65th Infantry Division (Wehrmacht)


The 65th Infantry Division was a German division in World War II. It was formed in July 1942.

History

Formation

The division was formed in July 1942 at the training ground at Bitche.

Occupation Duty

The 65th moved to the Netherlands in October 1942 for occupation duty. The division spent the next eight months occupying Coastal Defence Sector A1. The division sent drafts to rebuild the shattered 44th Infantry Division and in return received large numbers of recruits from Silesia.

The move to Italy

The division moved to France in the spring of 1943. In August 1943 the division moved briefly to Austria for two weeks before heading south into Italy just as the fascist government was being overthrown and Italy changed sides. The division took up coastal defence duties on the Adriatic from 10 to 22 August 1943 and moved to the west coast at La Spezia in September. Units of the division were on sentry duty when Italy changed sides, and soldiers watched ships of the Italian Navy sortie from La Spezia and Genoa, including the battleship Roma.
In October 1943 the division moved to the Chieti area, and then to the Adriatic coast between Pescara and Ortona.

First combats: the Sangro

The 65th Division was ordered to man positions on the Winter Line. Initially stationed on the coast, the inexperienced division was shifted inland in favour of the more experienced 1st Parachute Division. The latter fought at Ortona where it battled the 1st Canadian Division at Christmastime, 1943 before withdrawing to the Arielli River. The 65th instead fought at Orsogna, giving ground to the 8th Indian Division and the 2nd New Zealand Division, but held on to the city of Orsogna before being relieved. The division had suffered enormous losses, particularly in infantry.
The division was relieved by the 334th Infantry Division in the last days of 1943, and relocated to Genoa where it was partly reconstituted. At the same time the division reorganized as a "Type 1944" Division, with three infantry regiments of two battalions each rather than two regiments of three battalions. The reorganization increased the division's firepower while conserving manpower.
The Allied invasion of Anzio caused an emergency call-out of the division, per "Case Richard" which was a pre-planned response to an Allied amphibious landing behind German lines.

Anzio

Grenadier Regiment 145 and 147 relocated to the Anzio area, and elements of the division went into action as "Kampfgruppe Pfeifer." The division fought for the most part west of the Anziata and at times had elements of the 4th Parachute Division under command. Elements of the division helped reduce the British salient at Campoleone and then participated in Operation Fischfang, the full-scale counter-offensive aimed at splitting the Anzio beachhead and pushing the Allies back into the sea. The division suffered heavy casualties due to Allied artillery and air power, and after Fischfang petered out the two Grenadier Regiments were withdrawn to rest.
On 20 March 1944 a soldier in the 5th Company, Grenadier Regiment 147 wrote to his wife:
Following the failure of Operation Fischfang, representatives of the combat units at Anzio were summoned to the Wolfsschanze. A company commander in Grenadier Regiment 145 is quoted in the divisional history:
A unique circumstance occurred in February 1944 when Leutnant Heinrich Wunn participated in actions for which he was nominated the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, while in the same action an enemy soldier was nominated for the Victoria Cross, marking an occasion in which opposing forces nominated a soldier for their highest bravery award for the same battle. When the final Allied offensive operations at Anzio began at the end of May, Wunn found himself in charge of a defensive position. After beating back five attacks by British infantry and tanks, the British are reported to have demanded Wunn's surrender. He reported the exchange to the divisional commander. "After bloody rebuff, enemy calls for surrender of Strongpoint Wunn. My reply: Götz von Berlichingen!"

After Anzio

The division saw further action in the fight for Rome, and later fought at Florence, the Futa Pass and the Battle of Bologna before surrendering to the Allies near the Po River in April 1945.
The division and its leadership was mentioned during Hitler's daily situation conference on 18 June 1944:
Following the war, all German formations were analyzed by U.S. Army intelligence through interrogations of German officers. Ludwig Graf von Ingelheim assessed the 65th Division's performance as such in 1947:
The U.S. Army's official historian of the Italian campaign, Martin Blumenson, noted that the 5th Army's wartime intelligence had a different opinion that may not have been well founded:

Partisan warfare and alleged war crimes

Following the retreat from Rome in June 1944, the division found the civil population increasingly war-weary and hostile. While relations with civilians had always been correct, if not warm, even after Italy defected, the divisional historian noted that a marked change occurred after the fall of Rome when the division relocated to northern Italy for recuperation.
The 65th Division has been identified as possibly being responsible for 25 separate acts of violence in which Italian civilians were killed. Many of the reports lack evidence of specific perpetrators, only noting that the killings occurred in the 65th Division's area of operations. The first such incident occurred in relation to the Frosini and Moniciano bridge destruction when an Italian civilian was tried by German military tribunal for espionage, found guilty, and a sentence of death was carried out. Many of the alleged murders involved confirmed members of the Italian resistance movement that sprang up in northern Italy to oppose the fascist puppet state.
One of the interactions in the divisional area was the Ronchidoso massacre, Emilia-Romagna, which also included the 42nd Jäger Division, between 28 and 30 September 1944, when 66 civilians were executed. The Atlas of Nazi war crimes in Italy mentions that it is possible this massacre was actually perpetrated by SS troops.
In total, five separate incidents in which Italian civilians were killed in the 65th Division's area of operations occurred in June 1944, three in July 1944, nine in August 1944, eight in September 1944, and one in October 1944. A number of these interactions were reprisals precipitated by the killing of German soldiers by partisans, including in one case the execution of a German prisoner.

Orders of Battle

65. Infanterie-Division 1942

Generalmajor von Ziehlberg was wounded in an Allied air raid in late November 1943, losing his left arm. He moved to the Eastern Front following his recovery, commanded the 28th Jäger Division, and was arrested and executed for complicity with the July 1944 assassination attempt on Hitler.
Generalmajor Hellmuth Pfeifer took command of the division in December 1943. Aged fifty, he had commanded a division on the Eastern Front and was described in the divisional history as having "indomitable energy" and of being a "military role model." Unusually for a General, he wore the Infantry Assault Badge, and he changed the division's tactical insignia from the letter Z to a stylized hand grenade, insignia which it retained for the rest of the war. Pfeifer was killed a few days before the surrender of German forces in Italy on 2 May 1945.

Award Recipients

Oakleaves to the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross

Seventeen soldiers of the division were awarded the German Cross in Gold.

Other notable members

served in the 65th Infantry Division after being drafted and serving on the Eastern Front. He reportedly sang for his comrades of Grenadier Regiment 146 at entertainment evenings behind the lines. He was captured by U.S. troops in 1945.

Divisional insignia

The division adopted a kugelbaum insignia for use on vehicles, road signs, etc. When General von Ziehlberg took command in mid-1943, he changed the divisional insignia to the letter 'Z'. After von Ziehlberg was seriously wounded during the fighting on the Sangro River, the division adopted a hand grenade as its divisional emblem.

Newsletter

The Divisional newsletter was named Die Handgranate. For Christmas 1944 large quantities of a special holiday edition were printed with the idea that they should be sent back to families at home. The edition contained ruminations on the war and a short report "From the War History of our Infantry Division."

Cultural Depictions

The counter-attacks by the 65th Infantry Division on the Campoleone Salient in early February 1944 are depicted in the board wargame "A Raging Storm", part of the Tactical Combat Series.
The 65th Division is mentioned by name in a screen title in the film Miracle at St. Anna.