Animal Units in Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS

[Panzermahn]

John Toland's book i don't have it with right now...but i try to get the quote from Beevor's book, STalingrad

[Panzermahn]

In the Heer or in the SS?

for horses in the SS, i think the training was conducted by the SS-Reitersturm

i don't know about heer..


how about the dogs' training in both heer and waffen ss?

[Timo]

"Don't you know that the Guard's donkeys have the rank of mules?" (Blaze - La Vie Militaire)

[xcalibur]

besides, how is the horse and dogs training conducted...

Yes, the mice story is not a myth..

John Toland in his book, Hitler mentioned Romanian tanks' wiring were chewed by mice

and Beevor in his book Stalingrad also mentioned about the Russian mice attack

I believe Yad Vashem has some interesting anecdotal, as well as fragmentary documentary information regarding judeo-bolshevik partisan mice. IIRC, the German cats initially had trouble identifying and separating these jewish mice from the Russian mouse population at large. The head of the German cat brigades then hit upon the idea that the jewish mice could be identified because they had been circumcised. Many German cats were then tasked with squeezing the tummies of captured mice to determine their racial origin. This task was considered very tedious so Berlin dispatched Dr. Viktor Brack with hundreds of tiny x-ray machines in an effort to sterilise all the captured Russian mice. Thus sterilised, the mice were considered safe enough to be transported to the armaments industry within the Reich and were worked to death running thousands of tiny treadmills. Reichsminister Albert Speer credited this program with generating much of the electricity needed for the expansion of armaments production in 1943-44.

The head of the anti-partisan operations amongst mice, General and HSSPF Erich von dem Bach-KatzMeowski has never been brought to justice.

[Timo]

That's great xcalibur! Thanks

[xcalibur]

That's great xcalibur! Thanks

No problem. I just thought that Panzermahn deserved a balanced answer to his question; one that reflected a philosemitic point of view.

[Timo]

Rumours are that they escaped to south-america but I've been told that Von dem Bach-KatzMeowski and SS-Oberkätzchenführer Katzenjammer were seen together at a veterans meeting fighting for some milk.

This reminds me of the brilliant work of Art Spiegelman.

[xcalibur]

Rumours are that they escaped to south-america but I've been told that Von dem Bach-KatzMeowski and SS-Oberkätzchenführer Katzenjammer were seen together at a veterans meeting fighting for some milk.

This reminds me of the brilliant work of Art Spiegelman.

Maybe you and I and Spiegelman should team up and do an illustrated book of Operation Barbarossa featuring cats and mice.

Uh Oh. We'll have to give some credit as well to Panzermahn. Hmmm, how about we let him park the cars at book signings?

[Marcus]

Let's get back on topic.

/Marcus

[Xavier]

on a more serious note, I have seen pictures of dogteams pulling carts, muck like WWII belgian heavy machinegun teams, will search for the pic and see If I can post it before this weekend.

regards

Xavier
Instandsetzungtruppfuhrer

[Dieter Zinke]

I recall reading a thread on one of the forums about battalions of cats deployed to combat a horde of Russian mice. There was some controversy as to whether this was true or not. But I'm sure that some "inquiring minds" are still wondering if these stories could not be true.

Hi.
Here a serious event with mice as principal actors:
In the middle of November 1942 the tanks of the Panzer-Regiment 204 under Oberst Hermann von Oppeln-Bronikowski (behind the Italian front-lines, Don-front) were standing in ground-boxes, well camouflaged and covered with straw as shelter from coldness.
Intending to start the tanks to remove them to disposal of the XXXXVIII. Panzerkorps only 31 tanks from 104 ( !!! ) could be used.
What happened:
The mice in the straw had nippled on the rubber of the electrics for igniter, batteries, gun and lens system. Some tanks burned because of short circuit.
Best
Oberstab

[Panzermahn]

Hi,

quote from Antony Beevor's book stalingrad

Chapter Operation Uranus: page 245

Jokes were made about tanks being disable by mice, but few stopped laughing when it is apparent

[Xavier]

as promised:
dog teams with infantry carts next to a stug III eastern front , south part, 1943, from Panzers in the east,(1) the years of aggression, by Robert Michulec



if pics does not work, copy the link and paste in a new window:

http://community.webshots.com/photo/123 ... 0056NngTyQ

please excuse the low quality of the picture, but I tried my best, is a shot of the book's page.

regards

Xavier
Instandsetzungtruppfuhrer

[Tom Houlihan]

Thanks, Xavier! I'd never seen, or heard of that one before! Kinda cool!

[rh_LiteVixeN]

That's a good picture