22nd Infantry Division (Wehrmacht)

The 22nd Infantry Division was established on October 15, 1935 in Bremen . Formation involved the then military commander of Bremen - Wilhelm Keitel .

1939

With the start of World War II, division divisions concentrated on guarding the West Wall, on the French border, in the region of Eifel and Saarpfalz, preparing to repel the expected Allied offensive. According to the entries in the diary of the Chief of the General Staff of the Ground Forces of 1939-1942. Franz Halder August 15, 1939 (Tuesday), “two regiments of the 22nd Infantry Division are being transferred to Aachen. Make training. (The decision will follow the 17th or 18th.) ” Http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/utils/getfile/collection/p4013coll8/id/2003/filename/1992.pdf . At the same time, the third, 16th Infantry Regiment of the division took part in one of the most important battles of the Polish campaign - in the Bzura region.

After completing Operation Weiss, at the end of October 1939, the division was transferred to retraining at Sennelager ( Sennelager ), where it was trained as an airborne unit for landing from gliders and landed aircraft, unique in its kind in the German army. The mission of the division was - after disembarking from airplanes and gliders to conduct combat operations. Landing was supposed immediately after the German paratroopers cordoned off the airfield or platform suitable for landing airplanes and gliders.

1940

In the Dutch operation of 1940, the division was used for its intended purpose, having flown as part of the head detachment on a mission in the early morning hours of May 10, after the 7th Air Division . The 47th and 65th infantry regiments on military transport aircraft Junkers Ju 52 proceeded to three landing zones north of Rotterdam in the region of The Hague . The 16th Infantry Regiment was bombarded in the Rotterdam area. Attempts to parachute the 65th and 47th regiments were made in the vicinity of the settlements of Valkenburg, Ockenburg and Ipenburg, and proceeded with varying degrees of success. At each landing point, a combination of different factors (poor landing conditions, poor coordination of actions, resistance from the Dutch army) resulted in very high losses. All this did not allow to accomplish the tasks set on the first day, to ensure the protection of the landing areas and the protection of airfields, to seize the supreme Dutch command and the royal family, which was able to flee to England.

In the south of the country, the 16th Infantry Regiment had much more time and opportunity for landing, disembarking and cordoning off the airfield in Baalhaven, although Dutch resistance at times made the landing area dangerous. After landing, the main forces of the regiment were sent to the north to capture Rotterdam . To implement this plan, it was necessary to seize the bridges across the river Meuse in the city center. These four bridges interconnected the northern and southern parts of the city and the island of Nordereland ( niderl. Noordereiland ). To capture them, 120 people from the 22nd Engineer Battalion and the 11th Company of the 16th Infantry Regiment, united in the “Schrader” battle group, flew to the area of ​​the bridges on Heinkel He 59 seaplanes. Their unexpected attack allowed to complete the task without loss among the personnel. Having mastered the bridges, the combat group contacted the paratroopers from the 7th Air Division, requesting support. Dutch counterattacks began only after that. 120 people of the battle group and 50 paratroopers, clamped on a narrow perimeter, held the bridges until the reinforcements landed at the airfield of Baalhaven were not connected with them. At the same time, attempts by the Dutch troops to repel bridges using air and surface facilities continued. The gunboat Z-5 and the TM-51 torpedo boat fired at the German positions from 75 and 20 mm guns right up to the appearance of German aircraft . By the end of the day, it became clear that the city could not be taken on the move, and the front line on this section was fixed until the surrender of the Netherlands on May 14. The attack on The Hague on May 10 was also repulsed and scattered German units were relegated to the south. Street fighting in Rotterdam lasted another three days.

1941-1942

Before the invasion of the USSR, the division was included in the Army Group South , took part in hostilities in the Crimea and besieged Sevastopol .

December 31, 1941 . “It's a hard day again! The offensive of the 22nd infantry division in Sevastopol was not successful. In this regard, it is necessary to suspend the offensive in order to free up forces for transfer to Feodosia , where the enemy is strengthening its grouping and expanding the front ” ^[4] .

According to the order of the General Directorate of Land Forces (Allgemeines Heeresamt - AHA) of July 29, 1942, the division was transformed for use in airborne operations, after which its name was given an additional designation in brackets - airborne, motorized, suitable for use in the tropics ( it .Llmot.trop. ). Later, on October 1, 1942, the planned use of the division as an airborne unit was canceled and, after reorganization, it was transferred to the island of Crete ^[1] .

1944-1945

In September 1944, German troops left Crete, after which the division retreated through Macedonia and Serbia . To ensure the right flank of the withdrawal route of Army Group “E” from Greece to Macedonia and then through South-Western Serbia, Northern Montenegro and South-Eastern Bosnia to Croatia , the 22nd Infantry Division along with the 11th Aviation Field Division took to the end September, the Yugoslav-Bulgarian border and important focal points on the Macedonian lines of communication. Since October 8 , since the beginning of the offensive of the Yugoslav and Bulgarian troops, the 22nd and 11th divisions defended the Strumitsky , Bregalnitsky and Krivoretsky areas. From the beginning of November until November 11, the 22nd Division defended Kumanovo , orderly retreating from the city on the night of November 10-11 under the cover of rearguards. According to the historians of the Belgrade Military History Institute, the active operations of the 22nd and 11th divisions successfully secured the right flank of Army Group “E”, retreating to the Vardar Valley ^[5] . From November 16, German troops retreated from South Kosovo in the sector between Pristina and the town of Kosovska Mitrovica ^[6] .

In December 1944, the German 21st Mountain Corps unblocked the south-east of the town of Priepol . In January 1945, the division launched offensive operations along the Drina against NOAJ troops to connect with the southern flank of the Sremsky Front. She was surrounded by Zvornik , but made her way with heavy losses from the ring. At the end of February, it provided the southern flank of the 34th Army Corps on the Sava River ^[7] . In March 1945, it was renamed the 22nd People’s Grenadier Division. On May 11, 1945, most of the division surrendered to the Yugoslav army, part of its rear guard units surrendered to the English forces near Klagenfurt .

• Lieutenant General Adolf Strauss (October 15, 1935 - November 10, 1938)
• Lieutenant General Hans von Sponeck (November 10, 1938 - October 10, 1941)
• Major General Ludwig Wolf (October 10, 1941 - August 1, 1942)
• Lieutenant-General Friedrich-Wilhelm Muller (August 1, 1942 - February 15, 1944)
• Major General Heinrich Kraipe (February 15, 1944 - April 26, 1944)
• Lieutenant-General Helmut Fribe (May 1, 1944 - April 15, 1945)
• Lieutenant General Gerhard Kühne (April 15, 1945 - May 8, 1945)

Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (19)

Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves (2)

• Oscar von Boddin (No. 58), 01/08/1942 - Oberstleutenant, Commander of the 22nd reconnaissance battalion
• Ludwig Wolf (No. 100), 06/22/1942 - Major General, Commander of the 22nd Infantry Division

• List of divisions of the Third Reich
• The alignment of forces in the operation Barbarossa

• Bruce Quarrie. German Airborne Divisions: Blitzkrieg 1940-41 . - Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2004. - Vol. 4. - 96 p. - (Battle orders). - ISBN 1-841-76571-6 . (eng.)
• Bruce Quarrie. German airborne troops 1939-45 . - Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 1983. - V. 139. - 40 p. - (Men-at-arms series). - ISBN 0-850-45480-8 . (eng.)
• Samuel W. Mitcham. German Order of Battle: 1st-290th Infantry divisions, World War II . - Paderborn: Stackpole Books, 2007. - Vol. 1. - 352 p. - (Stackpole military history series). - ISBN 0-811-73416-1 . (eng.)

• 22.Infanterie-Division (English) . feldgrau.com. Archived April 7, 2012.
• 22.Infanterie-Division (him.) . lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de. Archived April 7, 2012.
• 22.Volks-Grenadier-Division (German) . lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de. Archived April 7, 2012.
• 22.Infanterie-Division (English) . axishistory.com. Archived April 7, 2012.
• 22.Volks-Grenadier-Division (English) . axishistory.com. Archived April 7, 2012.
• 22.Infanterie-Division (him.) . www.historic.de. Archived April 7, 2012.