Brandenburgers, a German commando force used to facilitate the German advance or to hinder the opposing side's movement by employment of special weapons, co-operation with undercover agents and
ruses de guerre which often violated the rules of war (for example, they wore Red Army uniforms in some operations behind Soviet lines).
During the preparations for the
Polish campaign an organizational framework became necessary for undercover agents and those who had volunteered to execute raids. In October 1939 the Baulehr-Kompanie zbV 800 (Baulehr: construction training; zbV: special duties), the nucleus of all later Brandenburger units, was formed in Brandenburg in Germany under the command of their founder Captain Dr von Hippel. Because of a strong inflow of ethnic German volunteers and soldiers from other units this company soon increased to battalion strength and became the Baulehr-Battalion zbV 800. This and later increases in size were initiated more by military leaders in the field than by central authorities.
Subordinated to the
Abwehr under the command of
Admiral Canaris, the Brandenburgers were the only force at the immediate disposal of the Armed Forces High Command (OKW). For special missions Brandenburger commandos were attached to regular army units. The suggestion that Canaris created the Brandenburgers to assist with a proposed coup against Hitler does not fit in with either the pattern of their development or with their widely scattered deployment. First significant successes were the captures of the Belt bridge in Denmark during the
Norwegian campaign in April 1940 and the bridge over the River Maas near Gennep in the Netherlands after Hitler had launched his campaign in the West in May 1940 (see
FALL GELB). These successes and additional personnel led to further expansion to regimental size and it was renamed the Lehr-Regiment Brandenburg zbV 800 which included some other special units such as a
Küstenjägerabteilung (marine battalion) or a
Fallschirmjägerbataillon (paratroop battalion).
In the
Balkan campaign the Brandenburgers protected the oil facilities of
Ploesti in Romania and secured the bridge across the River Vardar in Yugoslavia, to the west of Axiopoulos. During the invasion of the USSR in June 1941 (see
BARBAROSSA) they assisted the German advance by missions such as capturing the bridge across the River Dvina at Daugavpils in Latvia and the city of
Lwów. In 1942 they were deployed in North Africa and on the Eastern Front.
By the end of 1942 the regiment was first regrouped as the Sonderverband (Special Force) 800 with five regiments, then as the Brandenburg Division. Unlike regular army forces the divisional staff remained in Berlin while the units were widely scattered over all theatres of war. The spectacular successes during the early years of the war were offset later by heavy losses and failures. Costly and lengthily prepared operations had to be abandoned because of Hitler's changing priorities. This and the morally controversial methods the Brandenburgers used, as well as the precious resources in men,
matériel, and finances they squandered, made them unpopular with other Wehrmacht units.
With the change of the division's commander in early 1943 and its increasing deployment in anti-partisan operations, and in regular infantry tasks, it lost its character as a commando unit, becoming an OKW reserve. After the removal of the division's commander, Maj-General von Pfuhlstein, because of his connections with the resistance movement against Hitler (see
Schwarze Kapelle), and as a consequence of the take-over of the Abwehr by the
SS in February 1944, the division was relieved of its duties, renamed the Panzergrenadier-Division Brandenburg, and integrated into the army. Some of those soldiers who were experienced in commando operations volunteered for the SS-Jagdverbände, and only the Kurfürst Regiment retained the original commando role.
At the end of the war the division was captured by the Red Army near Deutsch-Brod, north-west of Brno.
Rüdiger Overmans
Bibliography
Kriegsheim, H. , Getarnt, Getäuscht und doch Getreu (Berlin, 1958).
Spaeter, H. , Die Brandenburger (Munich, 1976).
