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Exploring WWII: The Brandenburgers[/anchor]
by Phoenix Dace
Every month we take a little-known or little-discussed part of WWII and showcase it for you all to learn. This month we will explore the Brandenburgers.
The Brandenburgers (also known most usually as the Brandenburg Division, though it had many names) were a unit of German special forces that operated in every major German campaign in WWII. Although by the end of the war they had been reconstituted as a regular infantry division, in the opening years they played a key role that would have gone unfilled, and played a part, though oft-unspoken, in the success of the German Blitzkrieg campaigns in Europe. The Brandenburgers operated all across Europe, with operations in every major European nation involved in the war, including Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Yugoslavia, Greece, Crete, Finland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, North Africa, and the Soviet Union. They also planned for operations against the British Isles and Gibraltar, both of which were never carried out. In addition, units of Brandenburgers were sent to infiltrate India, Afghanistan, various Middle Eastern nations, and southern Africa.
The Brandenburgers were originally conceived as an idea by Hauptmann (Captain) Theodor von Hippel. Hippel served under German General Paul von Lettow-Norbeck in East Africa during World War One, while von Lettow-Norbeck conducted a highly effective guerrilla campaign against the British forces there and went undefeated until the very end of the war. Part of von Lettow-Norbeck's success had been in his willingness to use any advantage he could against the British, a remarkable ability to scrounge supplies and a sort of 'sixth sense' for avoiding larger British forces while conducting raids behind their established front lines against vital resource centres. As well, the bulk of his forces were made up of non-ethnic Germans, primarily East African Askaris, who became renowned for their fighting skill and spirit, partly as a result of their actions under his command. At the same time, Lawrence of Arabia was conducting an effective guerrilla campaign against the Ottomans in the Arabian deserts. Hippel was influenced by both these campaigns, especially having served under von Lettow-Norbeck, and he approached the Reichswehr with the idea of small, highly-trained units, trained in espionage, sabotage, and infiltration - varied ethnic backgrounds and fluency in many languages was one of his main points in his initial proposal and, later, in the success of the Brandenburgers - which would operate behind enemy lines, wreaking havoc and supporting the frontline German forces by disorganizing the enemy. His idea was turned down by the traditional Prussian high command, not used to such a secretive style of warfare.
Undaunted, Hippel turned to Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the head of the German Intelligence Service (Abwehr) and proposed the same idea to him. Canaris approved it, and Hippel was promoted to Oberst (Colonel) and given free reign to create his ideal unit. In no time at all, Hippel assembled a company of highly-skilled soldiers. The Brandenburgers were placed under the overall command of the Wehrmacht, designated the Bataillon Ebbinghaus, and made up primarily of ethnic Germans from outside the Reich who were fluent in Polish, clearly preparing for the invasion of Poland in 1939.
The Brandenburgers played a crucial role in the invasion of Poland, primarily on the first day. In the time period leading up to the official German invasion, small groups of Brandenburgers crossed the border into Poland disguised as different types of labourers and made their way to vital power stations and industrial and resource centres, infiltrating the key points where control would be needed for an invasion to be successful. Upon the declaration of war, the Brandenburgers blew up these facilities where they had been employed, while at the same time other units made their way over the border, past Polish defensive positions, and seized key bridges over the Vistula River, preventing the Poles from destroying them to slow the Blitzkrieg attack. On the morning of September 1st, German panzer divisions would roll across the bridges captured by the Brandenburgers, not slowing their advance at all.
In the invasion of Poland the Bataillon Ebbinghaus operated efficiently and smoothly, and outperformed expectations. Regardless, the Wehrmacht ordered its disbanding immediately after the end of the invasion of Poland. Hippel was unphased, and Canaris gave him the go-ahead to create a new unit along the same lines, this time under direct Abwehr command. The new battalion was formed on a base of ex-Ebbinghaus soldiers, and was inaugurated on October 25, 1939, while Hippel searched all across greater Germany for new recruits. His recruitment process was completely opposite that of the Nazi Party and its favoured units - he looked in particular for ethnic non-Germans willing to fight for the Reich, and recruiting large numbers of Slavs and Poles who wished to fight for Germany. A requirement for entrance into the battalion was to be fluent in another language as well as German; many soldiers were fluent in three or more languages. They were based in an old country estate on the outskirts of Stendal, in the Prussian province of Brandenburg, where they took their name from. They were trained in stealth, sabotage, and infiltration; they learned to move at night, unnoticed, live off the land, and navigate by the stars. After successful testing, the unit's higher-ups were impressed, and the company was expanded into a battalion, and was redesignated the Bataillon Brandenburg. This original battalion was composed of four companies, a motorcycle platoon, and a paratrooper detachment. The four companies were organized along ethnic lines for ease of deployment to various fronts - one was made up of men from the Baltic nations and Russia, one from English-speaking territories including North Africa, one from the Sudetenland and Yugoslavia, and the last from ethnic Germans living outside Germany, mostly from Poland.
The Brandenburgers, despite increasing size of the unit all the way to its incorporation as a frontline unit in 1944, remained an elite unit, and spent a great deal of time training; their training was tough and highly regimented, making them skilled in a number of different aspects key to their brand of warfare - small unit tactics, individual training, infiltration and sabotage, and familiarity with all involved vehicles and weaponry on both sides of any fight were highly-focused aspects of their training. Some smaller sub-units were trained in more specialized branches of espionage and infiltration, such as piloting, forgery, or demolitions. As an example, one company was formed from over a hundred expert cross-country skiers and was designed to be deployed to the frozen Arctic north of Finland and the Soviet Union, outfitted with cross-country skis and dog sleds. The Brandenburgers would often disguise themselves as enemy soldiers and use captured enemy equipment in order to make an infiltration successful, often including forged identification papers of the involved nation. However, the Brandenburgers, unlike some other nations' special forces, were very particular about removing the enemy uniforms and donning their own before opening or returning fire on enemy troops. In part this was to accent the fact that they were soldiers and not spies, and in part it was due to their own chivalric code. At some points this meant they were captured due to the time delay in returning fire.
Two nights before the opening of the invasion of the Low Countries, Brandenburger units crossed the borders into Belgium and the Netherlands, wearing the uniforms of the Belgian and Dutch armed forces over their German ones. They again seized key installations and infrastructure to support the German invasion, in particular seizing bridges over the larger rivers so they would not be destroyed and so the tanks and trucks of the German motorized and mechanized forces could advance unhindered. After the fall of France, the Brandenburgers were transfered to the Channel coast to prepare for an invasion of the British Isles. Once it was called off, they were transferred to southern France to train for Operation Felix, the proposed plan to seize Gibraltar, but it was canceled as well and the Brandenburgers were shifted east. At this point they grew in size once again, designated the Regiment Brandenburg and integrating coastal raider and tropical groups. The Brandenburgers saw action in Yugoslavia, where a 54-man team from the Sudeten and Slavic detachment seized the Orsova dockyards on the Danube the day before the German invasion. As well, Brandenburgers were sent to Africa along with Rommel's Afrika Korps, in the form of four companies of Tropical units. All soldiers involved in this operation were fluent in either English or Arabic, and they used captured British vehicles and equipment for long-range raids against British logistics and reconnaissance missions, in actions quite similar to those being undertaken by the British Long Range Desert Group and David Stirling's SAS. Initially, Rommel disapproved of this underhanded style of warfare, but upon seeing the damage that could be inflicted by the British LRDG and SAS, he agreed to fully support the Brandenburgers. However, because of their long supply lines and the extreme distances between them and their parent army, they were frequently killed or captured due to difficulties supplying, transporting, or reinforcing them.
Brandenburgers were the first German soldiers to cross the Soviet border as part of Operation Barbarossa, when on the first day they seized key infrastructure points such as rail junctions and bridges, and conducted their expert brand of sabotage and disorganization against the Soviet communications and logistical structures. The Coastal Raider Battalion conducted a number of raids up the Baltic coast and in the Black Sea. The Brandenburgers then slipped into their natural role as elite advance scouts, making their way ahead of German spearheads disguised as Red Army soldiers and driving captured Red Army vehicles, capturing vital junctions and bridges so that the spearheads could continue unhindered. This is the role they would perform most throughout the remainder of the war, until their reconstitution in 1944. In mid-1942, a unit of 62 Brandenburgers led by Adrien von Fölkersam forged deep into Soviet territory towards the Maikop oilfields disguised as members of the NKVD and driving captured Soviet trucks. The unit ran into a large group of Soviet deserters and Fölkersam convinced them to rejoin the war effort so that his men could travel with them unnoticed throughout the Russian lines. Fölkersam, disguised as an NKVD major, successfully bluffed the commander of Maikop's defence into believing he had been ordered to retrieve the deserters and bring them to defend Maikop. In fact, Fölkersam was so convincing that the commander of Maikop's defence personally gave him a tour of the city's defences. One day before the arrival of the German spearhead, on August 8, 1942, the Brandenburgers used grenades to fake an artillery strike and knocked out Maikop's communications, then Fölkersam ordered a unilateral Soviet withdrawal from the city. Because he was dressed as an NKVD major and had been seen with their commander, combined with the lack of communications to refute his order, the Soviets withdrew from the city and the Germans entered it without a fight on August 9th.
By late 1942 the Brandenburgers were mostly acting simply as an elite infantry firebrigade, responding to any Soviet offensives with quick deployments from behind the lines. In February 1943 it was removed from the line and brought back to Germany, where it once again expanded and was redesignated the Division Brandenburg, under the command of Major General Alexander von Pfuhlstein. At this point the division was divided into four regiments, one of which was sent back to the Eastern Front to continue firebrigade duties. One battalion was sent to harass the Allies in Africa, and the rest of the division was deployed to the Balkans to serve as an anti-partisan unit. In this function Brandenburgers took part in the unsuccessful parachute assault against Josip Broz Tito's headquarters in Yugoslavia. When Italy surrendered to the Allies, the division was transferred from the Balkans to strategic Italian-controlled locations to disarm the Italian troops and seize control of the area for Germany. One such area was the island of Kos in the Dodecanese island chain off the coast of Turkey, which was controlled by Italian and British troops. Some 500 Brandenburger airborne troops and elements of the coastal raider battalion assaulted the island together with Luftwaffe paratroopers. The Brandenburgers quickly overwhelmed the Italian beach defences. While securing the town, the Brandenburgers found a large store of alcohol hidden in several caves and many indulged themselves with several drinks. Their commander, Lieutenant Langbein, realized the alcohol was making his men sluggish and tired, and secured a supply of Pervitin, a stimulant, which when mixed with the alcohol produced a feeling of controlled rage in the Brandenburgers. When the British and Italians assaulted later that night, they repelled the superior Allied numbers with ease, counterattacked, and together with the Luftwaffe troops secured the Allied positions and forced the surrender of some 8,000 British and Italian troops.
However, the Brandenburgers soon lost their comfortable Abwehr overlords. Several high-ranking Abwehr officials, including Admiral Canaris himself, were implicated in the July Plot to kill Hitler, bringing the Abwehr's anti-Nazi views to a close. Control of the Brandenburg Division was passed to the SS' intelligence section, the SD, but in September of 1944 it was decided special operations troops were superfluous and the divisions was reconstituted as Infanterie-Division Brandenburg (mot), was outfitted as a regular motorized division, and was sent to the Eastern Front to function as a regular infantry division. 1,800 men including Adrien von Fölkersam managed to eke out transfers to Otto Skorzeny's SS-Jagdverbande and serve out the rest of the war as special forces. The rest were condemned to regular infantry duty on the Eastern front. Regardless, they were still considered elite and served next to the Großdeutschland Division, another elite infantry division and one that had trained with the Brandenburgers in 1940-41. The division took part in fighting through the Baltic States and into East Prussia. Near the end of 1944, the division underwent its final change, when it was outfitted with a panzer regiment and was redesignated Panzergrenadier-Division Brandenburg. The Brandenburgers were involved in heavy fighting near Memel, and was then devastated and nearly wiped out completely in heavy fighting near Pillau. At the end of the war, the remainder of the division surrendered to the British in Schleswig-Holstein, but many individuals simply disappeared.
Post-war, many Brandenburgers had no desire to return to civilian life, and they spread out into various special forces and advisor roles in various different countries. A number of former Brandenburgers served in the SAS, the American special forces, and the French Foreign Legion. It is nearly certain that the Soviets used ex-Brandenburgers as advisors and operatives for their special forces and security forces. Many others traveled to the less developed world, to Africa, South and Central America, and Asia, where they acted as advisors and mercenaries, especially in only recently free African states following the end of the war. Mao Zedong was advised by a former Brandenburger, as was Indonesian president Sukarnoand Congolese separatist Moise Tshombe. Others found work for the Egyptian security forces or fighting for Israel. It is thought that the Brandenburgers form the heritage of the Kommando Spezialkrafte, or KSK, Germany's special forces since 1996.
The Brandenburgers played a key role in the formative years of Germany's European wars, one that could not be filled by any other unit. It could probably be argued that the German campaigns may not have been so dramatically successful if not for the actions of the Brandenburgers, but such an assertion would most likely be according them too much credit in the grand scheme of things. In the small-scale, they made a dramatic difference, and the individual stories of their success, such as Adrien von Fölkersam at Maikop, are spectacular and give cause to much thought about how they may have impacted certain operations in the war. Strategically, they made a slight difference. Operationally, they made a moderate difference, with some spectacular victories. Tactically, where they were involved, they could make or break the tide of a battle.