Another year has flown by, and the Air War Publications team would like to send Season’s Greetings to all our followers around the world. We hope you have a safe and happy season of joy.
As we wrote recently, even though our online presence has been a little subdued in 2024, things are certainly happening behind the scenes. We will be sure to keep you updated with all of our news via our blog and Facebook pages. On that note, we should get back to researching, writing, editing, and laying out chapters!
In the meantime, below is a little research from Adam Thompson’s forthcoming book on the Ju 52-equipped transport unit IV./Kampfgeschwader zbV 1. The extract covers the Christmas period of 1941, which was a most difficult time for the Gruppe and other Luftwaffe formations serving on the central sector of the Eastern Front. We hope you enjoy it!
A Very Bleak Festive Season
As the Christmas of 1941 approached, the IV. Gruppe of Kampfgeschwader zbV 1 found itself in the challenging position of supporting the beleaguered Heeresgruppe Mitte, which was being hammered by a Soviet counteroffensive launched in front of Moscow early on the bitterly cold morning of 5 December 1941.
For the past few months, IV./KGzbV 1 had been engaged in supporting Heeresgruppe Mitte as it steadily advanced towards the capital of the Soviet Union, but by the time the festive season of 1941 arrived, the Germans had very little to celebrate: from north to south, 9. Armee, 4. Armee, 2. Panzerarmee and 2. Armee were all on the retreat, and the front had been torn asunder in multiple places. For the Transportflieger, this meant battling the horrendous Russian winter weather to move forward supplies and troop reinforcements, while also assisting with Luftwaffe unit transfers.
The bleak situation was reflected in the IV./KGzbV 1 strength returns: on both 20 and 27 December 1941 it reported just ten serviceable aircraft from its total of 30 Ju 52s. Given the Gruppe had four Staffeln and a Gruppenstab, only a select few crews from each unit could fly operations.
Despite its severe lack of aircraft, in conjunction with other Transportstaffeln, the Gruppe helped airlift 1.441 infantryman and 32 SS soldiers to the front on Christmas Eve, while on Boxing Day, 26 December 1941, the unit was ordered to continue transporting the men of an SS Kompanie to Kaluga-West airfield. The Kompanie was intended to help hold the city of Kaluga – 160 kilometres south-south-west of Moscow – against overwhelming odds.
Kaluga had been reached by advanced elements of the Red Army in the days prior to 25 December, and on Christmas Day was defended by a single regiment of the 31. Infanterie–Division. That division’s two other regiments were trying to hold back more Soviet forces to the east, but by the evening of 26 December, they had fallen back to the city itself.
The SS Kompanie to be transported by IV./KGzbV 1 on Boxing Day belonged to the III. Bataillon of SS-Infanterie–Regiment 4 ‘Ostmark’, which had been transported to Krakau two days after the Soviet counteroffensive began. Air transport of the unit to the front had then commenced on 19 December, and it took ten Ju 52s to transport a full Kompanie of 200 men. The III. Bataillon of SS-Infanterie–Regiment 4 was transported by air to Kaluga-West between 22 and 27 December 1941 as part of the desperate German attempt to hold the key point. 164 men were flown in on 22 December, and another 286 on 23 December, but due to bad weather just 32 could be transported there on Christmas Eve.
Kaluga-West airfield was located to the south-west of the city, not far from the frontline running along the Oka River, and the airfield provided a perfect way to quickly reinforce what was a vital position for the German 4. Armee. By Christmas Day the airfield and nearby Hill 201 were the scenes of heavy fighting, so it was a risky proposition to land fully loaded Ju 52s there.
Although the figures for IV./KGzbV 1 operations on 25 December remain elusive, only two of the unit’s Ju 52s made it to their objective on Boxing Day due to driving snow and poor visibility. However, the Gruppenkommandeur, Major Theodor Beckmann, landed on the field with another aircraft, thereby providing limited, albeit much-needed, reinforcements. In dramatic scenes, the SS troops disembarked under fire, were met by one of their officers, and were immediately sent to attack on the western side of the airfield. Meanwhile, wounded German troops were brought to the Ju 52s by Soviet women in Panje sleds. Turning into the wind, the two Ju 52s then took off to return to Orscha, but in a sad postscript, the unit war diary noted: “The seriously wounded who were flown back died of the cold.”
Despite the limited success of IV./KGzbV 1 on Boxing Day, Heeresgruppe Mitte reported that a total of 94 SS men of SS-Infanterie–Regiment 4 were transported from Orscha to Kaluga-West during the day, so presumably a handful of transports from other units were able to make the flight successfully.
The reinforcements supplied to the 4. Armee slightly improved the situation at Kaluga, with the army noting in its evening report of 26 December: “The clearing of the road from Kaluga to the west and the capture of Nedelsnoye [45 kilometres north-east of Kaluga] made it possible to improve the situation at two crisis points in the Armee. However, the strenuous weather conditions, which place the highest demands on the physical strength of the troops and make all the conditions for the movements uncertain, will only allow a slow evaluation of this initial success.”
While the German army Lagekarte for 26 December 1941 showed SS-Infanterie–Regiment 4 firmly ensconced to the west of Kaluga, and 130 more of the unit’s men were flown by Ju 52 from Orscha to Kaluga-West on 27 December, the city would eventually fall to the Red Army on 4 January 1942. For the men of the III. Bataillon of SS-Infanterie–Regiment 4, the winter battles would prove extremely costly, and most would be lost in the bitter fighting. As for IV./KGzbV 1, elements of the Gruppe received orders to return to Germany in late-December 1941, but the joy such news brought was short-lived as another crisis began forming in the East, this time around the town of Demyansk. And so, rather than a return to more peaceful surrounds, the Gruppe once again found itself engaged in a bitter struggle to keep both the front and surrounded German army units supplied in their struggle against Soviet forces.
Sources
Primary Sources
BA-MA RL 2-III/716
BA-MA RL 10/624
TsAMO Bestand 500 Findbuch 12454 Akte 222
TsAMO Bestand 500 Findbuch 12454 Akte 253
Secondary Sources
deZeng, Henry L. ‘Luftwaffe Airfields 1935-45 Russia (incl. Ukraine, Belarus & Bessarabia)’.
Siegrunen Volume 6, Number 1, Whole Number 31, July-September 1983.
Electronic Sources
‘SS-Infanterie-Regiment 4 “Ostmark”‘, https://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Gliederungen/InfanterieregimenterSS/IRSS4.htm
