William T. McCroden - German Ground Forces of World War II: Complete Orders of Battle for Army Groups, Armies, Army Corps, and Other Commands of the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS, September 1, 1939, to May 8, 1945

Complete Orders of Battle for Army Groups, Armies, Army Corps, and Other Commands of the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS

September 1, 1939, to May 8, 1945

William T. McCroden and Thomas E. Nutter

2019 William T. McCroden and Thomas E. Nutter

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: McCroden, William T., author. | Nutter, Thomas E., author.

Title: German Ground Forces of World War II: Complete Orders of Battle for Army Groups, Armies, Army Corps, and Other Commands of the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS, September 1, 1939, to May 8, 1945 / by William T. McCroden and Thomas E. Nutter.

Other titles: Complete orders of battle for Army Groups, Armies, Army Corps, and other commands of the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS, September 1, 1939, to May 8, 1945

Description: El Dorado Hills, California: Savas Beatie [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016038391| ISBN 9781611211092 (alk. paper) | ISBN 9781611211016 (ebk.) | ISBN 9781611211016 (Mobi)

Subjects: LCSH: World War, 1939-1945--Germany. | Germany. HeerOrganization. |

Waffen-SSOrganization. | Germany. HeerHistoryWorld War, 1939-1945. |

Waffen-SSHistory. | World War, 1939-1945Campaigns.

Classification: LCC D757 .M337 2017 | DDC 940.54/1343--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016038391

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Dedication

To my father, Lloyd T. McCroden of Cleveland, Ohio, who unfortunately passed away late in 2003 before he knew I would get this compilation published. As a Lieutenant in the World War II US Navy Supply Corps, this subject no doubt mystified him, but I and my siblings owe him so much. He was always there when we needed him. This ones for you, Dad. God bless you.

F or years, if not decades, historians attempting to describe accurately operational developments during World War II (1939-1945) and the Soviet-German War (1941-1945), in particular, have struggled to identify precisely who was doing what to whom, why, and to what end in these conflicts and to unravel the many mysteries associated with the conduct of complex military operations. To accomplish these tasks successfully, historians require detailed and accurate orders of battle describing the nature and composition of the forces fighting on contending sides. Until very recently, those orders of battle have not been available. While general histories of the war and studies of separate battles and operations have correctly identified struggling army group, armies, corps, and divisions, they have done so in general terms, without examining the actual organization and condition of units subordinate to these formations. During wartime, army groups and armies are not always a fully uniform in their composition and strength and corps and divisions are not always complete. This is truer still when the contending forces have conducted sustained operations over long periods of time and have been subject to debilitating attrition.

Nowhere is this truer than in my area of study, the Soviet-German War, 1941-1945. During this struggle, the German Army and Red Army alike conducted high-intensity operations for months, if not years. This intense sustained combat exacted a staggering toll on the personnel strength of opposing formations and units. As a result, these forces were required to fight on despite dramatic and often debilitating personnel and equipment losses. Therefore, sustained offensive and defensive operations lasting periods ranging from days and weeks to many months seriously eroded the overall strength and especially the combat strength of these forces. Because manpower constraints prevented the German Army from raising new formations, the older ones were required to fight on at reduced strengths. This meant that army groups, armies, and corps varied significantly in composition and strength, and corps and divisions worn down in combat were disbanded outright or fought on as corps and division groups. The Germans compensated for their numerical inferiority via a vis Red Army formations by relying on extensive individual and unit training combined with skillful task organization of existing combined-arms forces at every level from army and panzer corps down to battalion level. As a result, a dizzying array of tailored formations appeared in the German Armys order of battle ranging from Army detachments [ abteilung ] within army groups, down through corps groups [ gruppen ] and detachments within armies and division groups and ad hoc groups named for their commanders within corps, to combat groups [ kampfgruppen ] within divisions and even regiments. In addition, army groups named after their commanders emerged as German armies closely cooperated with armies from Germanys axis allies but usually under German command. This task organization at every level became the rule rather than the exception after the intense but chaotic fighting in the Stalingrad region in December 1942 and expanded further from 1943 through 1945. It was this successful task organization that permitted smaller German formations to contend successfully with Red Army forces well over twice their size.