Grouping to a mutineer?

[Simon O.]

As some of you know my main area of interest is award documents relating to North Norway and Finland. The higher awards appear only very rarely indeed on the market so it's much more fun looking out for the weird and interesting, be it units or events. As such i've got a little list of units i'm constantly on the look out for, quite apart from those two in my sig, which are out of the ordinary for various reasons.

My latest purchase is just such an example. It's a unit which i've had on my radar for years now, patience has been the key because we're talking of a single artillery battery, only 100 men or so in strength.

So anyway, before i explain the title of the thread here's the group.
(This was put up by Gran Sasso a while back and i bought it from him, many thanks Patrick)

Let's start off with the guy in question, Unteroffizier Franz Hirtl. That's him on the left, wearing a Kreta cufftitle, KVKII and Ostfront. The photo was taken either during the winter of '44 or '45




Now for his docs



I bet this style of Kreta doc hasn't been seen by many people. It seems to be particular to GAR 118, who's II abt. was involved in the Crete campaign along with elements of GJR 141 and GJR 143, each of which have their own doc styles too.



And his Lappland, with the usual style seen for the 6 Geb.Div.

Note however that whereas he was previously with 4./GAR 118, in July 1945 he was with the division's supply troops. More on that later.




Now the Kreta, Lappland combo is not common at all and you'd think that was interesting enough but there's a very dark story behind this grouping though i must say i don't know how or if Hirtl was involved. At the very least this involved his comrades of several years.

[Simon O.]

Now to the story, it's actually mentioned in several German books but is virtually unknown to the English speaking world. It's a tragic tale and stems from the last days of the war. In 1945 the mainly Austrian 6 Gebirgs Division was responsible for defending a mountainous area by the Tri-borders of Norway, Sweden and Finland. It was pretty quiet, they had occasional confrontations with Finnish patrols, the odd air attack and lobbed a few shells at each other but otherwise they could consider themselves lucky to be where they were. The same could not be said for the thousands of Soviet POWs that were used to help them build a new permanent defensive line here, hundreds died of malnutrition, disease and generally being worked to death. This would have direct bearing on what was to come.
The 4th battery of Gebirgs Artillerie Regiment 118 was a unit with 4 7.5cm Geb36 mountain guns, it was assigned to support a battalion of GJR 141 deployed around a mountain called Paras which is just 7-8Km from the Swedish border and a little further to the Finnish and at the end of a 20 mile long valley called Signaldalen which even today is only populated by a few people.

The first event to happen in this story is on the 27th of April 1945 when Austria declares it's independence from greater Germany. For the many Austrians in the division this news must have been greeted with many different reactions. For some of the men of the 4th battery it was one of relief and a sign that the end was near. But there was also a lot of doubt, what would happen to them? They'd fought the Russians for four years and they weren't too far away, would they be handed over to them? If their own treatment of Soviet POWs was anything to go by, their awated them a pretty grim fate. What of the Germans? How long would they hold out? That question was answered in stages as first Hitler killed himself, then Berlin fell and eventually on the 8th May it seemed that it was all over. Everyone heard of the end of the war but in Norway the German armed forces were intact, undefeated if weak. There had been proclamations throught 1945 of fighting on, 'better dead than a slave' said some and the 6 Gebirgs Division had just weeks before landed a new divisional commander, a German, a national socialist and ex-battalion commander of the 1 Geb.Div. Oberst Josef Remold. In spite of the capitulation announced from Dönitz's headquarters, Remold decided that his new division would carry on the fight and gave out orders to ignore the surrender.
This was the straw that broke the camel's back for some of these Austrians and one rabble rousing obergefreiter decided that he and his comrades were not about to die for Germany when their country had given up the fight! The problem was their officers, they wouldn't go along with the plan for the whole battery to desert to Sweden so both were shot dead by the this obergefreiter. Here's one of them, Lt.Hermann Kuhn
http://www.volksbund.de/graebersuche...8D5345BEFAFA41

Now, none of them had a choice and during the night of the 8th May, when Europe was celebrating the end of the war, around 65 men set off for the Swedish border some 4 or 5 miles away. At some point the bodies of the two murdered officers were discovered and the alarm raised. There followed a hunt for the mutineers across the mountains, during their flight the group ended up disagreeing with which way to go which resulted in a smaller group of 11 breaking away from the main party led by the battery's 'spiess' as it turned out these 11 were the unlucky ones. The other main group made it to Sweden and internment, of the 11 one of them was killed before capture. The rest were put immediately on trial the 9th of May. The courtsmartial went on to the evening and by the end the four NCOs of the group were condemned to death, two men were freed and the others sentenced to varying terms of hard labour and imprisonment.
The four condemned to death had their sentences confirmed by telephone from the commander of Armee Abteilung Narvik, General Ferdinand Jodl and were executed by firing squad the next day, 10th May 1945.
The four were:
Rudolf Zatsch
http://www.volksbund.de/graebersuche...61B0E4CBB741D8

Josef Wenzl
http://www.volksbund.de/graebersuche...6F46E534D27915

Leopold Wickenhauser
http://www.volksbund.de/graebersuche...56A57D74F40682

Helmut Feyertag
http://www.volksbund.de/graebersuche...03411D72284C99


So the question is, where does Franz Hirtl fit into this story? He clearly wasn't one of those who made it to Sweden and wasn't one of those sentenced so perhaps he'd been transferred out or simply wasn't there when it happened. The battery ceased to exist then and there so it's natural he'd have gone over to another unit, perhaps he was back with the supply people for some reason and that's where he stayed.

[Petrus]

Hi Simon,
thanks for sharing this strange story. As a Swede i have read about this before, but what happened to the murderer? I read that he was POW in Sweden and then released without any special punishment?

Nice group
Cheers
Petrus

[Simon O.]

As of last year i understand he was still alive. He 'got away with it' i read because his crime was judged to be against the nazi regime and so deemed not a crime.

[Adrian Stevenson]

Very interesting article Simon. I had never heard about this before.

Cheers, Ade.

[Napalm]

Cheers for that most interesting story Simon.

[Si1964]

Simon Hi,
Thanks for sharing both the story and docs with it most interesting......Thanks again

[Jean-Loup]

Very interesting story; one of those things that happens in the turmoil of war. The volkbund links didnt work for me though.

JL

[Tim DC]

Congratulations on the purchase and very interesting story to go along with.

[Simon O.]

You're quite right Jean-Loup, if anyone is interested they can simply search by the names adding the relevant date of death, 08.05.45 or 10.05.45

I should also explain the reason why the British didn't or couldn't stop the Germans from carrying out the executions. When the war ended on the 8th May there were no allied troops on hand in Norway, There was the Norwegian resistance out in the forests and mountains, a small Norwegian army contingent in the far North which had had occasional clashes with German patrols and there was the Norwegian 'police' troops in Sweden. Whilst in Oslo and other big cities local Norwegian groups moved to take the surrender pretty quickly in such a big country the vast majority of Germans waited days or longer before seeing an allied soldier. In the case of the 6 Geb.Div. the Northernmost of all divisions it took days perhaps a week or more before any sign of the first British troops turned up (the British being responsible for the surrender and disarmament). The Germans worked to a set of instructions sent to them by the allied supreme command and when, eventually a few British troops turned up it was to supervise and control the Germans, not guard them.
Amongst the things that had to be sorted out were things like what to do about German soldiers serving sentences or under sentence of death. It took clarification from SHAEF and i have a copy of the signal sent both asking what to do and the answer. It comes from late May and it basically says that all death sentences should be suspended but that those soldiers serving sentences should carry on doing so until further instructions are given.


I've been doing some further reading in the archives and i've been coming across a steady stream of death sentences throughout the war in Norway\Finland. Mostly for desertion but also for other major crimes like rape, murder and the large scale theft and selling to the local population of German military stores.
One sentence i read about reveals just how strict the Germans were. An unteroffizier was walking along a road when a luftwaffe supply truck came bumping along, their fell of the back a pack of 20 razor blades ('it fell off the back of a lorry', oldest excuse in the book) . The unteroffizier picked up the pack and decided to keep them himself, he was found out and for this was busted down to private and jailed for 9 months.