Witt was killed on 14 June, succeeded by the highly capable Sturmbannführer (Major) Kurt Meyer.

This article on the topic of the German Army in World War Two (German Army WW2) is from the book D-Day Encyclopedia, © 2014 by Barrett Tillman.

After years of playing down the risk of far-right infiltration in the military, political leaders are confronting an issue that has become too dangerous to ignore.

German Military In this section you will find all of our current range of German military surplus. On VE-Day most of the division surrendered near Achensee. Subscribe to our Spartacus Newsletter and keep up to date with the latest articles. The 716th covered fifty-five miles, backed by the 243d and 352d. Germany Dismisses Military Intelligence Official After Neo-Nazi Scandals. Additional assets included an assault gun battalion and antitank battalion with towed 88 mm guns. Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the German Army was unable to grow to more than 100,000 men. Many of our own soldiers who have been prisoners of war have borne testimony to this. ‘‘HJ’’ was converted to a panzer division in October, its units based in France and Belgium. Das Reich opposed Overlord, earning lasting condemnation for an atrocity conducted en route. A new unit, the 116th was raised in March 1944 by converting the Sixteenth Panzer Grenadier Division. The Army stands, loyal and disciplined, behind the rulers of the State, behind the President, Field-Marshall von Hindenberg, its Supreme Commander, and behind the leader of the Reich, Adolf Hitler, who came from its ranks and remains one of ours. Thirty-eight German infantry divisions were deployed in Normandy, including five static divisions for coastal defense.

My failure to write earlier has not been due to being always on the move. The German infantry rarely brings the attack close enough for bayonets to be used; but when they do, they scatter in panic or surrender. I hope that those who control our post-war relations with Germany shall be men who know the German as the Soldier does. It is difficult enough for us who meet them constantly. It is an American garrison, but run under the German … one of four fighting companies in Germany’s elite special forces. In September, 1939, the Nazis moved 45 infantry divisions of 16,000 men each against Poland, which only had 40 divisions of 10,500 men each. German tanks were technically superior to anything the United States or Britain fielded, and they could cope with the excellent Soviet T-34.

Germany Dismisses Military Intelligence Official After Neo-Nazi Scandals.

Kraiss was an experienced combat soldier; he had been a company commander in World War I and had led a division into Russia in 1941.

I can well understand the enthusiasm which the soldiers-from marshals to the private soldier - showed for Napoleon; and why they followed their leader without doubt or question in his victorious campaigns. The German offensive against Moscow was proving to be a … The growth in the importance of the SA worried other leaders in the National Socialist German Workers Party.

The Waffen SS generally comprised experienced, wellequipped divisions that operated separately from the army. Kraiss deployed the division’s own 914th, 915th, and 916th Regiments plus the 726th, attached from 716th Division, minus one battalion.

Despite heavy losses in the Soviet Union and in France following the D-Day landings, the German Army had 168 infantry divisions and 25 panzer divisions by January, 1945. Others, with more foresight, were apprehensive from the start, for there was good reason to assume that the amateur or "displaced" soldiers who led the S.A. would not be content, once their Party was in power, to see military office remain a privileged preserve of the traditionally conservative Reichswehr. Consequently, the division was some eighty miles from the invasion beaches on 6 June; it was obliged to make a difficult and costly run to the coast. Overall, the German order of battle in Normandy involved nine infantry corps (one parachute) and five panzer corps. In the main drive against the Allies in Holland, Belgium and Luxemburg on May 10, 1940, the Germans used 107 infantry and 10 tank divisions, while the Allies used 63 infantry divisions, 4 light mechanized and 6 cavalry divisions. No Mark V Panthers (Tanks, German) were available, so Hohenstaufen made do with Mark IVs. The troops are therefore empowered and are in duty bound in this war to use without mitigation even against women and children any means that will lead to success. Wisch took First SS to Belgium during May 1944, bringing its strength up to 16,600 men.

Personnel had reached nearly full strength, with 16,300 officers, NCOs, and men. The division was sent to Russia in March 1944 and, like its sister division Ninth SS, participated in the Kamenets breakout in April.

Generalleutnant Edgar Feuchtinger reestablished the division in France in July of that year, but it saw no combat until June 1944. Though the 352d was one of the few full-strength divisions in France, its presence was not detected soon enough by Allied intelligence to benefit the assault divisions.

Named for a sixteenth-century Teutonic baron, the division was established in October 1943 with many Volksdeutsche, or ethnic Germans. Major Werner Pluskat, the division artillery officer, may have been the first German to sound the alarm on 6 June.

The 709th was formed in May 1941 but saw very little action until. Gen. Erich Marcks’s LXXXIV Corps defended a 250-mile coastal area with five divisions. The Twenty-first fought in North Africa 1941–43 and was destroyed in the Tunisian collapse of May 1943.

Thank God he does attend to them, for if he did not, matters would be even worse than they are anyway.