"Brandenburg": Elite Special Forces of the Third Reich. Russian Ending

Start: "Brandenburg Division" - the Wunderwaffe of the Evil Genius of the Third Reich
It is clear that Brandenburg's operations somewhere in Europe or Africa arouse a certain interest, but what really touches me personally is their actions on the territory of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War.
Operation/plan "Barbarossa" (1941)
It all started with the Barbarossa plan, which received this name in memory of Kaiser Friedrich Barbarossa (1120 – 1190).
German sources write that in June-July 1941, at the beginning of Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, the Brandenburgers were used to capture bridges, railways and key logistics hubs on the roads, as well as to disrupt communication lines, playing one of the key roles in the Barbarossa plan, which contributed to the rapid advance of the main motorized units of the Wehrmacht without losing the planned tempo of the blitzkrieg associated with overcoming rivers and other natural obstacles.
Their tasks also included the targeted liquidation of commanders, political workers of the Red Army and party leaders of cities and regions, as well as preventing the removal to the rear or destruction of secret documentation of Soviet military and civilian institutions.

German soldiers armed with Soviet weapons. The one on the far left has a DP-27 machine gun, the one on the far right has a PPSh submachine gun. The middle one has a German 98k carbine, and a Degtyar disk in his hand, apparently working as a second number with the machine gunner.
And once again it is emphasized that they operated in small, highly specialized groups in the rear of the Red Army, often dressed in the uniforms of Soviet soldiers or ordinary civilian clothes.
The Brandenburg units were among the first German units to begin military operations on the territory of the USSR, and they acted extremely harshly and swiftly.
In the first days of Operation Barbarossa, the Brandenburgers operated in the border regions between the German Reich and the Soviet Union, for example, capturing and preventing the explosion of bridges across the Neman River in Lithuania and the Bug River in Poland, and ensuring the safe and rapid advance of Wehrmacht units across them.
Below are some other examples of successful Brandenburg operations:
On June 22, 1941, in the area of the 123rd Infantry Division of the Wehrmacht, a group of disguised saboteurs shot at a Soviet border patrol and attempted to break through the state border of the USSR.
On the same day, a group of Brandenburgers, reinforced by a company of the Nachtigall battalion, captured the city of Przemysl, crossed the San River and took a bridgehead at Walawa.
On the night of June 24, the landing force in the area of the settlements of Lida and Pervomaysky captured and held them for two days until the arrival of the Germans. tanks, railway bridge on the Lida-Molodechno highway.
On June 25, 35 special forces soldiers, dressed in Red Army uniforms, landed near the Bogdanovo station, captured and held for XNUMX hours, until the German troops arrived, two bridges on the Berezina River on the same Lida-Molodechno highway.

The group of "comrades" in Soviet gymnasterkas looks very convincing
On June 26, dressed in Red Army uniforms, a group of 50 people who spoke Russian, riding in Soviet trucks, captured a highway bridge over the Western Dvina River near the city of Daugavpils, preventing it from being blown up. Soviet border guards calmly let a truck with wounded "Red Army soldiers" pass, not suspecting that they were "Brandenburg" saboteurs.
After a few minutes of short fighting, the bridge was under German control...

"Brandenburg" saboteurs in Red Army greatcoats. Judging by their appearance, they don't feel very comfortable yet. Estonia, 1941.
On the night of June 29-30, as I wrote above, the 1st battalion of the Brandenburg regiment, with the support of the Ukrainian nationalist battalion Nachtigall, entered Lviv, taking control of key objects and transport hubs of the city.
A little more about the Nachtigall battalion

The official date of the battalion's creation was the winter of 1940/41, and it ceased to exist on January 8, 1943. As the Germans write, they received their unusual name Nachtigall ("Nightingale") because the boys really loved to sing Ukrainian songs.
The battalion was formed in close contact between Stepan Bandera, the leader of the OUN, and the Abwehr leadership. Both sides wanted to use each other, but without mutual trust. Bandera hoped that the Germans would help create an independent Ukrainian state, while the Germans needed this gang of outlaws to achieve their goals, and they were not going to create any Ukrainian state.
The battalion consisted of three companies, which included 300 Ukrainians and 100 Germans. The Ukrainians wore Wehrmacht uniforms with a distinctive blue-and-yellow insignia. They were also its nationalist core, fiercely hating the "Jewish Bolsheviks" and all other nationalities to boot. And the OUN members had conflicts with their German, as they say now, "partners" from time to time, the thugs were just too arrogant.

Ukrainian nationalists of the Nachtigall battalion. Photo from 1941
In short, they were a group of hardened thugs who carried out the massacre of Jews in Lvov and later raged in Belarus, where even the Germans estimated that Nachtigall killed up to 2000 civilians and partisans. One of these "freedom fighters" was the now widely known Roman Shukhevych, who started out, as they say, as a "unit commander" of a battalion and later rose to deputy battalion commander.
Then, in the summer of 1941, during Operation Xenophon, a platoon of Brandenburgers attacked a Soviet anti-aircraft searchlight stronghold at Cape Pekly on the Taman Peninsula and destroyed it.
In 1942, the Brandenburgers also recorded several successful operations, such as capturing a bridge near Pyatigorsk and holding it until German tanks arrived.
A landing party of 200 saboteurs, landed in the area of the Bologoye transport hub, blew up the railway tracks on the Bologoye-Toropets and Bologoye-Staraya Russa routes.

Brandenburg special forces in camouflage (Splintertarn) overalls
The Germans also considered the counter-partisan operation in the area of Dorogobuzh and Smolensk, where the Brandenburg was also involved, to be a success.
In August, the Brandenburg sabotage group, consisting of 45 fighters, blew up the railway tracks of the strategically important Leningrad-Murmansk line in 14 places. The group returned without losses.
Attention, 300 km behind the front line!
Sabotage on telephone and telegraph lines led to the loss of communications and, as a result, confusion, the inability of the Red Army command to realistically assess the situation, the loss of the ability to control troops and panic in some parts of the Red Army.
Since many of the saboteurs spoke Russian and other Eastern European languages, they could easily disguise themselves as Red Army soldiers, police officers, NKVD officers, or partisans, and thus penetrate deep into Soviet territory, obtaining important information about the movement of Red Army troops, and also exposed weak spots in the enemy's defenses.
The success of the Brandenburgers during Operation Barbarossa was decisive for the rapid German advance in the first months of the war. Their actions made it difficult for the Red Army to defend itself and sometimes contributed to the destruction of entire Soviet units. For example, during the operations to capture Kyiv, Brandenburg saboteurs took part in the destruction of bridges across the Dnieper and other rivers, which made it impossible for Red Army units to retreat and made it easier for German troops to encircle them.
As a result, almost 700 Soviet soldiers were taken prisoner.
Later, as the Wehrmacht advanced south towards the Caucasus, Brandenburg units were deployed to conduct sabotage operations in the eastern mountainous regions and to support the Wehrmacht's advance by penetrating deep into Soviet territory.
Operation Shamil, a Wehrmacht military operation in which Brandenburg saboteurs played a key role, took place in the Caucasus in 1942. It was part of the German offensive (Operation Edelweiss) in an attempt to capture strategically important oil-rich areas that were vital to the Wehrmacht.

The goal of Operation Shamil was to assist the advancing German units in capturing the oil refining areas of Grozny by establishing control over transport and communication routes, as well as capturing oil production facilities in order to prevent their explosions during the retreat of the Red Army.
The Germans even named the operation itself after a man who fought against the Russian Empire in the 19th century. historical personality and leader of the Caucasian peoples. The choice of this name was probably a symbolic allusion to the resistance in the Caucasus and may have been intended to attract or influence the local population to the German side.
That is, using the discontent of local residents with the policies of the Soviet government, to raise them to an armed uprising and, with their help, to ensure the capture and preservation of the oil fields of Grozny.

German propaganda poster
In particular, in the area around Grozny and in Dagestan, the Brandenburgers were to disrupt communications routes, destroy lines of communication, disrupt the supply of troops and suppress the local partisan movement. But several months before the start of Operation Shamil, the Brandenburgers' clear success was considered to be their actions in capturing the city of Maykop. During the operation, using transport and uniforms of Red Army soldiers, they managed to penetrate the city on August 2, 1942, destroy the city's communications lines, the defense headquarters' communications center itself, seize the telegraph and, through further sabotage, initiate panic, confusion and chaos in the Red Army units defending the city, as well as among the civilian population. As a result, the city, which was prepared for a long defense, was taken within a week.
And all this was done by a group of 62 Russian-speaking saboteurs under the command of Lieutenant Adrian von Fölkersam (Adrian Freiherr von Fölkersam), who was dressed in the uniform of an NKVD officer and spoke Russian fluently. As for the Russian language, everything is simple. The guy was born in 1914 to a German family in the capital of the Russian Empire, in St. Petersburg, and graduated from high school in Riga.

Lieutenant Adrian von Fölkersam (20.12.1914-21.01.1945)
But the operation in Maikop was the last clear success of Brandenburg in the south.
The Germans failed to take Stalingrad and force the Volga, and they got stuck there. Resistance from the Red Army and partisans in the Caucasus in difficult mountain conditions and with very long logistical hauls for supplying everything the Germans needed led to the fact that in the winter of 1942-1943, German troops were forced to finally leave the Caucasus.
But everything was clearly and strategically planned out, including Operation Shamil...
It seemed that everything had been planned down to the last detail. Preparations began back in October 1941, the initiator of the operation was an Abwehr employee, Lieutenant Erhard Lange, who later commanded a group of saboteurs.

Erhard Lange (31.07.1913/29.09.1972/XNUMX – XNUMX/XNUMX/XNUMX)
Three to eight days before the main forces' advance, the Brandenburg group, consisting of 11 special forces, experienced mountaineers, natives of Tyrol, Russian-speaking Baltics and 19 Chechens, Ingush and other representatives of Caucasian nationalities, was to land in the western region of Checheno-Ingushetia to carry out the assigned tasks.

Caucasian saboteurs of the Brandenburg regiment
But from the very first minutes everything went wrong.
On the night of August 25-26, the group parachuted from an altitude of over 2000 meters thirty kilometers south of Grozny. The group members and containers with the necessary equipment landed at a very large distance from each other. It took several days to assemble the team, despite the help of local residents. As a result, almost 85% of all cargo, including power supplies for the radio station, were lost.
In all likelihood, the landing party was discovered in the air, and the NKVD troops carefully combed the area. Relying on the support of certain groups of local residents, clan authorities and resistance groups, the saboteurs managed to evade pursuit for some time. However, the Brandenburgers were no longer able to complete the mission. In addition, the radio station batteries were depleted very quickly, and communication with the center was lost.
The main German offensive on Grozny ended in failure, and further action by the group, exhausted by clashes with Soviet patrols, was deemed inexpedient. Lange decided to break through to his own people through the front line with the rest of the group. Having covered about 550 km, they reached the location of the 10th German infantry division on December 50 near the village of Verkhniy Kurp.
This diagram, drawn up after the completion of the operation, shows the entire “inglorious combat path” of Lieutenant Lange’s group.

Despite the fact that the goal of the operation was not achieved and was limited to collecting intelligence on the presence and movement of Red Army troops, the geography and operation of key civilian facilities, the action itself was considered successful, and Lange was awarded the Knight's Cross.
Of course, the number of Brandenburg operations on the territory of the USSR was not limited to those I wrote about above, and not all of them were successful for the Brandenburgers. Thank God, the NKVD wolfhounds and Soviet counterintelligence were also not fools, so month after month and year after year, Brandenburg's successes in the eastern theater of military operations became less and less.
But Hitler's Germany was aiming for world domination, "über alles", you understand...
For the purpose of this very “über alles”, “Brandenburg” was involved in the following operations:
Operation Mercury (Crete, 1941)
The Brandenburgers played a major role in the invasion of Crete, infiltrating Allied positions before the German airborne assault began.
Balkan Campaign
In the Balkans they fought against both regular troops and partisan units. Their rather effective operations significantly hampered the actions of the resistance forces.

Soldiers of the 1941nd Battalion of the Brandenburg Regiment raise the swastika banner. Acropolis, May XNUMX. And here they were the first.
Africa and Middle East
Units of the Brandenburg occasionally operated in North Africa in support of the Afrika Korps under Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. Their tasks included, as before, sabotage operations, as well as ensuring the security of the corps' supply routes.

The Brandenburgers are somewhere where it's hot.
Operations were mainly concentrated in regions such as Libya and Egypt, where logistical problems and the relatively small number of special forces meant that their operations in Africa were smaller in scale than in regions of Europe or the Middle East, particularly those of strategic importance to Germany's war aims.

Brandenburgers in North Africa
Brandenburg's deployments took place in the context of German efforts to undermine British influence in the region, secure oil resources, and win allies among local populations or governments.
The main countries where the Brandenburg division in the Middle East operated were:
Iraq
In 1941, Germany supported the Iraqi uprising led by Iraqi Prime Minister Rashid Ali al-Gaylani, who was then the leader of the anti-British opposition oriented towards cooperation with Germany and Italy.
The uprising was an attempt by Iraq's nationalist elite to break free from British influence and establish closer ties with the Axis powers (Germany and Italy).
It is known that the fighters of the Brandenburg Division were engaged in reconnaissance and training of anti-British forces.
As a result, the uprising failed, as the British, using forces from Palestine and India, defeated the Iraqi forces and occupied Baghdad in May 1941.
Rashid Ali and his supporters fled the country, and Rashid Ali himself found refuge in Iran and then in Germany.
Syria and Lebanon
Both countries, once territories of the Ottoman Empire, were under the mandate and control of the French government (the Vichy regime), which was neutral or pro-German. The Germans considered using the region as a base for operations against British positions in Palestine and Egypt.
The Brandenburgers took part in sabotage operations against British supply lines and in covert missions in support of anti-British forces.
Iran
Iran was of great interest to Germany due to its strategic location and oil resources.
In August 1941, Britain and the USSR carried out a joint Operation Accord, occupying Iran. This was done to prevent Iran from possibly going over to the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, Japan) and to ensure control over important transport infrastructure.
Iran became a strategic rear route linking the Indian Ocean and the Soviet Union. Through the Persian Corridor, within the framework of Lend-Lease, weapons, equipment, food and other strategic materials were supplied to the USSR.
Having penetrated Iran and established contacts with local tribes to support anti-Soviet and anti-British resistance movements, the Brandenburg saboteurs attempted to disrupt Allied supply lines through acts of sabotage and to weaken British and Soviet influence in the country.
Palestine
Palestine was under a British mandate, and Germany tried to mobilize anti-British movements by working with part of the Arab population.
The Brandenburgers worked covertly to support the anti-British forces, partly through propaganda and partly as military training instructors.
Turkey
Although Türkiye remained neutral, it was of great strategic interest to Germany. The Brandenburgers conducted operations near the Turkish border to gather information and study the potential of the Turks.
In Africa, after the defeat of Rommel's Afrika Korps in 1943, the Brandenburg Division's operations in the region ended and the remaining units were transferred to other combat areas.
Restructuring and liquidation
As the war progressed and the nature of the fighting changed, or more simply, the catastrophic situation on the Eastern Front, so did the demands on the Brandenburgers. In 1943, the unit was transformed into a regular infantry division and transferred to the Eastern Front as the Brandenburg Division. As a result, it lost its special status as an elite unit, sharpened for conducting secret special operations.
To sum it up, the German Zeiss microscope was used to hammer nails...
In the first years of the war, during the invasion of Poland, the Western campaigns (France, Belgium, the Netherlands) and the Balkan operation (1941), the Brandenburgers acted exclusively as a special and sabotage unit, their losses were relatively small and, as the Germans wrote, "controlled". And this was determined by their high training and the very nature of the missions, in which they usually acted in small, well-trained and camouflaged groups and avoided direct combat with the enemy.
But then, after Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union, the situation for the Brandenburgers, despite their initial successes in sabotage and infiltration missions, began to change, clearly not for the better.
With each month of the war they suffered greater and greater losses, and in 1944, after catastrophic losses on the Eastern Front, the "Brandenburg Division" was disbanded. The remaining soldiers were either integrated into other units of the Wehrmacht or continued to serve in the unit First Panzer Division "Hermann Göring" (Fallschirmjäger-Panzer-Division 1 Hermann Göring).
The total losses of the Brandenburgers in World War II are difficult to quantify, as the unit was reorganized and disbanded several times, and their many missions were highly classified. However, German sources estimate that of the 30 Brandenburgers who served during the war, a significant number were killed or wounded in combat on the Eastern Front.
After being transformed into a regular infantry division, they lost up to 50-70% of their original numbers, which led to their disbandment.

The Brandenburg Division was one of the most famous and at the same time most secret elite units of the Second World War.
The Brandenburg fighters were known for their ability to operate in the most extreme conditions, and their covert operations were often decisive for the subsequent success of the Wehrmacht units. Despite their short history, the Brandenburg's reputation as fearless and highly specialized fighters who pushed the boundaries of traditional warfare remains to this day.
After the end of World War II, since the Brandenburgers were a special unit that fought in covert and often unconventional warfare, many of the former special forces faced, to put it mildly, great problems.
Although the Brandenburgers were officially part of the Wehrmacht and were not an overtly ideological entity like the SS, the unit was part of the "German war machine" that was thoroughly imbued with Nazi ideology. The "Brandenburg Division" was therefore part of a military strategy based on the conquest of living space in the East, the destruction of Bolshevism, and the expansion of the German Empire.
Therefore, the Brandenburgers also fell under the denazification process that took place in Germany, although they were classified among its lower categories.
As a result, many of them received real prison sentences, although they were released relatively early, since the courts generally did not find evidence that the special forces had committed war crimes.
But those who were captured on the territory of the Soviet Union, especially those who took part in operations in the Soviet rear or on the territory of countries where the Red Army was located, were subjected to a truly fair and strict investigation and received completely different sentences and conditions of detention than their “colleagues” in Germany.
The Germans write that in the USSR, Brandenburgers immediately received a "quarter," 25 years of imprisonment. The overwhelming majority never returned from there.
And it was precisely these “colleagues” who found their place in the newly formed military or intelligence structures of the Bundeswehr and the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) of the FRG.
Thanks to their unique expertise and training in the field of covert operations, sabotage and infiltration into the sovereign territory of another state, many former Brandenburg special forces worked closely with the secret services of not only the FRG, but also other Western powers, especially the USA and Great Britain, operating against the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc countries.
In the case of the Bundeswehr, which was founded in 1955, some former Brandenburgers simply re-entered military service, where they were happy to pass on their experience in the training and development of the first special units of paratroopers-commandos (KLK) and later of the special forces of the Special Forces Command (KSK).
For example, the former battalion commander of the second Jaeger Regiment "Brandenburg", holder of the Iron Knight's Cross, Hauptmann Erhard Afheld quietly served in the ranks of the Bundeswehr to the rank of brigadier general and an honorary pension.

Brigadier General of the Bundeswehr Erhard Afheld (15.08.1921-03.12.1999)
Interestingly, former Brandenburgers also found their place in the GDR security forces. Those who had no opportunity to return to the military or intelligence sector after the war rushed into a kind of private business.
In particular, skills in the fields of explosives technology, penetration and protection methods have led some former Brandenburgers into the security-related industries and the security services sector, as owners or consultants of security companies, especially in areas such as personal protection or corporate security.
Others sought their way into the construction business, especially in occupations involving explosives or the construction of infrastructure they had once seized or destroyed. Again, bridges, roads and railways, but in a different context…
Some former members of the Brandenburg Division, especially those who had been heavily influenced by National Socialism, maintained contacts with right-wing extremist networks after the war, especially in the early post-war years when these networks were dominated by former Wehrmacht and SS members.
Well, others, those who were up to their ears in the blood of the war crimes they had committed and understood that even in post-war Germany they would not escape harsh punishment, rushed to Asian countries and South America, especially to Argentina and Chile. There they found work "in their specialty", both in the military and intelligence sectors.
That, perhaps, is the whole story of the elite unit "Brandenburg Division", created and nurtured by the "geniuses" of the Third Reich to achieve one goal, which is known to everyone today: "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, über alles in der Welt" (Germany, Germany above all, above all in the world), and this goal was to be achieved, including with the help of an exclusive living weapon, the Brandenburg special forces.
It didn't work out and I hope it never works out again.

A deep bow and gratitude for this to the legendary Red Army, the Soviet people and that Great country that no longer exists, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics!
Sources:
Federal Archives
House of History GmbH
Imago/United Archives international
www.balsy.de
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