Hi,
I wonder if anyone knows something about the heer in the Baltics and in particular kaptain in general-staff Karl Otto Behrendt ? Captured in Kurland, Latvia, at the end of the war and taken prisoner by Russian army.
Released from prison in the mid 1950.
Ia means 1. Generalstabsoffizier. He would have been the officer working closely together with the divisional commander on matters of tactics, operations etc. To my knowledge, the Ia and the commander worked as a team on these matters.
I am afraid i can;t give u anymore info than that. Maybe you have more luck in the other thread.
The Division that Major Karl-Otto Behrendt, according to the above quote, was Ia in, the "300th Inf Div", which was part of XVI. AK (mot) was actually Division z.b.V. 300 which consisted of four (4) Estonian Police Border Guard Regiments, Estn. Grenzschutz-Regiment (Pol.) 2, 4, 5 and 6. See link:
Ah, I just saw that this information was already found in an older thread... Well then... I can only add that Rittmeister/Major Karl-Otto Behrendt did not recieve any of Germany's highest awards such as the Ritterkreuz nor the Deutsche Kreuz in Gold. Good luck with your further research on your relative Tage.
More regards,
Krollspell
"Wie es eigentlich gewesen ist"
Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886)
The "T78-785, 3934" I believe refers to the microfilm role and section housed in the NARA archives in Maryland, US. There are a few member of this forum that can go there for you (for a small fee) and get a copy of these files. I would also ask them to search for Major Behrendt's personal file which might also be located there.
Thanks for your info.
It would be very interesting to read these files.
How do I go ahead ?
Brgds
Tage
Revellations wrote:Tage,
The "T78-785, 3934" I believe refers to the microfilm role and section housed in the NARA archives in Maryland, US. There are a few member of this forum that can go there for you (for a small fee) and get a copy of these files. I would also ask them to search for Major Behrendt's personal file which might also be located there.
[quote=Hi Scott,
Do you know somebody that would like to help me out ?
I have tried to contact NARA archives directly, but so far no response.
Best regards
Tage
"Tiger"]Hi Scott,
Thanks for your info.
It would be very interesting to read these files.
How do I go ahead ?
Brgds
Tage
Revellations wrote:Tage,
The "T78-785, 3934" I believe refers to the microfilm role and section housed in the NARA archives in Maryland, US. There are a few member of this forum that can go there for you (for a small fee) and get a copy of these files. I would also ask them to search for Major Behrendt's personal file which might also be located there.
Below is info on Major Behrendt from the German official records.
A little background: I am compiling a master roster of General Staff Corps officers as part of a larger research project. No such current comprehensive listings exist. The Germans produced two major GSO lists during the war [at least that suervived the war], one in August 1939 and a second in September 1944. The latter list was updated up until the end of the war. However, it does not included GSOs who were relieved, killed, executed or captured before September 1944. (Hence the reason I’m creating my own master list—if someone became a GSO after the war started but didn’t make it to Sept 44, they are invisible, as are the fates of officers who are on the 1939 list but no longer available in 1944). These lists can be found in the captured German records at NARA (on microfilm) and in the German archives. However, it is not necessary to dig through the archives because both lists have been published in two books. Hansgeorg Model published them in roster format (names, current position, date of rank, sorted by seniority) in his Der deutsche Generalstabsoffizier (Bernard & Graefe Verlag für Wehrwesen: Frankfurt, 1968). Christian Zweng has prepared a more detailed compilation of the 1944 list in Die Dienstlaufbahnen der Offiziere des Generalstabes des deutschen Heeres 1935-1945, (Biblio Verlag: Osbabrück, 1995).
Here is the info on Major Karl-Otto Behrendt from these records with additional annotations.
Date of birth: 23.6.1915 Accordingly during the war he was in his mid-to-late 20s.
He was an infantry officer. It is, therefore, doubtful that he ever held the grade of Rittmeister, which was the rank title used in the cavalry or other mounted services equivalent to Hauptmann in the infantry (and general staff).
His peacetime assignment was the 116th Infantry Regiment. This regiment was formed on 6 October 1936 in Wehrkreis IX and was part of the Giessen-based 9th Infantry Division. When the war started, Behrendt was an Oberleutnant.
In August 1939, as part of the mobilization scheme, active infantry divisions were split in half and new divisions formed with the addition of draftees, recalled reservists and WW1 vets. [A good account of this process may be found in Siegfried Knappe’s Soldat. Knappe was an artillery officer who joined the General Staff Officer Corps at the end of the war.] Accordingly, Behrendt was reassigned on 26 August 1939 to the 163d Infantry Regiment of the newly formed 52d Infantry Division as company commander of the machine gun company (8th Company) of the 2d Battalion. (II./ IR 163). He served as the commander of this unit until 21 November 1940.,
The 52d ID manned the West Wall during the Phoney War period, during which it undoubtedly trained hard to prepare for the French campaign. In that operation, the division was part of the 12th Army’s III Corps,
In November 1940, Behrendt became the commander of the regimental headquarters company. He held this position until 12 December 1941. The 52d Division participated in the Russian campaign, primarily as an element of the LIII corps in Army group Center, fighting at Vilna, Bobruisk and Briansk on the front before Moscow. Behrendt became the commander of the 2d Battalion, 163d IR, in December 1941. His promotion to Hauptmann (the usual grade for battalion commanders at this stage of the war) followed on 1 February 1942. His seniority was number 476.
Behrendt served as an infantry battalion commander until 11 July 1942. During this time the battalion was part of the 4th Army on a static front, although it did participate in operations near Demyansk.
From 11 July to 16 December 1942, Behrendt is listed as being a special duty officer for the regimental replacement battalion. This means he was probably wounded and convalescing. In December he became a tactics instructor at the Infantry School at Döberitz, a post he held until 15 October 1943, when he was attached to the staff of the 1st Mountain Division. This assignment means he had passed the examination for attendance to the War Academy, the first hurdle to becoming a General Staff Corps officer. At this phase of the war, before attending the War Academy, GSO candidates served two staff apprentices at the front at the division and higher level. Behrendt served his divisional apprenticeship with the 1st Mountain Division from 15 October 1943 to 20 January 1944. During this period the division was stationed in Greece on the island of Korfu and then in December shifting to Bosnia and Croatia. Behrendt finished his apprenticeship from 20 January to early April 1944 serving on the staff of the 2d Panzer Army, the major operational command in Bosnia and Croatia.
On 15 April1944 he entered the War Academy in Hirschberg as part of its 14th wartime General Staff Course. This course contained 150 students and lasted six months. On the September 1944 list of GSOs, Behrendt was listed as the eighth (out of 103) most senior officer in the course and the 1369th (out of 1613) most senior officer on the entire GSO list.
The course graduated on 1 November 1944 and Behrendt was assigned to the GSO Corps. While attending the course, he was promoted to major on 1 June 1944, ranking 7ee in seniority. He was immediately sent to a divisional Ia (Operations Officer) assignment with the 201st Security Division. He probably received this particular assignment because of his experience fighting partisans in Greece and Bosnia. He remained with the 201st from 5 November 1944 to 20 January 1945. The division had been mostly destroyed during the summer’s offensive in Byelorussia, but the staff survived and commanded a mish-mash of units in the Courland Pocket until the end of the war.
On 20 January 1945, Behrendt was reassigned to be the Ia of the 300th Provisional Division, a reformation of the former 13th Luftwaffe Field Division, which commanded a bunch of Estonian home guard units. Behrendt remained in this position until the general German surrender. He undoubtedly remained in Soviet captivity for many years after the war. Knappe, who was captured in the fall of Berlin, was released in 1950. If he survived captivity, Behrendt probably returned to Germany in a similar timeframe.
He was awarded the Iron Cross First and Second Classes during the war. He probably got the 2d Class during the French campaign when he was a company commander and the First Class in Russia when he was a battalion commander. Having the Iron Cross 1st Class as the highest award is very typical of a General Staff Corps officer who were supposed to "me more than they seem."
![:[]](./images/smilies/icon_study.gif "Study"){kind=icon}
Well then... I can only add that Rittmeister/Major Karl-Otto Behrendt did not recieve any of Germany's highest awards such as the Ritterkreuz nor the Deutsche Kreuz in Gold. Good luck with your further research on your relative Tage.
