Lw.-Bautruppen Unit Histories
In the pre-war period, the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) employed civilians and private companies to carry out the necessary construction work, and from 1938 this role was increasingly taken over by units of the Reichsarbeitsdienst[2]. In addition to retaining the RAD formations, the Air Force set up its own units from 1939, namely the independent construction companies of the Air Districts (Luftgau). In June 1940, in addition to the 10 construction battalions[3] taken over from the Army, the Air Force’s own independent companies were organized into battalions, each battalion usually consisting of three companies and a staff, but there were also units with 4-5 companies. Although several regiments were set up “on paper” that year, they were only regimental headquarters (Stab), and attached to these, depending on the situation, were a variable number of battalions operating in a given area. The only exception to this was the 2nd Regiment of the XII. Air District[4], which was set up on the basis of the data of the identification tags and paybooks, according to the system used by the army (with fixed battalions). Therefore, this is the only regiment that had an ID tag of its own.
In the summer of 1940, the Army’s Wehrkreis XI. (Military District) gave to the Air Force’s Luftgau XI. ten construction battalions. After their reorganization, these battalions became the Luftwaffen-Bau-Bataillon 18/XI - 27/XI. The soldiers of these units were not provided with new identification tags by the Air Force, and the identification tags of the Army were continued to be worn.
By June 1941, the number of soldiers serving in the construction units had reached 153,000, representing more than 10% of the total personnel of the then German Air Force[5]. In 1943, partly by reorganizing the existing units, 28 so-called Kriegsgefangenen battalions were set up from prisoners of war. The old reorganized battalions were given a new unit number by adding one hundred to the original number and using a letter (K) or (Kgf) after the unit number[6]. An example is the 12th Construction Battalion of Air District IV, whose original designation was Luftwaffen-Bau-Bataillon 12/IV, then after the reorganization it became Luftwaffen-Bau-Bataillon 112/IV(K). The abbreviation (K) or (Kgf) is always given in parentheses (brackets) in paybooks or other official documents, but on identification tags, without parentheses.
As before, an additional 4 Hilfsfreiwillige battalions (Auxiliary Volunteer battalions) were set up from the Baltic volunteers. For these, two hundred was added to the original number of the unit, and they were given the abbreviation (Hiwi). This is how it happened in Air District XVII, also for the 7th Construction Battalion, its original name and unit number was Luftwaffen-Bau-Bataillon 7/XVII, and after the reorganization it became Luftwaffen-Bau-Bataillon 207/XVII (Hiwi).
There was also an example of a mixed unit consisting of prisoners of war and volunteers who used both of the above names. Such was the 116th Battalion from Air District XI. It became Luftwaffen-Bau-Bataillon 116/XI (Hiwi) (K). On identification tags, this designation appears without parentheses.
The original idea was to mark the company, battalion, and regiment in Arabic on the identification tags of the Air Force construction units, while the Air District where they were set up was marked with a Roman numeral. In practice, this was only true for some of the pre-1940 identification tags. But even then, even during the days of the independent companies, there were many variations. At the beginning of 1940, a period of reorganization took place, and with the advent of the battalions, this system was completely abandoned. In contrast to the Army's marking system, almost every Air District followed a different scheme. In a very strange and rather irregular way, the official name of the Luftwaffe unit (in all contemporary documents) was written in Roman numerals, but the identification label was written in Arabic numerals or omitted the Luftwaffe designation. The problems are compounded by the fact that many identification tags (and paybooks) contain a company number or some special designation word that differs from the way it appears in the unit histories, books or websites. This is due to the destruction of records at the end of the war, which makes the complete history of many units, their organizational changes and the often recycling of designations within the units difficult or impossible to follow. We can only see it clearly if we compare the archive data with the identification tags and personal documents. These problems mainly affect the Air Force's construction and signal units.
The identification tags of independent companies often show high personal identification numbers (Stammrollennummer), which far exceed the company’s authorized strength plus the normal turnover and replacement of personnel. This was due to the fact that an equivalent of the Army's infantry replacement and training units did not exist in the Air Force in the early days. Accordingly, many soldiers had to enlist in such units and received the three months of basic training in these units, and from there they were transferred to further specialized training units[7].
Below are listed three positions and one unit type that belong to the Luftwaffen-Bautruppen for which there is little or no historical information: [8]
Kommandeur der Luftwaffen-Bautruppen
KStN: 6340 (L).
1945: deleted in April 1945.
(Source: NASM T-2/USSBS roll 7001/8268).
Stabs-Bauabteilung/Stabsamt Reichsmarschall
KStN: 2520 (L).
1944-45: consisted of 1 officer, per L.P. Nr. 11686/44.
(Source: NASM T-2/USSBS roll 7001/8268).
Stabsoffizier d.Lw. Bautruppe bei den OT-Einsatzgruppen
Authority: L.P. 14721/44 g.
1944-45: there existed - Deutschland V, VI, VII, VIII; Italien; Brugmann; Hanse; Ungarn.
(Source: NASM T-2/USSBS roll 7001/8274).
E-Hafen-Ausrüstungskolonne
KStN: 6338 (L).
1943-44: none left. The last one disbanded (or whatever) was #49.
(Source: NASM T-2/USSBS roll 7001/8239).
Category: these belonged to the Lw.-Bautruppen, but are listed with the Nachschubkolonnen units.
Unit Histories
This page provides links to all of the Lw.-Bautruppen Unit Histories held on this wiki.
Oberbaustab d.Lw., Bauamt d. Lw., Feldbauamt d. Lw., Bauleitung d.Lw. and Feldbauleitung d.Lw.
© H.L. deZeng IV, 2024
References