Who wrote the Kriegstagebush?

[Ricardo Silva]

While reading Kriegstagebush and Gefechtsberichte, i've noticed the letters "Ia" before the reports, and after seeking info about what it mean, i realized it mean't that these reports are written by some officer in the units command (Stab). Who was that officer? Was his mission just to write the reports, or was it just secondary?
Furthermore, i discovered that there were a big array of reports, like the Ib from the quartermaster, Ic produced by the intelligence officer, IVa supply,...unfortunately, the only documents i've read so far are only Ia, are the others difficult to find?
Thank you for your atention

[tigre]

Hello Ricardo ; the Ia was the Ops Officer or first Staff Officer (Primer Oficial del Estado mayor)

In the staff arena, two General Staff positions were considered extremely important: operations officer
(Ia) of a division and chief of staff at a corps or higher level. Division operations officers normally held the rank of major (or higher). In addition to his duties in operations, he also served as the chief of staff as the division structure did not allocate a separate position for one. The division supply officer (Ib) and the division intelligence officer (Ic) were subordinated to him. Normally who wrote the War Log or Kriegstagebuch (KTB) was a subordinate of the Ia (who draft the unit's operations plan). The IIa was the Adjutant or Aide de Camp who normally wrote the report about the situation/changes in the division's manpower. The gefechtsberichte were the after action reports written by the units commanders, company/platoon/patrol leaders and the tagebuch was the personal diary.

At Divisional level you would find:

The Divisionskommandeur
The Führungsabteilung (Ia - Ic plus O1 - O3)
The Quartiermeistersabteilung (Ib plus O2 and all supply offrs)
The Adjutantur (IIa)

O1,2,3 were orderlies Offrs

Cheers. Raúl M .

[Richard Hargreaves]

Gefechtsberichte were typically written by the officer leading the particular action (normally a company commander/platoon commander). They vary wildly in style from very florid, crammed with details, to very matter-of-fact.

Particularly earlier in the war junior soldiers were also encouraged to compile accounts of their actions - Erlebnisberichte (experience reports) - often for an Erinnerungsbuch (memorial book).

Those that survive (from memory BA-MA RH37 is crammed with infantry reports, but there are quite a lot in the Wehrkreis files for Poland under RH53...) are extremely useful for narrative historians like myself.

[Ricardo Silva]

Thank You very much Raul and Richard, your informatino was very helpfull.
I'm doing a research about the portuguese soldiers in the 250 I.D., also known as the Blue Division. Through NARA, i got several documents about that particular division, the first part of those documents is gefechtsberichte, and while it accounts several diferent incidents, it looks that it was written by the same person, and there is no identification of who it was. Furthermore, this division was spanish, but this reports in NARA are in german, and in one of these incidents the author writes about an attack against the position alkazar (spanish), but also against two, in his words, "of our positions", being that those positions were german at the time. I believe that this may have been a german officer attached to the Spanish staff, and while working as a liaison officer, he made these reports on the behalf of the german autorities. I'm already working to get material from the spanish autorities, but in this case, its not as easy as in NARA where one can just order it all and receive it in those nice DVD's.
Richard, can you tell in wich is the roll containing the guide for gefechtsberichte, Ib, Ic,...? And, how do you search them in BA-MA? I've tried once and found it difficult...NARA may be expensive, but they are very professional and user-friendly.

[Richard Hargreaves]

Hallo Ricardo

If they exist, the Gefechtsberichte for the Blaue Division will be in BA-MA RH26/250 although from the note below it looks like far more is held by the Spanish military archives. I've no idea of the corresponding files at NARA as I've only ever used BA-MA. The files at NARA should be a copy of the originals at BA-MA.

This is from the BA-MA website (which is a pain in the bum to use...)

RH 26-250

250. Infanterie-Division (spanisch)

Informationen zum Bestand
20. Juli 1941: 250. Infanterie-Division (auch „Blaue Division“).
Detaillierte Angaben über Aufstellung, Unterstellung, Gliederung und Einsatz können der Publikation von Georg Tessin (siehe Literatur) entnommen werden.

Überlieferung
Zum Bestand gehören zum einen die Stammtafeln und Aufzeichnungen des Deutschen Verbindungsstabes, zum anderen Mikrofilme der Akten der 250. Infanterie-Division mit unterstellten Verbänden, die im spanischen Militärarchiv (Servicio Historico Militar-Archivo de la Guerra de Liberación) verwahrt werden.
Ia: KTB Juli 1940 bis Juni 1943 und Januar bis März 1944 sowie Meldungen Juni 1941 bis Oktober 1943. Deutsche Verbindungsstab: KTB Mitte August 1941 bis Juni 1943. Des weiteren sind Unterlagen über Organisation und Aufstellung der Stäbe (Juni 1943 bis März 1944), Versorgung (Juli 1941 bis November 1943) und Angelegenheiten der spanischen Botschaft in Berlin (August 1941 bis März 1942, Oktober und Dezember1942 und Oktober bis November 1943) überliefert.

Erschließungszustand (Kommentar)
Findbuch

Weitere Überlieferung
FC 2319 N bis FC 2325 N Microfilm-Bestand
ZA 1 Studiengruppe der US-Historical DivisionMSg 2 Militärgeschichtliche Sammlung

Umfang (Erläuterung)
10 AE

Amtliche Druckschriften
RHD 62

Literatur
Guides to German Records Microfilmed at Alexandria/Va. Washington 1958 ff., Bd. 70
Tessin, Georg: Verbände und Truppen der deutschen Wehrmacht und Waffen-SS im Zweiten Weltkrieg 1939-1945. 20 Bde. Osnabrück 1967 ff. Held, Walter: Verbände und Truppen der deutschen Wehrmacht und Waffen-SS im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Eine Bibliographie der deutschsprachigen Nachkriegsliteratur. 5 Bde. Osnabrück 1978 ff. Esteban-Infantes, Emilio: „Blaue Division“. Spaniens Freiwillige an der Ostfront. Leoni 1958, 2. Aufl. 1977 Garcia Hispan, José: La Guardia Civil en la División Azul. Alicante 1992 Kleinfeld, Gerald R./Lewis A. Tambs: Hitler´s Spanish Legion. The Blue Division in Russia. Carbondale 1979 Proctor, Raymond Lambert: The „Blue Division“. An Episode in German Spanish Wartime Relations. (Diss.) Oregon 1966; Ann Arbor, Michigan, University Microfilms 1978 Sampedro Moreno, Carlos: La Division Azul. A través de sus uniformes y emblemas. Alicante 1992 Scurr, John: Germany´s Spanish Volunteers 1941-45. The Division in Russia. London 1980

Verfasser/Stand
MA 5; 2002
0,2 lfm

[Ricardo Silva]

Thanks for the info Richard,
i have already made reservations for a trip to madrid in november, from there i'll travel do avila where the spanish archives are located, unfortunately, they don't seem to be as colaborative as other archives. Nonetheless, i already got access to some guides and i'll call them soon, in order to see if it is possible to get access to all the information i need.
I'll research that data you posted, it looks interesting, and quite frankly, i try to see all the info i can. Right now i have compiled documents from portugal, spain, usa, germany and even russia, and still, im not even near my goal. It is very hard to study individual soldiers, especially when they were only a 100 or so, in a division where over 44.000 men fought.
I still haven't read your books, but after reading the posts you wrote about your book on the polish campaign, i became curious, i really enjoy those very personal books, where the action is right down to the individual soldier, and those personal accounts are marvelous.
As soon as it is available in portugal, i'll get my copy.