"Translation Help? Please?" Topic

Reading debriefs of Fritz Bayerlien in Helion's Panzer Lehr Division 1944-45, and caught a reference to "Ostbf Wisliczeny commander of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Kfgr." Ostbf would be Obersturmbannfuehrer and a Lt Colonel equivalent, but "Kfgr" defeats me. Can't find it on a division OOB, either.

Thanks.

Kampfgruppe seems likely, although shouldn't have @b "f" in it but Küstenfliegergruppe (Coastal air group) is clearly nonsense.

I agree – kampfgruppe -- which was normally an ad hoc formation without an established TO&E (table of organization and equipment) to use the US Army term.

Jim

Yeah, makes sense to me too. And I should have thought of it. Sorry and thanks.

Sometimes, when a division's combat power had been appreciably reduced, it could be referred to as a Kampgruppe.

That unfortunate German habit of creating long words and then making them into four letter abbreviations – like Flugzeugabwehrkanone which everyone else calls Flak

And just to make me feel even dumber than usual, 18 pages later Wisliczeny's command is specifically described as a kampfgruppe. I doubt it was a complete attrited division, though: you don't generally burn through generals and colonels that fast.

(Just in case anyone thinks the essence of warfare has changed since the Iliad, Bayerlein describes him as standing behind his front line with a stick, beating on anyone who tried to run away. "Big, brutal fellow" he says.)

As for Flugzeugabwehrkanone, we ought not to mock the creation of compound words: it's the German national hobby, after all, just as the Russians take a syllable from each, and we create TLAs.