Grenadier-Regiment 274

The staff of Grenadier Regiment 274, a regular unit of the German army, was responsible for the massacres in San Polo and the Arezzo area in July 1944. Approximately 60 Grenadier Regiments fought on the Italian Front between 1943 and 1945, sharing similar characteristics and structures. 

A Grenadier Regiment consisted of a staff and three – later reduced to two – battalions, each comprising four companies: three Grenadier companies and a heavy company equipped with heavy machine guns and mortars. Additionally, there was a staff company with a signal communication platoon and an engineering platoon, an infantry gun company, an anti-tank company, and a motor convoy responsible for supplying munitions to the front. The Grenadier Regiments moved on foot, and their vehicles were horse-drawn. 

Typically, the regiment commander was an Oberst (colonel) or Oberstleutnant (lieutenant colonel) aged between 35 and 45. The staff included an Adjutant (aide), two or three Ordonnanzoffiziere (orderly officers), and a veterinary officer. The battalion was led by a Hauptmann (captain), a Major, or an Oberstleutnant (aged between 27 and 40), the company by an Oberleutnant (first lieutenant) or a Hauptmann, sometimes even a Leutnant (second lieutenant, aged between 22 and 35). The Regimentsadjutant was the most important member of the staff, representing the Kommandeur. The Ordonnanzoffiziere assisted the Adjutant and had various tasks. Most officers were reservists, as later in the war there were not many active regular officers available.

Grenadier Regiment 274  followed the typical structure. In the summer of 1944, the division’s reorganization into two rather than three battalions had not yet been implemented. However, the 2^nd Battalion had been destroyed in fighting on the front and subsequent withdrawal, leaving the regiment with only two battalions. 

The regimental commander was Oberst Wolf Ewert. The 1^st Battalion was led by Hauptmann Hans-Horst Manitz – a jurist who, after the war, served as a board member of the Colonia AG insurance company. The 3^rd Battalion’s commander was Hauptmann Heinz Woock, an officer in active service. 

Ewert was a career officer, while all the other officers on the regimental staff were reservists. The youngest was Ewert’s Adjutant, 22-year-old Oberleutnant Günther Schmidt, and the oldest was the 44-year-old Oberleutnant Alfred Graw. The other two officers were 29-year-old Klaus Konrad and 34-year-old Hans-Joachim Schoenborn. In civilian life, Schmidt was a businessman, and Graw managed a farm in Heiligenbeil, East Prussia. Konrad came from an upper-middle-class family. He was a jurist and administrative official in the Luftwaffe. Dr. Schoenborn was a lecturer at the University of Königsberg and the assistant to medieval historian Friedrich Baethgen. He was killed in the last days of the war while crossing the Po. In civilian life, 37-year-old Hauptmann Alfred Kolo, commander of the staff company, was an administrative officer. Leutnant Herbert Hantschk, a 24-year-old Austrian tax inspector, led the signal communication platoon. The engineering platoon was led by a 27-year-old student, Leutnant Adolf Geißler, who participated in the Molino dei Falchi action and in the executions in the Villa Gigliosi. 

In the summer of 1944, three of the regiment’s officers, Ewert, Manitz and Woock, would be awarded the Knight’s Cross. 

On 21 September 1939, the regiment was deployed in Saxony as an infantry regiment and placed under the command of the 94^th Infantry Division. In late October 1939, it was sent to the Palatinate on the Western Front,  where the soldiers’ duties primarily involved constructing fortifications and reconnaissance. In late March 1940, plans were made to use the regiment as a reserve in the French campaign. Once operations in the west began, the regiment reached the French town of Sedan via Luxembourg on 20 May, with its primary task being to cover the flanks of the motorised units advancing towards Dunkirk. On 6 June 1940, it participated in the attack on French positions along the Somme. By mid-June, the regiment had reached Orléans. With the end of the campaign came demobilisation and the soldiers’ return to civilian life.

On 1 February 1941, the regiment was again mobilised and sent to France, then, in early July, to Ukraine. Here it took part in the Battle of Kyiv, then advanced along the Dnieper River to Dnipropetrovsk and the Donets Basin, where it spent the winter of 1941-42. In July 1942, the march on Stalingrad began, with heavy battles breaking out on the lower Don River, resulting in significant losses. After the regiment reached Stalingrad, it again suffered heavy casualties in the industrial region on the city’s northern edge. With the closure of the Stalingrad Cauldron at the end of November 1942, the regiment remained in its positions in the city’s north; it was then destroyed in fighting with the Red Army.

In March 1943, the 94^th Infantry Division was newly formed in Brittany in the framework of the program to restore divisions destroyed in Stalingrad. Recruits supplemented the personnel who had survived the Stalingrad Cauldron. In the summer of 1943, the division was transferred to Italy as part of a group of approximately 10 divisions intended for long-term deployment in the country. In September 1943, Grenadier Regiment 274 was stationed near Piacenza, where, following the armistice, it disarmed and interned the Italian forces. In mid-October, it was moved to the Garigliano Front in southern Italy, where it fought against American troops. During the fighting, regiment commander Oberst Werner Reich was killed on 17 January 1944, and on 6 February, Oberst Wolf Ewert took over command. 

On 11 May 1944, an Allied offensive began in the entire sector between Cassino and the sea. This led to the defeat of the 94^th Infantry Division by American troops and soldiers in the French Expeditionary Corps. The Allied breakthrough in the area forced the German high command to abandon positions of the Gustav Line near Monte Cassino. The losses were so severe that there were plans to disband the division and distribute the remaining men to less severely decimated units. Division headquarters managed to avoid this step, but the few remaining intact units, including the 274^th Grenadier Regiment under Oberst Ewert, were assigned to the 305^th Infantry Division under General Friedrich-Wilhelm Hauck as reinforcement. They fought in Umbria, at Lake Trasimeno, and in the area of Arezzo. During the fighting in the mountains, the regiment’s operational area saw a series of massacres of civilians in places such as San Polo, San Severo, and the Badicroce farmstead.

In July 1944, the division’s remaining soldiers were transferred to the Romagna region and then to Friuli near Udine for recovery. However, within a few weeks, they were again deployed in anti-partisan operations. At this time, Ewert was replaced as commander by Oberst Ullmann. 

In mid-October 1944, the regiment was deployed in the front sector of the Abetone Pass and then on Monte Salvaro, where it replaced units of the 16^th SS Panzergrenadier Division ‘Reichsführer-SS’. The 94^th Infantry Division and Grenadier Regiment 274 remained on the front lines in the mountains southwest of Bologna until the end of the war. In mid-April 1945, the Allied offensive began in this front sector. Despite the difficult terrain, the regiment withdrew through Ostiglia and Verona to Rovereto, where in May 1945 it surrendered to Allied troops.