69th Infantry Division (Wehrmacht)

69. Infanterie-Division; German 69th Infantry Division
	69. Infanterie Division Vehicle Insignia
Active	1939 – 1945
Country	Nazi Germany
Branch	Army
Type	Infantry
Size	Division
Engagements	World War II

The 69th Infantry Division (German: 69. Infanterie-Division) was a combat division of the German Wehrmacht during the Second World War.

History

Formed as a "second wave" division in August 1939 from the Münster-based 16th Artillery Command, the unit spent the first months of the war in the Eifel region of northwest Germany.

In April 1940, the division participated in the German invasion of Norway. A small party of soldiers from the unit landed at Egersund where they seized the telecommunications cable linking Norway with mainland Europe, encountering no significant opposition. A further 900 soldiers from the division were put ashore near Bergen where they captured the defensive fortifications (which had fired on the approaching German ships) as well as the city after engaging Norwegian forces in combat. The largest element of the division, some 5,000 soldiers in 250 transport planes, landed at Sola airport after it was seized by German paratroopers. The division then captured the nearby city of Stavanger. After the successful Norwegian Campaign, the 69th Infantry Division remained in occupied Norway until November 1942.

In December 1942 the division was moved to the Leningrad front as part of Army Group North's 18th Army. (One regiment, the 193rd Grenadier, was left in Norway and replaced by another.) (See Siege of Leningrad.) The division remained in the area and was pushed back to the Pskov area by Soviet offensives through February 1944.

In July 1944 the division was transferred south to Army Group Centre, which was reeling from repeated Soviet assaults. Falling back to Memel and then evacuated to East Prussia, by the beginning of 1945 the division was one of four defending the besieged city of Königsberg. Subjected to intense aerial bombing and artillery assault, the surviving members of the unit surrendered to the Red Army shortly after the city fell on April 9, 1945.

Organization

In 1939 the 69th Infantry Division consisted of the following components:

159th Infantry Regiment
193rd Infantry Regiment
236th Infantry Regiment
169th Artillery Regiment
169th Engineer Battalion
169th Tank Defense Battalion
169th Intelligence Battalion
169th Signals Battalion
169th Supply Command

Having left a regiment in Norway and replacing it with another, the division's components in 1944 were:

157th Grenadier Regiment
159th Grenadier Regiment
236th Grenadier Regiment
69th Fusilier Battalion
169th Artillery Regiment
169th Engineer Battalion
169th Anti-Tank Battalion
169th Signals Battalion
169th Supply Troop Command

Commanders

The following officers commanded the 69th Infantry Division:

August 1939 - September 1941: General of Artillery Hermann Tittel
September 1941 - February 1944: Lieutenant-General Bruno Ortner
February 1944 - January 1945: Lieutenant-General Siegfried Rein
January 1945 - February 1945: Colonel Grimme
February 1945 - April 1945: Major-General Kaspar Völker

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References

Mitcham, Samuel W. Jr. Crumbling Empire: The German Defeat in the East, 1944. Westport: Praeger, 2001. pp: 32, 58, 118, 124 ISBN 0-275-96856-1
Duffy, Christopher. Red Storm on the Reich: The Soviet March on Germany, 1945. New York: Atheneum, 1991. pp: 216 ISBN 0-689-12092-3
69.Infanterie-Division at Lexicon-der-Wehrmacht Retrieved May 24, 2006.
The Invasion of Norway at Feldgrau.com Retrieved May 24, 2006.

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