The original SS Soldbuch of SS-Hauptsturmführer Willfried Segebrecht Unit History The 16th SS Panzergrenadier Division “Reichsführer-SS” (German: 16. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division “Reichsführer SS”)[1] was a motorised infantry formation in the Waffen-SS of Nazi Germany during World War II. The division, during its time in Italy, committed a number of war crimes, and, together with the 1st Fallschirm-Panzer Division Hermann Göring, was disproportionally involved in massacres of the civilian population.[2] One possible reason for the division’s increased involvement in war crimes has been identified by the fact that much of its leadership originally came from the SS-Totenkopfverbände. Formed in November 1943 when Volksdeutsche recruits were added to the Sturmbrigade Reichsführer SS, which was used as the cadre in the formation of the new division. A Kampfgruppe (“battle group”) from the division fought at the Anzio beachhead, while the rest of the division took part in the occupation of Hungary. It fought in Italy as a division from May 1944, until being transferred to Hungary in February 1945. On 27 June 1944 the 16th SS-Panzergrenadiers command post in San Vincenzo, Italy was overrun by the U.S. 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry, 34th Infantry Division (Red Bulls). The command post was a town centre apartment which had been commandeered; when the owners returned to their apartment they found a signed large leather-bound Stielers Handatlas which had been left behind. In late summer 1944, a part of this division, SS-Panzer-Aufklärungsabteilung 16 (Reconnaissance Battalion 16), commanded by Major Walter Reder, was withdrawn from engagement with the American 5th Army then advancing on the Gothic Line to deal with an Italian Communist partisan unit, the Red Star Brigade (Brigata Stella Rossa). Operating out of a mountain complex centered on Monte Sole, just southeast of the town of Marzabotto, and sitting astride communications to Bologna, the Red Star was seen as a significant threat to the German rear, both in terms of cutting communications and obstructing a possible route of retreat. Major Reder completed his assignment and destroyed this guerrilla force. A Kampfgruppe of the 16th Training and Replacement Battalion was based in Arnhem and took part in Operation Market Garden. The division surrendered to British forces near Klagenfurt, Austria, at the end of the war. War crimes The division was involved in many war crimes while stationed in Italy during World War II.Together with the 1st Fallschirm-Panzer Division Hermann Göring the 16th SS Panzergrenadier is estimated to be responsible for about one third of all civilians killed in massacres in Italy during the war. In regards to these war crimes the 16th SS Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion and its commander, Walter Reder, have been identified as one of the main culprits. The division is estimated to have killed up to 2,000 Italian civilians during its time there. In August 1944 alone, in the Versilia and Lunigiana areas of Tuscany, there were three large massacres. 560 civilians were massacred at Sant’Anna di Stazzema on 12 August 1944,159 civilians executed at San Terenzo Monti on 17 August[8] and 173 civilians murdered at Vinca starting on 24 August. The division was also responsible for the Marzabotto massacre, where at least 770 Italian civilians were executed, the worst massacre committed by the German Army on Italian civilians during World War II. Major Walter Reder, the SS commander who signed the order to execute the civilians at San Terenzo, was extradited to Italy in 1948 and tried in Bologna in 1951 for war crimes in Tuscany and at Marzabotto in Emilia-Romagna, where 770 people were massacred, making it the worst massacre of civilians committed by the Waffen-SS in Western Europe during the war. He was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. However, he was released in 1985, and he returned unrepentant to his native Austria, where he was received with full military honors. He died in 1991. In a case filed decades late due to misplaced evidence, ten SS officers of the 16th SS Panzergrenadier Division were convicted of murder in absentia in 2005 at La Spezia for the slaughter at Sant’Anna di Stazzema. German prosecutors declined to proceed on the grounds that there was a lack of evidence tying specific murders to specific defendants. The Marzabotto massacre, or more correctly, the massacre of Monte Sole, was a World War II war crime consisting of the mass murder of at least 770 civilians by Nazi troops, which took place in the territory around the small village of Marzabotto, in the mountainous area south of Bologna. It was the largest massacre of civilians committed by the Waffen SS in western Europe during the war.[citation needed] It is also the deadliest mass shooting in the history of Italy. The operation began at dawn on September 29th. At 9:00 a.m. there was a fierce firefight with partisans near Cadotto, with the company involved losing 20 men. These were the Reder Battalion’s only losses during the entire operation. While the fight with the partisans in Cadetto dragged on, other fighting groups broke into the houses and evacuated them. Women, children and old men, around 30 in number, were lined up against the wall and shot with machine guns on the orders of SS Obersturmführer Segebrecht. They made no distinction between armed partisans and civilians. The soldiers then moved on, in Casoncella they arrested all the civilians they encountered on their march and brought them to San Giovani. When they arrived around 11 a.m., they drove the residents there out of an air-raid tunnel where they had been hiding. They brought both groups together and shot a total of 49 civilians with machine guns, including 19 children under the age of 13. At the Casaglia cemetery they rounded up 80 people who were shot, including 39 children. After this massacre, a group of soldiers moved on to Caprara, where they rounded up around 35 to 50 residents and locked them in a chapel. They then threw hand grenades into the room and shot into it with small arms. Later, a group of around 40 people on a…

This exceptionally rare SS Soldbuch was opened in early 1944 to the then 17 year old Willi Plotzitzka from Augskallen Germany. He was directly sent to the Divisions-Begleit-Kompanie – 12.SS-Panzerdivision “Hitlerjugend” he was armed with a MP44. Panzer Grenadier Willi Plotzitzka was reported as killed in action in Bastogne, on the 8th of January 1945. He is buried in Andilly, France and has his own marked grave. He was only 17 years old. Unit History: The idea for the Waffen-SS division was first proposed by Artur Axmann, the leader of the Hitler Youth, to Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler in early 1943.The plan for a division made up of Hitler Youth members born in 1926 was passed on to Adolf Hitler for his approval. Hitler approved the plan in February and SS-Gruppenführer Gottlob Berger was ordered to recruit the personnel. SS-Oberführer Fritz Witt of 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) was appointed the divisional commander. Personnel from the LSSAH provided the regimental, battalion and most of the company commanders for the division. About 2,000 personnel were transferred from the LSSAH and in September 1943, the division had over 16,000 recruits on its roster, undergoing training in Beverloo Camp in Leopoldsburg, Belgium.The indoctrination was often brutal; while in Allied captivity, an SS man from the division recalled: “In the Waffen-SS you couldn’t do anything if an Unterfuhrer hit you during the training. The purpose of the training is to make you just as they are; it’s pure sadism”. (The comments have also been taken from similar transcripts). In March 1944 the 12th SS was attached to the I SS Panzer Corps and transferred to Caen in Normandy. At the beginning of June, the division had over 150 tanks. Ascq massacre The division committed its first massacre while en route to Normandy. The division executed 86 French men on 1 April 1944 in Ascq, France, in a reprisal against the civilian population after the railway they were on was sabotaged. The commander of the convoy, SS-Obersturmführer Walter Hauck, ordered troops to search and arrest all male members of the houses on both sides of the track. Altogether, 70 men were shot beside the railway line and another 16 killed in the village. In 1949, Hauck was put on trial in Lille, France, and was sentenced to death. His sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. He was freed in 1957 after a further sentence reduction. Normandy On 6 June 1944, the division, along with the 21st Panzer Division, were the closest Panzer divisions to the landing beaches but they were unable to move until ordered by the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW, armed forces high command). The division was ordered to the front at 14:30 hours on 6 June, over twelve hours after the first reports of the landings. Prior to this Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt had ordered over half of the division to deal with a parachute landing on the coast near Lisieux which was found to be dummies from Operation Titanic. The division’s advance to the areas near the British–Canadian landing beaches of Sword and Juno Beaches proceeded slowly due to Allied air attacks. The first units of the 12th SS finally reached their assembly area near Evrecy at 22:00 hours on 6 June but the Panther battalion ran out of fuel east of the Orne River. According to Marc Milner, “this was just the first example of sloppy staff work and command and control that characterized 12th SS Division’s experience in the beachhead battles”. At 10:00 hours on 7 June, the 25th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment, along with 50 Panzer IV tanks of the 12th SS Panzer Regiment, arrived and moved into position north-west of Caen.[10] Supported by a battalion of artillery (3rd Battalion, 12th SS Panzer Regiment), this battle group was ordered to stop the Canadian advance and drive through to the coast, a few kilometres away. They failed to break through the Canadians around Buron, a kilometre to the north. Meyer countermanded the divisional commander’s order on his own initiative, feeling that objective unrealistic and hoped merely to stop the flow of Canadian units inland until the situation could be stabilized. The attack by the division was supposed to have been supported by the 21st Panzer Division but they could not disengage from fighting the British 3rd Infantry Division and were still at Couvre. Casualties of the 25th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment amounted to about 300 men, while 15 tanks from the 12th SS Panzer Regiment were also destroyed.[14] Late on 7 June, the 26th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment under command of then SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Wilhelm Mohnke arrived on the battlefield. Meyer had pushed back one part of the Canadian advance but to the west, the 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade had occupied a group of small villages three kilometres into the German line. The 26th Panzergrenadier Regiment crossed behind Meyer’s regiment and took post to the west. The 1st Battalion launched an attack towards Norrey-en-Bessin, defended by the Regina Rifles, 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade, 3rd Canadian Division. Their orders were to overrun the Canadians and force a deep wedge between them and the British to the west. No reconnaissance of the Canadian positions was done and the infantry met intense defensive fire from firmly established positions. The attack at 03:30 hours on 8 June had little initial success. The various companies in the attacking battalion failed to coordinate effectively and suffered many casualties. Facing Canadian artillery and the supporting heavy machine guns of the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa, the 1st Battalion of the 12th SS was forced to fall back. Despite suffering losses themselves, the Regina Rifles stood their ground. The Hitlerjugend division was criticized for performing inadequately in the opening days of the Normandy campaign,[11] with Canadian Brigadier Harry Foster later noting that “no use was made of the fact that the Reginas’ flanks were exposed; instead, the enemy flung himself straight against the strongest points and utterly failed to exploit the undoubted weakness of his opponent’s position”….

What is the NSRL? The National Socialist League of the Reich for Physical Exercise (German: Nationalsozialistischer Reichsbund für Leibesübungen, abbreviated NSRL) was the umbrella organization for sports and physical education in Nazi Germany. The NSRL was known as the German League of the Reich for Physical Exercise (German: Deutscher Reichsbund für Leibesübungen, abbreviated DRL) until 1938. The organization was expanded to Austria after that country’s annexation by Nazi Germany. The NSRL was led by the Reichssportführer, who after 1934 simultaneously presided over the German National Olympic Committee. The NSRL’s leaders were Hans von Tschammer und Osten (1933–1943), Arno Breitmeyer (1943–1944) and Karl Ritter von Halt (1944–1945). This original ID, is with the originally applied photo for a young BDM Girl. Ruth Schäffer from Saarbrücken. The ID was issued by the  Police in March of 1942 Comments: A not so easy to find ID but nice to round off the types of IDs carried.    

Issued on August 1933 to Heinz Hohn. Hohn was born in 1920, and was 13 years old. The membership in the DJ was from 10 till 13 years old. An insert to the ID can be found, which I have not seen on many of these. stating his new membership inside to the Hitler Youth, the stamps correspond that he served then in the HJ till 1938. It seems he served in the 240 Bahn It seems according to research that he was killed in action, in Orel Russia, a grenade fragment to the head. The record card copy is part of the sale. It seemed he served with Aufk Abt 26 (Recon Unit) – they served under the 26 ID in Russia. Final Comments A nice not so often seen ID to a DJ in the HJ. Interesting he was not issued another ID in the HJ, but this one was furthered with the adding of 2 extra sides to cover his HJ membership. A great photo in this one, I guess one of the staples fell off at one stage but its still matching and perfect.