Lw-Feld-Division: organisation 1944

[KG Hohenstaufen]

How are they built up by 1944?

Hq, platoons, companies, support platoons, AT sections, flak and so on.
Also how many officers, NCOs and OR and their armament, if possible.
Would also be great if you could tell how many flaks, at-guns, mortars they had.

[Fallschirmjäger]

Did you do a net search as a few things out there,and on the axis history factbook too on here.Or wanted more detail than these offer,have anothe website in mind,need to look it up,asking there could help too.

http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=2678

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luftwaffe_Field_Division

[Jan-Hendrik]

In 1944 there were no such divisions anymore! They were transfered to Heer in 1943 and called Feld-Dvision (L). After having lost his toys Göring started to raise more of these useless Fallschirmjäger-Divisions to keep his personell reservoir under his hands...

Jan-Hendrik

[Igor Karpov]

In 1944 there were no such divisions anymore! They were transfered to Heer in 1943 and called Feld-Dvision (L). After having lost his toys Göring started to raise more of these useless Fallschirmjäger-Divisions to keep his personell reservoir under his hands...

Jan-Hendrik

Sorry, I didn't quite catch your thoughts. "useless Fallschirmjäger-Divisions"?

Regards,
Igor

[Jan-Hendrik]

Yes. All the newly raised FjDs in 1944 were lost personal that would have better fit to restrength the Heer ID's !

Jan-Hendrik

[KG Hohenstaufen]

Thanks for the replies.
I forgot that they changed the unit names, thanks for pointing that out, Jan-Hendrik.

And a happy new year!

[Denis1973]

KG Hohenstaufen!
Here http://www.wehrmachtdivisionen.de/index_divisionen.html you can bye information about certain divisions. In pack about 6th FDL you can find a gliederung of this division on 1944.
Good luck!

[Tom Peters]

Thats an interesting website. Has anyone bought from them ? I would be tempted to try it out if they took Pay Pal.

Mad Dog

[Fallschirmjäger]

Yes. All the newly raised FjDs in 1944 were lost personal that would have better fit to restrength the Heer ID's !

Jan-Hendrik

What?,they had veterans in them too,not shure the numbers,maybe battalions or more.And restrength the heer,they had there own manpower places and got them im shure or did alright with what they had.And not the FJ divsison's which fought pretty well to me from reading books etc.. But in the last years fighting there oponents to would say otherwise ,very tough up against them, and like the other units too in the heer and waffen ss etc...

And the wehrmacht used the older LWFD to make these new volksgrenadier divsions,they could have instead been used to fill these heer infantry divsions you talk of.Using the new FJ soldiers instead may have changed some things on the fronts if in the heer divsions or not,not the end of the war.But staying within the FJ you could say the same,but i think they did far better there in the battles they fought,even though war was heading towards a loss.

[Martin Block]

@Jan-Hendrik

That statement of yours at the beginning of this thread is unfortunately incorrect! According to the original order for transferring the Lw.Feld-Divisionen to the Heer they were to KEEP their designation without any changes. Virtually all documents (orders, reports, OoBs etc.) I have seen regarding Lw.Feld-Divisionen right until 1945 continue to use just this designation and nothing else. Actually other than in the works of Mr. Tessin and most post war publications about this topic the designation Feld-Div. (L) seems to have been hardly if ever been used during wartime. I have several hundred pages of related documents in my archive but I have real trouble remembering this designation being used in them somewhere until 1945, in fact right now I can't find any reference to that at all. So far I have not the slightest idea what Mr. Tessin's statements are based upon!?

Quote:

Anlage zu Der Chef des Generalstabes des Heeres/Org. I/4852/43 g.Kdos. v. 21.10.1943

Ueberfuehrung der Lw.Feld-Div. in das Heer

Durchfuehrungsbestimmungen Nr. 1

........

I.3) Bezeichnungen
Die Lw.FeldDiv. und selbst. Lw.Feldtruppenteile behalten auch nach dem Uebertritt in das Heer ihre bisherige Nummer und Truppenbezeichnung z.B.
"3. Lw.Feld-Div."
"Lw.Jg.Rgt. 10" usw.

.........

In the surviving records of OKH/GenStdH/Org.Abt. I was so far unable to find any clue that this order was ever changed thereafter!

Martin Block

P.S.: And while we are at it - the often claimed (at least in post war publications) renaming of the 19. and 20. Lw.Feld-Div. into "Sturm" divisions in the summer of 1944 is also recorded nowhere, not even in the documents of the divisions themselves!!!

[Fallschirmjäger]

I just see now this thread was on the LWFD and not the FJ,and i think me and Jan-Hendrik and others spoke on the same subject in an older thread too aswell.

[Alain Verwicht]

Example...
20. Luftwaffen-Feld-Division to 1.8.44 :



Regards

[Jan-Hendrik]

Der Block hat seine Nase aber auch überall..................




Thank you for the correction

Jan-Hendrik

[historymuseum2000]

This was a bit eye opening for me.I have had a fascination with the LwFD's and this is the first time that I have even noticed that they were NOT labeled as ( for instance) 5 Feld Divsion (L) in Soldbuch or any other official war time sources. I have always taken what I had read in the post war sources for granted. Being a bit skeptical I went through my ( admittedly digital collection) of LwFD documents and see it no where. For instance a soldbuch of a gunner from the 5 LwFD shows in 1944 a listing for 5. Lw Feld Division, long after its absorption into the Heer.

So where and why did this whole Feld Division (L) business start?

Just to clarify however I do see listings prior to the take over that use (L), for instance 7. Jaeger Regt. 9 (L) I am assuming this was to eliminate any confusion with Heer units?

Anyways very interesting.

Lee Drake

[Martin Block]

Lee and Alain,

Thank you for the confirmation for you collections of documents! As far as I can tell the whole Feld-Div. (L) business started with the publication in books of Mr. Tessin. His series of books was and still is an unsurpassed milestone in WW2 written German military history, but in this particular point I have trouble following him. Since most post-war books used him as a reference without ever questioning, the story spread and was generally accepted as a fact. But since I never found this designation used anywhere in WW2 documents but always just Lw.Feld-Div. I started to wonder what's it all about.

Usage of the (L) behind divisional subunit designations was commonplace already well before Oct 1943. But it was just that, an abbreviation to be used in official correspondence. This for instance is described in the formation order for 11. - 20. Lw.Feld-Div. dated 26.10.1942. Appendix c to this order specifies unit designations and for instance regarding the artillery regiment is says that the full designation of such a regiment like for instance "Artillerie-Regiment 5 bei 5. Lw.Felddivision" is to be abbreviated in offical correspndence to "A.R. 5 (L)" or "Pionier-Bataillon 1. Lw. Felddivision" is to be abbreviated to "Pi.Btl. 1 (L)" etc.
Maybe an order also exists that authorized the abbreviation Feld-Div. (L) for Luftwaffen-Felddivision and Mr. Tessin somehow misinterpreted/misunderstood it, I don't know. That would be the only explanation for me at the moment.

Martin Block