Lesbos 1943

[milcollector]

Does anyone know which German garrison unit was stationed on Lesbos island in the mediterranean, 1943 ?

[Johnny R]

Lesbos

Here is a reference, there should have been a large number of people stationed there and an airbase with a harbor at Mytilene. I could not find anything on line but did not look eveywhere,

Mark Mazower, Inside Hitler's Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941-44, Yale University Press, 1995. ISBN 0-300-08932-6

[Larry deZeng]

Does anyone know which German garrison unit was stationed on Lesbos island in the mediterranean, 1943 ?

Lesbos or Mytilene or Mitilini
Ortskommandantur 982 (1942-44)

That’s the only unit listed in Tessin’s Stationierungen - Teil 3: Wehrkreise XVII, XVIII, XX, XXI und besetzte Gebiete Ost und Südost.

--Larry

[Ian Jewison]

Just to add what Larry has mentioned, Mytilene was the capital of the Island of Lesbos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mytilene

Ortskommandantur 982
Formed 6.1.1942 in the Balkans from half of Feld Kommandantur 606, disbanded 1944.
Under: Heeresgruppe E, Greece in Mytilene

/Ian

[Daniele C]

When i read Lesbos i tho of one of those members who spam the forum with porn sites

[Larry deZeng]

Just to add what Larry has mentioned, Mytilene was the capital of the Island of Lesbos.....

The Germans in WW II used MYTILENE for both the island and its capital. The city and port of Mytilene was also referred to by the Germans as KASTRO during the war. The word LESBOS was not used, according to the wartime German maps I have. There was no Luftwaffe airfield there, either, according to unpublished and published lists. I have full monthly listing of every Luftwaffe airfield in Greece and the Aegean from September 1943 to August 1944 from NARA WashDC: RG 242 Microcopy T-311 roll 179 (records of Heeresgruppe E). However, Luftwaffe seaplanes visited regularly and perhaps a Ju 52 landed occasionally, but there was no airfield detachment there nor any Luftwaffe units, at least insofar as I can recall in my 30 years of detailed research of the German occupation of the Balkans.

--Larry

[Johnny R]

The Germans in WW II used MYTILENE for both the island and its capital. The city and port of Mytilene was also referred to by the Germans as KASTRO during the war. The word LESBOS was not used, according to the wartime German maps I have. There was no Luftwaffe airfield there, either, according to unpublished and published lists. I have full monthly listing of every Luftwaffe airfield in Greece and the Aegean from September 1943 to August 1944 from NARA WashDC: RG 242 Microcopy T-311 roll 179 (records of Heeresgruppe E). However, Luftwaffe seaplanes visited regularly and perhaps a Ju 52 landed occasionally, but there was no airfield detachment there nor any Luftwaffe units, at least insofar as I can recall in my 30 years of detailed research of the German occupation of the Balkans.

--Larry

When I say "airfield" I am not implying something on the scale of Tempelhof and the stationing of 10 LW standorts. Based on British maps there were prewar airfield facilities there and a harbor that has been there since ancient times that was used during the War. I would think these were used to supply the garrison.

To answer the original question, IMO the easiest records and maps to look at are Allied. There probably also is detailed information on unit strengths or estimates made by the Allies somewhere in NARA or with British records. There was a battalion of Grenadier-Regiment 440 stationed in the Capital. I would research "Operation Allocade" this may make reference to other docouments on unit strengths/types.

[Larry deZeng]

When I say "airfield" I am not implying something on the scale of Tempelhof and the stationing of 10 LW standorts. Based on British maps there were prewar airfield facilities there and a harbor that has been there since ancient times that was used during the War. I would think these were used to supply the garrison.

I also have scattered copies of the Aufmarsch der fliegende Verbände maps from BA-MA Freiburg, Signatur RL 40/Kart, and these show no Luftwaffe airfield on the island. As I suggested earlier, there may have been some touch-and-go Ju 52 traffic in and out to load and off-load passengers and cargo, but there was no Fliegerhorstkommandantur A, B, C, D, E or (See) there, and no Flugplatzkommando. That a civilian strip was built there before the war does not support a deduction that the Luftwaffe automatically turned it into an operational Luftwaffe airfield. If memory serves me, I have a sneaking suspicion that the Kriegsmarine had a small port command on the island to take care of cargo and passenger traffic operating between Salonika and Mytilene.

BTW, what are "10 LW standorts"? Or, did you mean "10 Lw.-Standorte"? Incidently, Berlin-Tempelhof was not a large, busy or important Luftwaffe airfield during the war. It was classified as a Platzkommando, one of the least significant airfield classifications, and satellite of the more significant airfield at Berlin-Staaken. This is because the primary user of both Staaken and Tempelhof before and during the war was Deutsche Lufthansa, the quasi-civilian airline. They ran both of them and the Luftwaffe was a tenant.

[Johnny R]

Airfields

Thanks, always nice to gain from your extensive knowledge on very interesting seldom discussed details.