 1 ... why did he wear the wrong rank insignia ? was there a shortage in collar tabs with ss rank insignia in 1944 ?
I wondered about that too but veterans from the SS-Pz.AA1 insist that it's Prieß. Note that the same problem occurs with the man they identified as "Wilhelm Gilbert" in the same photos: overall he looks like Gilbert (face, especially the eyebrows, silver CCC) but the Poteau "Gilbert" also has SS-Rottenführer collartabs and (like Prieß) Willi Gilbert was an SS-Unterscharführer in December 1944. But a shortage in collartabs sound far fetched to me.


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Re: Ardennes : name & unit of Rottenführer with Sturmgewehr

#18

Post by Blue Jay » 02 Jul 2011, 13:05

Harro wrote:I wondered about that too but veterans from the SS-Pz.AA1 insist that it's Prieß. Note that the same problem occurs with the man they identified as "Wilhelm Gilbert" in the same photos: overall he looks like Gilbert (face, especially the eyebrows, silver CCC) but the Poteau "Gilbert" also has SS-Rottenführer collartabs and (like Prieß) Willi Gilbert was an SS-Unterscharführer in December 1944. But a shortage in collartabs sound far fetched to me.
Thank you very much for your reply.

So, the man with the Sturmgewehr, in Pallud's book "Rottenführer Y", would be "Josef Prieß", and I guess you mean the man with the raincoat, in Pallud's book "Rottenführer Z", would be "Wilhelm Gilbert", according to veterans of the SS-Pz Aufkl Abt 1.

If the two Rottenführers are indeed panzergrenadiers from SS-Pz Aufkl Abt 1, regardless if they are Priess and Gilbert, then in any case they would have been transported on vehicles to Poteau - Sd Kfz 250 halftracks I guess ... is that correct ?

That would in any case explain why the two Rottenführers and the grenadiers in the long coats are carrying only weapons and ammunition in the pictures of Poteau : that is typical for Panzergrenadiers travelling on halftracks. The other men in the Poteau pictures carry more equipment (water canteen, etc,), they look more like infantry travelling on foot.

Harro, do you know more about the itinerary of these men of SS-Pz Aufkl Abt 1, why did they pass along the site of the Ambush, which units (company, platoon ?) , which vehicles (Sd Kfz 250 ? ... Sd Kfz 234 Puma's maybe ?)

thank you

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Re: Ardennes : name & unit of Rottenführer with Sturmgewehr

#19

Post by Harro » 02 Jul 2011, 13:36

Blue Jay wrote:So, the man with the Sturmgewehr, in Pallud's book "Rottenführer Y", would be "Josef Prieß", and I guess you mean the man with the raincoat, in Pallud's book "Rottenführer Z", would be "Wilhelm Gilbert", according to veterans of the SS-Pz Aufkl Abt 1.
Exactly
Blue Jay wrote:If the two Rottenführers are indeed panzergrenadiers from SS-Pz Aufkl Abt 1, regardless if they are Priess and Gilbert, then in any case they would have been transported on vehicles to Poteau - Sd Kfz 250 halftracks I guess ... is that correct ?
Gilbert was Zugführer of the II. Zug, 2. Kompanie (Sd.Kfz. 250). Prieß led a Gruppe in the Fahrradzug (bicycles), Stabskompanie, but it is known that the platoon soon loaded its bicycles on trucks and hitched a ride on the rear decks of the 8-wheelers (Sd.Kfz. 241/ and /3) which were also present in the Stabskompanie. They have been photographed earlier during the advance. The photo also shows "Rottenführer Z" which sort of confirms that this is in fact also a member of the Fahrradzug and not Willi Gilbert from 2./AA LAH.
Blue Jay wrote:That would in any case explain why the two Rottenführers and the grenadiers in the long coats are carrying only weapons and ammunition in the pictures of Poteau : that is typical for Panzergrenadiers travelling on halftracks. The other men in the Poteau pictures carry more equipment (water canteen, etc,), they look more like infantry travelling on foot.

Correct would be to call them Kradschützen instead of Panzergrenadiers: despite the fact that they exchanged their motorbikes for Schwimmwagen and le. SPW in 1942, this is what they were still called. And indeed, they lacked personal gear in such pictures because they kept such items in their vehicles.
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Re: Ardennes : name & unit of Rottenführer with Sturmgewehr

#20

Post by Blue Jay » 02 Jul 2011, 14:35

Harro wrote:Gilbert was Zugführer of the II. Zug, 2. Kompanie (Sd.Kfz. 250). Prieß led a Gruppe in the Fahrradzug (bicycles), Stabskompanie, but it is known that the platoon soon loaded its bicycles on trucks and hitched a ride on the rear decks of the 8-wheelers (Sd.Kfz. 241/ and /3) which were also present in the Stabskompanie. They have been photographed earlier during the advance. The photo also shows "Rottenführer Z" which sort of confirms that this is in fact also a member of the Fahrradzug and not Willi Gilbert from 2./AA LAH.
That is a magnificent picture, are you sure it is from the Ardennes offensive ? Where was this photographed, do you know the location ? Well if it is indeed a photo from the Ardennes, then in that case maybe the man with the funny eyebrows on the left is indeed "Rottenführer Z" ... interesting !

Thank you very much for all the interesting info it is all very much appreciated.

Is there any order of battle of SS-Pz Aufkl Abt 1 which indicates what versions of the Sd Kfz 234 were used exactly in december 1944 in the Stabs Kompanie ? I would be very interested to make a scale model of the vehicle in that photograph. Was it an Sd Kfz 234/1 ? Or an Sd Kfz 234/3, with the short gun ? And what about the "classic" Puma, the Sd Kfz 234/2, did the Leibstandarte have these in the Ardennes ?

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Re: Ardennes : name & unit of Rottenführer with Sturmgewehr

#21

Post by Harro » 02 Jul 2011, 18:14

The photo was taken by the same photographer who made the Poteau photos. No doubt it's "Z". It's supposedly the Sd.Kfz. 234/1 of SS-Oberscharführer Eugen Henn. The Stabskompanie had 234/1 and 234/3.

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Re: Ardennes : name & unit of Rottenführer with Sturmgewehr

#22

Post by Blue Jay » 03 Jul 2011, 08:15

Thank you very much Harro !

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article in After the Battle n°142 "Poteau revisited"

#23

Post by Blue Jay » 06 Jul 2011, 12:44

To make a conclusion to this topic : I just received a copy of issue n° 142 of ATB magazine, in which there's an article by JP Pallud. The article is sort of an update to what he wrote about Poteau in his monumental book the Battle of the Bulge Then and Now.

Pallud also mentions the name Josef Prieß, an Unterscharführer of Stab Kompanie of SS-Pz A A 1, in this article as a possible identity of "Rottenführer Y", it was a veteran of SS-Pz Aufkl Abt 1 who mentioned this to Timo Worst, a Dutch researcher specialised in the history of Schnelle Gruppe Knittel.
Remains the fact that "Rottenführer Y" is wearing Rottenführer collar tabs, no Unterscharführer rank tabs and silver collar border in sight on the photos. That makes this identification still debatable. It could be explained if the man was just days before promoted and would not have had time to put the proper rank insignia on his uniform.... who will ever say ...
Based on information from Timo Worst, it is quite well possible that the SS-Pz Aufkl Abt 1 also passed by Poteau, and indeed some officers of that unit can be identified in the pictures.

So, I guess we'd best stick to "Rottenführer Y" for the man's identity, but it is very well possible and even likely that he's a soldier from SS-Panzer-Aufklärungs-Abteilung 1 of the Leibstandarte A. H. , and not from 2./I./Pz-Gren-Regt 1 as written in earlier publications ... He may have got to Poteau on either a Sd Kfz 250 halftrack or maybe even a Sd Kfz 234/1 or /3, and arrived there by noon, which is the time when these pictures and film were shot - hours after the action against 14th US cavalry... seems logical to me, Schnelle Gruppe Knittel followed Kampfgruppe Hansen until the 18th december I think, so I suppose they would have got to Poteau after KG hansen passed there as well ...

And now I'm going to let this rest and enjoy painting that figure ! :)

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Re: Ardennes : name & unit of Rottenführer with Sturmgewehr

#24

Post by Harro » 06 Jul 2011, 15:25

Well, I'm Timo and because Helmut M and serveral other veterans insisted that the men in those photo's are Gilbert and Prieß, and because Gilbert certainly looks very similar to "Z" (mentioned eyebrows), I wrote about Prieß and Gilbert in the AHF forum many years ago. But details such as the SS-Rottenführer collar tabs and "Z" being a passenger on the 8-Rad do rule them out. There's little doubt that those men are indeed from the Fahrradzug of SS-Untersturmführer Kollatschny (the platoon was equipped with Sturmgewehre and the passengers on the Stabskompanie 8-Rad PSW's were from this platoon) but in my opinion they cannot be Prieß and Gilbert.

Pallud approached me through e-mail but I decided not to help him because of my doubts regarding the information I recieved from the veterans. It is a pitty that he decided to use info from my old forum posts.

BTW, only few elements of the SS-PzAA1 passed that location near Poteau. The main body of the Schnelle Gruppe used a more northern route: Hallschlag, Holzheim, Born, Kaiserbaracke, Stavelot.

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the Sturmgewehr 44 in the Ardennes

#25

Post by Blue Jay » 06 Jul 2011, 22:03

Well hello Timo, it's nice to meet you; thank you for all the information you have shared in this topic. :wink: I have a better insight now about who are the people in the Poteau pictures, what they are doing there, etc.

There's just one last thing I'd want to ask : you mention that the men of the Fahrradzug of the Stab Kp of SS-PzAA 1 were equipped with Sturmgewehr 44. Indeed our Rottenführer Y was famously filmed and photographed with this weapon. It is also clear that although only a Rottenführer, he's a squad leader, as he also carries the leather map case that officers and NCO's normally have. He also posed for the photographer as a squad leader signalling his men to advance.

I suppose that this Fahrradzug was meant to be equipped then along the lines of a Volksgrenadier platoon, is that correct ? ie. A few men (squad leaders ?) with Sturmgewehre 44, the rest with Gewehr 43, and bicycles ? (But obviously no winter clothing, which the VG did have ... )

Do you know of which other SS troops of the Leibstandarte AH the squad leaders had Sturmgewehr 44 and the rest gewehr 43 ? is that info available ? ... I suppose the Sturmgewehr 44 weapon was not that common that every soldier in the SS had one ?
What were the common German infantry weapons in the Ardennes ? Was the Leibstandarte different in that aspect than other units ? Were there any differences in weapons between Waffen-SS troops, Volksgrenadiere, etc ?

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Re: the Sturmgewehr 44 in the Ardennes

#26

Post by Harro » 07 Jul 2011, 09:34

Blue Jay wrote:There's just one last thing I'd want to ask : you mention that the men of the Fahrradzug of the Stab Kp of SS-PzAA 1 were equipped with Sturmgewehr 44. Indeed our Rottenführer Y was famously filmed and photographed with this weapon. It is also clear that although only a Rottenführer, he's a squad leader, as he also carries the leather map case that officers and NCO's normally have. He also posed for the photographer as a squad leader signalling his men to advance.
Well, you've summed up nicely why innitially there was no reason to doubt what veterans said about this. Prieß was Helmut's squadleader in the Fahrradzug, so if he identifies the man in the photo as Prieß and we see the equipment of the man in the photo (especially the "signalling" photo in which the collar tab isn't visible) I believe him. Also when he identified "Z" as Gilbert there was no doubt because "Z" and Gilbert look very much the same (see the photo of Gilbert below) and had the silver Nahkampfspange (close combat clasp) just like "Z".

But then Helmut identified the officer with the stick (also one of the Poteau photos) as Wawrzinek but photos of the real Wawrzinek clearly show that it's not him.

Then the photo showed up with "Z" as an 8-Rad passenger. SS-Unterscharführer Gilbert was a Zugführer in 2./AA and as such commanded an Sd.Kfz. 250. It makes no sense that he would be a passenger on a Pz.Sp.Wagen of an entirely different Kompanie. Add to that the fact that "Z" was an SS-Rottenführer (no way that a Rttf was platoon commander) and we must conclude that "Z" isn't Gilbert. Which leaves us with "Z's" silver CCC: is it a bronze one that appears to be silver due to reflection of the light? Who knows, fact is that there weren't that many silver ones around at that time.

Then off course Prieß was also an SS-Unterscharführer. There's no doubt about that, because his promotion to Uscha is listed in the Kriegstagebuch of the AA LAH (21. Juli 1943, m.W.v. 1. Juli 1943), the letter from his Kompanieführer to his widow (21. Januar 1945) gives that rank and he is burried as such (Recogne-Bastogne, Endgrablage: Block 16, Grab 201). So why Helmut identified "Y" as Prieß: we must keep in mind that Prieß was killed in action on 04.01.1945 so when we showed Helmut the "signalling" photo it was over sixty years since he'd last seen him. Possibly the mapcase made him believe that it must have been his squad leader Prieß.
Blue Jay wrote:I suppose that this Fahrradzug was meant to be equipped then along the lines of a Volksgrenadier platoon, is that correct ? ie. A few men (squad leaders ?) with Sturmgewehre 44, the rest with Gewehr 43, and bicycles ? (But obviously no winter clothing, which the VG did have ... )

Do you know of which other SS troops of the Leibstandarte AH the squad leaders had Sturmgewehr 44 and the rest gewehr 43 ? is that info available ? ... I suppose the Sturmgewehr 44 weapon was not that common that every soldier in the SS had one ?
What were the common German infantry weapons in the Ardennes ? Was the Leibstandarte different in that aspect than other units ? Were there any differences in weapons between Waffen-SS troops, Volksgrenadiere, etc ?
The Fahrradzug had one squad completely equipped with Sturmgewehre, the other squads had rifles. It was innitally a platoon from 3./AA but there were not enough Schimmwagen around to fully equip that Kompanie, so they recieved bicycles instead and were tranfered to the Stabskompanie. All members of the Fahrradzug rode bicycles and the platoon had two trucks to carry the bicycles when the unit advanced on foot. They did have long winter overcoats but these hindered them to much when cycling and when one soldier got his coat entangled in the spokes of his front wheel, fell, and was ran over by an armoured car, they were ordered to take them off.
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Re: Ardennes : name & unit of Rottenführer with Sturmgewehr

#27

Post by Larso » 07 Jul 2011, 10:12

I've always been fascinated by these pictures. I take it Gilbert is the 'machine gunner' as shown on Wiki's Bulge page?
Did the fellows named (as opposed to those pictured whose identities, from the discussion, seems open) survive the war?

As to why I'm fascinated - I guess it's because they're iconic and have been used so many times. The one of 'Gilbert' is particularly interesting given the clarity of his face. You can read so much into it.

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Re: Ardennes : name & unit of Rottenführer with Sturmgewehr

#28

Post by Harro » 07 Jul 2011, 20:26

Hi Larso!

Nope, this is "Gilbert" (or in fact isn't)

Image
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Image

The SS-Untersturmführer has been identified as Siegfried Stiewe, the adjutant of the SS-Pz.AA1 LSSAH. He was KIA in March 1945. ID came from Jean-Paul Pallud. But I'm still looking for a photo of SS-Untersturmführer Kollatschny. He was the commanding officer of the Fahrradzug and I would like to compare his portrait to this photo of "Stiewe".

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Re: Ardennes : name & unit of Rottenführer with Sturmgewehr

#29

Post by Larso » 08 Jul 2011, 00:37

Thank-you Harro

I know the picture of the young soldier has been posted/discussed before but I can't find it by the search terms I've used. Can anyone out there read my mind as to which one I mean? I think it was a still from footage? He has a machine gun and bandoliers hanging fron his neck, he has some sort of scarf under his helmet against the sides of his face. Actually, his picture appears about 2/3rds down Wiki's Battle of the Bulge page under the heading 'Seige of Bastogne'. I've been wondering about him for years, so anyone who could point me towards some more information would be greatly appreciated!

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Re: Ardennes : name & unit of Rottenführer with Sturmgewehr

#30

Post by Blue Jay » 08 Jul 2011, 06:53

Larso wrote:Thank-you Harro

I know the picture of the young soldier has been posted/discussed before but I can't find it by the search terms I've used. Can anyone out there read my mind as to which one I mean? I think it was a still from footage? He has a machine gun and bandoliers hanging fron his neck, he has some sort of scarf under his helmet against the sides of his face. Actually, his picture appears about 2/3rds down Wiki's Battle of the Bulge page under the heading 'Seige of Bastogne'. I've been wondering about him for years, so anyone who could point me towards some more information would be greatly appreciated!
I think you mean "Mr Battle of the Bulge" or "Winter Fritz". He's never been identified and never will be. Only thing that is known is that he was in the LAH and probably from 1. Pz Gren Regt.
In the past a name, Walter Armbrust, has been given, but this was a misunderstanding. (Armbrust is in fact the MG42 gunner with pea dot jacket in another group of Pz Grenadiers - wrong name, different photo).

Winter Fritz remains and will for ever remain the Unknown German Soldier of the Ardennes offensive...
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