Who is this Ardennes soldier?

[Harro]

So it is more a matter of perception, of interpretation, rather than what he had actually been through.

[tonetriv]

My pleasure, this is a direct link to the webshop of my publisher (by far the cheapest option since it goes for ridiculous prices on Ebay and Amazon

https://www.boekenbestellen.nl/boek/gus ... 58?lang=en

Harro, I have been scouring this thread for the title of your book. Finally there is a link . Thank you.

[Harro]

To deal once and for all with the story that his name is Hans Tragarsky.

Today I received Tragarsky's Personalakten from the former SS Personalhauptamt which are kept at the Bundesarchiv in Berlin. The file confirms that he was NOT the man in the Poteau photos.

1. wrong unit: Tragarsky served in III. Abteilung, SS-Panzer-Artillerie-Regiment 1 LSSAH. This was an artillery battalion which was assigned to Kampfgruppe Sandig. A unit that was never anywhere near Poteau.

2. wrong rank: Tragarsky was an SS-Rottenführer. The man in the Poteau photos has an (Ober)schütze collar tab.

.

[LAstry]

I dont know if this is helpful but in late 1950's There was a Time-Life Book on World War II (reprints of Life WW II pictures) anyway there was a group of pictures of the SS Soldiers smoking US Cigerettes...the last one showed a dead SS Solider from this group in his hand was a US matchbook......

[AlifRafikKhan]

Great thread!

[Remenix_Edits]

Help find the name of this german soldier please?
Recently I have been doing research on this guy

Information I indeed do know

What we know he is part of the 1st SS panzer Division kampfgruppen hanssen Cavalry unit these photos and videos were taken on the 18th of December 1944 during the Ambush at poteau during the battle of the bulge. He join the the hitler youth and met a familiar face known as "Hans Tragarsky" they would fight together through the entire war both surviving and they were close friends and one of "Hans" few friends that survived in greece they were not part of the Hitler youth long due to them being 16 or 17 when joining and were quickly put into the same SS division being the 1st SS panzer division (Not sure if they were part of it the entire war probably transferred around through the war) The guy in the photos posted here Also fought on all fronts along side "Hans"

Reason Hans is in "" I have read places his name might not be Hans and I have sources that say otherwise



Sources I won't trust for names are those youtube videos saying the names of the poteau soldiers they are highly inaccurate and are straight bullshit in my opinion


My current sources are all listed in this pastebin which I regularly update with new sources I find

https://pastebin.com/g5gxy9xf

https://www.instagram.com/german_tech3/
My friend German tech here has some contacts with a guy who met with some of these soldiers for those wondering



He is a soldier I took interest in since I saw photos of him idk why I just took more of an interest in him over the others and well he was kinda overlooked cuz the "Hans" photo got so popular and he ended up in the same situation many of the poteau soldiers did just in the background so now I am out for answers and a name for him please if someone could help me find his name



On my instagram I did posts on him and did colorizations of photos of him which are also in this post (Not accurate colorizations of there exact camos)

https://www.instagram.com/remenix_edits/ I have been doing many posts on him even finding new photos with the possibility of it being him in his hitler youth days

Every single post I did on instagram about him in order

1. https://www.instagram.com/p/CzAsOMtONdh/
2. https://www.instagram.com/p/CzDHG4fMxlT/
3. https://www.instagram.com/p/CzFVgSJuYp6/
4. https://www.instagram.com/p/C0J6cCVuC7-/


https://preview.redd.it/1grilcvbyf1c1.j ... 1e23fc575a
https://preview.redd.it/6u44sckgyf1c1.j ... 0af30d2f0c
These are 2 photos I colorized of him not sure how to embed stuff sadly but here

Forum is kinda dead I hope to bring it back to life

[Remenix_Edits]

Soldier 4 on that list I have heard rumors about and his name was possibly Josef Prieß someone might wanna fact check that btw I have not done research on him and only came across that well digging. He was killed in action only two weeks later. Which was another thing I saw

[Harro]

Soldier 4 on that list I have heard rumors about and his name was possibly Josef Prieß someone might wanna fact check that btw I have not done research on him and only came across that well digging. He was killed in action only two weeks later. Which was another thing I saw

No offense, but why don't you just read the previous posts in this topic?

[Harro]

Okay, to wrap up this topic

A case of misidentification and common misconception: the SS-Rottenführer photographed and filmed on the 18th of December 1944 on the road from Recht to Poteau in the company of Knittel's aide SS-Untersturmführer Stiewe and the Fahrradzug of the Stabskompanie, SS-PzAA1.

Veteran Helmut Merscher identified him as Willi Gilbert but it is not him. By December 1944 Gilbert was highly decorated but he was an SS-Unterscharführer and platoon leader in the 2. (Gp.) Kompanie which pauzed at the Kaiserbaracke crossroads waiting to get their armoured halftracks refuelled. Still, we can see why Merscher mistook him for the unidentified Rottenführer, there is certainly a likeness due to the distinctive eyebrows.
Elimar Schneider was an Alsatian SS veteran who identified himself in the photo of the soldier in the raincoat standing in front of the destroyed American halftrack. This ended up in a History Channel documentary and perhaps Schneider genuinely believed that this is him but other photos taken at Poteau that day prove that this is impossible: it shows that the man in the photos has the collar tabs of an SS-Rottenführer and is awarded with the Nahkampfspange (the close combat clasp), the Iron Cross 1st class and the Infanterie-Sturmabzeichen (Infantery Assault Badge). Schneider joined the SS in 1944, was never a Rottenführer and was never awarded any of these medals. In addition, Schneider served in the “Das Reich” division which was never anywhere near Poteau.

Which leaves us with a highly decorated unidentified soldier. Likely one of the "Reichsrottenführer" of the SS-PzAA1 - the nickname for those with years of frontline experience who were however deemed unsuitable for promotion to NCO-ranks.

https://knittelbooks.com/gustav-knittel-biography/

countless Facebook, Reddit, Instagram and other posts which parrot the same old names for this particular soldier. I was personally to blame for the misidentification which lead to the name "Walter Armbrusch" being plastered all over the internet.

For the past ten years people keep repeating the name Hans Tragarsky. This goes back on a new member in these forums who dropped that name with some generic information about his SS service. I requested Tragarsky's Personalakten from the former SS Personalhauptamt which are kept at the Bundesarchiv in Berlin. The file contains several clues which for me confirm that he was NOT the man in the Poteau photos.

1. Tragarsky served in III. Abteilung, SS-Panzer-Artillerie-Regiment 1 LSSAH. This was an artillery battalion which was assigned to Kampfgruppe Sandig. A unit that was never anywhere near Poteau.

2. Tragarsky was an SS-Rottenführer. The man in the Poteau photos has (Ober)schütze collar tabs so he's got the wrong rank.

3. Not the best argument, I know, but I don't think Tragarsky looks like the guy in the Poteau photos.

An then there's Siegfried Stiewe, but I noticed that you already happily copy-pasted the info about him from my posts to your Intagram account.

[Harro]

It seems evident from the complete sequence of the pics taken by SS-PK-Berichter Max Büschel that he and cameraman Schäfer left Rollbahn D at Honsfeld on the 17th of December 1944 to accompany the Stabskompanie (staff company) of SS-PzAA1 as they drove over Heppenbach and Amel to reach the village of Born in the afternoon where they linked up with the rest of schnelle Gruppe Knittel (which had used Rollbahn E) and remained there for the night.

Members of the Stabskompanie - particularly from its Panzerspähzug (armoured recce platoon) and the Fahrradzug (bicycle platoon) which hitched a ride at the enginedecks of the armoured cars - are pictured at the abandoned American supply dump and later near Born. An Sd.Kfz. 234/1 from this Stabskompanie was photographed with a load of men from the Fahrradzug hitching a ride on its engine deck. This platoon was also part of the Stabskompanie and Helmut Merscher - a veteran from this platoon - confirmed that indeed they switched from their bicycles to the armoured cars. In another photo a waiting column of 8-wheeled armoured cars is vicible behind the two NCO's who share cigars. Also note in the photos taken at the supply dump the mixture of men in a variety of panzer uniforms and the light gear of the other soldiers in the pics - consistent with those soldiers from the Fahrradzug.

The Stabskompanie left Born in the morning of the 18th and drove over Kaiserbaracke - where the 2. (le.SPW) and 3. (VW) Kompanie had secured the crossroads - to the village of Recht where Knittel met with Hansen. IMO, that's how photographer Büschel, cameraman Schäfer, Knittel's aide Stiewe and those 234's carrying soldiers from the Fahrradzug ended up at the famous "ambush scene" near Poteau. While the meeting between Knittel and Hansen took place, I think the Stabskompanie drove up the road to Poteau to prepare their further advance behind Hansen's battlegroup. As the men waited for Knittel and new orders, Büschel took advantage of them loitering around to take pics of them advancing and "attacking" up the road towards the "ambush scene" where they came across some of Hansen's grenadiers who were also photographed. Note the distinct difference between the light gear from the Fahrradzug in the initial pics and the heavier gear of Hansen's grenadiers which appear later in the sequence.
Part of the men from the Fahrradzug are dressed in Luftwaffe gear. A massive 25 percent of the SS-PzAA1 consisted of Luftwaffe personnel at that time - ground personnel that was transferred to the Leibstandarte to make up for the huge losses the decimated division had suffered in Normandy. At that time - weeks before the Bulge, the SS lacked the means to provide proper Waffen-SS uniforms for all these men. Merscher confirmed that many were still in their Luftwaffe gear when the Ardennes Offensive started - and even this was a hodgepodge of Luftwaffe items because the airforce was also on its last legs.

But while Knittel talked with Hansen he received orders from Mohnke: Peiper had managed a breakthrough at Stavelot and the Schnelle Gruppe was to follow him to La Gleize. Goltz, the 234's and their passengers from the Fahrradzug doubled back over Recht to Kaiserbaracke and so did Büschel with Goltz and his men - resulting in the photos of Hansen's Grille's in action near Recht and the pics taken at Kaiserbaracke where members of the 3. (VW) Kompanie acted out the famous Schwimmwagen pics. The Sd.Kfz. 250's from the 2. (le.SPW) Kompanie can be seen in the background. Note that the first pics Büschel took at the Kaiserbaracke crossroads show Goltz in his Schwimmwagen - for me that's further evidence that Büschel arrived there with Golz.

After Büschel and Schäfer left Kaiserbaracke they caught up with Knittel in la Vaulx Richard.

In the end these faces are just a handful of the 21,000 men who served in the Leibstandarte in December 1944 - of whom many perished in the Bulge and during the bitter fighting in Hungary and Austria. Recently some "new" names have been suggested which are currently investigated. But before that research is concluded it is save to say that - apart from Goltz and Stiewe - all names floating around the internet in connection with these images and footage are misidentifications or even pure fantasy.

[Remenix_Edits]

This is quite nice information yes I had read the other posts briefly and I always hated when people called him Hans Tragarsky because even from the start I knew it was not him because I had also read on other forums that it was not him (This was around 6 years ago forums were shut down from I know) but out of all the research I have done on Poteau this has been the best forum for it but I never idk why but never took an interest in "Hans" or unnamed soldier because of well multiple reasons mainly because he was overrated and the rest of the people at Poteau really got overlooked.



This is the specific guy I have been looking for the name of Idk how to embed photos so I just use links sorry about that

https://www.warrelics.eu/forum/attachme ... ney-34.jpg

download/file.php?id=451366

download/file.php?id=451368&mode=view

https://imgur.com/GNFPxKr


He is also soldier 3 on page 9

I do think the info have here is quite interesting the forum itself is quite interesting

I also have another photo of him (Possibly) That are not the photos you have listed on this forum or that I have seen on this forum

https://www.instagram.com/p/C0J6cCVuC7-/

I did a post on it (I am not on my main laptop so I dont have the normal photo so I have to send it using instagram post) the reason I think it is him is because of what I dug up on this specific guy over the years he was in the Hitler youth at age 16-17 and the face build on the young guy in this photo matches the guy from poteau which seems to be more battle hardened and well has been in combat since the start of the war which was another thing I found well researching him he had fought from start to finish some of this info is from old forums and possibly wrong but they are the best leads I have. I

[Harro]

See page 6 of this very topic. You simply cannot compare faces in this way. Not an unknown motorcyclist with an unknown Panzergrenadier, not an unknown HJ member.

Hello

i had register myself here and bring this thread back to life because our friend rash indeed found something interesting but miscommunicated it a little (no offense, rash). I guess rash is also the author of this thead on a polish message board: https://panzerlehr.forumoteka.pl/temat, ... torder=asc
In that thread one member identified the guys in the pic as "SS-Rottenführera Wernera Körtzer'a z 2. Zug, 1. Kompanie, SS-Panzer-Aufklärungs-Abteilung 9; 9. Waffen SS Panzergrenadier Division "Hohenstaufen" and behind him "SS-Schütze Karl Heinz Grünwald". NOW THAT WAS OBVIOUSLY AN SARCASTIC JOKE BY THAT MEMBER SO DISREGARD THAT IDENTIFICATION COMPLETELY!

Nevertheless i find the similarities between the person in front of the "Krad pic" and one of the grenadiers in the Poteau clip very striking and i think it is the same guy.

Pic of unknown origin of two Kradschützen(?):

unknown_krad.jpg

Still of Poteau clip:

unknown_grenadier.jpg

Now this may be far fetched but i even see a certain similarity between the second person in the "krad pic" and the guy in the foreground in the next scene of the Poteau clip (with the previous guy on the left, eating):

unknown_grenadier_and_others.jpg

So maybe someone has an idea were that kradschützen pic came from originally?

So we have a Kradschütze (light motorcycle-mounted infantry) from an unidentified SS unit - some say Hohenstauffen, some say Wiking - and a Panzergrenadier (heavy infantry) from the LSSAH. The share similar features. Other than that, we have nothing that links these men. Again, I think it is unwise to go solely on facial similarities. Elimar Schneider looks like one of the guys in the Poteau pics yet it is not him, Willi Gilbert looked like one of them but it is not him, Heinz Mäger also looked like one of them yet it wasn't him, see the pattern?

[Remenix_Edits]

I understand that I was just doing speculations and just doing some stuff to keep myself busy I was not trying to offend anyone or spread misinformation by comparing the 3 photos I am just trying to find the name of him and well doing so I find random pictures with very similar facial features and build but I do think the 3rd post I did on instagram there with the Hitler youth post has a high chance of being incorrect I have other reason for wanting to know this guys name and specifically this guys name but from the forum here and what I have read it seems the name is unknown I am going to keep digging in other places and was wondering if you had websites books and other sources I could look into? and if there was websites to look up names of soldiers?. Sorry for the late response personal stuff made me busy. Again sorry if I was wrongfully identifying these photos

[Harro]

Its not so much the speculation - thats what we all did and do to get to the findings we have at this point. What I mean is recycling old posts without taking note of the comments to those posts - but above all: comparing random faces does not lead to anything. Mind, I had to learn the hard way myself. With approx. 900,000 SS-soldiers there's bound to be dozens of guys who had a similar nose or similar jaw, similar eyebrowes or ears. When a veteran who was there told me that its Gilbert, I looked at his face and very distinctive eyebrowes and said: ofcourse its him. But then you see that his rank is all wrong in other pics.

Sometimes people even look almost identical in one and the same pic. For example the MG gunner and his helper in the pic below.

Records for the Leibstandarte are quite rare for late 1944 because a lot of files did not survive the war. And even if you have names it is near impossible to match them with faces because a lot of men who joined late in the war have no personnel file in the Bundesarchiv and those who do generally don't include photos. Apart from that it is a costly business to find the names of all approx. 6,000 men who served in KG Hansen and 1,200 who served in SG Knittel then get all the surviving personnel files to check if they contain photos to match the unknown men in Büschel's pics. As such I could only work the other way round: when somebody mentioned Tragarsky with a date of birth I could get his file from the Bundesarchive to learn that he does not look like the man at Poteau and could conclude from the info in his file that he was not attached to KG Hansen. Same with some of the others. As a result it is sometimes possible to find that a name is incorrect but near impossible to verify a name.

If you're on Facebook, I share my research at: www.facebook.com/groups/gustavknittel

[Remenix_Edits]

Yeah sadly not much remains which sucks also I think I have seen footage of that guy before and multiple photos many years ago I saw on some old forums I forget the name this was about 12 years ago there were 2 names floating around for this guy with significant proof for the 1 with more photos I cannot be sure what the name is now and the name of the forum because at the time I had just been skimming around doing research 12th SS panzer division mainly being Max Wünsche but if I can find more about it I would be sure to share it with you.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CufOzcstLrX ... ByFiGjQE0/

A good colorization of him here not mine btw

Also to Timo if you see this just let me know if you want specific posts on my instagram removed I will if you want me too

Sorry for the late Response Harro I have been busy with Christmas season

Happy 78th for the Ambush at poteau as well

And goodnight