Knights cross winner= paratrooper ?

[frankandfrank]

Hello,
was this knights cross winner a member of the paratroopers before he got the knights cross. look at his medals.
He gets the knights cross as "Geheimgeschwader" K.G. 200 .
privat studiophoto from Stendal
regards
ralf

[Prosper Keating]

Interesting photo. Oberleutnant Friedrich Schäfer was awarded the RK on October 24 1944 for the battle in July 1944 against French partisan forces on the Vercors plateau in the French Alps where hundreds of partisans had created a stronghold from which they were mounting operations against the German occupiers.

Schäfer was in command of one of the parachute companies of Kampfgeschwader 200. The para-trained commandos of II./KG 200 remain a little-known arm of Germany's WW2 parachute forces. They were listed on II./KG 200's ORBAT as the 3rd staffel and were based and trained in Dedelstorf, Germany.

Schäfer and his men were part of Kampfgruppe Jungwirth, specially assembled for the Vercors mission and supported on the ground by elements of the German Army's 157th Reserve Division based in towns in the region of the Vercors. At the time of the Vercors battle, one of the units on the 157th's ORBAT was Reserve-Gebirgs-Jäger Rgt 1.



Kampfgruppe Jungwirth consisted of Fallschirm-Aufklärungs-Abt 12 under Major Hans Jungwirth, formed with 5 companies in June 1944 and based since July 14th at Fallschirmschule 1 in Lyon-Bron, Schäfer's company of KG 200 paratroopers and the 8th (Legionnaire) Company of the Brandenburg Division's 3rd Light Infantry Regiment. The Brandenburg unit, a nasty gang of cutthroats composed of foreign volunteers including Frenchmen, was redesignated Streifkorps Frankreich Süd before the Vercors mission. Some if not all of these Brandenburgers were para-trained although they had nothing to do with the regular Brandenburg parachute battalion and independent parachute company.

The partisans' main HQ was situated in the small town of Vassieux, 1050 metres above sea level on the Vercors. On July 21st 1944, twenty DFS 230 gliders carrying the first wave of Kampfgruppe Jungwirth landed near Vassieux, secured the LZ for the second wave and went into action against the partisans.

A second wave quickly followed in DFS 230s and three Go 242s. In a brutal five day campaign against the partisan forces, Kampfgruppe Jungwirth burned houses and shot anyone suspected of being a maquisard or aiding the resistance. At least 500 maquisards were killed, along with 200 civilians and over 1200 buildings put to the torch by Jungwirth's battle group, at a cost of 101 paras killed, 46 of whom died in the vicious fighting around Vassieux. Before descending from the Vercors plateau on the 26th, the paras torched their gliders.

Oberleutnant Schäfer was awarded the RK on October 24th. In September 1944, the 3rd staffel had been transferred from II./KG 200 to 7. Fallschirm-Jäger-Division as Bataillon Schäfer. 7. FJD had been formed in August in Holland as FJD "Erdmann" and surrendered to the British on May 8th 1945 after fierce fighting in northern Alsace.

Prosper Keating

[Óscar G]

Nice photo and great info about Schäfer!

The Brandenburg unit, a nasty gang of cutthroats composed of foreign volunteers including Frenchmen, was redesignated Streifkorps Frankreich Süd before the Vercors mission. Some if not all of these Brandenburgers were para-trained although they had nothing to do with the regular Brandenburg parachute battalion and independent parachute company.

I´d like to point out a curious info regarding this quotation: the first contingent of Brandenburgers to form Streifkorps Südfrankreich was the Spaniards of 8th Company. From them, an Einsatzgruppe Pyrenären was formed for a duty along the Spanish-French frontier. This group contained 50 Spaniards under the command of an Oberleutnant Demetrio (an ex "divisionario" from Blue Division). Einsatzgruppe Pyrenären was subordinate to Streifkorps Biscaya, wich in turn reported to Streifkorps Südfrankreich.

According to your info, Prosper, all of these Brandenburgers were paratrained... So the Spaniards, too! weren´t they? is documented their invovement in Vercors mission?

All the best.
Óscar

[John Hodgin]

I agree with Oscar, superb photo and superb information. Jack IS back! Thanks for some great history Prosper!

Regards,
John

[Prosper Keating]

A pleasure, John! Ocsár has contributed some fascinating information about little-known sub-units of the German military machine. Just as there were Spaniards in the 8th (Legionnaire) Coy which fought on the Vercors plateau, there were also Spaniards in the opposing French partisan forces.

In fact, there were thousands of Spaniards in the French resistance, particularly the Communist FTP (Franc-Tireurs Partisans). In a sense, the Spanish Civil War continued to be fought on French soil from 1941 to 1944. Some of the Spaniards who ended up in the Brandenburg Division certainly came from the Division Azul, which was disbanded in October 1943.

Although I have no proof, I believe that some of the 8th Company men were para-trained, probably at Fallschirmschule 1 in Lyon-Bron, with a view to parachute insertion into remote areas like the Vercors plateau. In the event, parachute insertion had proved excessively dangerous in mountainous areas, where there are unpredictable winds and air currents, to say nothing of rocks and cliffs.

Veterans of Gran Sasso, the rescue of Mussolini a month before the Vercors operation, have spoken of an initial attempt to parachute troops onto the mountain, which resulted in quite a few deaths. In the end, they went in by glider. The Italian soldiers guarding Mussolini offered no resistance at all, which suggests that there was no element of surprise, which in turn could be interpreted as supporting the stories of a prior attempt to land the rescuers by parachute. In other words, the Italian guards knew the Germans were coming.

The French partisan forces on the Vercors were however taken by surprise by the gliderborne assault. There was a serialised Anglo-French TV drama back in the early 1980s in which the battle of the Vercors was depicted. German paras were shown jumping.

I recall that in one scene, a partisan sneaks up on and kills a paratrooper filling his water bottle in a woodland stream. The paratrooper was wearing a Waffen-SS camouflage pattern jump smock and helmet cover, a result, doubtless, of the popular belief abroad in militaria and military advisor circles that the SS-Fallschirmjäger jumped on Vercors and of the belief, that still abounds, that SS-Fallschirmjäger wore spotty camouflage smocks.

Some French veterans of the Vercors battle swear that German paratroopers jumped in addition to arriving by glider but I haven't found any German accounts of it. In any case, any Fallschirmjäger jumping on Vercors would have been from Kampfgruppe Jungwirth, whose sub-units are a matter of record...even if the service records of most of the participants are lost in the sands of time. Maybe a 1943 or 1944 parachute badge document with a Spanish name on it will turn up, Oscár, but I haven't seen one yet! You're in Spain: start looking!

There are also tales in France of SS paratroopers in the Paris region just before and during the Battle of Paris in August 1944. SS-Fallschirmjäger-Btl 500 was on the East Prussian-Latvian border from July 23th to September 5th. Just prior to that, they had taken part in the relief of Vilna. Even if a small detachment was sent to Paris, I do not really see what their purpose would have been.

The Spaniards who ended up patrolling the high passes of the Pyrenees as part of Streifkorps Südfrankreich were luckier than their comrades who ended up in the Waffen-SS as Spanische-Freiwilligen-Kompanie der SS 101 and Spanische-Freiwilligen-Kompanie der SS 102. After fighting in Pomerania with Leon Degrelle's Wallonien Division, the surviving Spanish SS men took part in the Battle of Berlin, attached to the Nordland Division. Few if any ever saw Spain again. I expect that the men of Einsatzgruppe Pyrenären and Oberleutnant Demetrio simply stepped back across the border once it became clear that France was lost.


PK

[Óscar G]

Thanks again, Prosper, for the complete info.
Yes, it´d be a good challenge to start searching Demetrio´s parachute badge document. Anyway it´s difficult to know. During the years of 1944 and 45 there were around 1,000 Spaniards who had served within the ranks of the german army, but who officially did not exist due to Franco´s order to disband all Spanish formations Their contribution during these years of the war was minimal when compared to their former achievements in "Blue Division".

About 50 Spaniards were attached to that special Brandenburg unit operating around the Pyrenees mountains against the French Resistance (commented above). After it, they were transferred to Otto Skorzeny´s Jagdverbande 500 where it´s thought that they were involved in the fighting against US 7th Army in the Black Forest.

Another Spaniards were attached 8th Coy, 2nd Batt., 3rd Reg. Brandenburg Division(!), engaged in anti-partisan duties in Italy...

After fighting in Pomerania with Leon Degrelle's Wallonien Division, the surviving Spanish SS men took part in the Battle of Berlin, attached to the Nordland Division. Few if any ever saw Spain again. I expect that the men of Einsatzgruppe Pyrenären and Oberleutnant Demetrio simply stepped back across the border once it became clear that France was lost.

There are some curious cases among these volunteers. In the last days of the war, the remants of the SS Spaniards were gathered together in the Sturmabteilung Ezquerra (Einheit Ezquerra). The name was taken from their commander, Miguel Ezquerra. He had led a small unit in the Bulge and fought with great tenacity in Berlin. Ezquerra himself claims to have destroyed 25 soviet tanks. He also claimed that he had a conference with Hitler himself who awarded him the RK, although he never received it due to the war ending. He escaped from Berlin under the disguise of Spanish worker, went to Paris and then to the Pirineos, in Spain. Ezquerra survived and became and schoolteacher after the war in Logroño (Spain), writing a book called "A vida o muerte en Berlín" (Fight to live or dead in Berlin)

Another survivor: Luis García-Valdajos, becoming the commanding officer of 3rd Coy. 1st Batt. of the Wallonie Division during the Bulge. He also fought with Skorzeny. He managed to escape to Spain after the war...
In short, some of them were lucky

Regards. Óscar