Description
Soldbuch issued to Christopf Prechtl in 1939.
Nice Photo with Stug Wrap displaying the Eastern Front Ribbon.
Sadly the Soldbuch is damaged/Burnt/Bloodstained? but it is possible to work out he was issued a MP40 and was with:
Panzerjäger Abtl 61 . They were armed with Marder and Stug, and Prechtl was likely wounded when the Soldbuch was damaged.
The fighting for Kirovograd dragged on until mid-January 1944 and then shifted to the area west of Cherkassy. In late February/early March 1944, the division fought at Shepetovka and Yamol, and then withdrew to the Bug by the end of March. At the end of May there were defensive battles in North Bessarabia and in the foothills of the Carpathians and in the area of Army Group South Ukraine. At the end of May 1944, the division was withdrawn from the front and transferred to southern France as an occupying force to be refreshed there. But even before the completion of this refresher and actual realignment, the division had to withdraw through the Rhône Valley after the Allied landings in northern France in August 1944. From October 1944 the division then fought in Lorraine. In December 1944 / January 1945 the division took part in the Ardennes offensive. After their failure, the division was on the Saar front and in February 1945 on the Roer and Rhine. In March 1945 the division fought at the Remagen bridgehead and in late March 1945 at the lower Sieg. By the end of the war, the division then withdrew through the Westerwald, Hesse, Thuringia, the Vogtland and the Sudetenland into the Bavarian Forest, where it surrendered to the American 3rd Army on May 8, 1945
Comments: This is a nice display Soldbuch for the Western Front, from a desirable unit worthy of further research. Because of the missing pages the price is very low.
