Panzergrenadier Photoalbum 1943/44 Unboxing 1 - Stalingrad - 6th Army - Bicycle Infantry - Paulus

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That wonderful footage is from the summer of 1944 from a combat training film for German Panzergrenadiere, or mechanized infantry. The film has a run time of 31.03 Min. The footage fits in well with todays unboxing of an original photo album from 1943 and 44 that documents the gradual progression of a German unit to a mechanized formation. This photo is from the collection.

Using the information I can find in the photographs I hope to figure out what unit this Panzergrenadiere belonged to, piece together their history and learn about their ultimate fate. I’ll then find additional associated primary historical sources and weave the history together into a short video series.

Today I’ll flip through the album and give the details that are already known. If you can give me any additional information or point me in the right direction based on what you see, by all means, please post that in the comments section below. I’d love to make this a group effort.

If you’re interested in this kind of material and historical research please like the video and subscribe to the channel, that only takes a second and really helps. At the end of this video I’ll add the first scenes from that Panzergrenadier training film which has English subtitles added to it. If you like to see more of that film please let me know.

The first piece of evidence we have is the license plate on this halftrack. The WH means that it was a Wehrmacht’s unit that used the traditional Husar Totenkopf or Deaths head, and not a Waffen SS unit. Husaren were central European light cavalry from the 15th and 16th century.

Here we see soldiers relaxing in a wheat field which makes me think that they might be in the Ukraine. One has built a cage for a hawk that he’s captured. I’m not sure soldiers in a combat zone would have time for this kind of activities. This is an interesting photograph of a mobile medical unit.

Here we see them at some kind of social meeting with women wearing traditional clothing. These barrack like buildings, possibly where the women are housed, are clearly marked with birch branches formed into swastikas which leads me to believe that they are back on German territory.

The following photographs in the album I believe show locations in Northern Germany, I’m sure I’ve seen this statue but I can’t remember where. Let me know if you recognize something here.

German cavalry divisions each had a battalion of cyclists attached to them. In this photo we see the battalion after receiving their military issue bicycles. In addition, the German army had 36 independent companies of bicycle infantry with 10 reserve bicycle companies.

The German Army had 36 independent companies of bicycle infantry, a battalion of cyclists attached to every cavalry division, and an additional 10 reserve bicycle companies.

But this was the photograph that’s provided the most information, specifically this sign here. The second line of text reads the 5th Heavy Company which should tell me exactly what division the unit was part of but unfortunately I been able to find anything. The third line reads Wehrkreis Unterführer-Lehrgang X, which means training to become

The second line reads 5. schwere Kompanie or, 5th Heavy Company which I assume refers to our unit and should help us discover which division they were part of. Below that it reads Wehrkreis-Unterführer-Lehrgang X which means that those involved were being trained to become non-commissioned officers of the rank of sergeant in Military District X, which was situated around Hamburg. The first line I believe simply states the phase of the training that the soldiers were currently in.

What I have been able to find is that with Order Nr. 630/43 from the replacement army that was issued on Feb. 6 of 1943 the formations that were lost at Stalingrad were to be rebuilt. A unit similar to ours that was created with this order was the Grenadier-Regiment Nr. 879 which included 3 battalions of Grenadiere and more significantly, a squadron of bicyclists. I’m pretty sure that what we are looking at is part of this post Stalingrad reorganization.

This nice Russian footage covering the fight for Stalingrad and the eventual surrender puts things into historical context. If you’d like to see more of this material that can’t be shown here go to www.military1945.com. There you will also find high resolution maps with links to many of my channel videos.

If you haven’t yet, please click the subscribe button now. We’ve got to get this channel growing. In the next video we’ll cover the rest of the photo album and see how the unit evolved.