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Formation

Wehrmacht / Luftwaffe

Army branch

Panzer Division

Armed force

Wehrmacht

Commanders

General Paul Conrath (1940-44)
General Wilhelm Schmalz (1944-45)

Years of service

24 Feb. 1933 - 1935 ‘Wecke’ Police Group z.b.V. (= ‘for special deployment’), later retitled ‘Landespolizeigruppe General Göring’

Offensive

Scandinavia
Western Front
Eastern Front
Tunisia
Occupation of Italy (1943-45)
Western Front in Poland, White Russia and Prussia

Confirmed Massacres

Naples Sept. 1943
Acerra
Massacre bet. Volturno and Cassino
Massaker in the Apennines (Monchio, Susano and Costrignano, Cervarolo and Civago)
Casentino massacre (Vallucciole)
Massacres of Val di Chiana and Cavriglia (Civitella, Cornia and San Pancrazio, Cavriglia)

Beginnings and history in the war

• The ‘General Göring’ Group: from the Landespolizei to the Luftwaffe

  After the Nazi regime solidified its power, existing paramilitary forces were restructured. In the framework of the Landespolizei, the ‘Wecke’ group’s personnel base was expanded so that it emerged as a motorized unit with modern armaments. From now on, military functions took precedence over policing tasks.

  In 1935, in the course of the organization of the Wehrmacht, the unit was integrated into the Luftwaffe, now as the ‘General Göring’ Regiment. Over the following years, it developed into a kind of private army for Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring.

• In the war as the ‘Hermann Göring’ Panzer Division

  At the war’s outbreak, the tasks of the regiment took on a distinctly military character. In 1940, it participated in the campaigns in Scandinavia and on the Western Front. Between June and Nov. 1941 it participated in the initial stage of Operation Barbarossa in the east. In the summer of 1942, the regiment was converted into a brigade and, after a few months, integrated into a division together with a parachute regiment and 5,000 newly recruited volunteers. It now was rechristened the ‘Hermann Göring’ Panzer Division and transferred to an area north of Naples. It was the first German division fully stationed on Italian territory. Starting in mid-Jan. 1943, some units fought in Tunisia, where following capitulation in 1943 they mostly became POWs.

On the front in Italy

• Brutal warfare in Southern Italy

  In the autumn of 1943, officers and ordinary soldiers in the ‘Hermann Göring’ Division participated in the rescue of the art treasures kept in the Montecassino Abbey. In the process, the division appropriated some chests with artworks and handed them as a ‘birthday gift’ to Hermann Göring.

  This operation was widely exploited for propaganda purposes; despite its questionable nature, the ‘Hermann Göring’ Division’s rescue of the Montecassino Abbey’s art treasures has gained mythic status. At the same time, the division had adopted a ruthless form of combat. Even before the war’s end, Allied commissions had initiated many investigations of its war crimes. The first massacres in its deployment area took place in August 1943, in Sicily, at a time when Italy and Germany were still allied. In the area of Naples as well, most of the massacres perpetrated in the autumn of 1943 can be attributed to the division.

• Massacres in Emilia and Tuscany

  In the spring of 1944, soldiers in the ‘Hermann Göring’ Division perpetrated several massacres in the northern Apennines. On 18 March, ca. 130 civilians were murdered in Monchio, Susano and Costrignano. Two days later, 27 men and one woman were murdered in Cervarolo and Civago. In April, nearly 200 persons, mainly civilians and including women and children, were the victims of two razzias carried out by the division, under the command of Oberst Georg-Hennig von Heydebreck, in Mugello and around Monte Falterona. Most of the massacres, including the shooting to death of 107 civilians in Vallucciole, were perpetrated by the division’s Panzer Reconnaissance battalion under the command of Rittmeister Kurt-Christian von Loeben. 

  In the summer 1944, partisans increased their activity while the division was withdrawing. Its units again carried out serious crimes, this time, on 29 June, in the area west of Arezzo in Civitella, Cornia and San Pancrazio, and a little later in the Arno Valley near Cavriglia. The soldiers also carried out smaller massacres of civilians on their way through Chiusi, Sinalunga, Monte San Savino and Bucine. 

  In total the ‘Hermann Göring’ Division was responsible for the murder of at least 200 persons in the Mezzogiorno, ca. 390 persons in the northern Apennines, and ca. 500 persons in the Arezzo and Siena provinces in June and July 1944 – over a thousand victims. Consequently, the division needs to be considered one of the two principal Nazi German formations responsible for the escalation of violence against Italy’s civilian populace, alongside the 16th SS-Panzergrenadier Division ‘Reichsführer-SS’, itself guilty of the murder of at least 2,500 civilians in a series of massacres.

• The perpetrators in the ‘Hermann Göring’ Division

  Fewer perpetrators and actively participating units belonged to the ‘Hermann Göring’ Division than to ‘Reichsführer SS’. Above all two units were likely the main perpetrators: the Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion in the spring 1944 and, in the summer, the mixed battle group led by Hauptmann Heinz Barz, head of the military police. These two units comprised ca. 2,000 men or 10-13 % of the division’s forces.

  As was the case with the entire division, the Reconnaissance Battalion by and large consisted of very young volunteers, men born between 1923 and 1926. They had received severe training in the occupied Netherlands. For many of these young men, fighting partisans in 1944 was their first experience of violent warfare.

  By contrast, the battle group of the military police had been formed in an improvised fashion from various units; it was responsible for fighting partisans in the division’s rear area. It was composed of trained military police (mainly police officers) and experienced soldiers, together with alarm units and, finally, members of the ‘Hermann Göring’ band: professional musicians who normally gave concerts before troops and civilians and starting in 1944 were assigned to the military police as reinforcement. Many band members were shocked at their experience in the military police, and especially at their forced participation in its crimes.

• The end of the war

  In mid-July 1944, the division was shifted to the Eastern Front to defend East Prussia. Since it arrived in Warsaw during the revolt of the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa), some of its units participated in crushing the revolt.

  In Oct. 1944, the ‘Hermann Göring’ Division was expanded into a Panzer corps – to which belonged a second, newly formed ‘Hermann Göring’ Division. The corps was hastily sent to East Prussia and Courland, to counter the Soviet offensive against Army Group North. The Parachute-Panzer Corps engaged in defensive battles in the Gumbinnen area, the Soviet offensive grinding to a halt in late Nov. Then, in the battle for East Prussia in early 1945, the Panzer Corps became trapped around Heiligenbeil together with parts of the 4^th Army. Following several failed efforts at a breakthrough, the troops had to be evacuated to Pomerania by sea. 

  In mid-March, the soldiers were deployed along the Oder-Neiße Line. In April, what remained of the Panzer Corps was engaged in heavy fighting in Silesia. Under the pressure of the Soviet advance, it withdrew to Saxony, where it fought until late April around Bautzen and Königsbrück. In early May, survivors tried to reach American lines. But most soldiers from both ‘Hermann Göring’ divisions were captured by the Red Army.

After the war