Hand to Hand training

[Doktor Krollspell]

Hello Gentlemen!

Apparently, the german Kampfschwimmer units underwent training not only in hand-to-hand combat but also judo. The "Meeresjäger-Abteilung Brandenburg" was stationed in Valdagno, Italy in early 1944 and went through a rigorous physical training program...

Es gab die regelmässige Morgenturnstunde noch vor dem Frühstück, und nach dem Mittagessen standen weitere Sportarten wie Kugelstossen, Laufen und Weitsprung auf dem Programm. Oberingenieur Neumeyer entsandte aus Berlin einen Sprengmeister und auch einen Judolehrer nach Valdango. Da die Kampfschwimmer keine Pistolen bei ihren Einsätzen trugen, gab es keine Schiessübungen.

Source: "Sabotage unter Wasser - Die deutschen Kampfschimmer im Zweiten Weltkrieg" by Michael Jung (2004).


Regards,

Krollspell

[Spandau]

Understand your comments about the 12/13 year olds, though I don't think age is the key factor....I think training is the factor. If you never have any verbal in training and it's not part of your upbringing you may well freeze the first time somebody calls you an #$*& in anger. Think that goes for a 43 year old as well as a kid. Same with a non compliant uke. Though this is off topic for sure so I'll drag it back to WW2.

Ave jimmyfatwing,

yes, I am sorry for getting us away from the original topic, but I must clarify one more time.
I didn't mean that they were poor fighters because they were young or unathletic, that doesn't really matter. I was using them as examples of Blackbelts who really aren't fighters. In many martial arts with many teachers, you can be trained up through blackbelt and still be beaten by Jon Doe in a street fight. I will compare it to dancing again. You can know the movements but be totally out of sync with the music. In martial arts, in order to apply it you have to know the motions well enough to be able to devote yourself to the music. "Water can flow, and it can crash. You must be water, my friend."

Oh jeez, sorry for all this mystical mumbo jumbo. It is easier to give a demonstration than to try to explain it. When discussing mindlessness all one can do is speak in metaphors and sound like a fruitcake. Sorry.

But back on topic. Judo seems to have been recognized by western militaries before many other martial arts. I was reading about the American "Devil's Brigade" and they described some techniques that sounded like some Judo moves.

Vale,

-Spandau

[EnjoyGermanHistory]

I would like to know more about the German hand to hand combat methods during WWII. This is a very interesting thread.

[Paulus II]

Here's a couple of pages from a booklet I've had sitting on my computer for a while:











There's 52 pages in the booklet, all of them like these samples.

Regards,

Paul

[Cott Tiger]

Anybody else thinking what I'm thinking

[phylo_roadking]

Whatever that title is in translation, I'll bet it doesn't say hand-to-hand.....

[Doktor Krollspell]

Hello again Gentlemen!

Here are some photographs depicting both close combat training, bayonet fighting and boxing in the pre-Anschluss Austrian Bundesheer.
My paternal Great Uncle Eduard Pürstner served in the Alpenjäger-Regiment 9 between 1930 and 1937.
Also, see the following link for more photographs from his service in the thirties:

http://www.feldgrau.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=19314


Close combat training



Bayonet training



Boxing exercising



Physical regards.

Krollspell

[jimmyfatwing]

Excellent photos, thanks!

[fridgeman]

As some of you might know my grandfather was part of the the Regiment 3 Deutschland, 2. SS-Panzer-Division "Das Reich".
Here is what he told me when i asked him about unarmed or even martial arts trainings while he served.

"We never had a training in unarmed combat as far as i remember, but we learned early to exercise with
the Klappspaten and later even to fight with it during my time in the RAD. Later we also had
a few short melee training sessions with the SS, but never unarmed like boxing or wrestling.
We used weapons like Klappspaten, knife or bajonet. I have to say too this was mostly
short and theoretical lessons, for example which body parts were the weakest and therefore to attack primarily.
I thank god i never had to do a fight at that close distance, but i heard of comrades experiences with
that. There were more hand to hand fights than u would believe, especially at nights and inside the urban areas.