Prisoner Interrogations 1941 (German 46 ID)

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Jeff Leach
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Prisoner Interrogations 1941 (German 46 ID)

#1

Post by Jeff Leach » 12 Jun 2016, 10:55

A surprisingly interesting source of information about the Soviet forces during Operation Barbarossa, comes from the German interrogation of Soviet prisoners.

Here is one from the 46th Infantry Division from the 8th August 1941. This was just after the Uman Encirclement, when the Soviet forces south of the encirclement were making a hasty retreat in order to avoid being encircles themselves. The Soviet reteat was a pretty unorganized operation. There were a lot of desertions (the Soviets were force conscripting the local population to fill their ranks) and abandoned material left behind. The troops were from Soviet 9th and 18th Armies (unsure at this time where the army boundary line was). It surprising that the 46th Infantry Division took prisoners from the Soviet 51st Rifle Division, which I was under the impression was deployed further to the south.

Prisoner Interrogations 8th August 1941 (Anlagen 49)

Five prisoners from the 51st Rifle Division were interrogated. Two were from the 218th Howitzer (Artillery) Regiment and three from the 23rd Rifle Regiment. Both regiment have been confirmed as belonging to the 51st Rifle Division. The regimental commander of the 23rd Rifle Regiment had been captured on the 2nd July 1941 and had given much useful information concerning the 51st Rifle Division. The 262nd and 348th Rifle Regiments and 225th Artillery Regiment (horse drawn) were also part of the division.*

State of chemical protection **

The 218th Artillery Regiment is equipped with 122 mm howitzers. The 23rd Rifle Regiment has recieved replacement three time. The last time the regiment recieved about 100 reservist, whom where completely untrained.*** The moral of the regiment is very low. The regiment’s officers and comissars don’t show themselves don’t show themselves in the front lines often but stay to the rear. They eat very well, while the regiment’s enlisted men lack the basic necessities. The prisoners had not had any food for the last three days.

The cases of soldiers deserting are on the rise. A few soldiers from 1./23rd Rifle Regiment were caught trying to desert and summerly executed on order of the regimental comissar. The comissar said that there had been about 700 executions in the 14th Rifle Corps (I) since the start of the war.****

* When if comes to Soviet Order of Battle question, the main source is Действующая армия. Перечни войск. Unfortunately this source contains different kinds of errors. Here the 262nd Rifle Regiment should be 263rd Rifle Regiment (Перечень № 5.1). Most likely the interrogator missunderstood. On the other had the 225th Artillery Regiment appears to be an error (according to Перечень № 5.1) but further research showed it to be correct (Перечень № 13.1). An example of a error / oversight in the Soviet records.

** The Germans were very interested in the state of Soviet chemical protection. Chemcial weapons were never used in WW II so this Point has been skipped.

*** It appears that the Soviet were not shy about concripting the local population to fill the ranks of their formations.

**** Does anyone know if this is true?

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Re: Prisoner Interrogations 1941 (German 46 ID)

#2

Post by Jeff Leach » 12 Jun 2016, 13:01

Here is Another

Prisoner Interrogations 8th August 1941 (Anlagen 50)

Advance Detachment Hapfer (Vorausabteilung 46. Infanterie-Division) had during the late evening of the 7th August 1941, took five soldiers and five civilian prisoner near Malaya Kondratovka (northwest of Dolinskoye). The soldiers were from the 6th company II./591st Rifle Regiment (176th Rifle Division (I)).* Their regiment had been scattered and they were left without officers and readialy surrendered.

Of the five soldiers, one was a regular, two were reservist, the last two had been conscripted. One hada little military training but the other had none at all. They were all Ukranians. The regular soldier had first been stationed at Voronezh, later transferring to Simferopol’ and then on the 1st June 1941 (date difficult to be certain of) transferring to Bel’tsy. After being in combat the regiment recieved some Ukranian reservists. The regiment move to Faleshty and later to Ryshkany (Raschkowo?). The reservist had assembled in Anan’yev and then traveled to the regiment via Rybnitsa. He said his company had recieved replacements two or three times but the company never had more than 60 to 70 men. On several occasion the company had gone without food for two or three days.

* The Soviet 176th Rifle Division (I) had been in Heavy combat with the German XXX Army Corps since the end of July. The war diary of the German 46 Infantry Division report on Heavy fighting around Malaya Kondratovka during the day.


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Re: Prisoner Interrogations 1941 (German 46 ID)

#3

Post by Jeff Leach » 25 Jun 2016, 14:49

(Anlagen 61)* Prisoner Interrogations 13th August 1941

371st Rifle Regiment, 130th Rifle Division

These troops now belonged to the 556th Infantry Regiment of the 169th Infantry Division. These two regiments had suffered heavy losses Mogilew, Soroki, Jampol and Wapnjarka and not recieved any replacements. The II./, including their company, had been merged with the 556th Infantry Regiment. Another prisoner was from the 593rd Infantry Regiment of the 96th Rifle Division. He said he had become separated from his regiment and placed in the 556th Infantry Reigment instead.

150th Rifle Division, 328th Artillery Regiment

horse-drawn, 4 batteries with 76 mm guns and 2 batteries with 122 mm howitzers

Early on the 13th August were two gun batteries and one howitzer battery completely destroyed. In the 5th battery had three comissars been killed since the start of the war.

57th Machine Gun Battalion
58th Machine Gun Battalion

The men didn’t know who the controlling headquarters was but they were part of the fortification work around Rybnitza. He company had thirteen heavy machinge guns. There were also troops from ’Rybnitsa’ Border Guard Regiment. Each company from the regiment had three light machine guns and one heavy machine gun. They had never been in company but their unit had suffered heavy losses from friendly mortar and artillery fire. Finally the men had been placed in the 145th, 426th and 427th Construction Battalions . The 426th had worked at the Tiraspol airfield.

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Re: Prisoner Interrogations 1941 (German 46 ID)

#4

Post by Jeff Leach » 25 Jun 2016, 14:52

(Anlagen 59)* Prisoner Interrogations 13th August 1941

A lieutenant from the 218th Artillery Regiment was captured. He said his battalion with 122 mm guns and another battalion with 76 mm, a total of six batteries, were destroyed near Waterloo. The 225th Artillery Regiment was also wiped out, losing over 600 men.

German assualt guns (Stürmgeschutze III) were used during the action and they caused panic among the Soviet troops. Their fire was very well aimed and we had no chance to return fire. The lieutenant had seen two assualt guns.*

The lieutenant stated that he was a Komsomol, a mechanic by trade, and after an eight month training course he became a 2nd Lieutenant. He said there much dissatisfaction within the Komsomol with the army. Its organization was worthless, manifesting itself in the constant contradictory orders and the endless retreats. He wanted no part in the continuation of the war.

* the German records also contain this engagement.

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Re: Prisoner Interrogations 1941 (German 46 ID)

#5

Post by GregSingh » 26 Jun 2016, 07:54

I have no problem finding Rybnitsa, but where in Moldavia is Waterloo???
Must be funny Google translation...

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Re: Prisoner Interrogations 1941 (German 46 ID)

#6

Post by Jeff Leach » 26 Jun 2016, 14:32

Find Novosvitlivka (Rohrbach Siedlung) and about 10 kilometers to the northeast is a Place called Stavki (Waterloo Siedlung). It was an ethnic German area in the Ukraine.

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Re: Prisoner Interrogations 1941 (German 46 ID)

#7

Post by GregSingh » 27 Jun 2016, 01:25

Yes, thanks, found it.
Germans used obsolete maps, based on Austro-Hungarian and late 1920's Soviet maps.
Updated Soviet maps from late 1930's have the names all changed. And quite possibly all German settlers were gone by 1941?

On 1943 German 1:50000 map (based on Russian 1930) map I found "Kolonie Waterloo".

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Re: Prisoner Interrogations 1941 (German 46 ID)

#8

Post by Jeff Leach » 27 Jun 2016, 06:50

The South Front maps from 1941 at https://pamyat-naroda.ru/dou/* show the area still had the German names (Kol. Worms, Kol. Waterloo, Speer, Landau, ...). The prisoner reports from the 46th Infantry Division mention ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) from the area that had been conscripted into the Soviet army.

The XI A.K. and XXX A.K. were already using captured Soviet maps for parts of the Ukraine in August 1941 (they start appearing in the German records just after the Uman Encirclement). I read somewhere the German captured a complete set of Soviet maps in 1942, so I would suspect (hopefully) the German 1:300 000 maps from 1943 and 1944 (Übersichtskarte von Mitteleuropa 1:300 000) are based on the Soviet maps.

* These maps are really large 150 - 450 mb and trying to manipulate them on my home computer causes GIMP2 (the only program I have found that can deal with them) to crash regularly. Therefore, I couldn't post the Soviet map of the area for comparison. These maps can be found using ЮжНФ as the unit abbreviation.

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Re: Prisoner Interrogations 1941 (German 46 ID)

#9

Post by Jeff Leach » 02 Jul 2016, 15:45

I had read German reports of the Soviets using 20 cm artillery in the XXX.A.K. sector, which I had assumed were and exaggeration

Anlagen 42)* Prisoner Interrogations 1st August 1941
Today 89 prisoners were taken. They were from the 78th, 109th and 360th Rifle Regiments and the 110th Sapper Battalion of the 74th Rifle Division and the 389th and 591st Rifle Regiments of the 176th Rifle Division. There were also two wagoners from the 381st Artillery Regiment. They were particularly dumb and didn’t even know the name of their parent formation.

There were two tractor drivers from the 430th Artillery Regiment. They said their regiment had four battalions each with three batteries of three guns. The regiment had received ten new guns. All the guns were 203 mm with a range of 15 – 18 kilometres. The regiment was positioned along a 50 kilometre stretch of the Dniester south of Rybnitsa.

In this area there is only one battery near Saporosche ready for use. When arriving in this area there was trouble finding ammunition. We don’t know what happen because we were remove from the unit a week ago as possible defectors. The regiment was well stocked with ammunition and it hadn’t been employed yet. Each battery had a tractor that pulled an ammunition trailer, which could hold 30 shells (that is 10 shells for each gun). The regimental column had seven more of these trailers. The men suspected that the trailer didn't hold 30 shells or even if they were loaded.

They didn’t know the controlling headquarters of their regiment. Perhaps it was corps artillery.

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Re: Prisoner Interrogations 1941 (German 46 ID)

#10

Post by Jeff Leach » 30 Jul 2016, 15:37

Here is another report that contains some interesting points

(Anlagen 48) Prisoner Interrogations 7th August 1941

Besides the prisoners taken by the VA 46 and interrogate by Senior Leiutenant Groβ, there were 13 prisoners taken near Iwanowka (although most of the prisoners didn’t know the name of the village) on the 6th August. Most of the men were deserters but none of them had one of the German propaganda leaflets with them but two men said they were taken from them on being captured.

The smartest of the lot was a Ukrainian, a tractor driver and mechanic in civilian life. He was a reservist and had been mobilized along with his truck on the 22nd June. He was assigned to the corps staff and was the driver for two different officer. He was driving one of the officers from the corps headquarters to the divisional headquarters, when his vehicle was fired upon by German troops. The officer surrendered first and then he did. He knew little of the fighting and only drove his vehicle. He knew he belonged to the 38th Corps with the 9th Army and the corps controlled the 74th, 150th and 176th Rifle Divisions and two corps artillery regiments, which he didn’t know the numbers of. He knew the 176th Rifle Division controlled four rifle regiments: the 109th, 389th, 404th and 591st. He said he got along with the officers.

There was an active soldier from the 674th Rifle Regiment. He had not participated in the border battles but his regiment had suffered heavy losses. There were no replacements so the the remainder of the 674th Rifle Regiment was absorbed into the 389th Rifle Regiment. The active soldiers in the 674th Rifle Regiment were Russians, Ukrainians and Uzbeks. Replacements to the regiment were recruited from the same nationalities.

Next among the prisoners were three Moldavians and a Ukrainian from a sapper battalion. Two of the Moldavians didn’t understand a word of Russian. All three were from Bessarabia and had been mobilized on the 28th June. The battalion spent a month in Soroki and then travelled to Alexandrovka via Rybnitsa. They said they were from the 390th Sapper Battalion but they seem to confuse this with being part of ‘Command 390’. [should be the sapper battalion of a UR] The Ukrainian said they only dug gun pits for the artillery. There was a chemical battalion in the area but he didn’t know its number or what they did. All the men said the food was bad and morale was poor in the unit. They had no idea of the larger situation.

There were five men from the II./ and III./591st Rifle Regiment (three Ukrainians, an Uzbek and an Azerbajanian). Two of the men were from the signals platoon of the III./. One was only a driver but the other was a telephone operator but he claimed to know nothing about the others arms of service. All were reservist from Ananjew. They said their commissar was always reading the clipping from the newspaper about the achievements of the Soviet troop. This caused the soldiers to laugh because they were always retreating. They said the III./ had suffered over 50% casualties in a large forrest (none of them knew its name) and the 4./, 5./ and 6./ companies had received replacements for the third time.

A russian prisoner had be assigned to the staff of the sapper company of the 389th Rifle Regiment. The company constructed field fortifications. Not all the men in the company had gas masks. There were some Jewish officers and comissars in the regiment but most of them were Russians. There were no Jewish leaders in the sapper company.

The lack of gas masks and in some cases steel helments has been commented on by a number of prisoners. No of the men had seen any tank but some mention seeing tankettes (small tanks). When asked if their artillery had enough ammunition, they did not know. There had been some talk of ammunition shortages.

A Moldavian prisoner had help with the horses in an artillery regiment but all he knew were that the guns were 152 mm.

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Re: Prisoner Interrogations 1941 (German 46 ID)

#11

Post by Jeff Leach » 31 Jul 2016, 09:17

Another interesting report. Sorry about the poor english but these are just my research notes

(Anlagen 52) Prisoner Interrogations 9th August 1941

There were also prisoners from the 247th Sapper Battalion and the 889th Bakery Company taken but the parent division couldn’t be identified.

A staff sergeant with the 30th Reconnaissance Battalion informed that the battalion consisted of an armored car company with 10 light armored cars, a motorized rifle company with six trucks each carrying 20 men, a company with ten 45 mm antitank guns, four of which have been lost already. The battalion also has a signals platoon for wire and radio and a motorized field kitchen. The battalion also had the 4. (MG)/287th Rifle Regiment subordinate. The battalion has suffered heavy losses, especially by German artillery, which also destroyed the sergant’s tank (with 45 mm gun, 2 x MG and a crew of 4). The sergeant was taken prisoner with another man. The other two tank crew members had been killed. His mission had been to establish contact with a scattered unit but which unit it was he was looking for he couldn’t say [or hadn’t been given]. The order had been given by a lieutenant that the sergeant knew worked with the battalion commander. He had been capture by a German outpost near Showtnjewo during the night yesterday. He did not know the name of the town or from which direction he came from, having gotten lost while wandering around. He commented that his battalion had been quite active the last few days. The tanks were refueled from tankers but he didn’t know where the fuel stocks were kept. He said that petroleum had already been scarce the last few days. The tanks could use a petroleum mixture, which had already been used, but then the engines only ran without difficulty if they were hot.

The 91st Antitank Battalion (18 guns) of the 30th Rifle Division was subordinate to 23rd Rifle Regiment.

A prisoner from the 469th Rifle Regiment said that his regiment had originally belonged to the 150th Rifle Division but had been transferred to the 30th Rifle Division upon leaving (?) Bessarabia. The 150th Rifle Division still exist and he didn’t know if the 469th Rifle Regiment had been replaced with another regiment. He said it wasn’t possible for the division to make an orderly withdraw. Many of the regiment’s vehicles had to be abandoned because of fuel shortages. Smaller detachment was left behind as rearguards and these were expected to sacrifice themselves so the bulk of the division could keep retreating. Members of the 23rd Rifle Regiment report that morale was breaking down. There had been at least ten executions in the regiment in the last couple of days for cowardice and attempting to desert.

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Re: Prisoner Interrogations 1941 (German 46 ID)

#12

Post by Dwight Pruitt » 11 Sep 2016, 08:09

Jeff Leach wrote:Find Novosvitlivka (Rohrbach Siedlung) and about 10 kilometers to the northeast is a Place called Stavki (Waterloo Siedlung). It was an ethnic German area in the Ukraine.
Mystery solved.

I have the Wehrpass of a IR 72 Gefreiter and on page 33 is noted "9. 8.- 15. 8. Kämpfe Bei Waterloo." I've been tearing my hair out trying to find out where this was.

Thanks!

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