1. Fallschirm-Jäger-Division

The German Fallschirmjäger (parachute) formations were considered an elite force: their members were selected and indoctrinated. The Nazi regime vaunted their military successes – a myth of battle-ready men thus emerging and living on after the war. The war crimes of these men were, by contrast, kept in the dark.

The 1^st Fallschirmjäger Division arrived in Italy in July 1943 to support the ‘Hermann Göring’ Panzer Division in its fighting in Sicily. While withdrawing northward through Italy, on a number of occasions the parachutists inflicted extreme violence on civilians. The most brutal such episode was in November 1943, in Pietransieri, Abruzzi.

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Army branch: Luftwaffe
Armed force: Wehrmacht
Commanders: Until Oct. 1944, parachute-troop general Richard Heidrich
Oct. 1944-May 1945, Generalmajor Karl-Lothar Schulz
Years of service: 1943-1945
Offensive: Occupation of Italy (summer 1943-45)
Confirmed Massacres: Barletta; additional atrocities in Apulia and Basilikata, including in Matera and Rionero in Vulture
Pietransieri
San Pietro Mussolino

One of the rare images taken for propaganda purposes in Italy in the last months of the war and not destroyed. Machine gunners of a paratrooper platoon preparing for a mission near Bologna. © BArch Bild 183-J28691 / Zscheile

Origins and operations in war

An offshoot of the oldest Fallschirmjäger formation

The 1st Fallschirmjäger Division was formed in spring 1943 in training camps in the Provence through a restructuring of the 7th Flieger Division, which was the oldest and most well-known Fallschirmjäger unit. In 1940, it had fought in Norway and Holland, in May 1941 in Operation Mercury in Crete, and later, until early 1943, on the Eastern Front.

On the front in Italy

From Sicily to the mainland

When in July 1943 the Allies landed in Sicily, the 1^st Fallschirmjäger Division was sent there to reinforce the ‘Hermann Göring’ Panzer Division. On 17 Aug., the German troops abandoned the island, the division withdrawing to the mainland. Most of its men were deployed to Apulia and Basilicata. Additional troops fought on the landing front near Salerno in the Battipaglia area. The Becker task force operated with the ‘Hermann Göring’ Division in the area around Vesuvius, withdrawing in late Sept. to positions on the northern bank of the Volturno river.

In Apulia the division was deployed near Tarento against landed Allied troops and near Bari to disarm Italian soldiers. In Barletta, on 12 Sept. 1943 the Gröschke task force perpetrated a massacre. The division’s troops withdrew northward, through Molise and Abruzzo. Over the 1943/44 winter they held positions on the Sangro River’s northern bank.

On 21 Nov. 1943, units of Parachute Regiment 1 deployed in the Roccaraso area perpetrated a massacre in Pietransieri. Here 125 civilians, above all women and children, were shot to death after refusing to leave their farms. The buildings were set on fire and partly dynamited.
The Battle of Monte Cassino

After the Allied landing near Anzio on 22 Jan. 1944, the Schulz task force (Fallschirmjäger Regiment 1) was transferred there and fought at Cisterna. At the highpoint of the first battle at Monte Cassino in Feb. 1944, the division’s remaining units were gradually transferred to the area around the old abbey located there. The division played a decisive role in all three battles at Monte Cassino. Until mid-May, it blocked the Via Casilina. After the start of the Allied offensive in May and the German collapse at the Casino front, the division withdrew northward beginning 18 May, following heavy fighting. It fought in the Tivoli area and on the Monti Lucreti.
In Umbria and Tuscany

In mid-June 1944, the division left the Latium region and continued its withdrawal northward through Umbria and Tuscany. In late June and the first half of July, it was involved in heavy fighting on the right bank of Lake Trasimeno, in the Chiana Valley and on the hills west of the lake. The division held positions in both Civitella in Val di Chiana and in Cornia; but it was not involved in the massacre in that area on 29 June 1944. Afterwards, it withdrew along the Arno River to the area east of Florence.
On the Adriatic Coast and in the Apennines near Bologna

In late July 1944, the division was withdrawn from the front in Tuscany and transferred for recuperation to the Po Plain and the eastern section of the ‘Gothic Line’ near Pesaro. Then, starting in August, after renewed heavy fighting the troops withdrew along the Adriatic Coast toward Rimini and Cattolica, where they were deployed until September.

From autumn 1944 until spring 1945, the division was deployed in the Apennines near Bologna, especially in the Sillaro Valley south of Castel Bolognese and in the plain, in the Imola-Medicina-Argenta section.

In the fighting in the war’s last phase in April 1945, the division suffered heavy losses while crossing the Po near Bondeno-Ferrara.
The last days in Venetia: clashes with partisans and the Allies

The pictures

These pictures were taken during the fighting in Cassino. Captain Rudolf Rennecke, commander of the 2nd Battalion of the 3rd Fallschirmjäger regiment and responsible for the defence of the town, had set up his headquarters in the basement of a half-destroyed building in the town centre. The Fallschirmjäger arrived at the Cassino front in February 1944, while the first of three battles was underway.

The fanatic will to combat of the Fallschirmjäger was the result of careful selection and political indoctrination. The special mentality at work here was marked by a sense of superiority and disdain for death. This frequently took the form of extreme violence and cruelty toward the civilian populace in occupied countries.

An elite formation: selection and political Indoctrination

Like all the parachute-divisions, the 1st Fallschirmjäger Division was an elite formation. Nazi propaganda celebrated its military successes. During the Battle of Monte Cassino, its soldiers became known as ‘green devils’.

The division mainly recruited volunteers and very young soldiers; its officers frequently came from the Nazi Party’s youth organizations. The fanatic will to combat of the Fallschirmjäger was the result of careful selection and indoctrination. The special mentality at work here was marked by a sense of superiority and disdain for death. This frequently took the form of extreme violence and cruelty toward the civilian populace in occupied countries.

The nearly complete absence of extant German military documents for this period renders precise knowledge of the criminally responsible units almost impossible.

Fanaticism and violence

Particularly in the areas of Venetia through which the Fallschirmjäger moved, the last phase of their retreat was marked by numerous atrocities. The nearly complete absence of extant German military documents for this period renders precise knowledge of the criminally responsible units almost impossible.

The fanatic doggedness and rigour of the Fallschirmjäger in battle was legendary, as was their lack of discipline and their propensity for excesses of violence. The Wehrmacht command tried to suppress plundering by the division without much success. Many rumours about the Fallschirmjäger were already circulating during the war, for example that before a withdrawal officers ordered sappers to detonate and plunder bank vaults in order to divide the booty among themselves.

Before being sent to Cassino, the 1st Fallschirmjäger Division held the front line in the Alto Sangro for several months between 1943 and 1944. The Fallschirmjäger were among the military formations of the Wehrmacht most frequently photographed by the reporters of the propaganda companies during the war. These pictures by photographers Wilhelm Beuschel, Theo Slickers and Heinrich Wahnen show some poses that were intended to give German newspaper readers an impression of the conditions under which the Fallschirmjäger fought, even in the high mountains.

Central Italy, autumn 1943: a group of paratroopers with a machine gun takes up position in the Sangro section at the front. © BArch Bild 101I-576-1850-37A / Wahner
Two paratroopers observe the Sangro Valley from a position probably not far from Pietransieri. © BArch Bild 183-J16268 / Slickers
Alto Sangro in the winter of 1943/44, an outlying observation post of the 1st Parachute Division. © BArch Bild 183-J16378 / Slickers
A paratrooper poses for a propaganda photographer behind a snowdrift, Sangro area, winter 1943/44. © BArch Bild 101I-571-1707-08A / Benschel (Beuschel)
The same soldier takes cover behind bushes. © BArch Bild 101I-571-1707-25A / Benschel (Beuschel)

The postwar period

The myth of the Fallschirmjäger

The glorification of the Fallschirmjäger continued after the war. It contributed to a positive image of the German soldier in the Second World War – an image juxtaposed with that of SS-leaders and “party barons” fallen into disrepute. One of the best examples of the persistence of what amounted to a myth is a German war film of 1958, ‘The Green Devils of Montecassino’, which was a success both in Germany and abroad. The film was based on the memoirs of Oberst Rudolf Böhmler, who played a central role in the defence of Monte Cassino in 1944.

In 2021 and 2022, the Bundeswehr’s Museum of Military History in Dresden housed an exhibit titled ‘Hitler’s Elite Troops? The Myth of the Fallschirmjäger’. As the title indicates, the exhibit’s goal was, for the first time, to call the myth of the Fallschirmjäger into question. Already before its opening, the exhibit was sharply criticized by members of Germany’s leading veteran’s association.

The Veterans’ Association of German Fallschirmjäger

The Bund Deutscher Fallschirmjäger e.V. (BDF) was founded in 1949; numerous veterans’ groups and groups of former Fallschirmjäger units associated themselves with it.

At present, the BDF has more than 3,000 members, most Bundeswehr veterans, and maintains a range of ties with other such associations abroad. In 2021 and 2022, the Bundeswehr’s Museum of Military History in Dresden housed an exhibit titled ‘Hitler’s Elite Troops? The Myth of the Fallschirmjäger’. As the title indicates, the exhibit’s goal was, for the first time, to call the popular idea of the Fallschirmjäger into question. Already before its opening, the exhibit was sharply criticized by members of Germany’s leading veteran’s association.

Sources

The fragmentary state of extant documentation makes historical reconstruction of the Fallschirmjäger divisions’ operations in Italy difficult. There are many inaccurate publications and memoirs, most of them appearing after the war.

Documents of the Bund Deutscher Fallschirmjäger are kept in the Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv in Freiburg (German Federal Archives - Military Department in Freiburg) (Fonds B 57). Alongside the association’s postwar correspondence, the collection includes many original documents, ego documents, and photos. Among the interesting ego documents is a long text by Gerhard Jacob, available as a typescript (BW 57/112). Jacob published this privately as ‘Der letzte Befehl ist heilig!’. Erlebnisse und Erkenntnisse eines kriegsfreiwilligen Fallschirmjägers (‘“The Last Command is Sacred”: Experiences and Insights of a Fallschirmjäger Volunteer’), without specification of place or year, presumably 1980.

Literature

Magnus Pahl, Monte Cassino 1944. Der Kampf um Rom und seine Inszenierung, Paderborn, Schöningh, 2020.

Magnus Pahl/Armin Wagner (eds.), Hitlers Elitetruppe? Mythos Fallschirmjäger, Berlin, be.bra. Verlag, 2021.

Günter Roth/Hans M. Stimpel, Führung in der deutschen Fallschirmtruppe und der Korpsgeist der Fallschirmjäger, Hamburg/Berlin/Bonn, Mittler, 2006.

Hans Martin Stimpel, 1942/45: Einsätze auf den Kriegsschauplätzen im Süden, Hamburg/Berlin/Bonn, Mittler, 2006.

Hans Martin Stimpel, Die deutsche Fallschirmtruppe 1936-1945. Innenansichten von Führung und Truppe. Mentalitätsgeschichtliche Studie, Hamburg/Berlin/Bonn, Mittler, 2009.

Authorship and translation

Author: Carlo Gentile

Translated from German by: Joel Golb

2023

Text: CC BY NC SA 4.0

1. Fallschirm-Jäger-Division

Origins and operations in war

An offshoot of the oldest Fallschirmjäger formation

On the front in Italy

From Sicily to the mainland

The Battle of Monte Cassino

In Umbria and Tuscany

On the Adriatic Coast and in the Apennines near Bologna

The last days in Venetia: clashes with partisans and the Allies

The pictures

An elite formation: selection and political Indoctrination

The nearly complete absence of extant German military documents for this period renders precise knowledge of the criminally responsible units almost impossible.

Fanaticism and violence

The postwar period

The myth of the Fallschirmjäger

The Veterans’ Association of German Fallschirmjäger

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