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German soldier and his horse in the Russian SFSR, 1941.In two months, December 1941 and January 1942, the German Army on the Eastern Front lost 189,000 horses. [1]Horses in World War II were used by the belligerent nations, for transportation of troops, artillery, materiel, messages, and, to a lesser extent, in mobile cavalry troops.
The goal was to create a race of "Aryan horses". [1] The head of the Spanish Riding School, Alois Podhajsky, was a famed German horseman and dressage expert, who had been a bronze medallist at the 1936 Olympics. He had also been an Austrian Army officer, and by 1938 had been enrolled in the Wehrmacht with the rank of Major. [2]
Trakehner (/ t r ə ˈ k eɪ n ər /) is a light warmblood breed of horse, originally developed at the East Prussian state stud farm in the town of Trakehnen from which the breed takes its name. The state stud [ de ] was established in 1731 and operated until 1944, when the fighting of World War II led to the annexing of East Prussia by Russia ...
The division fought in the southern sector of the front, seeing action around the Berezina and Dniepr rivers, especially in efforts to clear the Pripet Marshes of by-passed Red Army units. It was withdrawn to France in November 1941 and its 17,000 horses were handed over to infantry divisions.
The German Army, strapped for motorised transport because its factories were needed to produce tanks and aircraft, used around 2.75 million horses – more than it had used in World War I. [197] One German infantry division in Normandy in 1944 had 5,000 horses. [165]
Contrary to popular belief, the German Army in World War II was not a mechanised juggernaut as a whole. In 1941, between 60 and 70 percent of their forces were not motorised, relying on railroad for rapid movement and on horse-drawn transport cross country. The percentage of motorisation decreased thereafter. [23]
The designation "Light" (leichte in German) had various meanings in the German Army of World War II. There were a series of 5 Light divisions; the first four were pre-war mechanized formations organized for use as mechanized cavalry, and the fifth was an ad hoc collection of mechanized elements rushed to Africa to help the Italians and ...
This is a list of German military units during World War II which contains all military units that served with the German Armed Forces . Major units above corps level are listed here. For smaller units, see list of German corps in World War II and list of German divisions in World War II.