"Kommandoverband "Jaguar"" Topic

Another unit in Hungary I wasn't aware of' Similar to the use of the Italian vehicles. Robert

Germans soldiers in soviet uniform from Kommandoverband "Jaguar" study MP-40 with silencer near T-34/85 m.44. Hungary, 1945.

"According the post, Germans soldiers in soviet uniforms of "Jaguar" study MP-40 with silencer near T-34/85 in Hungary, 1945.

"At the end of 1944 a special unit "Jaguar" was created, initially acting in the region of Krakow and had tasks the similar to tasks of 150 brigade used in the Ardennes.

Staff of this unit is unknown, but in its composition there was the so – called medium company, equipped with tanks T-34/76 and T-34/85. Unit receive their tanks from tank repair plant in Braunsberg (East Prussia, about 62 km from Koenigsberg, now is Kaliningrad, Russia). In this detachment was the Russian soldiers who were come over to the Germany side, and the German soldiers well knowing Russian language.

In autumn of 1944 the personal has passed special training, according Red Army drill, charters and manuals, in area of small town Lamsdorf (Lamsdorf) in the Silesia (now Lambinowice, a southwest of Poland). Also in this city there was a camp war prisoners Stalag 344 (Stalag VIII-B), it is probable from among prisoners of this camp there was completiong of detachment.

At the end of 1944 Kommandoverband was moved in the composition of army group "South" and in the composition 6 TA SS participated in combat in the territory of Hungary during January 1945. During operation on 22 December 1944 to the west of the city of Sekeshfehervar, Germans name of this city Stuhlweissenburg, the fighting group had in structure a 3 tanks T-34/85 and 37 mans (12 Germans, 18 Russian and 7 Hungarians) operated during 6 hours in territory occupied with the Soviet Army, and not uncovered..According with Germans officers and soldiers memories this unit had up to 14 tanks, including IS-2 heavy tank."

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The information on this "unit" seems unconvincing to me.

In the first picture the soldiers could just as easily be Soviet as Germans in Soviet uniforms and the 6th picture from the link the caption states that the t34s are from "special unit jaguar" yet they are covered with German crosses which would be bad for a infiltration unit. More likely they are part of the battalion of 2nd SS that was equipped with t34s. finally in all but two of the other pictures all the soldiers are in German uniform.

I noticed that too. The "Silenced MP40" is interesting . Robert Robert

The site where I originally came across this questioned it too. Robert

On one of the other discussion sites it mentions this book as a source, "Waffen Arsenal SB35 "Gepanzerte Rariteten auf radern und ketten bis 1945" by Wolfgang Fleischer". Robert

AMazon link for the above book: link

Damon.

I forwarded this topic to my old CSM from my days in the 11th Armored Cavalry.

He sent me this reply.

Very interesting.

Bob:

As you may remember, Albert owned the Oberbayern Club in Fulda, the famous OB after hours joint. Hell, it did not rock until 2 am when the off duty Cops, the s and the pimps arrived. Linda and I visited him there at times when we were out on the town. She liked his bands and I liked to talk with him in German.

One night he was rubbing his right shoulder. I knew he did a lot of stuff at home and made his own sausage, etc. I ask him what made his shoulder hurt. He smiled in the way of old soldiers everywhere and said I will tell you a story from my youth if you can bear an old man's memories. Albert was a young LT in an SS Parachute outfit in Russia. His recon platoon was given a mission to capture a platoon of Russian T-34's and spirit them back to German lines for use in an attack as a ruse and/or break through force. They went out in a large glider. They cut loose from the tow plane at a high altitude, parachuted in, secured the tanks, killed the Russians and guided the circling glider in to land. Albert landed on that shoulder atop a T-34. Typical tankers, they were easy meat with lousy local security, They killed the sleeping in their fart sacks the and sleepy guys on guard with knives and sharpened e-tools and id not fire a shot. The glider landed and German tank drivers got out and fired up the T-34s, The glider pilots and the Infantry Recon guys jumped up on the tanks and it was high diddle diddle back to German lines. Hard to tell how many Russian leaders got shot the next day when the glider sat there as mute evidence.

Albert was the real deal. He once made a bet with Mr Personality, later General, but then Col Fred Franks 11th ACR RCO, of 100 DM he could land on his jeep from a demonstration free fall parachute jump at a Partnership Event as a Reserve Colonel in the Bundesfehr. He did it. He was a very interesting man. He always carried a .380 belly gun in his bar. He was not about to go gently into the night. He got by with as the bouncers and bartenders were all off duty cops.

The Germans were very resourceful folk but the Russian quantity had a quality all of its own.

Best Regards,
Morgan

Interesting. Thanks for sharing that. Robert

Does anyone perhaps have any other information? Robert

Here is a variation of the information,

"During the late 1944,German army created a special reconnaissance unit Kommandoverband Jaguar,with it's first mission in the region of Krakow and it was very similar in function to SS Panzer Brigade 150 used in the battle of Ardennes,with tasks of infiltration,sabotage and reconnaissance activities in enemy rear.

Exact staff of this unit is unknown, but its know that it consisted of one medium armoured company,equipped with Soviet T-34/76 and T-34/85. Unit received their tanks from tank repair plant in Braunsberg (East Prussia, about 62 km from Koenigsberg, now is Kaliningrad, Russia). In this detachment were also some Russian soldiers who come over to the German side, and the German soldiers well knowing Russian language.

In autumn of 1944 unit personal has passed special training,using also Red Army manuals, in area of small town Lamsdorf in Silesia (now Lambinowice, a south-west of Poland). Also near this city was a POW camp Stalag 344 (Stalag VIII-B), so it is very probable that unit draw some prisoners to complete detachment.

At the end of 1944 Kommandoverband was moved in the composition of army group "South",as part of 6th SS Panzer Army,participated in combat in the territory of Hungary during January 1945. During operation on 22 December 1944 to the west of the city of Székesfehérvár,(Stuhlweissenburg in German), the fighting group had in structure three T-34/85 and 37 men (12 Germans, 18 Russian and 7 Hungarians) operating 6 hours in territory occupied by the Soviet Army, and went uncovered and with no losses.They performed several tasks:attacked enemy rear,using also silenced weapons,inflicted human and material losses, further misleading the Soviet units by giving false information and bogus commands and brought valuable reconnaissance results for German troops using radio.The deception of the enemy succeeded completely in this and later operations. In one occasion lieutenant Weyde,who was perfect Russian-speaker,repaired one of his tanks in a Soviet tank field workshop. The success of this first and further operations were essentially tactical and local in nature,without having some influence on larger strategic operations.According to certain Germans officers and soldiers memoires this unit had up to 14 tanks, including IS-2 heavy tank."

Sorry 11th got to say I believe that story less than I believe the Jaguar story. I've heard several stories like that covering several wars. A lot of guys like to tell "good stories" in bars.

Why would the Germans need to run a high risk operation behind Soviet lines when they already had lots of captured Soviet armor. Especially as it would alert the enemy the something was up. Also, the Soviet didn't have/issue sleeping bags to armor crews during WWII.

I was wondering where the "According with Germans officers and soldiers memories" are or came from. Robert

Sleeping bags? They didn't even have blankets! Red Army soldiers were expected to pair up and share overcoats….

"On cold nights I shared a greatcoat with quite a few of my wartime comrades in the fighting lines. Many of them have since fallen.

There is no brotherhood that binds people closer than the one that's born in the lines, and a shared greatcoat is one of its symbols. You feel warm and secure with a friend close by. Actually, there are two greatcoats for two. A shared greatcoat is just a figure of speech. So what happens to the second? Duffel bags or lambskin mittens (with two fingers so it's easier to shoot) are used for pillows. The individual tents that double up as cloaks are used as mattresses and the greatcoats are the blankets. The shabbier one covers the feet and legs and the newer one the upper part of the bodies. Both men settle down on the same side.

If there is the blessed chance of taking off your boots, the feet are tucked into the sleeves of the greatcoat – a pair of feet to a sleeve. The upper greatcoat is pulled over the shoulder, the shoulder of one fits into the right sleeve, the shoulder of the other into the left. The result is a kind of sleeping bag, warm and cozy. If it gets inordinately cold, the greacoat is pulled over the heads – one head in one sleeve, the other in the other. When one side goes numb and the other freezes stiff, both men turn over simultaneously and the fitful sleep of the soldier continues."

This makes forum topic on another site makes mention of "captured Soviet sleeping bags used by GJ soldiers. Those were primarily issued to Siberian divisions and captured in some quantities eg. by 5 Gebirgsdivision soldiers during fights in Russia. They became favourite among GJ soldiers as they were warmer and lighter/more compact than standard German field blankets."

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Robert

Interesting link! Doesn't mean T.34 drivers had them though. :)

I'm not saying they did LOL. Robert

And I never said you did – oh, stuff this, I'm off to the lounge. First round's on me! :)

Always a good thing to do LOL . Off topic somewhat. I would love to see if there are any accounts of any other German troops using captured ones like was stated in the post. Robert

Russians were forming trophy teams to get enemy tanks, but in most of the cases they were hunting for abandoned tanks. There were several cases when the units, breaking up from behind enemy lines were capturing tanks to ease the breakthrough, putting red flags on top of the machines in order not to be shot by their own troops. Also, a documented case which sounds like an anecdote that happened on Leningrad front.
KV-1 stopped on neutral ground due to some engine problem. The crew stayed in the tank and repelled german attempts to get close till their ammo ran out. Then Germans decided to use 2 tanks to pull KV to their lines, however the engine of heavy tank started in process, and as a result it returned home with 2 german tanks on the tail ;)

Referring back to the first photo it looks like some of the soldiers,if Soviets, are wearing captured German pistol holsters. Robert

Captured Pistols were a favorite of all troops, but especially is some countries where they were traditionally a symbol of the officer corps.

The story of a KV1 pulling two German tanks into Soviet line is yet another story that is hard to believe. Fun story just seems rather unlikely especially since the early KVs had a unreliable engine with not much horsepower to spare.

You could fill volumes with stories like these.

Again OT you see quite a few photos with captured pistols especially in Europe. Right now offhand I can't remember seeing any of Japanese with captured prize pistols. Robert

jdginaz, as you may see on this photo,

a german tank with less than 300 hp engine and ca 26t weight is preparing to pull 45t KV, which is not even standing right on its tracks.
Actually, KV-1 has slightly better hp/weight ratio than PZIV {tanks involved in the episode), its main problem was transmission. However it had broader tracks than German tanks of 1941, so it is easier to pull weight…
Speaking of Germans using T-34 in their covert operations there're several documented reports when Red Army encountered these tanks – the earliest is in 1943. No mentioning of IS, but there're some photoes of IS with German crosses. However one thing that puzzles me on the first picture is that they look like they're somewhere pretty far from the front and quite happy with that. The fight in Hungary was very intense, but with little hope for Germans to turn the tide, and traitors could easily imagine their fate…
As for trophy pistols, if you were in Red Army you could get one, but most likely you'll be hiding it somewhere in the backpack as the trophy team will surely try to confiscate it. Wearing Luger holder would surely cause questions.

The photo of course isn't showing up Barin. Is there another way to post it? Robert

strange…I saw the picture last night when I was posting from home PC with Russian ip, but at work where I have EU ip it is not showing. The page is here:
link and the photo in question is in the middle, however there're some problems enlarging it from here…guess I'll have to save it somewhere else in the evening and upload to another host…

here we go…
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Well from the looks of the condition that the KV1 is in I don't really think they are trying to tow it away as much as they are trying to pull it out of the way. Also there is a lot of difference in trying to tow a abandoned tank as opposed to tying to tow two tanks that I assume are actively trying their best not to be towed away. Of course it could have happened I just have serious doubts that it did, sound too much like one of those good war stories that get repeated a lot.

I've read several of the memoirs by Soviet soldiers that have been published over the last several years and seem to remember more than one mentioning that they had captured pistols.

Doesn't look that KV is blocking anything…of course Germans could have a need for the pile of rubbish under its tracks ;)
Found some memoirs about Kursk where there were real "duels" who pulls whom, but in this case there was a broken tank in the middle.
Also it is worth noting that quite a number of KV with their turrets removed were employed in IS units to evacuate them from the battlefield.

My grandfather had Walter for 2 years, but he was never wearing it openly,and in the end when he was demobilizing, he abandoned it. providing that one of his "comrades" was trying to put him under court martial for getting better blanket he has done the right thing…
Scouts were not restricted in usage of any trophy weapons for obvious reasons. So, coming back to the first picture I think we have here Russian volunteers in German service.

Thanks for posting the link Barin. I hate it when I post a great photo and then shortly later it disappears. Robert

Now I have found a reference to German speaking Soviet officers in German uniforms infiltrating behind German lines in an area near Poznań. Robert

There is a mention of the unit here,
"The end of 1944, the Germans in Krakow, Poland, plans to invest a similar to the West line of 150 specialty Tank Battalion, known as "Jaguar" Medium Tank Battalion German. The forces in Braun Berger set up, equipment captured T-34/85 tanks, plans to engage in sabotage and reconnaissance activities in the Soviet rear. However, this was later incorporated into the 6th SS Panzer Army, may have participated in 45 of the beginning of military operations in the territory of Hungary."

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