It should also be borne in mind that there is a tradition in the old front regiments and thus the feeling of pride in one’s own troop. These are the things which, even in difficult situations, enable the troops to achieve a particularly high fighting performance.
Obviously, these conditions are completely absent in the case of such a loosely composed units as in these new formations. As a result, the fighting spirit of such a force is far less. For this reason too, such a preferred equipping [of the unit] appears to be completely out of place.
Panzer Grenadier Regiment 13 also reports that from 22.–24.11.1943, another battalion was attached to it. Here the conditions were the same as in the case of the I./894. After a deployment of 48 hours, the battalion commander reported that he had only around 250 out of 800 men still in hand! This, too, was not a result of the fighting situation, but merely the effect of the inexperience of the troops and their leaders. The troop itself is the least to blame. It is not responsible for its inexperience, and it must also be acknowledged that the good will is undoubtedly present. This good will, however, can neither replace the lack of training nor the complete inexperience of command and troops.
Once again, the source indicates that manpower deficiencies were not as damaging to the unit as was the lack of men – and especially commanders – familiar with conditions and combat in the east. In this particular case, material questions were not an issue. This source thereby reflects a larger problem that occasioned many complaints in the second half of the war, namely the uneven distribution of new equipment. Many newly formed units received new weapons and equipment while older units had difficulties in acquiring either replacements for lost or destroyed material or newly introduced weapons. This process further weakened older units. An issue not even talked about is the amalgamation of a unit trained as an infantry formation into a tank unit, despite the fact that many of these men had never before seen the inside of a tank. This was certainly a contributing factor to the decline of German Panzer units’ combat power in the second half of the war, and is a topic which deserves more research.
Even after the forwarding of replacements and transfers of full units to the east, German manpower in the Soviet Union always operated in a shortage – and it was a shortage that only worsened as the war continued. In an attempt to overcome this scarcity, the German army started to draw manpower from new sources. The most obvious means, yet often overlooked, was to shift men within the army apparatus. A well-known example of this was the tasking of Generalleutnant, later General der Infanterie, Walter von Unruh, with combing through all agencies and rear units for men to be sent to the front. Beginning in late 1942, his competencies were expanded to federal departments and Nazi party institutions. His success in creating large numbers of soldiers was moderate, but it nonetheless led to conflicts with Armaments Minister Albert Speer, because each drew from the same pool. More important was the shifting within the field army’s frontline troops, as the following order from the OKH on the enhancement of the combat power in autumn 1942 shows:[17]
Prior to spring 1943, one cannot expect any significant replacements arriving. We must resign ourselves to this fact, and do everything we can to maintain and increase our combat strength.
Therefore the following measures must be carried out as soon as possible:
1) Complete disbanding of individual units and formations, disbanding and reduction of baggage trains;
2) Replacement of the German soldier by Russian Hilfswillige (prisoners of war) in such places which do not need to be occupied by combat soldiers. In many units this has already been carried out to a large extent, although further measures are still necessary.
3) Deployment of all hereby released German soldiers into the infantry and formation of special branch combat units.
In detaiclass="underline"
A) Disbanding and reduction
1) The disbanding of units and formations (III. battalions […]) must be a complete one and may not be temporary. It is precisely the ‘cadre personnel’ and the baggage trains that yield gains in men.
2) Reduction of batteries to 3 guns. The fourth guns have to be parked division-wise with the least amount of German supervision and Russian support personnel. Cannoneers and drivers who are freed in this way cannot be used for filling open positions in the artillery.
3) Reduction of the baggage trains. Even where this has already been ordered and carried out, it is again necessary to examine with the strictest criteria, which parts a) can be completely disbanded, b) can be stored throughout the winter, thus freeing soldiers for combat use. I expect that commanders of all degrees will take drastic measures here.
4) As soon as the winter position is reached, approximately 50% of all horses and a large part of the motor vehicles are to be stored in the hinterland. For the care of these horses and motor vehicles, only Russian Hilfswillige and only the absolutely necessary supervisory personnel, which at the same time carries out the training of the Hilfswillige (for example as a driver of the horse, a driver, technical staff, etc.) are to be assigned to them.
[…]
5) The reduction and modification of existing tables of organization are in preparation. Correspondingly, we must now proceed. According to these, the following disappeared: about 10% in each battalion and regimental staff, 8 men per battery, all not absolutely necessary motorcycle drivers, messengers, command post clerks and drivers in each engineer battalion, the heavy machine gun group in the cavalry companies of each reconnaissance battalion, some 10% per signal battalion. In the case of supply troops, it is intended to merge all the horse drawn columns and small truck columns into large horse-drawn columns and large motor vehicle columns to save command and crew personnel.
While the order aimed at creating new frontline soldiers, primarily infantry and engineers, it also reveals an often forgotten issue. Losses in combat and rear area troops were not at the same level. In his pioneering study on the 253rd Infantry Division, Christoph Rass has indicated the level in which losses diverged between the rear and front. While many infantry units were virtually destroyed more than once, loss rates in rear area units were rather low, except for extraordinary circumstances (that admittedly became more common beginning in 1944). The difficulty in regulating the recruitment and flow of replacements often led to imbalances between rear services and frontline troops. Orders such as the one mentioned above tried to realize that balance. But there were also limits to the exchange of personnel from the rear area to the front. The last-surviving sons and fathers of several children could not be endangered for morale reasons, while men physically unfit for frontline duty were more ballast than asset. The same was true with older men, but the age limit was continuously raised as the pool of younger men gradually depleted. In addition to the imbalance between rear and frontline troops, the sustaining of cadre units was also a vital issue. While – as mentioned in the order – this led to a real gain in combat power, the issue was more complex than that. Neither rebuilding units from scratch nor integrating completely new units was an easy task, as was demonstrated by the experience of the 5th Panzer Division. The massive dissolution of battalion-level units in 1942 in the traditional divisions and the formation of many new units, such as independent infantry battalions or the already mentioned Luftwaffe Field Divisions, marked the first step in the erosion of the German infantry that would eventually evolve into the infantry crisis. As a result, the German army lost much of its tactical superiority, which had been an essential component of its ability to successfully fight against numerically superior foes.