| 125th Infantry Division | |
|---|---|
| German: 125. Infanterie-Division | |
 Division insignia | |
| Active | October 1940 – March 1944 |
| Country |  Nazi Germany |
| Branch | Army |
| Type | Infantry |
| Size | Division |
| Garrison/HQ | Münsingen |
| Nickname(s) | "Weasel Division" |
| Engagements | World War II |
| Commanders | |
| 1940–1942 | Wilhelm Schneckenburger |
| 1942–1944 | Helmut Friebe |
The 125th Infantry Division (German : 125. Infanterie-Division) was an infantry division of the Heer , the army of Nazi Germany, in World War II.
The 125th Infantry Division was raised on October 5, 1940 as part of the 11th deployment wave, [1] in October 1940, where it remained in Münsingen until April 1941, when it was moved to the Balkans as part of the 2nd Army's 52nd Corps [2] [3] in preparation for Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. The following June, the Army attacked through the Ukrainian SSR.
Moving to the front from Austria, where the division was registered with Höheres Kommando XXXIV, it was now organized into the 17th Army, part of Army Group South. [3] For the remainder of the year the 125th Division stayed with Army Group South in Ukraine, assisting in both the battles at Uman and Kiev. [1]
In July 1942 the division returned to the 17th Army from the 1st Panzer Army, now as Army Group A's 5th Corps, as it began an assault on the Black Sea city of Novorossiysk. [3] Moving into the Caucasus, the division, along with the 3rd Romanian Army, served under Colonel-General Richard Ruoff in "Army Group Ruoff". [2] Outside Rostov, Ruoff's forces were joined by the 5th SS-Panzer Regiment. [4] Quickly eliminating the Soviets in Rostov, the division made its way into the outskirts of Krasnodar, some 300 kilometers away, in just over two weeks. [2] Pushed back in the winter again, the division retreated to Ukraine.
Throughout the majority of 1943, the 125th remained along the Caucasian city Novorossiysk with the 17th Army before being transferred to Kuban in May. [3] Despite some successes in Kuban with the Romanian units, the 125th was pulled back into the Lower Dnieper Sector. [1] By October, 1943, the division was under heavy fire from Soviet forces in the Crimea, evident by five Tiger tanks being sent to their assistance on 2 October, [5] and a group of the 653rd Heavy Tank Destroyer Battalion's Elefants a week later. [6] Pulled back to Nikopol in Ukraine with the 6th Army, the division came under further fire, eventually losing its distinction as a division, referred to instead as "divisiongruppe 125". [1]
The remnants of the 125th were incorporated into the 302nd Infantry Division, becoming part of the 420th Grenadier Regiment, [1] which only lasted until August, when the division met its own end in Romania. [1] Lieutenant General Friebe, on the other hand, was moved over to the 22nd Airborne Division, where it was crushed by Titoist partisans in Yugoslavia. [7]
Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist was a German Generalfeldmarschall of the Wehrmacht during World War II. Born into the Prussian noble family von Kleist, Kleist entered the Prussian Army in 1900 and commanded a cavalry squadron during World War I. Kleist joined the Reichswehr of inter-war Germany before being discharged in 1938.
Army Group A was the name of three distinct army groups of the Heer, the ground forces of the Wehrmacht, during World War II.
The Panzergrenadier Division "Großdeutschland", also commonly referred to simply as Großdeutschland or Großdeutschland Division, was an elite combat unit of the German Army that fought on the Eastern Front in World War II.
The 13th Panzer Division was a unit of the German Army during World War II, established in 1940.
The 1st Panzer Army was a German tank army that was a large armoured formation of the Wehrmacht during World War II.
The 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking or SS Division Wiking was an infantry and later an armoured division among the thirty-eight Waffen-SS divisions of Nazi Germany. During World War II, the division served on the Eastern Front. It surrendered on 9 May 1945 to the American forces in Austria.
The 9th Panzer Division was a panzer division of the German Army during World War II. It came into existence after 4th Light Division was reorganized in January 1940. The division was headquartered in Vienna, in the German military district Wehrkreis XVII.
The 12th Panzer Division was an armoured division in the German Army, established in 1940.
The 3rd Panzer Division was an armoured division in the German Army, the Wehrmacht, during World War II.
The 11th Panzer Division was an armoured division in the German Army during World War II, established in 1940.
The Battle of the Caucasus was a series of Axis and Soviet operations in the Caucasus as part of the Eastern Front of World War II. On 25 July 1942, German troops captured Rostov-on-Don, opening the Caucasus region of the southern Soviet Union to the Germans and threatening the oil fields beyond at Maikop, Grozny, and ultimately Baku. Two days prior, Adolf Hitler had issued a directive to launch an operation into the Caucasus named Operation Edelweiß. German units would reach their high water mark in the Caucasus in early November 1942, getting as far as the town of Alagir and city of Ordzhonikidze, some 610 km from their starting positions. Axis forces were compelled to withdraw from the area later that winter as Operation Little Saturn threatened to cut them off.
The 17th Panzer Division was a formation of the Wehrmacht in World War II. It was formed in November 1940 from the 27th Infantry Division. It took part in Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, and in the winter of 1941–42 participated in the Battle of Moscow. In November 1942, the division was sent to the southern sector of the Eastern Front where it participated in Operation Winter Storm, the failed attempt to relieve the surrounded troops at Stalingrad. The division was held in reserve during the Battle of Kursk in 1943, and thereafter retreated through Ukraine and Poland, before ending the war in Czechoslovakia.
The Vienna offensive was an offensive launched by the Soviet 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts in order to capture Vienna, Austria, during World War II. The offensive lasted from 16 March to 15 April 1945. After several days of street-to-street fighting, the Soviet troops captured the city.
The German Seventeenth Army was a field army of Nazi Germany during World War II.
Karl Richard Ruoff was a general in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany during World War II. He commanded the 4th Panzer Army and the 17th Army on the Eastern Front.
The 101st Jäger Division was a light infantry Division of the German Army in World War II. It was formed in July 1942 by the redesignation of the 101st (Light) Infantry Division, which was itself formed in December 1940. The Walloon Legion was briefly attached to this division from December 1941 to January 1942. The Division took part in the Battle of Kharkov, the Battle of the Caucasus, and the retreat into the Kuban, where it suffered heavy losses fighting both the Red Army and partisans. The division was then involved in the battles in the Kuban bridgehead before being evacuated. The 101st was subsequently transferred to the lower Dnieper River in late 1943. It was part of the 1st Panzer Army that was surrounded in March 1944; it formed the rear guard for the XLVI Panzer Corps during the breakout of the Kamenets-Podolsky pocket. The division then retreated across Ukraine. In October 1944, it was moved to Slovakia and took part in the Battle of the Dukla Pass.
The 24th Infantry Division was a German Army infantry division active in World War II. It served across the Eastern Front in engagements such as the Sieges of Sevastopol and the Leningrad, finally being destroyed in the Courland Pocket in 1945.
The XXIX Army Corps was an infantry corps of the German Army during World War II, active from 1940 to 1945.
The 198th Infantry Division was an infantry division of the German Heer during World War II.
The 176th Rifle Division was an infantry division of the Red Army, originally formed as part of the prewar buildup of forces, based on the shtat of September 13, 1939. The division completed its formation at Kryvyi Rih in the Odessa Military District and at the time of the German invasion of the Soviet Union was in the same area, assigned to the 35th Rifle Corps. Being relatively far from the frontier it escaped the early disasters and retreated mostly in good order through southern Ukraine into the autumn as part of 9th Army. It then took part in the counteroffensive against the overextended German Army Group South that liberated Rostov-na-Donu for the first time in December. When Army Group A began its summer offensive in 1942 the 176th fell back into the Caucasus region, losing much of its strength in the process, but finally helping to take up a firm defense along the Terek River and finally in front of Ordzhonikidze. As a result of this fighting the division, along with its artillery regiment, were awarded the Order of the Red Banner. After the German 6th Army was surrounded at Stalingrad the 176th advanced into the western Caucasus and entered the so-called Malaya Zemlya bridgehead south of Novorossiysk in the spring of 1943 where it helped to defeat the German Operation Neptun in April and in the autumn took part in the liberation of the city, for which it was redesignated as the 129th Guards Rifle Division.