Romanian Army against Waffen-SS units?

Indeed there are more questions than answers about the fightings that occured in mid-September 1944 in Banat, even if I read a book (right now I can't remember the name) dedicated to this fightings. The notes that I took after reading this book spoke about the participation of small armoured detachments as reinforcements for the SS Regiments (could be the reccon battalion or even tank battalion of the SS Division, this one had in august 1944 42 StuG IV and 3 Pz.Bef.Wg.IV). What is really interesting ist that the Kampfgruppe Behrends was reinforced by 2 Kp./Panzer-Abt.202 in september 1944 who by the time had only italian medium tanks Fiat Ansaldo M15/42. It is unknown to me if these tanks were used against our troops or only later against the russians.

Hi, I live in USA.

I am interested in the Battle of Timisoara, Sept. 1944
One of my grandmother's relatives was killed in action
Sept.16th ,1944 near Timisora. He was a native son of Banat.
His burial site is in Timisora, Cemitriul Calea Lipovei.

Regarding this little known WWII battle I would like to know if anyone has photos,
or knows of books with photos of the battle/participants.

This battle is connected to my family history/geneology so I have a strong interest.

Appreciate any input.

Thank you.

Hallo Jakob1944Polizei,
Do you know the name of your grandmother's relative who was killed in action, his ethnicity (was is german?) and what side did he fight (was he in the Waffen SS?). I ask you this because I have a German ethnic neighbour (I live in Arad city, 50km north of Timisoara) who fought, in the fall of 1944, in the 8th SS Cavalry Division in central Transylvania against our troops. Now he feels guilty for the situation in which he has been but but it is a decent man with good sense, right and has many interesting stories from the front!

In the book "Romania pe frontul antihitlerist" / Romania on front line against Hitler,
at the part dedicated to Czechoslovakia in 1945, it is related an episode with a SS guy not leaving his position and firing against the Romanian soldiers until they physically reached him. It was mentioned that his uniform had many military medals.

The whole episode was described with some respect toward the SS guy. Considering that he was an enemy, and the book was published during the Communist times, I guess he was really impressive.

Hello Andreas,

Thank you for your reply. My relative was Jacob Sieber, born in Gross Jetscha.
His ancestry was entirely German. As you know there used to be many German villages in western Banat. Gross Jetscha is now Iecea Mare.

He was conscripted into a German HilfsPolizei battalion along with many men from his village. They received little in the way of training, obsolete equipment, etc.
Mostly they were used in Yugoslavia for occupation duties such as enforcing curfew,guarding train stations etc. They were just assistant police really.

In 1944 some of these battalions were combined into the unit known as
Polizei Freiwilligen Regiment 1 Serbien. Unfortunately in Sept 1944 his
battalion became part of the so called "Kampfgruppe Behrends".

His unit passed through his hometown of Gross Jetshca on Sept.15th 1944
Jacob was killed in action the next day near Timisoara. To me this was just
a suicide attack. These men were simple farm boys forced into service with little or
no training and obsolete weapons and little ammunition. It is likely that he had
never fired a shot in his life. To use these men in offensive combat mission was
merely a suicide charge. The Romanian troops in the city had the upper hand.

Anyway it is interesting that you live in Arad. I would like to visit Timisora some
day as it seems an interesting city. I am sue Arad is as well. Your neighbor must
surely have a lot of interesting stories, he was lucky to survive!

Interesting but not unusual Jakob1944Polizei,
I read in a book the unfortunate fate of many ethnic Germans from Banat and Transylvania forced to fight in difficult conditions without having received an adequate instruction level and also not the top military hardware. It is the case of those those sent to antiguerilla units in Serbia and Ukraine forced to fight later as first line units without proper training and equipment (my neighbour told me a lot about that)! They served especially in the 7th SS “Prinz Eugen” Division and 8th SS “Florian Geyer” Division and probably in other units. For instance my german neighbour told me about a good friend from his childhood who fought in France with the 17th SS ”Götz von Berlichigen” Division in 1944.

Good Day to you Andreas. Hope all is well in Arad.

Since we have been discussing the military actions around Timisoara in the
month of September 1944 I was wondering if you know of any books
related to this battle?

It seems like it is difficult to find material on this battle.
I would like to read more about it if I could find book sources.

Thank you.

Thanks Jakob1944Polizei,
Wish you the same!
Yes I have read a book, I don't know if I didn't mention it by now, called (as I remember so I am not sure) Operatia de acoperire in Sud estul Romaniei august-septembrie 1944 /The frontier defence operation in south-east Romania august-september 1944/ written before 1989 by a collective of military authors. The book is excellent in describing our forces in Banat but more than excellent in describing the ennemy forces (especially german few hungarian only in the northern sector of Banat) and of course the military operations until the arrival of the soviet armies in the area! Of course there are descriptions of the battles, the forces involved, the successes of the ennemies (yes even if it was written in communist era) and our successes also. There are description of the operations from german documents captured after the operations including what you are especially interested in -Kampfgruppe Behrends and the 4th SS POLIZEI Panzer Grenadier Division. I didn't have this book I read it from the local library in Arad. I will soon "investigate" and I will tell you exactly the book title and authors. As I said it is old written before 1989 as I remember! We keep in tuch!

I believe this is the book you meant:
http://www.coltulcolectionarului.ro/blog/w...e-eugen-bantea/

Indeed, an excellent one, well worth consulting.

Gen. Dénes

Thank you very much Andreas,
and thank you Denes for the link.

Perhaps we are on to something here.

All I have to do now is find a copy of this book
and have it shipped to USA and find a way to
translate it!

I would like to have it though to see if there are
any photos, and look at the documents. It would
indeed be interesting.

All part of the fascinating history of the Banat.

The best from USA.

Thanks Denes,
Yes, it's the book I talked about! Thank you also for the link I didn't know about! It's useful for other old books I was searching for!

As a sidenote, the other part (about 1/3rd) of Banat region is in Serbia.

Gen. Dénes

Maybe this book can help you a bit:
PANZERSCHLACHT: ARMOURED OPERATIONS ON THE HUNGARIAN PLAINS SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER 1944 by Perry Moore
http://www.helion.co.uk/product.asp?strPar...chStartRecord=1
But it's surely not so focused on operations in Banat area (and surely not so detailed) than the romanian book I and Denes spoke about.

The so-called "Serbian Banat" (Banatul Sârbesc), which was awarded to Jugoslavia after WWI, not to Romania as some politicians would have wanted! But when the "Bucharest peace" was weighed against the Serbian Army continuing to fight after its territory was invaded, well... only the territory with a Romanian majority was given to Romania...
See also the mighty wikipedia
Banat

It sounds like I should order the book:

“Operatia romana de acoperire”, de Eugen Bantea

I did study Spanish in High School although Romanian is rather different,
but I could make a go at it.

Is http://www.coltulcolectionarului.ro OK to place orders with?
I don't know if anyone has experience with them shipping books.

Thanks.