Poland 1939: KIA German officers

[history1]

Witschas Ernst Otto Traugott, 09.07.1890, Hptm., -, -, 04.09.1939 (b. Überg. ü.d. Warthe, Grablage: Sieradz), VB

Inscription on cross looks like 3 Komp. JR 102.

[...]

Seems to be correct. The 102. ID fought at this time in exactly that area.
http://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Gli ... /IR102.htm

Also the info of Master List

04.09.1939 (b. Überg. ü.d. Warthe, Grablage: Sieradz)

died Sepember 4th 1939 (beim Übergang über die Warthe, Grablage: Sieradz = while crossing the river Warthe, grave site: Sieradz ) is very likely possible.

Regards,
history1

[chris44]

found this on a cemetery in vienna.
the remains of Oberst Schusterbauer has been transfered home.....

any idea??

[history1]

found this on a cemetery in vienna.
the remains of Oberst Schusterbauer has been transfered home.....

any idea??

How do you know? Which proof do you have for this claim?

[chris44]

Hi history1
His name is in the list of the buried (Bestattungsverzeichnis) of the cemetery
which means this is not only a memorialplate (Gedenkinschrift).

unfort I have no further infos on Oberst Schusterbauer... thats why I posted
this headstone to find out.

chris44

[history1]

Hi history1
His name is in the list of the buried (Bestattungsverzeichnis) of the cemetery
which means this is not only a memorialplate (Gedenkinschrift).
[...]
chris44

That´s why I asked, I know too many inscripts were the corpse rest somewhere on the battlefield and passersby are thinking they are all buried there.
Burried 6 days after his dead (sadly no other infos about your man):
http://www.friedhoefewien.at/eportal/fh ... is.do?id=0

[chris44]

you re using the same source as I did
I do research for graves very intensive...... thats why I see such things very often

[nimbuss]

Witschas Ernst Otto Traugott

I've written about him yet (page 81).
Chef. 3./102, KIA during rushing bridges between Warta (city) and Dzierzążna according to:
H. von Tettau, Geschichte der 24. Infanterie Division 1935-1945

regards
AG

[Ste]

Interesting link with a lot of informations about LW officers: http://www.ww2.dk/lwoffz.html
It gives the date of birth of Oberleutnant Märtens as 10.4.1915, and gives Spielmann as still alive in 1945.

[Njorl]

See picture below for information on last KIA officer from A.R. 10, whose assignment was not known yet.

Horn Hans, 16.12.1913, Oblt., -, -, 27.09.1939 (Warschau-Mokotow), VB

"Hans Horn
Oblt. u. Rgts.Adj. A.R. 10
gef. am 27.9.1939"

Source: expired eBay auction.

Regards
MJU

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

Gerlach Hans, 21.04.1916, Lt., 2./Pi. 1, [1. Div.], 03.09.1939, VB (Höhe 142, 1,5 km n. Pieglowo), H. Gru. Nord

Grave of Lt. Gerlach and two of his soldiers - Pion. Dorbach and Pion. Shiele:



From "September 1939 - Photos (part 25)": http://odkrywca.pl/wrzesien-1939-zdjeci ... 82965.html

He was KIA with 4 other Pion. of his platoon:



From "September 1939 - Photos (part 24)": http://www.odkrywca.pl/wrzesien-1939-zd ... tml#670553

There are more grave photos there - including some with officers - but often in poor resolution.

================================

For example - graves of soldiers from 5. company of MG-Btl.66:

"Foto Landser Gräber 5./Komp. Maschinengewehr Bataillon 66 Polenfeldzug":

http://odkrywca.pl/forum_pics/picsforum ... infach.jpg

Or (KIA from Inf.Rgt.31): http://www.odkrywca.pl/forum_pics/picsf ... 1.jpg1.jpg

Or (two Leutnants among the buried):

Kranz Thomas, 28.11.1914, Lt., -, -, 17.09.1939 (b. Sambor), VB

He was most likely in a Panzer-Abwehr-Abteilung:

[Kapitan]

von Keller Hasso-Peter, 26.11.1915, Lt., -, -, 20.09.1939, VB (fraglich ob Beteiligung am Polenfeldzug)

Look at photo number 3 ("Orig. Foto Vormarsch vor Warschau Polen"):
http://www.ebay.pl/itm/140743864152?ssP ... 1423.l2648
These photos come from Poland (1939), so I think that Lt.von Keller was KIA in Poland.

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

Thanks for this excellent find, Kapitan! So we can add von Keller to the Master List!

The date on his grave is 20.09.1939 (if I see correctly) and area around looks like Kampinos Forest (I've seen many photos from Kampinos Forest in September 1939, the tree outlines look pretty similar on each of them):

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

I am adding photos to our forum, so that we won't lost them when Ebay auction expires:

2012-04-25-007.jpg

2012-04-25-007G.jpg

====================================

Edit:

Now I see that von Keller is already in the Master List. But now we can remove the "fraglich ob Beteiligung am Polenfeldzug" note, and maybe also we can try to establish what was his unit / division.

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

BTW - regarding comments on page 1st of this list:

A further comment is included in Kaltenegger (Die Deutsche Gebirgstruppe, p. 123) who is linking high officer losses of the 1. Gebirgs-Division (Kaltenegger: 42 officers “gefallen”) to the habit only to wear mountain caps instead of their helmets.

I think this statement is already obsolete - and as such should be removed / edited. Now we know, that 1. Geb.Div. lost not 42 officers KIA out of ca. 500 KIA&MIA in total (as Kaltenegger claims), but just 23 officers KIA out of ca. 500 KIA&MIA in total - so not 8.4% of all KIA were officers, but 4.6%. It gives on average ca. 21 NCOs & men KIA for each officer KIA in this division - a pretty normal proportion, I guess. And actually number of WIA officers in this division was 42 - so Kaltenegger confused the number of WIA officers with the number of KIA officers.

So officer losses of this division were not extraordinarily high, despite their alleged habit of wearing caps.

And I don't think that a helmet actually protects against sharpshooters (or against rifle shots in general).

It does protect against splinters, but splinters do not really choose the ranks of their targets.

=========================================================

Actually a higher proportion of KIA officers to KIA&MIA NCOs & men was in 2. Geb.Div. (17 of 232 or 7.33%). But this may be connected with the specific conditions under which it fought, for example in this battle:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 5#p1698854

September 14.

On September 14, 1939 very worn out by the fighting and marches, the 24 DP occupied an assembly area around: Tyszkowice, Boratycze, Chodorowice and Popowice, being attacked there by the 2 GD. A strong attack was rejected at Boratycze by the 155 res. pp and the I. Battalion of the 39 pp.(Infantry Regiment - pulk piechoty).

The German mountain's infantry was halted and the vanguard, composed of the III. / GJR 137 and the Regimental HQ were cut from the rest of the division. The vanguard, without adequate intelligence, entered the wooded area and soon the situation became critical, at risk of being destroyed after it was ambushed by Polish marksmen deployed in the tops of the trees.

I guess marksmen targeted mainly officers, if they saw any (regimental HQ was there so surely they did).

And on 14 September 2. Geb.Div. suffered more casualties than on any other day of Polenfeldzug. I don't have exact numbers, though (i.e. exactly how many of those 232 - including 17 officers - died on that day).

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

A paper on KIA & WIA officers of 3. Army issued on 15.09.1939 in Ostrow Mazowiecka:

Page 1: http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/2772 ... owiedo.jpg

Page 2: http://img853.imageshack.us/img853/7808/t3123342085.jpg

Page 3: http://img806.imageshack.us/img806/7564/t3123342086.jpg

Only KIA and WIA categories are included in this paper. MIA officers aren't listed unfortunately.

A total of 63 KIA & 112 WIA officers are listed there.

I think we already have all those 63 among 1014 (902 in the master list + 112 in research) listed here:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=120220

=========================================================

And on this website there is a name list of German soldiers KIA in combats for Polish Coastline:

http://www.2wojna.gdynia.pl/new_www/pl/ ... _niemiecka

Entries on this list look like in example given below (explanation for English users):

nazwisko i imię / data ur. / stopień wojskowy / jednostka wojskowa / data i miejsce śmierci
(surname & name) / (date of birth) / (rank) / (military unit) / (date and place of death)

1. Albrecht Paul / 02.08.1913 / szeregowiec / 48 / 09.09.1939 Marianowo

Ranks are in Polish (szeregowiec = private). Unit "48" in this case, means Inf.Rgt.48 (of 12. Inf.Div.).

It seems to be quite complete - here is what I counted on that list:

294 KIA from 207 ID (and 207 ID according to documents lost 332 - so 38 are missing)
46 KIA from IR.48 (and from other sources I could find just 45 surnames - so at least 1 new one)
21 KIA from IR.89 (and from other documents I could find only 17 surnames - so 4 new ones)
102 KIA from Brig. Eberhardt (and according to casualty reports it lost 117 KIA - so 15 still missing)
48 KIA from Gr.Rgt.32 (and according to casualty reports it lost only 34 KIA - so 14 new ones?)
just 6 KIA from Gr.Rgt.42 (and according to casualty reports it lost 39 - as many as 33 still missing?)

What's interesting is that practically all KIA from 207 ID & Brig. Eberhardt are from infantry regiments (from 207 ID there are only about 2 KIAs not from Inf. regiments). IMO the most probable explanation is that authors of that online list didn't have data about casualties of no-infantry from these divisions / brigades (and probably that's why we have these "missing" soldiers not included on this list - 38 from 207 ID & 15 from Brig. Eberhardt).

Apart from all of this, there are further 126 KIA soldiers with surnames and (usually) places & dates of death given, but with no data as to which unit they served in. Many of them (almost 50) are soldiers KIA on 01.09.1939. Large part of them are clearly soldiers from SS Heimwehr-Danzig and SS Wachsturmbann Eimann as well as from assault company of Kriegsmarine - I can tell this by comparing their data with other sources, where unit is given.

The rest of these 126 are probably those missing from 207 ID (38), Brig. Eberhardt (15) and Gr.Rgt.42 (33). But certainly not all of the missing, because we won't get as many as 86 (38+15+33) from them.

There are also 11 KIA listed with unit / sub-unit given, but I wasn't able to identify what units are these (maybe some misspellings? maybe someone can tell what units are these?):

Name (or maybe rather number) of unit - number of KIA on the list with this unit given:

22 - 1
d.R. 10/I.R. - 1
174 - 2
478 - 1
II 13623 - 1
4 - 1
1./3. S.St.5.Kiel - 1 (Luftwaffe, Ju-87 ???)
39 - 1
45 - 1
1303 - 1

So each of these units is mentioned in just 1 KIA entry, except of "174" (here 2 entries with this unit).

Apart from this there are even further 49 unknown (NN) soldiers on this list, without both surnames and units given - but in these cases place of death is always given (and sometimes date). Of these 49, as many as 27 are listed as KIA near village Brzezino (probably misspelling of village Mrzezino), 1 near Puck, 6 near Kielno, 3 near Luzino, 1 near Mechowo, further 9 near Rumia and 2 near Reda. All these villages are in the area of Gdynia.

In total this "Gdynia list" contains 703 German soldiers killed (some of them are dead of wounds).

=================================

I haven't researched this list specifically in order to find only officers, so far.

It is possible that we can find some new officers there, not yet listed in our Master List.

Or some new data about officers which are already listed in the Master List / Research section.

But I haven't yet checked it.

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

I haven't researched this list specifically in order to find only officers, so far.

It is possible that we can find some new officers there, not yet listed in our Master List.

Or some new data about officers which are already listed in the Master List / Research section.

But I haven't yet checked it.

Ok, after a brief check, there are the following officers on that list:

No. of entry / surname & name / date of birth / rank / unit / date and place of death:

32. Bitschkowski Eberhard podporucznik 01.9.39
75. Dobe Bernhard 20.05.1898 porucznik 1 komp. LPI 11.9.39 Łężyce
118. Flemming podporucznik 368 19.9.39
142. Garske Franz podporucznik 368 12.9.1939 Stara Piła
143. Garzke Franz podporucznik 322 12.9.39 przy Starej Pile

(142 & 143 - double entry, but one entry says he was from IR.368 and one that from IR.322 ???)

152. Goldbeck Franz porucznik 368
196. Henningsen Wilhelm 29.07.1904 porucznik 02.9.39 Westerplatte
199. Hiller Karl 09.02.1892 podporucznik 322 18.9.39 przy Kosakowie
261. Koenig Kurt 25.02.1902 porucznik 11./I.R. 322 08.09.1939 Gniewowo
276. Korth Werner podporucznik 322
378. Müller Walter porucznik 368 21.9.39 szpital polowy Wejherowo
395. Oppel Oskar 27.04.1903 porucznik 12.9.39 Dębogórze
445. Rez Christoph major 207 30.9.1939 Hel

(it should be Major d. Res. Christoph, rather than Rez Christoph, Major)

449. Riemann Friedrich 20.07.1902 porucznik 6. Grz. W. R. 32 13.09.1939 Pierwoszyno
462. Rummel Hans 10.11.1910 porucznik 14.9.39 Oksywie
480. Schild Oskar kapitan 368 12.9.39
481. Schilling Hans 29.06.1902 podporucznik 06.9.39 przy Gdańsku
491. Schneider Karl 07.05.1899 podporucznik 12 komp. LPI 09.9.39 szpital w Gdańsku
555. Telke Oskar 23.09.1897 podporucznik 368 18.9.39 przy Pogórzu
585. v. Baranoff Trosin 28.10.1903 porucznik 9/I.R. 89 08.09.1939 Bieszkowice
605. Weiten Alois 03.12.1913 podporucznik 01.9.39
606. Welke Otto 15.10.1903 podporucznik 17.9.39 szpital polowy Wejherowo
617. Westermann Harro SS Man (porucznik)

-------------------------------------------

Glossary:

podporucznik = Leutnant
porucznik = Oberleutnant
kapitan = Hauptmann
major = Major

--------------------------------------------

Some soldiers are listed with no rank given, so there might be officers also among them.

===============================

Edit:

OK - so there are no any new officers among them. But there is some new information:

Müller Walter, 11.07.1894, Hptm., -, -, 21.09.1939 (Feldlaz. 207), VB

In the list discussed above:

378. Müller Walter porucznik 368 21.9.39 szpital polowy Wejherowo

So we have him as Hptm., the list above claims he was an Oblt. (porucznik). The list also says he was from I.R.368 (we have no unit listed). The list also says that Feldlaz. 207 was located in Wejherowo.

So we can replace the old entry against a new one:

Müller Walter, 11.07.1894, Hptm. (LG: Oblt.), IR.368, 207 Div., 21.09.1939 (Feldlaz. 207), VB, LG

Where LG = "Gdynia list" (Lista gdyńska).

Dobe Bernhard Carl Maria Otto, 20.05.1898 (Danzig), Oblt. (andere Quelle Hptm. d. Schupo.), -, -, 11.09.1939 (b. Buchwalde), VB (Grablage: Danzig), Westerplatte Warszawa 1972

New entry could be:

Dobe Bernhard Carl Maria Otto, 20.05.1898 (Danzig), Oblt. (andere Quelle Hptm. d. Schupo.), 1. Kp. LPI, Brig. Eberhardt, 11.09.39 (b. Buchwalde/Łężyce), VB (Grablage: Danzig), LG, Westerplatte Warszawa 1972

Schilling Hans, 29.06.1902, Lt., -, -, 06.09.1939, VB

And the "Gdynia list" says:

481. Schilling Hans 29.06.1902 podporucznik 06.9.39 przy Gdańsku

So we can replace the old entry against a new one:

Schilling Hans, 29.06.1902, Lt., -, -, 06.09.1939 (b. Danzig), VB, LG

Schneider Karl, 07.05.1899, Oblt., -, -, 09.09.1939 (Groß-Katz), VB (Grablage: Gdansk Wrzeszcz Srebrzysko)

And according to the "Gdynia list":

491. Schneider Karl 07.05.1899 podporucznik 12 komp. LPI 09.9.39 szpital w Gdańsku

His unit was "12 komp. LPI" (LPI = Landespolizei - so he was from Brig. Eberhardt).

Can someone identify the exact regiment?

But we can still replace the old entry against a new one:

Schneider Karl, 07.05.1899, Oblt., 12. Kp. LPI, Brig. Eberhardt, 09.09.39 (Groß-Katz), VB (Grablage: Gdansk Wrzeszcz Srebrzysko), LG

Maybe we can remove info about Grablage so the whole thing will be shorter:

Schneider Karl, 07.05.1899, Oblt., 12. Kp. LPI, Brig. Eberhardt, 09.09.1939 (Groß-Katz), VB, LG

Telke Oskar Adolf Paul, 23.09.1897, Lt. d. R., 12./[I. R. 368], 207. Div., 18.09.1939, VB, H. Gru. Nord

So we can replace this entry by a new one:

Telke Oskar Adolf Paul, 23.09.1897, Lt. d. R., 12./[I.R.368], 207 ID, 18.09.39 (b. Pogorze), VB, H.Gru.Nord, LG

von Baranoff Trofin, 28.10.1903, Lt., 9./IR 89, 12 ID, 09.09.1939, VB, H. Gru. Nord

So we can add his place of death. And according to the list he was an Oblt. (porucznik):

von Baranoff Trofin, 28.10.1903, Lt. (GL: Oblt.), 9./IR 89, 12 ID, 09.09.39 (Bieszkowice), VB, H.Gru.Nord, LG

Welke Otto, 15.10.1903, Oblt. d. R., -, -, 30.09.1939 (Feldlaz. 207 Neustadt), VB

So now we know that Neustadt = Wejherowo.