German Training in Mid to Late War

1943. New Wehrmacht recruits being given their kit

As a German conscript in to a combat unit in the Wehrmacht in mid to late war, first your journey would have begun with the arrival of a notice to report to the nearest training and replacement battalion to wherever you lived.

You’d report to the Stammkompanie of the replacement unit in question- a reception company of sort intended to introduce you to military life. You’d turn in your Wehrpaß, a booklet you were given when you registered for the draft(you’d receive it back when you were discharged) and you’d be issued your uniform, ID disc, and Soldbuch. You’d spend about a week or two along with other called up recruits at the Stammkompanie camp.

After the acclimatization, during which you were taught the basics of military life, you’d be sent to an Ausbildungskompanie, a training company, of your replacement battalion. A year or two back, these units would probably have been separate entities sprawled across occupied Europe, in order to provide extra occupation troops in form of recruits being trained and the training cadres. By mid and late 1944, as the Germans were being pushed out of most of their occupied territories, many of those formations would be unified again as they were in 1940 and stationed in Germany proper.

Nevertheless, you’d receive your basic training in this company alongside your batch of recruits for about the next few months- a total of 14 weeks in total. This was training for infantrymen- more specialized branches like artillerymen would’ve received longer and different training.

Basic training was tough and vicious in entirely realistic ways: the day would start from sunrise and last well past sundown. You’d receive training with rifles, pistols, submachine guns, grenades and machine guns. Long marches with full gear and regular field exercises were hallmarks of training. Navigation, fieldcraft, and other important aspects of infantry warfare were heavily emphasized.

You and your fellow recruits hardened by rigorous training would then be sent back to the Marschkompanie, transfer company, of your replacement battalion, whereupon all of you, as a batch, would be issued to a division. Ideally, this division would be the one which the replacement battalion was specifically assigned to- but by 1944, it wasn’t unheard of for recruits from replacement units to be sent to other divisions receiving their replacements from the same district, depending on how needed replacements were in which division. You could’ve also been sent to a new division being formed in your area, if desired.

You and your comrades from training would arrive to their designated unit- most likely either at the frontline, or pulled back for rest and refit. There you’d be assigned to the division’s field replacement battalion. You’d spend a few more weeks there, receiving training from the veterans of the division, being acclimatized to the specific conditions of the front, and be imparted the particularly relevant methods and knowledge that the division had learned through experience. In the meanwhile you’d gather a bit of practical experience yourself, as the battalion was employed for guard, rear area protection and anti-partisan sweep duties.

Assuming nothing went wrong for you, like the battalion being pressed into the frontline on an emergency(or the rear area becoming the frontline on an emergency…), after a few weeks in the field replacement battalion you and your fellow recruits would be issued to the division’s frontline formations.

Between reporting for your draft and leaving the field replacement battalion for the frontline elements of your division, you’d have spent slightly more than four months.

In all likelihood, you’d be well received by your division. In a country with strong regional identities, all your comrades would be coming from the same region as you. If you were sent to the assigned frontline unit of your replacement battalion(which was the ideal circumstances, and it was tried to make that happen as much as possible) as opposed to being diverted to another unit in dire need of replacement, things would be even better: your old-timer comrades would have gone through the same training program in the same unit and same barracks. Your instructors, veterans from the division, would’ve been people your old-timer comrades personally knew. And of course, no unit would be unhappy to receive much-needed reinforcements.

The existence of regional recruitment districts, replacement formations assigned to specific field units, and the field replacement battalions made for a replacement system quite effective at ensuring unit cohesion and esprit de corps. You’d be serving alongside the same men you spent four months training alongside, and formed friendships with. This gave German formations quite strong esprit de corps down to the last day of the war.

 
Source :
https://www.quora.com/As-a-German-conscript-in-to-a-combat-unit-in-the-Wehrmacht-in-mid-1944-What-was-my-training-like-How-did-veteran-members-of-my-unit-see-me-How-much-time-in-between-training-and-being-thrown-in-to-an-active-combat
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