Wehrpass - Grenadier Ersatz Battalion 37/Alarm Kompanie Mobfall “Gneisenau” KIA
Article about: Hello everyone, As usual please add anything you see or give any corrections where necessary, especially if anyone has any information on 3. Alarm Kompanie Mobfall “Gneisenau”, or the co
Wehrpass - Grenadier Ersatz Battalion 37 and Alarm Kompanie Mobfall “Gneisenau” KIA
Hello everyone,
As usual please add anything you see or give any corrections where necessary, especially if anyone has any information on 3. Alarm Kompanie Mobfall “Gneisenau”, or the codeword ‘Gneisenau’.
Here is a late war Wehrpass to Grenadier Christian Peters, an 18 year old who was conscripted (dienstplichtiger) from Wittlaer, which is an urban borough of Düsseldorf, Germany. The Wehrpass was opened on he 18th of June 1943 by wehrbezirkskommando Mettmann and he swore his oath on the 7th of April 1944. Christian was born on the 18th of January 1926, was a farmer like his father, he was single and his religion was Catholic.
Training - (Small arms)
m. Gr. W. (mortar)
Gewehr 98k
Service-
He served April to September 1944 with Res. Gren. Batl. 37 of the 166. Res. Div, then based in Denmark. He was transferred on the 8th of September 1944 to Gren. Ers. Batl. 37 of the 526. Res. Div, then active in the defence of Aachen.
Due to the fast advance of the allied army in the west, all kinds of training, reserve and rear echelon units were called up and assembled for active Infantry service.
He was transferred on the 19th of September 1944 to 3. Alarmkp. Mobfall “Gneisenau”, an alarm unit, which I could find only one reference to, in the book - Arnhem: The Battle for the Bridges, 1944, by Antony Beevor.
Quote - A stream of orders and instructions poured forth, including the codeword 'Gneisenau'.
Quote - The diversion of the 107th Panzer-Brigade and the assault gun brigade heading to Aachen from Denmark.
So I assume that ‘Gneisenau’ was the codeword used by German forces for the return of troops and equipment stationed in Denmark, that were to be used in the defence of the Aachen. It was one of these hastily formed, ad-hoc formations that would try and hold back the advancing allies that Christian Peters was transferred to, and this would cost him his life.
On the 7th of November 1944 his mother received a letter informing her of his death, which took place at 22.00pm on the 14th of October 1944 at Rezerve lazertte Osnabrück.
Surname:
Peters
Forename:
Christian
Rank:
Grenadier
Date of birth:
18.01.1926
Place of birth:
Wittlar
Date of death/becoming missing:
14.10.1944
Place of death/becoming missing:
Osnabrück
Christian Peters is buried in the military cemetery in Osnabrück, Heger Friedhof.
Endgrablage: Feld XIB Reihe 1 Grab 8
The personal details of the above mentioned are recorded in the memorial book for those missing or killed in Germany.
Right, I have done some digging and found some information. Gneisenau was a program to shift man power from Reserve Divisions (where replacements were trained, often in occupied territory) then transferred to the front when or where needed, for example the use of Alarm Kompanies.
*This is a brief summary of what I found, but the links at the bottom will provide in-depth discussion on the subject.
Emergency callups under the Walküre, Gneisenau and Blücher were programs to raise additional manpower for the formation of new Divisions, which would be used to plug gaps in manpower.
Reserve Divisions were created in 1942 to be a sort of "finishing school". They were meant to perform the advanced and final training hitherto done in their home wehrkreise, but on occupied territory where they could double as an occupation force.
During the course of the Second World War the Replacement and Training Divisions (Ersatzdivisionen), of the Third Reich, proved to be the lubricant that oiled the formidable German military machine. Formed in the various German military districts (Wehrkreise), these divisions were tasked, after 27 August 1939, with conscription, training and replacement of personnel.
Under control of the Replacement Army (Ersatzheer), these Replacement and Training Divisions rose in strength from a total of 996,000 men at the start of WWII to a peak of 2,572,000 in December 1944.
Training in ersatz companies was abbreviated both for new recruits and for men released from hospitals. Both received from three to eight weeks basic training, depending on the judgment of the company officers as to when the men were ready. After the men finished basic training, small percentages, usually those destined for the Russian front, were sent to Ausbildung companies for advanced training
The creation of the reserve divisions hampered the training of new men to a certain degree. If a new draftee were not selected to go into the air force or the panzer force, he received up to four months of basic individual infantry training in a replacement and training battalion located in a barracks near his home in Germany. He was then sent either to a reserve division in the occupied territories or to a training unit behind the lines in Russia, where he received another four months of training while performing occupation duties or fighting partisans. Finally, he was assigned to a division where he was taught more skills in the replacement battalion.
The Replacement Army constituted a major portion of the armed forces. Its operations played a major role in bolstering the perseverance of the Field Army. Throughout most of the war, for every two or three field army soldiers there was a replacement army soldier readying to move to the front.
In the field of manpower, the German war effort generally was in a perpetually pressed state from day 1 of the war. For the Field Army, it is no exaggeration to speak of a perpetual state of crisis from early 1941 on. This was exacerbated by organisational inflexibility imposed from above (ie, refusal to disband divisions) combined with the diversion of much manpower to new formations, but self-imposed or not, the result was a long series of ad-hoc actions in response to the situation. These were more often than not in response to specific crisis that had already come to pass (such as Stalingrad or the disasters of summer 1944) rather than in anticipation of them.
These measures extended from more or less constant low-level efforts to squeeze maximum "liquidity" out of the system (such as drawing a few thousand men from AOK Norwegen and replacing them there with untrained recruits who were then trained by the occupation divisions) to major special actions designed to supply hundreds of thousands of men to the fighting forces.
These measures reached an especially hectic pace in mid to late 1944, and to the end of the war, when they were faced with disastrous losses. "Gneisenau", "Blücher" and "Leuthen" go into this wider context as just some of the specific programs instituted. Of rather greater importance was for example, the Goebbelsaktion, through which manpower on a very large scale was drawn from industry, the Luftwaffe and the Kriegsmarine in order to help rebuild the army (and Waffen-SS). Another big program was "Aktion Urlauberreserven" in June and July, in which men on leave in Germany were "confiscated", and used to form several new formations, something which effected a certain redistribution of force from East to West as they mostly ended up on the Western front, but mostly had been on leave from divisions on the Eastern Front.
The picture in the last months of the war is particularly complicated as large elements of the Ersatzheer was during period being absorbed in the Field Army, which essentially took over the Ersatzheers task in the parts of Germany that fell under the army's operational zones. Also, at this point they were beginning to dip seriously into non-renewable sources like Stammpersonal, NCO and officer trainees and so on.
It is possible. The white cards in the database do contain information on how they died/were killed whereas the green ones don't but this far from that period it is impossible to say either way. Not everyone was killed in action and people died from the things that kill people today - illnesses, suicides, accidents, negligence etc. The Wehrpass states Gestorben rather than Gefallen so it hints at him dying from a non-war related issue.
Thanks again hucks, I wasn’t aware of the different nature of the casualty cards.
Very true, I’ve noted a few different ways that casualties were recorded, like the pilot Wehrpass you helped me with, which said - tödlich abgestürzt (fatally crashed).
Wehrpass - Grenadier Ersatz Battalion 37 and Alarm Kompanie Mobfall “Gneisenau” KIA
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