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Dandelion

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  1. Er... Might you please disclose how any of the links you provide conflict with anything I wrote? First link tells us of Rgt 16, and how parts of it was trained and used for airlanding duties. Right. Second link tells us that the companies of 47nd regiment were equal in strength and organisation. Ok. Third link tells us the 65th was partially trained and equipped for airlanding tasks (III Batl to be more specific than this source). Mhm. Fourth link is a link telling us not much of anything at all. Fifth link leads to a frontal page of a... what? Pictoral history of the Bremen guys and some guys of the Oldenburg Regiment. That's some nice googling there. Great pics. And I wrote what above? That the regiments were not partially trained and equipped for airlanding duties? That the companies were not equal in strength and organisation? You mentioned the German name of the divisional history of the 22nd infantry. Presumably evoking you own it, as I do. I am interested to read of the ways I contradicted it above. Since you own it, might you be so kind as to extend the courtesy of explaining the ways in which I erred these Hanseatic Germans in my misguided comment? And while you are at it - I do not own any volume on the 22nd artillery, didn't even know there was one, but seeing as you seem to do - would it be too much to ask that you elucidate the manners in which I erred them as wll in my comment above? Or is this just another case of mistaking the artillery of 1 Fallschirm-Jäger-Division with I. Fallschirm Korps? Yours Sincerely Dandelion
  2. Hi there Andreas Unfortunately, he has ceased answering any attempts of mine to contact him as well. This happens regularly. He disapperars. He's usually back in a year or two. I've gotten more or less used to it. All the best Dandelion
  3. Hey there I'll give it a whirl, with a specifically German perspective. As has been mentioned, the short answer to the issue of difference between paras and airlanding infantry is weight and mode of deployment. Operational context In German airborne operations the seizing of an airhead was pivotal (as in any nation) and to them, airheads meant airfields. They did not develop any skills in the improvised building of airfields, nor indeed did they become very skilled at paradropping supplies. Focus was on airfields and in the territories of the foreseen enemies, there were plenty of airfields to steal anyway. The ultralight paras were capable of seizing these airfields but not, it was argued, to hold them against regular enemy forces for any meaningful period of time. Enter the airlanding infantry. Being airmobile and using transport planes, they could carry along the heavy equipment of the infantry division. The role of airlanding infantry - the LL Airlanding infantry was light infantry trained to rapidly deploy from transport planes, and in some cases but not normally from gliders too. Their training focused on securing perimeters, specifically airfield perimeters, and doing so under extreme conditions (darkness, hostile fire, deploying at great speed in spite of total confusion etc). Thus, airlanding infantry needed an airstrip to deploy, unlike the paras who could drop just about wherever they wanted (well...). Apart from that training, they were ordinary light infantry. LL Sturm Rgt An exception here was the Luftlande Sturm Regiment, which was a paratroop formation organised and equipped for glider insertion. It took part in all major German airborne operations. In spite of the unit designation it was not an airlanding unit (in the German sense of the word), it was a gliderborne air assault unit. Like the paras and unlike airlanding infantry, it belonged to the airforce. LL organisation and equipment Airlanding divisions (22nd, 91st) were organised and equipped very similar to other light infantry, such as the Gebirgsjäger and Jäger. All artillery formations used mountain organisation and equipment. Similarly, regimental assets (regimental companies) were permanently distributed to company level, and the divisions used two regiments of three battallions (instead of three rgts with 3 bns, as was initially the infantry norm). The battallions, however, had five companies instead of the normal four, and these were all identical and equal strength companies (thus not the three rifle plus support company pattern of regular infantry). The airlanding divisions were thus organised (and indeed trained) for sustained fighting in smaller formations. 22 I.D. LL The 22nd was designated Airlanding division but initially had only parts of it trained and equipped for the role. The rest was regular infantry (not light infantry), e.g. the division had three regiments and not two. The airlanding elements participated in the airborne operations of 1940. Mainly by landing in transport planes on Dutch airfields. The division, howerer, never took to the skies again, as they were tied down guarding oilfields during the operations in the Balkans in 41. The elements trained and equipped for the airlanding role were assembled in a battlegroup (KG Buhse) and sent to Africa, where it was destroyed in 1943. The rest of 22nd went East and laboured on, and retained the name Luftlande until it too was destroyed in 1945. 91 I.D. LL On the contrary, the 91st was a fully equipped, trained and organised airlanding division from her creation in january 1944. About a third of the personnel were veteran paratroopers. Rather than air assault, she was intended for the strategic reserve role as a rapid intervention force. The division never participated in anything airborne however, she didn't even have to airlift to any threatened front. The threat came to her instead, and she was destroyed in august 1944. Apart from these, mountain troops were used in the very same role on more than one occasion. As for airborne armour, the soviets came a few steps along that path I think, much later. Cheerio Dandelion
  4. Not adressing the guilt issue in this post, I think the men present in the camps might deserve some introducing. As for the Waffen SS, more than 60 000 members of the Waffen SS - in the sense of frontline divisions - rotated through camp guard duty during the war. The number of recovering wounded also doing such service is unknown to me. At any rate - at any given time several thousands of them would have been serving. So, we can assume members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände and Waffen SS were present at any liberated camp fro mwhich they had not had time to flee. Who were these men? As for the KZ Wach units, they were by 1945 reduced to contain about 33% Germans, mainly but not only NCOs and officers. The original (well, from 1935 at least) guard units were recruited as such, thus men who were not only volunteers but actually volunteering for this specific duty. The war had however assured that almost all of them were sent to the frontline units, or to Einsatzkommandos. They were initially replaced by SS Reserve men (SS members aged 35-45), but this did not suffice. Starting in 1942, involuntary transfers to KZ duty starts. It begins with reserve policemen, but continues with other reserves, including transfers of ordinary army reserve (largest transfer was 10 000 in a stroke in the summer of 1944 - but closely rivalling are the 7500 Luftwaffe reservists transferred the autumn of that year). Still weak in manpower, the using of convalescing troops for guard duty was systematic, camps could calculate with a constant extra handful of such men. So the group of Germans to be found in 1945 will have been to a majority men who did not apply for the duty, and again as for the Germans, hardly anyone younger than 40. But in spite of this and in spite of a constant presence of Waffen SS units to reinforce them, the manpower still was not enough. Hence the foreign nationals. Unlike the actual deathcamps, were German guards (privates) were intentionally excluded, the choice of foreign nationals in KZs was not a matter of policy but predicament. By 1945 two thirds of the men were Russian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Polish, Slovak, Romanian - from all over Eastern Europe. Not all were considered foreigners even though foreign nationals, a great many (almost half the number) were so called Volksdeutsche. Those were normally drafted. The origins of all the other men was heterogenous. There was for example a large contingent of Romanians who were put on guard duty recovering from wounds suffered in the Stalingrad debacle, who were simply kept as guards to VE day. Resettled Volksdeutsche unable to speak German and thus not fit for military service could end up there. Some who were volunteers had not volunteered for guard duty, but for frontline duty in the SS. But as Andreas said, the SS was one organisation and the postwar distinction of the various arms did not impress the contemporary commanders. If you joined the SS, you could end up anywhere in that organisation. The also present Waffen SS and the composition of the units has been debated in many threads. Of the 901 000 members reached at peak in 1944, a third were Germans and a third were Volksdeutsche. The rest was not. Suffice it perhaps to say that there was no division in the roster of the Waffen SS that did not contain contingents of drafted men. Most had a majority of such men, like 5th, 9th, 10th, 17th etc. Some were based practically exclusively on drafted men, such as the 7th and 13th. A few saw comparably tiny contingents of draftees, such as the 1st and 12th. So. There is actually a vey high probability of the guards at Dachau - reasonably grouped around the Standarte 1 - not being volunteers for that particular duty, or indeed is it very likely that very many of them had been there for very long before the enemy arrived. I'm not saying it matters - well it doesn't, to me, since I'm against the shooting anyway. I'm not saying that makes anyone very much more or less guilty than anyone else. Just illustrating further that we're not talking blood crazed indians slaughtering monsters. It was a bunch of guys, who shot another bunch of guys. Cheerio Dandelion
  5. Your dad? So you're born in the thirties or forties then are you? Just curious. Cheerio Dandelion
  6. Aherm. Not wishing to lend the impression that I failed to identify the actual point of your post, I still feel the term Sturm und Drang is given no justice in this use, thus warranting the rewarding of this minute detail with a trifle further attention. That term, taken from classical German literature as it is, is a liberal term not at all in very much favour in Germany of 1941, in spite of it's martial ring. The "Sturm" does not mean assault, but storm. And the "Drang" has another meaning (namely stress) than the same word in "Drang nach Osten" (inner drive, or perhaps urge or longing, to and for the East). It refers to a movement among authors of the 18th century, characterised by youthful rebellion against accepted standards, and rather vehement rejection of convention and authority. Although the movement included such German lionised icons as Goethe and Schiller - and the Nazis revered all national icons as a matter of principle - the notion of rebellion and uproar was viewed upon with notorious suspicion by the Nazis once they had obtained power. In colloquial language, refering to a persons Sturm und Drang would normally mean somebodys youthful and unruly years, when he or she acted against convention and norm, intentionally or not. Most middle aged people, in Germany at least, flatter themselves by stating they have had such a period of their lives. Perhaps since the alternative might too much resemble the Untertan - another excellent piece of German literature. Sincerely Dandelion
  7. All this is quite on the spot but interestingly, the German army abbreviation [and acronym] for Selbstfahrlafette was "Sfl", not "sf". Yours Dandelion
  8. 1. and 2. The assault on Stalingrad began at 0415 hours on the morning of the 23rd. The starting line was 60 km from city limits, depending of course on how you prefer to define Stalingrad city limits. By the fall of darkness, Pz.Gren.Rgt 79 had reached point 722 - it had already taken Gumrak by then. At 1835 hours the same regiment reached the Volga. So did an assault detachment of PzGren.Rgt.64, and indeed the armoured element of Pz-Pi-Btl.16. The later managed to reach the railway station with the 27 abandoned waggons before midnight. So, pick your choice, where you would have city limits. In the official announcement, the unit mentioned as first into Stalingrad is "Kampfgruppe Pz.Gen.Rgt.79". (All units mentioned were part of PD16) 3. All this from "Stalingrad, bis zur letzten patrone" Osnabrück 1954 written by Heinz Schröter, chief of the Kriegsberichterstaffel AOK6, in cooperation with General a.D. Fr. Joachim Fangohr (cheif of staff 4 PzAOK), General der Flieger a.D. Koller (Chief of staff Luftwaffe), General a.D. Schulz (chief of staff Heeresgruppe Don), Oberst a.D. Selle (Pifü of AOK6), Oberstl.i.G.a.D. Toepke (Qu.I AOK6). Cheerio Dandelion
  9. Ah yes. Yes of course, I might have anticipated that. Italian wife, job in France, taxes in space. Regrettably, the next time we invade France and reach Paris, we will have to punish you. You can't feast on your pudding like this before you've finished your meat. Yours truly Dandelion
  10. Goscinny and Uderzo were very wise men. France and Italy arguably have the best cousines in Europe, and just look where that brought them in the last war. Germans and Britons on the other hand are both globally notorious for their excentric abnormities in terms of cousine and ferocious absence of taste, and they fought like hell, almost exterminating eachother. Right. Now you've got me hungry and thirsty. And all I have is a sip of gin. You realise of course that I'd be chewing Livarot and sipping calvados right now in some stone cottage in Bretagne, with one of those stunnig French women right beside me, had it not been for you Anglosaxons? You could have just left us there you know. But nooooo. Here comes the broken heirlooms of Henry V to reclaim all that is good in this world, kicking us all the way to Berlin. Result? American sitcoms, Sri Lanka produced clothes and hotdogs for us all is what we got out of that adventure. Now only the French eat like kings and have beautiful women, while we huddle in our rainy, dreary, grey, godforsaken homelands, snivelling over our wurst and steak and kidney puddings, with less beauty in sight than staring down an abandoned Welsh colemine. Ye Gods what a fate, what a world. [deep sigh, deep sip of gin] And all the best to you John, most sincerely. Dandelion
  11. Assuming he was married, and his wife corresponded to his preferences, that might actually be possible. The man would have been somewhere between 19 and 30, meaning he will have married some time between 1933 and 1943, which means his marriage certificate will contain the colour of hair of his wife, her maiden name, his place of birth and so on. Of course you'd need to find the man himself first, but 1943 that's not really impossible at all. Shoesize might become a problem though. But you'd have his height, and would be able to make a very educated guess from there. I have a sinking feeling you will. The forest is not mentioned as a deployment area for any German unit. It is repreatedly mentioned as an assault objective (never taken). However, that's one very large forest, and reputedly snary and thick. It would take quite quite a lot of manpower to actually secure the entirity of it. From what I am able to ascertain, mentions of combat are along the edges of the forest. Perhaps not able to squeeze in a battallion, I feel convinced the Germans would have deployed roving patrols, snipers and mortars as they always would if they could. Cheerio Dandelion
  12. Breakfast with the 21st and 352nd is no problem at all. All German troops were issued with 750g of bread per day, which was to be used mainly but not only for breakfast. 20g of ersatz coffee was also obligatory, although under auspicious circumstances you could get the same amount of chocolate(drinking version) or tea instead. With any luck, they would have had the 150g of fat (margarine, if lucky) and perhaps even a spot (200g) of marmalade or artificial honey. If they wanted to, they could down their daily 150g of sausage with their breakfast too. This assuming they did not resort to iron rations, which they weren't supposed to. Breakfast with the 6th Airborne? Er, well, I don't know. Ham and jam? Chups Dandelion
  13. King I suppose you know it was allied troops holding the Bois de Bavent, elements of 6th Airborne (scattered gropups from 3rd and 5th brigades, and French commandos, according to German intel - Canadians according to a homepage with the history ofthe 6th). The forest is described in my sources as part of the Luftlandekopf, i.e. Airhead. The forest marking the left flank of 21st Pz. You're interested in a detailed breakdown of the Airborne units or the German units assaulting them? Cheerio Dandelion [ February 16, 2006, 09:39 AM: Message edited by: Dandelion ]
  14. Actually I was writing about Darci, she works at the Atlantis Rising company. Of course, she also never attached Russia. As far as I know that is. But I never knew much of anything.
  15. So, what are you doing in England Shmavis. Work or love got you there? Cheers Dandelion
  16. Hm. I miss a few points. Both identify strongly with the GIs, and have put a lot of weight on emotional pressure created by the morbid situation at Dachau. Indicating as I understand them, that the unit cracked. Both have also pointed out the fact that the inmates took an active role, although in different ways. Both place great emphasis on the importance of justice being done and that this justice must reflect the horror of the crimescene. Both also believe in the DP, I conclude (they have not stated this), which enables them to support the justioce meeted out by the GIs. Both have low faith and trust in courts, and fear that courts would fail to do justice, lending legitimacy to the executions as an alternative. Duke regards KZ camps as extraordinary elements of reality and explains his exception from his norm with this. This is by no means an unsupported view, many lawyers have argued that it - deathcamps and KZs - cannot be incorporated into the normal web of justice. Ultimately however, it was. Well, that on them until they comment. How would you surmise the arguments on the other side? Cheers Dandelion
  17. Duke Very difficult subject. Basically I still sincerely feel that the GIs at Dachau let their friends down, the men buried from Omaha Beach to Leipzig deserved a lot better performance than that, and so did the good cause. Easy to joke about now, with Iraq controversy and all, but the project was to introduce democracy in Germany, to make friends out of enemies, and it succeeded. It needed no murders, this great project. And I am a former soldier. Sense of profession and pride lingers strong. You don't shame the corps, or the constitution you represent in a uniform. It's not patriotism really I just feel strongly about accepting representational tasks. I aim the same edge at politicians and all other representatives. Trust is precious. In fact trust is love. But your feelings run deeper than that and I can relate to them. Let me try and present my sentiment on death, justice and vengeance, though it isn't very easy at all and I begin to regret I got into this difficult debate. I don't think that courts can deal with what happened during the war in it's entire horror. They are ill equipped to deal with such issues. Courts can only focus on individual acts, not entire popular movements or complex chains of events. Any court can produce a mere snapshot of reality. I appreciate that all surviving leaders were trialled, and that many of the individual perpetrators were trialled for their actions too, but like you write, we're talking millions of perpetrators. Courts cannot successfully combat society. Although it might disaffect you, I am not particularly interested in singular guards. If they are punished or escape justice does not mean very much to me. They are mere dust, blowing in the wind, and it is the wind that interest me. I do not mean their commanders either, in particular. I want society. I do not feel that gunning people down really deals with anything. Remember that a great many of the worst perpetrators chose death themselves. To not have to deal with anything. I believe the only way to deal with what happened is to talk about it. Let everyone understand what they were part of, how they were part of it, and what the consequences of their actions were. Break the cycle of reprisal and counterreprisal. Adopt institutions in society capable of dealing with the intolerance, narrow mindedness, hatred and fear that all societies are afflicted with, and who were the main reasons for what happened. After all, the Western allied nations were also heavily afflicted by the racism of the day, had strong groups of intolerance. Still do. But they were capable of sustaining their societies even so heavily assaulted from within. And they needed no deathcamps to do that. Nor did modern Germany. Miserable as it might seem a dreary day, the Western societies are still the only successful constructions when it comes to dealing with diversity and ideological conflict. QED, I hope. Unless you are severely mentally ill, you cannot be cruel against another human. I say that even recognising the streak of sadism in Man. The only reason all of these people could do what they did was that they stopped seeing eachother as humans. Because of existing states of conflict, bilateral or domestic. But you cannot dehumanise a person you have a continuing dialogue with. So there is a need to talk. Dead people can't talk. I didn't like Göring getting away like that, I wanted him sitting in a cell confronted by a society questioning him, and him explaining, perhaps even realising, for the rest of his life. To quote 2Pac ; "How can the Devil take a brother if he's close to me?" And with the devil I do not mean death, I mean the risk of him becoming a KZ guard, guarding me. Killing the guards to ensure justice, by vengeance as it was. Well. Vengeance no longer means anything. So many millions of people have already been murdered, and then they have been avenged with new millions of murders. It is a path in itself, leading to new murders, and if you don't like it, you need to leave it. You cannot murder your way to a peaceful future, however justified you feel. You create enemies feeling equally justified in murdering you. I'll tell you what I mean. I hope. You know as I watched Der Untergang - I'm sure you've heard of it and probably even seen it - I got really, really angry. It grew on me as the film played and got so big my chest almost exploded. I don't see a lot of quality film with people speaking my language, it hits you straight in the heart, feels very real. But I didn't at all get angry at the people I presumed would anger me. The Nazi leadership struck me as authentic and, well, rather uninteresting. But out on the streets, when there was only fire and death everywhere, kids being gunned down, my helpless people being overrun, and then just smoking ruins with dancing Soviets, I was shocked by my anger being directed at those Soviets, the mere sound of Russian being spoken infuriated me and I blush at the hateful thoughts that tortured me for an hour after that. Vengeance seemed extremely important. The whole emotion was idiotic, the director had gone to some length to explain that the burning ruins and dead children were all because of the government, and actually I really don't need anyone explaining that, but it just went on, I went on being angry about it. I went for a beer, alone, until it had raged out, and it did after an hour or so and I was me again. And so it struck me, like a sudden blinding light. That's all it takes. It never ends. The active choice of not continuing, not being part of it, in heart or action, never ends. Yes. Long post about a lot of things but no summary and no structure. Normally very arduous to read. Hope you'll make it through anyway Duke. And if I wrote anything that appear offensive to you, that's not how I meant it. Cheers Dandelion
  18. Ah, I see now. That was actually quite funny. LOL! Who would have known that Mr Pershing has Teutonic humour. I'm still petrified by his brutal view upon justice though. Cheers Dandelion
  19. You might want to check my profile for spelling. I understand that you must feel that way. I am more accustomed to meeting your values, than you are meeting mine. But in this particular forum, one might have hoped you would have familiarised yourself with, er, crazy people. I don't understand. How am I to understand that Zmoney? You are attempting to influence colloquial English? Is this part of the domestic US debate on methods in the war? What? Why ask me? Read the papers. Or just stick around, news will eventually reach you. That confuses me. Why aren't you? You are certain about wanting all the people you call SS scum to be killed unarmed and unheard. But all German and other Axis armed forces ultimately fought to protect and serve the central European totalitarian régimes, all of whom engaged in ethnic cleansing in one scale or other, against one group or other. It wasn't the SS but ordinary German infantry who took Warsaw and thereby enabled the ultimate extermination of the Jewish community there. The men who fought in Normandy were guarding the outer gates of Dachau. Why do you feel they are less guilty than a soldier guarding the inner gate of Dachau? And if they are not less guilty, why would they be spared your death sentences? It's "Dandelion". You might want to check my profile again. Common components are 1. A group of individuals who either crack under pressure or go rogue. 2. Said group commit acts in direct conflict with the code of conduct, objectives and war efforts of their nation and service. 3. The act mirrors the behaviour of the enemy and draws unwelcome paralel between their own cause and that of the enemy. 4. Their nation and the service they belong to must carry the ill repute of this misconduct and the shame that goes with it, and the war effort is correspondingly sabotaged. This pattern seems not very elusive to me, nor very difficult to see in any modern conflict. Your use of "soldier" there confuses the issue however. The whole problem is that the individuals acting in this manner prove thereby to be inadequate as soldiers. They could be rogues, traitors or merely unfit to wear uniform and carry arms - whichever, they are not soldiers. Well apparently there are quite a few of you, in our time. In fact you might say you are en vogue. So don't hope, frolic. Capital, carry on Dandelion
  20. It did happend yesterday, don't you read the papers? And it happends all the time, to all nations in armed conflict. How would this discussion ever be obsolete? It happends and will keep happening because far too many people carry personal values such as... well, yours. Dandelion
  21. Duke What the...? What is this now? I am severely disappointed. You are really the last person on this forum I had expected lynch-mob justice from. Honourcodes? Difficult for pilots and artillerymen - very easy for infantrymen. Shooting armed men is combat. Shooting unarmed men is murder. Never gets more complicated than that. Dandelion
  22. Ah, Jon at large again, and he beat me to it, again. I remember this question, we had this at the Axis History Forum too and there Timo beat me to it, writing an answer I could not hope to excel. I paste it in here, but the research as thus not mine but Timos. There, everything anyone ever wanted to know about Fkl units. Pictures were posted too at the forum Cheers Dandelion PS. Jon. I'll get you next time. Next time.
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