Gustav Wilhelm Wolfgang (Wolf) Maucke

Wolf Maucke was born on September 26, 1900 in Mochlitz, a rural town in Brandenburg. His father was an official in the Prussian forest administration, his mother the daughter of the director of Dresden’s land registry office. Maucke attended school in Dresden; following two years in a Gymnasium, in 1914 he transferred to a private institute that prepared boys for military careers. In 1919, he enrolled in a military college, enrolling voluntarily that same year in a Hussar regiment, which he would leave in June 1920 as a petty officer. Between 1920 and 1922, he completed his school education and obtained his abitur.

In April 1922, Maucke enrolled in the 10^th Infantry Regiment in Dresden as an officer candidate and began training in a machine gun company. Later he continued his training at the Munich war school; in Munich, on 9 Nov. 1923 he participated as a cadet in Hitler’s and Ludendorff’s failed putsch, receiving the Nazi Party’s “blood order” – one of the party’s highest awards – for his efforts.

As a major at the war’s outbreak, Wolfgang Maucke led Machine Gun Battalion 10. In 1940 he fought on the Western Front; after the German attack on the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, he was deployed on the Eastern Front, especially the front before Leningrad.

After becoming ill in Jan. 1942, Maucke served as a tactics instructor and teaching staff commander in Döberitz, where he remained until May 1943.

On 10 May 1943, Maucke was transferred to Italy, where he took over the organization and command of the Naples Grenadier Regiment (motorized), later renamed Panzergrenadier Regiment 382. In late June 1943, he was reassigned to Sicily to lead Panzergrenadier Regiment 115, part of the newly forming 15th Panzergrenadier Division. Maucke led the regiment in fighting on the island’s western coast, near Augusta and Melilli, as well as in the Catania plain, where it was under the command of the “Hermann Göring” division. Alongside that division, the unit withdrew along the eastern slopes of Mount Etna toward Messina.

In Sept. 1943, Maucke was militarily responsible for a large part of the area around Naples. His regiment was positioned between the eastern districts of the city and the mouth of the Volturno River. After the Italian armistice of 8 September 1943, Maucke received an order from General Hermann Balck, commanding general of the XIV Panzer Corps, “to crush any Italian resistance immediately deploying all instruments in the most ruthless and brutal manner (...) even if Naples goes up in flames.”

During the Neapolitan uprising in late September 1943, Maucke’s regiment was active in the western part of the city. In early October, while still under the command of the “Hermann Göring” Division, his troops reached the Volturno River, where Maucke established his command post in the town of Bellona. After the killing of two soldiers in his headquarters company in a confrontation with civilians, Maucke ordered the evacuation of houses and shooting to death of 54 of the town’s residents.

On 18 Nov. 1943, Maucke had to give up his command on account of illness. After recovering, he took over Panzergrenadier Regiment 129, which was renamed Panzergrenadier Regiment 115 in March. His division commander, General Eberhard Rodt, described him as an idealist and ardent National Socialist who was respected by his subordinates. Despite his heart condition, Rodt called him “crisp, animated, brave, and well trained.” In contrast, General von Senger, commander of the XIV Panzer Corps, held a less favorable view. He considered Maucke a choleric idealist and doubted whether his temperament and health would allow him to endure prolonged combat. Nonetheless, Maucke remained in command of his regiment even after its transfer to the Western Front.

In December 1944, Maucke commanded his regiment during the siege of Bastogne as part of the Ardennes offensive. In January 1945, he was given command of the 15th Panzergrenadier Division, with which he later surrendered to British forces in northern Germany.

Information about Maucke’s postwar years is very limited. While still a POW, commissioned by the Historical Division of the U.S. Army, he wrote reports on his regiments operations in Bastogne. After his release he took over direction of an Allianz insurance agency in the Hamburg district of Eimsbüttel. He died in Feb.1963.