During my --surprisingly extensive-- research of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and everything that came after it, I found a name that I couldn't quite shake off and kept on finding amongst the most unusual reads... and that's of course the one that headlines this thread: The 44. Infanterie-Division Reichsgrenadier-Division Hoch und Deutschmeister, also known as 44th Infantry Division or simply 44th Austrian, due to it being based on Austria and exclusively composed of Austrian-born soldiers.
Two weeks after the German annexation of Austria, the 44th Infanterie-Division was formed from the remnants of the Austrian Federal Army, which the Nazis thought was deeply politicized in a bad way (and wasn't up to army strength anyway).
Like all pre-war formations, the 44th ID was composed of three regiments (sporting three battalions each), an artillery regiment (also composed of three battalions) and anti-tank, reconnaissance, combat engineering, signal and divisional services. The total "peacetime" combat strength of the Division was of about 15.000 men.
Amidst of the changes demanded by the now warring Wehrmacht, the Feldersatz Battalion was detached from the Division and transferred over to the 164th Infantry Division, becoming the 3rd Battalion of the 443rd Regiment subordinated to that Division. This is what's commonly known as the "7th expansion wave" of the German Army and created fourteen new divisions. A further ten divisions were created in February of 1940 (on the so-called "8th Wave") and demanded that the 44th ID gave up its 2nd Battalion, 143rd IR, which became the 1st Battalion of the 523rd Infantry Regiment, attached to the 297th Infantry Division. This battalion was replaced replaced shortly thereafter.
In September of 1940, one third of the Division was detached to form the 137th Infantry Division. From this point onward, the German Army began forming new divisions by detaching one-third of two existing divisions, then raising the remaining parts from new recruits. This was intended to guarantee that all divisions fielded by the Wehrmacht would only have a fraction of new recruits among their ranks.
Now, I realize that I will be skipping huge parts of the Division's combat history by doing this, but the matter becomes truly interesting once we reach the formation's history during and after the infamous Battle of Stalingrad.
Fritz Woss said it best on his book Hunde, wollt ihr ewig leben, but the 44th Austrian Division really did get the short end of the stick during the bloodiest battle in human history (and that's really saying something).
Things went ugly for the Division almost as soon as the tides were turned against the Germans, since its supply base at Manolin was among the first places targeted by the Russians on the wake of "Operation Uranus", the encirclement of the Sixth Army.
The Germans sort of expected this and ordered the 44th ID to released its 132nd Infantry Regiment from its duties overlooking the Don for commitment elsewhere. Already short of men, the Regiment dissolved its third battalion and transferred its men to the other two.
This Regiment arrived at Verkhne-Buzinovka just to find out that the Russians were ready to annihilate the weak opposition in front of them, and were already threatening several sectors across the flanks of the entire Division. With nothing to gain by staying on the path of such overwhelming forces, the entire formation was ordered to retreat to the East, deeper into hostile Soviet territory, for reasons that defy common sense. Army engineers blew up the bridgehead at Luchinsky once the 44th ID had crossed it and the Division reached its defensive post two days later.
Handed a barrage of impossible assignments, the Division was brutalized by the Russians and forced deeper and deeper into Russian soil by the advancing Red Army. More often than not, the 44th ID found itself unable to dig itself in due to the ground being frozen solid and kept been forced to retreat on foot due to an alarming lack of fuel to its vehicles. Many men fell sick and died before they could be taken to field hospitals due to this. Furthermore (and in a true testament that the Germans were blindly optimistic and completely unaware of the situation unfolding in front of them), many of the divisional horses were moved west before the Russians could complete the encirclement of the Sixth Army on the Volga. This incredibly short-sighted move not only deprived the men of badly-needed transportation and towing for their heavy equipment, but also of food, which could only be transported by air due to the aforementioned encirclement and never reached "Der Kessel" (which is the name given to the Stalingrad pocket by its miserable dwellers) in sufficient quantities. To this effect, rations were cut from 200 grams of bread a day at the beginning of the encirclement to about 50 towards the end. With more and more men falling dead, wounded, sick and exhausted (and particularly because the Russians gave no quarter once the imitative was shifted to them), the Division was forced to "rapidly convert" rear-echelon personnel into infantry in order to make up for its loses. Construction workers, signals especialists, army mail personnel, kitchen stewards and many more members of the division's auxiliary ranks were employed as cannon fodder towards the end of the battle. A senseless decision that, while army-wide, doomed many untrained individuals.
To protect their only lifeline, Pitomink Airport, the 44th Austrian Division was given its final impossible task and was ordered to protect the runway from approaching Russian forces. Utterly unable to dig themselves in and without any hopes of not only moving, but also feeding their artillery pieces, the Division was overran by the Russians and forced out of their positions in just a couple of skirmishes.
With only the Gumrak and Stalingradski airports still available (and both being in terrible shape due to both being incessantly shelled by the Russians and littered in all corners by destroyed German aircraft) the Division wandered around the steppe, waiting for the already-decided end of their struggle. To add to their misery, all horse meat ran out by January 2nd, 1943, forcing the weakened soldiers to live off thumb-sized rations of bread and thin soup.
When many men died trying to wade the frozen waterline around the Volga, General Deboi (divisional commander) joined the 131st Battle Group to "be with the men" by January 27th and the remnants of the Division surrendered to the Russians after having exhausted their last food and ammunition.
Now, you might have noticed that I didn't once used the name "Hoch und Deutschmeister" throughout this thread (well, other than on the opening lines) and that's because the Division hadn't actually worn it up to that point yet.
What happened was that, in order to "restore morale around the German Army", Hitler authorized a series of measures to be implemented immediately after the Stalingrad disaster... one of them was the renaming of all Infantry Divisions to the coveted rank of "Jager", the other was the reconstruction of all units lost during the aforementioned battle.
What I think of the move aside, that's a pretty shocking way to fix an issue and, dare I say, one that only a politician could think of? In order to both "bolster the morale of the newly-formed Division" and to "assure the continued Austrian dedication to the Third Reich", the Division was given the famed, historical and legendary name "Hoch und Deutschmeister" (as well as its colors).
It did have some logic behind it, since the Division's 134th IR was a direct descendant of the 4th Imperial Infantry Regiment "Hoch und Deutschmeister". While the Pre-Stalingrad 44th ID boasted the Austrian Rot-Weiss-Rot (Red, White, Red) Babenger Shield, the "new" Division was adorned with the prestigious cross of the Teutonic Knights, with a banner that read "Stalingrad" in the middle and that also sported the Reich's Eagle and swastika on the design.
Unfortunately, that's as much glory as the Division would get after being reformed in 1943, as it kept being redeployed all throughout the shrinking front by the German High Command and it kept being pushed back against the initial frontiers of the Third Reich.
Interestingly, the exhausted Division didn't see combat trying to defend its own homeland of Austria (I guess because the Germans predicted that the sight of their homes would cause many of the demoralized members of the 44th ID to desert and be with their families) and instead the Division found itself opposing the Russians first in Budapest, and then in Germany's Eastern Provinces. Some elements of the HuD managed to flee from the Russians and to surrender to the Americans and British, but a great deal of them were taken into Soviet captivity, never to return.
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