My grandfather Ludwig Preller was in the staff (Stab) of the III Bataillon/Afr.Schtz. Reg. 963. That translates as something like 3rd battalion of the 963rd Africa-rifles regiment.

A leutnant in 1943, he was the ‘Bataillons-adjudant’ under Hauptmann Fritz Schliephack (who led the unit until it was dissolved in June 1943, before its members were sent to Greece). There the Stab was transferred into the newly created V./ Festungs-Infanterie-Bataillon 999 which was sent to the island of Lemnos (or Limnos). That unit was itself part of the Festungs Infanterie Regiment 963 (Fstg.Inf.Rgt. 963) under the commander of Oberstleutnant Clotz (Rgts.Kdr. Obstlt. Clotz), later Oberst Clotz when the regiment was upgraded for Festungs Infanterie Brigade 963 (also known as ‘Brigade Clotz’).

I am trying to find out more about this unit and its continuations and also possibly to track family members of some of the men who were part of it.

In his role as ‘Bataillons-adjudant’ my grandfather kept a notebook of the organisation of the battallion and an inventory of its equipment. This notebook survived the war (my grandfather must have brought it back home before he went missing in action in Hungary in 1945).

In it there is the following list of names for the staff:

Planstelle Dgrd. Name

(role, rank, name)

Btl. Adj. Lt. Preller
Ord. Offz. Lt. Henschel
Btl. Arzt St. Arzt Dr. Knape
Hilfsarzt U’Arzt Dr. Wilde
Zahlmeister OZm. Ellinger
Führer d. Melder Uffz. Selig
Gefechtsschreiber Obgefr. Dippmann
1. Melder auf Rad Gefr. Kowalski
2. ” ” ” ” Schumann
3. ” ” ” ” Dziatsko
4. ” ” ” O’Schtz. Katscher
5. ” ” ” Schtz. Zimmermann
6. ” ” ” ” Blümel
7. ” ” ” ” Müller A.
1. Kraftwagenf. f. Pkw Schtz. Bobrowski
2. ” ” ” ” Schweißhelm

… (WORK IN PROGRESS!)

Click on the link below for a full scan of the whole notebook (in black and white, quality scans of individual pages can be provided on request): III_963 Btl-Adjudant heft L_Preller

The unit arrived in Greece sometime end of June or probably early July 1943 – after a perilous and tiring train trip through the Balkans (see photo series from Lt. Gmelin further in this post), a relaxing dip in the sea by Thessaloniki must have been very welcome!

Adendum, 25 August 2014 –

Traced another member of the Stab III./963 !!! Jan Bobrowski

An exciting development! I found someone whose great-grandfather was in exactly the same unit as my grandfather after posting this partial list from the Staff of III. Bataillon of Afrika Schützen Regiment 963!  Doing a Google search of WWII pictures of the island of Lemnos I found the following photos posted by Bohdan Bobrowski on Flickr:

As you can see from the list of members of staff published above there is a Schützen Bobrowski who appears precisely as a driver (1. Kraftwagenf. f. Pkw Schtz. Bobrowski : ‘First Driver for Personnel carrier/automobile’)… after connecting with Bohdan it is clear that his great-grandfather Jan Bobrowski is that same person! A fascinating – although sad story – too: Jan was Polish from Gdansk and forced into the Wehrmacht because his family was considered by the N.S. regime as of German descent (so called Volksdeutsche)!

In Greece, probably in Lemnos based on the unit’s location at the time, he was forced by his commanding officer (a Hauptmann it seems, though we couldn’t establish the identity) to teach him how to drive the Ford WOC1 truck when drunk… a fatal accident resulted, the officer died, Jan survived. There was an enquiry into the accident and it seems some documents relating to this still exist in the military archives in Freiburg!

This discovery opens up new leads on possible other members of the unit!

Jan Bobrowski was then involved in the difficult retreat through Yugoslavia end of 1944 and taken prisoner by Tito’s partisans (whereas my grandfather Lt Preller was sent back to Germany on home-leave before going back to the front in Hungary, where he went missing in March 1945). Jan survived the war and the harsh conditions of a Soviet POW-camp (as Tito’s partisans handed him over to the Red Army – rather than executing him as they did with some prisoners, probably thanks to the fact that he was Polish, not German). He then returned to communist Poland and lived until the mid-1970s. He had to deal with the stigma of having served under the Wehrmacht, although he had been forced to do so, and was pretty much a destroyed man according to post-war family memories.

Photo of another member of the unit found on Ebay! Using Ebay for family history research…

This is an interesting photograph of Ober-Feldwebel Maschke: so the more as Ofw (Ober-Feldwebel) Maschke appears in Leutnant Ludwig Preller’s (my grandfather) Planstellenbestzung as Zugführer (3. Zug) of the 9th Kompanie (Kompanie Trupp-Führer) for the III Bataillon of Afr. Schützen Regiment 963 !!! (and in a previous version as Kompanie Trupp-Führer for the 12. Kompanie of the III Bataillon of Afr. Schützen Regiment 963).

Ober-Feldwebel Maschke on the donkey in Kalliopi, Limnos 1943

More photos of the ASR 963 and their trip to Greece on Ebay!

A series of photos taken by a certain Leutnant Gmelin, advertised as “soldier of Afrika Schützen Regiment 963” (but probably from another batallion within the regiment) were recently sold on Ebay.de

They show the training camp of Heuberg and the trip through the Balkans (Zagreb, Belgrade, Skopje) and then Athens in July 1943, including the repression of a protest (allegedly a ‘communist uprising’ on 22 July according to the comments written by the officer).

Further images and info of soldiers from the V./999:

Soldiers listed in the German Red Cross missing persons’ registry also mentionned in Lt. Preller’s notebook.

Crossing the information from the lists in my grandfather’s notebook with the German Red Cross registers (Feldpostnummer 41 269, Band CG, Seite 36).

In that way, I was able to identify several soldiers mentioned by him in the detail of the units of III./963 (later V./999). As this is also a photographic register this allows the amazing progress of putting a face on some of the names, as well as completing first names and date and place of birth, as well as the date and place where they went missing or were killed in action (most of them in Yougoslava fighting their way back to Germany against Tito’s partisans in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina).

Bade, Paul

Certa, Anton: Kfm. Angest. 24.4.14 T Lichtenau/Ostpr. Uffz. E Balkan 1.45

Leider ist für Anton Certa kein Bild vorhanden im DRK Register.

Hinners, Heinrich

Kolleck, Heinrich

Oischinger, Ottmar

Slojewski, Stefan – Kraftfahrer 15.12.03 W Duisburg Sold. E. 3.45

Leider ist für Stefan Slojewski kein Bild vorhanden im DRK Register.

Ziegler, Jul. Josef

… (WORK UNDER PROGRESS!)

Other members of III. ASR 963/ V. FIB 999

Karl Janich

1943 =10 Kompanie Afrika-Schützen-Regiment 963
1944(20.05.) =schwere Heeres-Flak-Batterie 418
1944(09.06.) 18.Kompanie Festungs-Infanerie-Bataillon 999

Müller, Emanuel

About the troops in “999” punitive bataillons and anti-occupation movement in Greece.

As mentioned above, the III Bataillon ASR 963 as other 999 punishment units initially destined to Africa were then send to Greece instead, where the first elements arrived in June or July 1943.

The file and rank soldiers of these units where either so-called common criminals (at least in the views of the NS regime) or political prisoners. The common version is that the proportion was about 1/3 political the rest ‘criminal’ but there can be some overlap between the categories. However in my grand-father’s statistics for III/963 it was closer to 50%/50%.
Now you have to imagine these ‘reformed’ solders among the political ones, many of whom communists and social-democrats, arriving in Athens in July 1943 and seeing the brutal repression of that demonstration as shown in some pictures from Leutnant Gmelin. The protest wasn’t a communist uprising as Lt. Gmelin’s comment in his album would have it. Although there were communists participating this was a non-violent demonstration by Greek citizens in general who were protesting against the German decision to give away the North of Greece to be annexed by Bulgaria. I am told by local historian Byron Tesaspsides that this mass demonstration gathered 400 000 people and is known to be the largest public protest to happen in occupied Europe. As a result the Germans withdrew from their plan! … but the repression was cruel, 30 people were shot, 200 injured and 500 arrested. One young woman, Panagiota Stathopoulou, an 18 year old student who stood fast in front of a tank was just run over by it.

Now think of those ex-political prisoners, some of whom were drawn directly out of concentration camps in to these “Bewaehrungs-Bataillone” witnessing this: no wonder quite a few of them then went over to the partisans! For some examples of 999 enrolled Wehrmacht soldiers joining the Greek resistance, see my post on Lemnos/Limnos island.

Here some retrieved links to some of the ebay-posts (with red “copyright” marks):

Belgrade train station:

thumbs4.picclick.com/d/l400/pi…Belgrad-Eisenbahn-Lok.jpg

An open air concert in Athens:

thumbs1.picclick.com/d/l400/pi…H-Konzert-Sommer-Oper.jpg

German soldier-tourist in front of an orthodox church in Athens:

thumbs3.picclick.com/d/l400/pi…e-Kirche-church-Athen.jpg

The German officers’ residence in Athens:

thumbs3.picclick.com/d/l400/pi…im-Athen-Griechenland.jpg

The start of a protest (in front of the university?) – described as an ‘ELAS uprising’:

thumbs3.picclick.com/d/l400/pi…AS-Athen-Griechenland.jpg

Members of the V. FIB 999 in the German resistance to the Nazi-regime

Kurt Bennewitz (shot by the SS in 1945)

Bernhard Sühlbrandt : Communist, was also in V. FIB 999 and went over to ELAS Greek resistance, seen in 1st November 1944 liberation Parade in Thessaloniki, see photo below – copy from Hans-Peter Klausch, 1986, Die 999er. Sühlbrandt is the last one on the right of the picture.

More information on ASR 963 and 999 Units:

Some discussion – in German however – which  I initiated on the unit on the online research forum “Forum der Wehrmacht” can be found on this link here.

See more about “punitive units” or so-called “Straff-bataillon” (the official term being “Bewährungseinheiten”) at:

http://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Gliederungen/Bewahrungseinheiten/5FIB999.htm

German war cemeteries in Greece (Deutsche Soldatenfriedhöfe in Griechenland):

Dyonissos-Rapendoza

Maleme/Crete

Field-Marshall Rommel’s visit to Thessaloniki (Saloniki), 25 July 1943 Video: http://en.saloniki.tv/?id=19061&tag=Visit+of+Rommel+in+Thessaloniki+%40+August+1943

and New York Times article about it at the time: https://www.nytimes.com/1943/08/02/archives/rommel-in-greece.html