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Info on the German 45th ID?

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#6
Neat, I've always wanted to find info on my grandfather, who was my only relative who fought in the war (Only male in the family that was old enough at the time to be enlisted), but I can only find him in census data, no military records at all. I tried to find his enlistment records, but apparently most WWII Army enlistment records were destroyed in a fire in St. Louis. I can only assume I'll have to physically go somewhere to find anything like discharge papers.

The most he really told us was that he participated in the invasion of Anzio where he almost died, and was stationed in Georgia during the war. So we can only assume he was in the 3rd ID...

Hopefully you'll have more luck finding info on your relatives. I can only assume the Germans/Austrians could keep better care of their records. :)
 
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#7
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#8
Private Who? said:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=P_Q980chke0C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Hi Lemon -
this might not be much but it's a little bit of info. it's about two pages worth in 'German Order of Battle, 1st -290th Divisions' scanned by Google Books.
Click to expand...

Cheers, unfortunately there's only half a page of the 45th there, everything else is cut. :(

Anyway, the more I read about the 45th ID the more I see what a remarkable unit it was. 400km in 13 days during the Poland campaign, Aisne crossing under heavy artillery fire and strong resistance, the assault and subsequent siege of Brest, advance through the Pripyet marshes, Operation Taifun, Fall Blau with subsequent fight for survival around Voronesh, Kursk Offensive in Ponyri, fight for survival and subsequent destruction during Begration.

I can't even imagine what those guys went through.
 
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#9
LemoN said:
Unfortunately the website only covers 148 deaths of my hometown Linz from WW1 and WW2, while WW2 alone killed more than 10,000. :(

Thanks anyway!
Click to expand...

Sorry I hoped you get better results cause I got 6 hits and everyone was related to me and my name is not really common in germany because the "von" infront of the family name! I even found a "Kampfgruppe" with my familyname there, something of the few things my grandparents do not tell me! I will check the archives in berlin for you the next time I get to there!
 
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#10
Unterscharfuhrer said:
Sorry I hoped you get better results cause I got 6 hits and everyone was related to me and my name is not really common in germany because the "von" infront of the family name! I even found a "Kampfgruppe" with my familyname there, something of the few things my grandparents do not tell me! I will check the archives in berlin for you the next time I get to there!
Click to expand...

Could be that they didn't mention it due to Kampfguppen being of extremely variable size, sometimes only over-strength battalion-regiment strength and often commanded by a mere Hauptmann (captain). There were quite a lot of Kampfgruppen in anti-partisan duty too.
 
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#11
here's the wiki link I found that Google Books thing at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/45th_Infantry_Division_%28Germany%29

The footnote there will take you directly to page 89 of that Order of Battle. The 45th's complete entry goes from pages 89-91, then it goes to the 46th ID.

The Order of Battle entry has a source footnote in it, that might point you in a better direction.:)
 
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#12
Private Who? said:
here's the wiki link I found that Google Books thing at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/45th_Infantry_Division_(Germany)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/45th_Infantry_Division_(Germany)

The footnote there will take you directly to page 89 of that Order of Battle. The 45th's complete entry goes from pages 89-91, then it goes to the 46th ID.

The Order of Battle entry has a source footnote in it, that might point you in a better direction.:)
Click to expand...
Yeah, I've seen that but didn't quite read it all the way through.

When I read the name "Friedrich Materna" I had a flashback and immediately thoguht that I definitely heard the name before. I'm not sure but it could've been a WW1 book written by him or heavily evolving around him... or at last mentioning him. :p
 
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#13
I Faw Down said:
Neat, I've always wanted to find info on my grandfather, who was my only relative who fought in the war (Only male in the family that was old enough at the time to be enlisted), but I can only find him in census data, no military records at all. I tried to find his enlistment records, but apparently most WWII Army enlistment records were destroyed in a fire in St. Louis. I can only assume I'll have to physically go somewhere to find anything like discharge papers.

The most he really told us was that he participated in the invasion of Anzio where he almost died, and was stationed in Georgia during the war. So we can only assume he was in the 3rd ID...

Hopefully you'll have more luck finding info on your relatives. I can only assume the Germans/Austrians could keep better care of their records. :)
Click to expand...

Not all the records were destroyed. But you should still put in a request, which could take up to six months to receive and even longer if they have to rebuild the the parts that are damaged because of the '72 fire.
 
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