Flammenwerfer-Abteilung des VI. Reserve-Korps

[Ken S.]

The German casualty lists three men who were members of the Flammenwerfer-Abteilung attached to the VI. Reserve-Korps early in 1915:

Fritz Uhlig from Chemnitz was killed on Feb. 26, 1915,
Philipp Borger from Ueberau, Dieburg was killed the following (?) day,
and Felix Schaffen from Klostermansfeld (Saxony) was lightly wounded on an unknown date.

There seems to be no record of either Uhlig and Borger in the Volksbund database.

February 26, 1915 was the day of the first flamethrower attack:
https://www.verdun14-18.de/die-flammenw ... offensive/
http://roadstothegreatwar-ww1.blogspot. ... -1915.html
http://www.kaiserscross.com/40029/76401.html

I know there has been a fair amount of interest in this topic and several specialized books have been published (none of which I own). Are there any photos of these men? Has anyone ever tried to research them?

[Hoplophile]

It's been a good thirty years since I did any serious research about the German flamethrower troops of the First World War. However, a quick check of sources close at hand reminds me that many of the members who took part in the first flamethrower attack had been fire fighters in civilian life and that, in particular, the leader of the experimental unit, Captain Reddemann, had served as the director of the fire department of Leipzig.

With that in mind, I wonder if pictures of the two soldiers from Saxony might be found in books, websites, and the like dedicated to the history of that fire department.

[Hoplophile]

I recently broke out my copy of Thomas Wictor's excellent book, German Flamethrower Pioneers of World War I (Schiffer: 2007). While it provides no pictures of men identified as the three soldiers named at the start of this thread, it does mention (on page 38) that the Flammenwerfer Abteilung suffered two fatal casualties in the course of its attack at Malancourt on 26 February 1915. As one of these was killed outright and the other died of wounds the following day, it is reasonable to assume that these were Fritz Uhlig and Philipp Borger.

As his source for these two deaths, Wictor cites Dem Andenken unserer gefallenen Kameraden : Garde-Reserve-Pionier-Regiment (Flammenwerfer)[In Memory of our Fallen Comrades: Guard-Reserve-Pioneer Regiment (Flamethrowers)], a sixteen-page brochure published in 1931.

Here is the listing for the pamphlet in the German National Library: https://portal.dnb.de/opac.htm?method=s ... D579088278

[Hoplophile]

Marvelous to say, Dem Andenken ... is available on the internet.

https://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/tot ... pageSize=4