| Brandenburg commandos |
| The Brandburg commandos , the German special commando forces , were erected by the German Abwehr (German inteligence service) . These men prooved very usefull at actions behind enemy lines as was important with the Blitzkrieg tactic . These men had to seize important bridges , crossings etc for the advance of the German army . Many occasions these men were dressed as civilians or in the uniforms of the enemy . |
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| This Commando was dressed up as a Belgian soldier as he has the Belgian sidecap and coat . These men were highly trained under the rule of Canaris , chief of the Abwehr . Some speculate that Canaris made the Brandenburg commando to overthrow Hitler one day with this private little army . Many were recruited from the border regions like Poland , Hungary , Czeochoslovakia , ... .Offcourse these men were very familiar with the language and culture of their neighbours . There wasn't a part of Europe that elements of the Brandenburg commando weren't familiar with . Company 1 and 4 had men who spoke Russian , Finnish , Ukrainian , Latvian and Estonian . Company 2 had men of the African colonies who spoke English , Portuguese , French and local dialects . Company 3 were Volkdeutsche men from Czechoslovakia . All these men were volounteers , they had to be intelligent , self reliant and prepared to use onorthodox methods to achieve their mission goals if necessary They were trained in guerilla warfare wich , like the SS , were trained with live ammo . |
| Alot of things had to be mastered : tracking and navigation , even moving silently through low grass , parachuting , diving , skiing , explosion skills etc ... they were masters in warfare , the ideal warmachine . They were tested intensivly , their abilities to improvise in dangerous situations were also tested , in short , a highly skilled soldier trained for any terrain , any mission . For example , they had to take fingerprints of a local policechief without being noticed , or look up and capture 5 Heer soldiers and take them back . Brandenburg commandos were in many Germans eyes nothing but a bunch of criminals , Rommel even didn't want any participation of them in his African campaign although the English used their commandos in the desert . They saw their first action in Poland , where they had to take the factories of Silesia wich were of importance to the German warmachine . They were deployed before the invasion took place ! They saw much more action in later missions like Norway , Denmark , Holland , Belgium .... To grant the tie between these commandos , the men were allowed to shake hands instead of the stiff military salute . Even to form little groups was allowed , offcourse traditional German officers thought of the commandos to be a waste of time and military recources . For the invasion of Russia , Ukrainian volounteers were recruited and attached to the BB 1st regiment . This Nightingale group had to capture a radiostation 6 days after the invasion , there they proclaimed Ukrainian independance state . The Germans offcourse didn't fully agree with that ... they disbanded the unit at the end of the same year as it was formed , they prooved to be "unreliable" . In Russia , they were the obvious choice to attack the partisans who were attacking the supply lines . With Russian volounteers they took on arms against these Partisans , but not a major victory ever occured . Also they were used to raid and attack soviet naval bases using little motorboats . But offcourse the story comes to an end , the Brandenburg troops on 13 september 1944 were transformed to a panzergrenadiere division and put in the GroBdeutschland panzergrenadiere division , 1800 Brandenburg commandos were transfered to the SS in that division . Also it is common to see books say that most of them were recruited from Strafbatallion 500 or 900 (Dirlewanger) , this is not true . |
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| To some operations involving Brandenburg troops |