Gerhard Konopka with Knight’s Cross and Close Combat Clasp in Gold. He was never awarded the first two levels of the decoration.
Major der Reserve Gerhard Konopka
Born: 27 March 1911 in Tirschtiefel (Brandenburg )
Died: 29 January 1997 in Darmstadt (Hessia)
Born
in the small Brandenburg community of Tirschtiefel on 27 March 1911,
Gerhard Konopka trained to be an assistant forester as a youth. At the
age of 23, he entered the Reich Labor Service. It was there that the
goal-oriented young man rose to the officer rank of Oberarbeitsführer.
At the age of 29, he was called into the Army as an officer candidate.
After
his basic military training in the tradition-rich Infanterie-Regiment
8, he was commissioned as a reserve Leutnant and became a platoon
leader. Konopka participated in the successful campaigns in Poland,
Belgium and France. He was awarded the Iron Cross, Second Class for the
leadership he displayed in commanding his men and, in 1941, he went
through the transition of his division, as it was restructured and
redesignated from the 3. Infanterie-Division to a fully motorized
formation.
Starting in the summer of 1941, Leutnant Konopka led
his motorized infantrymen in fighting at Luga, Demjansk, Dünaburg and
Smolensk, before participating in the fighting at Roslawl and outside of
Moscow in the fall. By then, he had been awarded the Iron Cross, First
Class. After the various setbacks, the recovery from a wound and renewed
achievements in the Rshew Bend, the bravery and the leadership talent
of the young officer was rewarded with transfer to an elite formation.
In
the spring of 1942, Leutnant Konopka was designated as the platoon
leader of the Engineer Platoon of the famous motorized infantry
regiment, “Großdeutschland”, which was being expanded into first a
motorized and then a mechanized infantry division (with a special table
of organization and equipment, not dissimilar to the core SS divisions).
During the fighting that lasted for weeks on end in the Rshew
bridgehead west of Moscow, Konopka personally knocked out two Soviet
armored vehicles with Teller mines and hand grenades. In the offensive
against Woronesch that followed, Konopka led his engineers with both
bravery and circumspection. By then he had already been wounded twice.
When
the division was given the mission by the field-army group to be the
main effort in the establishment of a bridgehead over the Don, the
engineers, which had been expanded to a battalion, took their place
among the lead elements. Equipped with assault boats and covered by
artillery and machine guns, Konopka’s platoon and the others crossed the
Don at Radskorskaja and established a beachhead. With the engineers
turning back an enemy counterattack, the follow-on infantry and antitank
personnel were able to firm up the position. In December 1942, Konopka,
an Oberleutnant since 1 September, was awarded the German Cross in Gold
for this action. Konopka then participated in the hard winter fighting
at Woronesch and northwest of Stalingrad as commander of the
5./Pionier-Bataillon “Großdeutschland”, before he was able to enjoy a
respite from the action.
As the results of him personally
knocking out four enemy armored vehicles—1 September 1942, 22 September
1942, 23 September 1942 and 12 October 1942—as well as his vast
experience in the leadership of assault sappers and in tank
hunter/killer teams, Konopka was chosen to train soldiers at infantry
schools and at courses right behind the front. He did not return to the
fighting in the Soviet Union until the summer of 1943.
He was
designated as the acting commander of the II./Grenadier-Regiment (mot.)
“Großdeutschland” and experienced the intense fighting at Orel.
Personally leading his companies, he stormed the so-called “Yellow
Heights” at Alissowa and was able to render a strong system of
fortifications, consisting of trenches and bunkers, combat ineffective.
On the next day, the enemy’s new main line of resistance was pushed back
in heavy, close combat. In the process, however, the acting battalion
commander was badly wounded. He was submitted for the Knight’s Cross,
which was presented to him in the hospital. By the end of the war, a
total of 56 soldiers of Panzergrenadier- Division “Großdeutschland”
received the Knight’s Cross.
What was previously overshadowed was
the fact the Gerhard Konopka was the first person in the German armed
forces to meet the award criteria for the Close Combat Clasp in Gold,
which he was presented with on 25 June 1943.
Since the general
public was still largely uninformed about this new military decoration
at the time—as opposed to the Knight’s Cross—and because the war
correspondents also paid little attention to it, it was not until 2003
that it was realized from his surviving Wehrpaß that he had achieved 50
days of close combat so early! Wounded for the seventh time, he insisted
on returning to his battalion, where he was wounded once again in the
fall of 1943. This time, Konopka, promoted to Hauptmann on 1 November,
had such serious wounds to both of his upper thighs, that the military
physicians would no longer allow the dyed-in-the-wool soldier to be sent
back to the front.
Deeply disappointed, the experienced officer
was given a new assignment to an infantry school. By then, his golden
Close Combat Clasp was a guarantee for undivided attention when he
presented instruction in sapper and antitank tactics.
The
inadequate means of combating armor in the first few years of the
war—hand grenades, mines, Molotov cocktails—had led to high casualties
and the eventual introduction of the Panzerschreck, the German
equivalent of the bazooka. By 1943 and 1944, however, there were finally
adequate means for combating armor by soldiers on the ground:
flamethrowers, magnetic charges and, of course, the very effective
Panzerfaust. An individual soldier with the necessary courage could
engage a T 34. In 1942, a special award was initiated—the Individual
Tank Destruction Strip, which was worn on the right sleeve of the
uniform—that recognized this courage. It is estimated that by the end of
the war some 14,000 of these awards were presented!
Always
trying to get transferred back to the front, Konopka succeeded in doing
so in March 1945. Promoted to reserve Major on 1 April 1945, Konopka was
given command of Grenadier-Regiment 1 of the hastily formed
Reichsarbeits-Infanterie- Division “Friedrich-Ludwig Jahn”. This
formation, which barely reached brigade strength, consisted of remnants
of the former 251. Infanterie-Division and 7,000 men from the Reich
Labor Service, as well as elements from the Volkssturm. It was hardly
suited for employment against experienced Soviet forces. The following
could be read in a German Armed Forces High Command report about the
division: “…very poor training of the soldiers, almost no signals units,
few transport vehicles available, as well as the lack, in some
instances, of fundamental weapons.” The fighting morale was not too
high, either.
Nevertheless, Konopka fought at the head of his
hastily assembled formation and received orders from the acting division
commander, the experienced Oakleaves recipient, Oberst Weller. They
fought with the courage of desperation outside of Berlin and in the
efforts to relieve the Halbe Pocket. Through careful planning and a bit
of luck, Konopka was able to lead his regiment across the Elbe and to
the American lines. His last wartime commander, Franz Weller, later
became the first commandant of the new infantry school of the
Bundeswehr.
Until he retired, Konopka worked after the war as a
private businessman until he became responsible for training apprentices
in a large concern. He died on 29 January 1997 in Darmstadt (Hessia).
Awards and Decorations:
18.01.1940 Eisernes Kreuz 2. Klasse
01.07.1941 Eisernes Kreuz 1. Klasse
25.07.1941 Infanterie-Sturmabzeichen in Silber
23.02.1942 Verwundetenabzeichen in Schwarz
28.07.1942 Verwundetenabzeichen in Silber
01.09.1942 Sonderabzeichen für das Niederkämpfen von Panzerwagen
05.09.1942 Medaille Winterschlacht im Osten
09.12.1942 Deutsches Kreuz in Gold
12.10.1942 Sonderabzeichen für das Niederkämpfen von Panzerwagen
22.09.1942 Sonderabzeichen für das Niederkämpfen von Panzerwagen
23.09.1942 Sonderabzeichen für das Niederkämpfen von Panzerwagen
18.07.1943 Verwundetenabzeichen in Gold
25.06.1943 Nahkampfspange in Gold
29.08.1943 Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes
Source :
"The Face of Courage: The 98 Men who Received the Knight's Cross and the Close-Combat Clasp in Gold" by Florian Berger
https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=2310847#p2310847
An unknown German photographer from Wolff & Tritschler captured the adventures of his Kubelwagen (type 82) on the eastern front in Ukraine during the Second World War, early March 1944. Volkswagen Type 82 (Kübelwagen) – a German military all-terrain vehicle, manufactured from 1939 to 1945, the most massive car in Germany during the Second World War. It went into serial production in November 1940 and was standardized in the Wehrmacht as Kfz.1. Produced for both the Wafen SS and the Wehrmacht.
