Description
HEER SOLDBUCH & ID TAG – STURMGESCHÜTZ ABTEILUNG 259
Very nice Soldbuch issued to Unteroffizier Johannes PELZEL. His ID photo shows him wearing a Feldgrau Sturmgeschütz tunic. He served in STURMGESCHÜTZ ABTEILUNG 259. He was promoted to Unteroffizier on May 1, 1945. Awards entered include Black Wound Badge and KVK2. Also comes with his ID tag which matches the Erkennungsmarke entry on page 1, Red Cross ID and a stretcher bearer armband.
The StuG Abt. 259 was formed on June 1, 1943, in Jüterbog with three batteries from the cadre of the 660th Assault Gun Battery. The battalion relocated to the Mius River in August 1943. It was discharged south of Stalino and placed under the command of the 13th Panzer Division. Its mission was to fight its way through the Russian assault wedge to the 13th Panzer Division with its combat squadrons, leaving behind the cumbersome supply line. However, without infantry support, this mission was impossible. Only when the front was withdrawn to the “Turtle Position” was the brigade reunited with its supply line. In the subsequent retreat, the brigade had to endure difficult and costly retreats. After the Red Army broke through the Turtle Position to the Black Sea, the battalion was surrounded by the XXIX Army Corps and other units. The encircled units managed to fight their way westwards out of the pocket, with the detachment acting as an armoured spearhead. The German retreat only halted again in the chord position from the Dnieper Bend near Zaporozhye to the Black Sea. The German troops then withdrew to Kherson and Nikopol. The brigade covered the retreat to Nikopol and was subsequently deployed in the Nikopol bridgehead. In the autumn of 1943, the remnants of the detachment were withdrawn to Kherson. There it held a small bridgehead across the Dnieper. At the turn of the year 1943/44, it was withdrawn from the bridgehead and deployed against the Russian winter offensive north of Zaporozhye. The detachment withdrew across the Bug River towards Odessa. On February 14, 1944, the detachment was renamed Assault Gun Brigade 276. After the fall of Odessa, the brigade was forced to withdraw via Hungary to the Warsaw area by July 20. From Praga station, it was transferred by rail to Bialystok and assigned to the 28th Jäger Division, to which it remained for the next few months. After retreating behind the Narew River, the brigade was transferred via Johannisburg to Treuburg in East Prussia, from where it participated in the recapture of the town of Goldap on November 15, 1944. With the start of the Russian offensive on January 14, 1945, the brigade was deployed to cover the German retreat to Gumbinnen. The members of the baggage train were deployed as infantry. The remnants of the combat squadrons were loaded onto a ship in Danzig and evacuated to Denmark, where they were taken prisoner.
