15th Panzer Grenadier Division

Author: Carlo Gentile

The 15th Panzergrenadier Division was formed in Sicily in May 1943 from existing reserve battalions and participated in numerous massacres during the Second World War. Following the Italian armistice on 8 September 1943, the division initially operated in the Naples region before withdrawing to central and northern Italy. During the withdrawal, its units committed massacres of civilians, particularly in southern Italy and Tuscany. In total, circa 300 civilians were victims of these crimes. After its transfer to France in August 1944, the division continued its violence against civilians. After the war investigations of the crimes were initiated, then dropped. New investigations opened in 2000 identified additional massacres by the division, but no trials followed.

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Nationality: German
Arny Branch: Panzergrenadier-Division
Armed Force: Wehrmacht
Commanders: Generalleutnant Eberhardt Rodt (July 1943-Oct. 1944)
Years of Service: 1943-1945
Campaign: Occupation of Italy (Summer 1943-Aug. 1944)
Retreat in the west (Aug. 1944-May 1945)
Ardennes offensive
Confirmed Massacres: Mondragone (Caserta); Bellona (Caserta); Vallerotonda (Frosinone); Vallemaio (Frosinone); San Giustino Valdarno (Arezzo); Orenaccio, Pratomagno (Arezzo); Castiglion Fibocchi (Arezzo); Il Focardo (Florence); Saint Léger, Bar-sur-Seine, Mésnil-le-Père (France)

Origins and war experience

Formation in Sicily

The 15th Panzer-Grenadier-Division was set up in Sicily in May 1943 from reserve battalions originally meant for the North African front but not deployed there following the collapse of the Axis powers in Tunisia. Initially named the “Sicily Division,” the unit was renamed in summer 1943 to honor the 15th Panzer Division of the Africa Corps. After the Allied landing in Sicily on 10 July 1943, the division was transferred to Canicattì northeast of Agrigento. It participated in intense defensive fighting along the Pietraperzia-Barrafranca-Piazza Armerina line, as part of Germany’s strategy to slow down the Allied advance in Sicily and gain time for an organized evacuation of troops on the Italian mainland. In August, the division’s units reached Messina, from where they were evacuated.

On the Italian front

The fighting in Campania

The division stationed its troops near Naples, securing a broad coastal sector from the city’s western suburbs to the Gulf of Gaeta. Under Oberstleutnant Wolfgang Maucke, Grenadier Regiment 115 (motorized) assumed military responsibility for a large portion of the area around Naples. The day after the armistice, his regiment disarmed the Italian garrison in Naples in coordination with anti-aircraft units. The deputy commanding general of the XIV Panzer Corps, Hermann Balck, ordered Maucke “to crush any Italian resistance immediately deploying all instruments in the most ruthless and brutal manner”; he declared that all means were justified, “even if Naples goes up in flames”.

The 129^th Panzer Grenadier Regiment controlled the plain between Cancello and Castel Volturno, while the 104^th Panzer Grenadier Regiment secured the Minturno area and the Gulf of Gaeta. Battalions of the 115^th and 129^th regiments took part in the fighting at Salerno and around Cava dei Tirreni. Various units of the division fought intense skirmishes with insurgents during the Naples revolt, particularly in the western areas of the city. Finally, the division, along with units of the XIV Panzer Corps, withdrew behind the Viktor-Line on the Volturno River.

Many victims were shot for disobeying evacuation orders and attempting to return home in search of food or clothing.

The massacre of Bellona

This section provides an overview of the 15^th Panzer-Grenadier Division’s involvement in the systematic killing of civilians during its withdrawal from the Volturno Front and along the coast in the autumn of 1943. At this phase of the fighting, the regiment of Oberst Maucke was under the command of the “Hermann Göring” Division and was deployed in the front’s central sector between Triflisco and Piana di Caiazzo. On 7 October 1943, the regiment was responsible for shooting 54 civilians in Bellona. Following the German retreat, an additional 22 murdered civilians were discovered in the outskirts of the city, raising the death toll to 76. Grave crimes were also committed against civilians along the coast in the areas controlled by the 104^th und 129^th regiments. In October 1943, 14 persons were killed in Castel Volturno, 46 in Mondragone. Many victims were shot for disobeying evacuation orders and attempting to return home in search of food or clothing.
Violence against civilians during the fighting around Montecassino

After crossing the Volturno, the division withdrew to positions along the Bernhard Line. In November and December 1943, it participated in the heavy fighting at Mignano and Monte Lungo, defending the strategically important positions at Monte La Difensa and Monte Camino. In late December, the division reached the Gustav Line on the Garigliano River and occupied the valley of the Liri River, near its meeting point with the Gari River south of Cassino. The fighting against the Allied forces was bitter and marked by many losses.

On 28 December 1943, the 1^st Battalion of the 115^th Grenadier Regiment (motorized) was sent to support troops of the 5^th Mountain Division in defence against an attack by the French Expeditionary Corps in the Mainarde Mountains. Soldiers from this battalion are held responsible for the brutal murder of 42 civilians, including 15 children, 12 women, and 15 men, who had sought makeshift shelter in the forests of Collelungo di Cardito.

In early 1944, the division fought in the first and second battles of Cassino. Between 20 and 22 January 1944, units in the division repelled an American attempt to cross the Gari River. At the same time, other units fought at the Anzio front, especially in the areas around Aprilia, Castel Mandria, and Cisterna. After months of intense combat, in March 1944, the division was reorganized: the 115^th Grenadier Regiment (motorized) was disbanded, while the 129^th Panzergrenadier Regiment was renumbered 115. Oberst Maucke took command of the newly former regiment.

In late April 1944, the division was taken over by the 44^th “Hoch- und Deutschmeister” Reichsgrenadier Division and stationed near Fondi between Terracina and Itri as an operative reserve. The 115^th Panzer Grenadier Regiment and the Reconnaissance battalion remained active in the 44^th Division’s deployment area. The 2^nd Battalion of the regiment was recuperating in the Vallemaio vicinity. On 9 May 1944 soldiers, presumably from the 115^th Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment, committed a massacre in nearby Vecchia Pastino. The village doctor, suspected of spying, was murdered. Soldiers rounded up 15 civilians, including women and children, locked them in a room, and killed them with rifle fire and hand grenades. Ten of the victims died, while five survivors managed to hide beneath the corpses.
Withdrawal and reprisals: fighting in Umbria and the Arezzo province

In June 1944, the division began its withdrawal and was placed under the command of the LXXVI Panzer Corps. Its operations now initially concentrated on the area around Frosinone. After crossing the Ciociaria, it moved through Latium and Sabina toward Terni. Around 20 June, it reached the Albert Line in Umbria, engaging in heavy fighting, particularly near Perugia and Lake Trasimeno. In July, it shifted operations to the area around Arezzo before advancing toward Pratomagno in mid-month.

Between mid-June and mid-July 1944, German troops killed 774 civilians in the Arezzo province, nearly a quarter of all civilians killed by German units in Tuscany during the summer of 1944. 144 of these victims were murdered in the division’s deployment area. In the Pratomagno mountain range alone, German soldiers killed at least 50 men between 3 and 11 July. Most of these killings were reprisals for sabotage by British commandos; 42 Italians were shot in San Giustino Valdarno, an additional eight in Castiglion Fibocchi.

In Puliciano (Arezzo), a machine-gun unit occupied a building where soldiers abused a mother and her two young daughters. After the soldiers withdrew, the mother and her youngest daughter were murdered. The eldest daughter was found gravely wounded.

There is strong evidence that a battalion of the 104^th Panzer Grenadier Regiment was responsible for the murder of the wife of Robert Einstein, a cousin of the famous physicist, together with her two daughters, in the Il Focardo villa near Rignano sull’Arno.
Fighting in France and the Ardennes: violence and surrender

In August 1944, the entire division was transferred to France, where it fought against advancing Allied troops in the Vosges mountains. Between December 1944 and January 1945, it fought in the German Ardennes offensive. After the offensive’s failure, it was moved to the lower Rhine area, before surrendering in Lower Saxony in the war's final months.

During the retreat from France, in late August 1944 units of the division assaulted civilians. The 3^rd Company of the 115^th Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion was involved in such violence in Saint-Léger near Arlon. Similar crimes were committed by the 115^th Panzer Grenadier Regiment in Bar-sur-Seine and Mesnil-Saint-Père.

After the war, only two mass killings of civilians by the division’s troops were investigated: the reprisal actions in the Tuscan locations San Giustino Valdarno and Castiglion Fibocchi.

The postwar period

Investigations and failed prosecution

After the war, only two mass killings of civilians by the division’s troops were investigated: the reprisal actions in the Tuscan locations San Giustino Valdarno and Castiglion Fibocchi. These proceedings were initiated by the British Special Investigation Branch.

In 1966, the Italian Military Prosecutor’s Office in Rome forwarded the relevant files to German authorities. In 1967, the Bonn prosecutor’s office opened proceedings against a former officer in the Bundeswehr who had commanded a battalion during the war and was now accused of these deeds. In the course of the investigation, another presumptive case emerged from a former German soldier’s assertion that he recalled Italian civilians being shot and killed in the summer of 1944 in Tuscany. However, he could not provide precise details about the location or circumstances. The proceedings were thus closed down on 16 April 1973 because of insufficient evidence.

After 2000, late investigations led to new findings about further massacres that took place mainly in southern Italy. Earlier, the perpetrators of these atrocities had been unknown; now the 15^th Panzer-Grenadier-Division could be held accountable. But because of the extended period involved and lack of evidence usable in a courtroom, no trials took place.

Sources

Some documents on the activity of the 15^thPanzer-Grenadier-Division are kept in the German Federal Military Archives in Freiburg. But as in many other cases, it is necessary to supplement that material with documents from the superior command structures, especially the XIV and LXXVI Panzer Corps (RH 24-14; RH 24-76).

The Freiburg archives hold the war diary of the 115^th Panzer Grenadier Regiments for the period from March to August 1944 (RH 82/128). Diary entries also exist for a company of the 104^th Panzer Grenadier Regiment, documenting its activities in summer 1944 in Umbria and Tuscany (RH 82/155). An additional important document, the war diary of a battalion of the 104^th Panzer Grenadier Regiment deployed near Cassino in spring 1944, was recently discovered in archives of the former Soviet Union, signature CAMO/500/12482/432).

No relevant ego-documents or photo-material has been found in ongoing research.

Literature

Carlo Gentile, Wehrmacht und Waffen-SS im Partisanenkrieg: Italien 1943-1945, Paderborn, Schöningh, 2012, pp. 98, 106, 148f., 155, 162, 352, 377, 411ff.

Karl-Heinz Golla, Zwischen Reggio und Cassino. Das Kriegsgeschehen in Italien im Zweiten Halbjahr 1943, Bonn, Bernard & Graefe, 2004.

Translation

Translated from German by: Joel Golb

2025

Text: CC BY NC SA 4.0

15th Panzer Grenadier Division

Origins and war experience

Formation in Sicily

On the Italian front

The fighting in Campania

Many victims were shot for disobeying evacuation orders and attempting to return home in search of food or clothing.

The massacre of Bellona

Violence against civilians during the fighting around Montecassino

Withdrawal and reprisals: fighting in Umbria and the Arezzo province

Fighting in France and the Ardennes: violence and surrender

After the war, only two mass killings of civilians by the division’s troops were investigated: the reprisal actions in the Tuscan locations San Giustino Valdarno and Castiglion Fibocchi.

The postwar period

Investigations and failed prosecution

Sources

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