Hitler's Brandenburgers

by Lawrence Paterson

  Following the alert, the 2nd Regiment moved from the area of Grevena at 2210hrs on 8 September in an extended motorised column, travelling north to Kastoria where they were ordered to disarm the Italian 13th Infantry Regiment. Their primary mission went smoothly though a single vehicle of the 3rd Company’s signals unit was ambushed by Andartes and one Oberfunkmeister was killed, two men captured and their Kübelwagen destroyed.

  While mainland operations against Italian units generally proceeded without major problems, several of the Italian island garrisons refused to submit so easily. The feared British incursion into the Aegean had also begun with nearly 4,000 British troops spread across the Dodecanese Islands by early October. On the day that Italy had surrendered, the 30,000 Italian troops on Rhodes had been exhorted by British leaflets – and later two British majors parachuted onto the island – to subdue the island’s 7,000-strong German garrison. However, after just two days of fierce fighting the Italians surrendered. New Andarte groups had risen on the island of Euboea and taken control of the ports, while Zante, Cephalonia, Corfu and Volos also seemed under imminent threat of takeover by Greek guerrillas as Italian troops began handing them their heavy weapons while refusing to surrender to German forces.

  Immediate German moves to occupy Corfu were postponed on 16 September after an attempted landing by the 1st Gebirgs Division had been repulsed. Instead, the decision was taken to first tackle Italian resistance on Cephalonia and eliminate Italian heavy artillery support for both islands. The island garrison of Skarpantos surrendered unconditionally while Syra required extended negotiation. In Cephalonia, 525 officers and 11,500 men of the Acqui Division had been garrisoned since May 1943, the division’s 18th Regiment being detached to occupation duties in Corfu. Acqui’s commander, General Antonio Gandin, was a veteran of the Italian action on the Eastern Front and a holder of the Iron Cross. He had considerable strength at his disposal, including naval coastal batteries, torpedo boats and two aircraft. Following the Italian armistice, Gandin negotiated the fate of his command with Oberst Johannes Barge, commander of the Wehrmacht’s 966th Fortress Grenadier Regiment also present on the island and with whom Gandin had a good rapport. While Corfu’s Italian commander flatly refused to surrender, Gandin eventually agreed to give up his division’s weapons to Barge by 16 September, simultaneously withdrawing from strategic positions along the island’s coastline. However, at 0700hrs on 13 September, Italian artillery opened fire on their own initiative against a convoy of five MFPs carrying German artillery to the port of Argostoli, one of the landing craft capsizing and another being damaged, suffering four dead and three men severely wounded.

  Negotiations immediately broke down completely and Gandin, with the backing of most of his officers and men, finally decided that his unit would fight. Troops of the 1st Gebirgs Division and 104th Jäger Division, assembled as ‘Kampfgruppe Hirschfeld’ under the command of Major Harald von Hirschfeld, landed on the island after heavy Stuka bombardment and fighting raged ashore until the last Italians surrendered at 1100hrs on 22 September. The conscripts of the Acqui Division were no match for the veteran Gebirgsjäger and while 300 German troops were killed, the Italians lost 1,315 men during the battle. Beginning on 21 September, even before the end of hostilities, Hitler had ordered that due to the ‘perfidious and treacherous’ behaviour of the Italians on Cephalonia, no prisoners were to be taken. Correspondingly, over the week that followed, over 5,000 men of the Acqui Division were shot, including Gandin. It was a pattern repeated to a lesser degree on other islands.

  The Brandenburg Division was criticised by both the commander of 1st Gebirgs Division and OKH’s operations staff for not taking part in the assault on Cephalonia. Serious questions were asked of the division as Berlin considered them ‘obligated’ to offer their services to the attack. The adjutant of the 1st Regiment, Oberleutnant von Fölkersam, had in fact travelled to confer with both the Ia and Ic of the Army Group responsible before returning to Walther’s regimental command post and briefing his commander. The Brandenburgers refused to take part in the invasion and were later fully backed by Pfuhlstein who declined to ‘reproach’ Walther as he was exercising the prerogative of the Brandenburgers to opt out of operations that they considered inappropriate for their men.

  The Italian garrison of Corfu, which numbered approximately 8,000 men, had also rejected an agreement with the Germans after rumours circulated that surrendering Italian soldiers were being deported rather than repatriated. The Wehrmacht launched Operation ‘Verrat’ (‘Treason’) in response, originally planned to be spearheaded by Brandenburger troops of Pfeiffer’s 2nd Regiment. A company of Italian-speaking South Tyroleans, led by Leutnant Kessler, were being equipped with captured Italian uniforms and weapons before heading to Igoumenitsa. They also carried radio equipment and loudspeakers with which to increase confusion behind enemy lines once established ashore. However, their mission was cancelled before it began; German bombing and direct attack by 1st Gebirgs Division led in short order to an Italian surrender. Only some of Hauptmann Kuhlmann’s Küstenjäger Abteilung operated in the sea area around Corfu before the Germans prevailed. While there was no mass shooting of Italian prisoners like that on Cephalonia, many officers – at least twenty-seven – were executed.

  After the Italian garrison on Kos turned the island over to British troops, Allied forces occupied Leros and Samos on 17 September. By the following day, Symi, Astypalaia and Ikaria were also in British hands. Royal Air Force aircraft were now operating from Kos airfield and German inter-island convoys that ferried vital supplies and troops movements immediately came under attack. The Italian garrison on Syra was taken prisoner by German forces while fighting briefly continued on Andros and Euboea, fifty Italian officers and artillery men deserting to join the Greek partisans after removing the breech blocks of their guns on northern Euboa. A company of men from the 4th SS Polizei Division was transferred to the island though they were soon surrounded and required further SS reinforcements landed by sea. In Berlin, OKW feared that the British-controlled Dodecanese islands could be used as a springboard for further invasions of the Aegean islands, though they had moved fast enough to prevent Allied occupation of the biggest prize: Rhodes.

  The German commander on Crete, Generalleutnant Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller of the 22nd Luftlande Division, was ordered to retake the Dodecanese, beginning with Kos, and plans were swiftly formulated for a daring amphibious and aerial assault. Kos now hosted two Spitfire squadrons and significant British ground forces as well as 3,500 men of the original Italian garrison. However, heavy bombardment by Luftwaffe aircraft of Fliegerkorps X soon rendered the airfield unusable and both Spitfire squadrons were withdrawn to Cyprus while such heavy casualties were caused amongst troops on the ground that an occupying British paratrooper battalion was also withdrawn. The air raids were subsequently widened to include Leros as the Luftwaffe had achieved local air supremacy.

  The attack on Kos – Operation ‘Eisbär’ (‘Polar Bear’) – began on 3 October. A total of 2,000 German troops that included Panzergrenadiers and even some tanks set sail from Piraeus, Suda and Candia in three groups, rendezvousing west of Naxos to become convoy ‘Olympus’. Spearheading the amphibious attack was 1st Company of the Küstenjäger Abteilung, which stormed ashore at 0610hrs and established a beachhead on the south coast at Camare Bay and Capo Foco. The stronger forces of Kampfgruppe Kuhlmann then began landing in the Brandenburger enclave and funnelled inland. At the same time Oberleutnant Oschatz led his Brandenburger Fallschirmjäger company in a landing amidst the scrubby undulating land north of Cape Tigani, near the cratered Antimachia aerodrome. Two aircraft, with their combined twenty-four Fallschirmjäger aboard, had failed to join the attack – one dropping out with engine damage, the other failing to meet the rendezvous point with the remaining aircraft and forced to return. Both would finally arrive during the following day. Nonetheless, the landing went as planned and Oschatz’s men quickly moved into the attack, overwhelming Briti
sh artillery and mortar emplacements guarding the approach to the airfield. Positioning his machine guns to cover the advance of the Küstenjäger, Oschatz had control of the access road to the small town of Antimachia and had taken his first British prisoners. With Fallschirmjäger attacking along the north of the road and Küstenjäger to the south, the airfield was soon under German control; a small swastika recognition flag flying over it by 1710hrs. Despite the flag, the Fallschirmjäger were twice bombed by Luftwaffe aircraft, the first raid ignoring the agreed upon signal of a white flare, the second arriving when there remained no more flares available to fire. Fortunately for the Brandenburgers, despite the impressive explosions of the Luftwaffe attack, only one of Oschatz’s men was wounded.

  Following a relatively quiet night, strong reconnaissance forces left for the town of Antimachia at 0410hrs the following morning. Moving east, by dawn organised resistance to their advance had ceased and Kos was in German hands. Oschatz’s company had taken 400 Italians and forty British troops prisoner, captured seventeen damaged aircraft, fifteen heavy machine guns and quantities of small arms, eight artillery pieces and five anti-aircraft batteries of various calibres. In return they had suffered one man killed and five wounded. The Germans took 1,388 British and 3,145 Italian prisoners in total, the Italian island commander Colonel Felice Leggio and ninety-one of his officers being shot as per Hitler’s instructions. The pair of late Junkers transport aircraft landed their Fallschirmjäger as reinforcements, but a German battalion being rushed by sea to the island in a small troop convoy codenamed ‘Olympus’ was intercepted and almost destroyed by the Royal Navy. The battalion had been earmarked to garrison Kos while the assault troops and Brandenburgers currently in possession were planned to immediately mount an attack on Leros, the garrison on Kalymnos already surrendering without a fight and allowing the island to be occupied by 1st Company of the Küstenjäger Abteilung. Though the Brandenburgers landed without firing a shot, their commander Hauptmann Armin Kuhlmann was severely wounded in an Allied air attack on the island, Leutnant Hans Schädlich subsequently taking command.

  The prearranged timetable for the capture of Leros was now in serious jeopardy. While OKW raged with bitter recriminations following the ‘Olympus’ convoy’s destruction, the attack on Leros was still ordered by 9 October at the latest. The existing plan, codenamed ‘Leopard’, was frustrated further by the combination of Royal Navy interceptions of men and material, bad Aegean weather fronts and the arrival of USAAF P 38 Lightning aircraft that had begun to cause the Luftwaffe problems in the area. ‘Leopard’ was gradually postponed in increments that ultimately delayed it until November, by which time the British garrison on Leros had swelled to about 2,500 troops. These included men of the 2nd Battalion, The Royal Irish Fusiliers, 4th Battalion The Buffs (The Royal East Kent Regiment), 1st Battalion The King’s Own Royal Regiment (Lancaster), a company of the 2nd Battalion Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment and a small number of men from the Special Boat Service; the entire force under Brigadier Robert Tilney, who assumed command on 5 November. Additionally, the Italians had 8,320 soldiers and sailors still on the island, the majority from Captain Luigi Mascherpa’s garrison, but also men from thirteen coastal batteries and twelve anti-aircraft and dual-purpose batteries.

  In the meantime, despite the delay, Oschatz and his Fallschirmjäger were not idle. On 18 October, they attacked the small island of Levitha 60km north-west of Kos. An Italian radio station had been detected on the barren island and aerial reconnaissance reported small British ships present, carrying approximately fifty German prisoners from the shattered ‘Olympus’ convoy. The shipwrecked survivors were predominantly Luftwaffe ground troops and many of them were suffering from severe wounds sustained during the naval action.

  The Brandenburger raid on Levitha was coordinated with the commander of the Luftwaffe maritime reconnaissance group, Oberst Hermann Busch, and Oschatz proposed a small shock troop of four rifle groups, one radio NCO and two radio men, the Truppenarzt, Oberarzt Dr Koepchen and three combat medics. Two Junkers Ju 52 floatplanes and a Dornier flying boat were provided as troop transport as well as an escort of six Arado Ar 196 floatplanes. The Fallschirmjäger were not parachuting into action this time; the aircraft would land as close to shore as possible and the assault groups disembark on rubber rafts that would be later used to ferry the liberated wounded men back to the waiting aircraft for transfer to hospital in Athens.

  At 0530hrs on 18 October, the troop-carrying aircraft departed, landing the Fallschirmjäger on the south coast of Levitha as planned, the Dornier flanked on either side by Ju 52s while the smaller Arados provided cover. Oschatz was in the right-hand Junkers, storming ashore and inland, immediately heading towards the small Italian radio station that was on the island’s high ground. One of the rafts that alighted from the large Dornier capsized and 23-year-old Obergefreiter Fritz Bruhn, weighed down with machine-gun ammunition, was dragged to the bottom and drowned. He was to be the only German lost that day, though two others were wounded by splinters from one of their own hand grenades. A pair of Italians who opened fire on the approaching Germans were shot and killed before the fighting ended as swiftly as it had begun. Nine British soldiers, including one officer, were captured as well as the eleven men of the Italian radio station. Charts and radio cipher material was also seized and sent back to Athens with the wounded.

  Only a matter of days later the Fallschirmjäger were in action again, this time landing on Astipalia in a combined operation with Major Walther’s 1st Battalion/1st Regiment. The Luftwaffe mounted Stuka raids on the island as a prelude to the attack, targeting and destroying an Italian wireless station at Porto Scala. At approximately 0915hrs Oschatz’s Fallschirmjäger Company was dropped by parachute at Maltezana at the island’s narrow centre. Walther’s troops were soon landed on the south-west coast, some also air landed at the small airstrip that had been quickly occupied by the Fallschirmjäger. As the Brandenburgers advanced from the coast they freed forty-eight German prisoners who had also survived the disastrous ‘Olympus’ convoy. The operation, though perhaps minor in the annals of Second World War history, was mounted with dash and determination and was rewarded with success achieved by minimal fighting, the small Allied presence on the island soon surrendered or in hiding.

  Pfuhlstein issued his after-action summary on 23 October detailing the Brandenburger actions thus far in the Dodecanese. In it, he noted the high morale displayed by the 1st Regiment troops en-route to Astipalia, the leading pilot of one of their transport aircraft apparently remarking that he had never carried such a motivated troop of men before. Pfuhlstein’s praise for the conduct of his men was justified.

  The characteristics of a good surprise attack [Handstreich] – fast, lightning-quick appearance and hitting the enemy before he can organise his defence – have excelled here in all three cases. In addition to good preparation by officers, the troops have performed perfectly. It is only because each individual Jäger throws his heart and soul into it that these operations are so well handled.13

  The Battle for Leros

  ‘Leopard’ was now scheduled for 9 November. Generalleutnant Müller had assembled an assault force that included Schädlich’s 1st Company/Küstenjäger Abteilung (with elements of Hauptmann Gustav Froboese’s 3rd Battalion/1st Regiment ‘Brandenburg’ as reinforcement) and three Panzergrenadier battalions with an aerial attack to be made by the Brandenburger Fallschirmjäger Company and Luftwaffe Fallschirmjäger 1st Battalion/2nd Fallschirmjäger Regiment. The naval plan involved twenty-five infantry landing craft, two MFPs, thirteen escort vessels as well as two ex-Italian destroyers and two torpedo boats to be used as a distant covering group. Heavy Luftwaffe Stuka and bomber support was to be provided to compensate for Royal Navy predominance in the region and preparatory raids numbered in the hundreds before the attack was launched. On 7 November, amidst security concerns, the operation was renamed ‘Taifun’ and as the shipping required for the assault assembled, they suffered
further Allied air harassment that damaged four escorting R-boats. Finally, after several false starts, ‘Taifun’ began on 12 November.

  Nearly forty Ju 52s swept towards the island from Athens. Skimming low to the waters of the Aegean, they were only an hour into their journey when they were unexpectedly recalled. Their landing zone was on the narrow waist of the island that would link amphibious landings from both east and west. However, one of those amphibious assaults had already gone awry.

  As planned, the advance by sea to Leros had begun in two groups east and west of Kalymnos during the previous night. Under heavy defensive fire the first troops – including the Küstenjäger Abteilung – began landing on the eastern edge of Leros in and around Alinda Bay at 0521hrs, but those destined for Gourrna Bay on the west coast had been forced away at 0543hrs five miles south-west of the island under heavy artillery fire from ashore; Stukas were called in to neutralise British artillery and the western landing rescheduled for 1245hrs. However, even after several hours’ delay, accurate shellfire continued to disrupt their attempted landing, one landing craft being hit by mortars, stored ammunition and fuel detonating and sinking the vessel. The attack was broken off and postponed until the cover of darkness before being entirely diverted to the eastern coast.

  Meanwhile, a beachhead had been successfully established at Alinda and the parachute drop was restarted. The aircraft slowly flew in line astern to the drop zone that formed a triangle between the villages of San Nicola, San Quirco and Alinda. The Fallschirmjäger carried their personal weapons rather than dropping without them and having to recover them from containers, enabling them to go immediately into action once on the ground. Slow moving, the Ju 52s were flying below the level of anti-aircraft guns on flanking hilltops, though they still absorbed terrific punishment from ground fire as the drop zone was held by at least two platoons of the 2nd Royal Irish Fusiliers and the Buffs as well as some men of the Special Boat Service. Dropping from only 180m, the drop time was barely twenty seconds before the Fallschirmjäger hit the ground, the first landing at about 1430hrs. Casualties were high: as much as 40 per cent of the total parachute troops used. The Brandenburg Fallschirmjäger Company, together with two companies of Luftwaffe troops, began immediately attacking Rachi ridge which was soon taken and held against weak counter-attacks.