Penal Units, destruction of fortress batallions 1944

Does anybody have informations about the penal units which were destroyed between 19th and 22nd August 1944 at Thigina, Tiraspol and Leontina?

(I cannot find Leontina anywhere on the map).

The units were:
Festungsbataillon XIV./999
Festungsbataillon XVII./999
Festungsbataillon XV./999.

Were the soldiers german or a mixture of germans and romanians?

Under who's command were these units, eg. division?

When were these batallions stationed in these locations, eg. when did the fighting start around the above named locations?

What did the soldiers do between the time of being stationed there and the time of their destruction on 19th-22nd August 1944?

What happened to the soldiers? Were they killed and by who or were some taken prisoners?

Any other information about these units would be welcome.

Many thanks for your help.

Hello Ander,

maybe you have a look at this site:

[URL=http://www.itcnet.ro/history/archive/mi1997/current8/mi9.htm]

here you find a general information of the last days of Romanian-German Cooperation during ww2 (january to august 1944). The text is in Romanian, but the author has a German name, so the text might be obtainable also in German.

I didn´t know a unit with the number "999" really existed, I thought it was Konsalik´s invention ("Strafbattaillon 999")

On the other hand I have been recherching penal battalions and I can tell you that there were Romanians in one of these battalions and it is known, that there were also German penal battalions.
I also found out that these battalions just existed for a short time, for instance were founded in January 1944 and finished their existence about half a year later.

They were taken prisoners (the Germans and also the Romanian soldiers), some of them could escape.
What happened to your uncle? Could he anyhow get out of the situation?

The problem with the penal battalions is that there is almost no material about them, I think it is because very few (almost none) of them survived.

Greetings

Hello Jivana.

thanks for your help.

My uncle did survive the war, but died at the beginning of July 1945 whilst collecting nazi fugitives hiding in mountain huts.

In the family the story goes that in June 1944 he was shortly on home leave in Northern Italy and in a guest house he remarked, in the presence of village-nazi fanatics, that the war will be lost and that the german armed forces commit war crimes in the occupied lands. The fanatics denounced him for that (Wehrkraftzersetzung).

His unit was then positioned west of Jasi and in the family it was said that upon returning from leave he was called to the commander and was told that he had received a note from the police from the Hinterland about his misbehaviour and that he will be posted to a "Bewaehrungs"-unit (for a Strafbataillon-service a martial court trial would have been needed).

Upon arriving in the penal unit he registred and immediately went back to the train he came on and escaped hiding on the train all the way back to Tyrol. He was declared missing at the front and his family wasn't brought to a concentration camp for his desertion (=Sippenhaft).

I would like to find out where the Bewaehrungs-Bataillon was possibly stationed at the time. Romania or Moldavia would logically have to be considered first. But it will probably have to remain a fmily story as it is impossible to find factual material.

The link to Klaus Schonherr doesn't seem to have anything on the penal units.

Do you know where Leontina is. The search engines only bring up strange things.

Regards.

Ander,

I found more informations,

if you give in in a searching machine the words
"Bewährungbataillon", "999" and "1944"
you will find a lot of German (almost 100) sites related to your question, beginning with the information about these kind of units to (famous) people who were themselves in the battalion 999. Maybe some of them are still alive and you can contact them.

("Bewährungsbataillon" means probation battalion.)

Greetings

I haven't found Leontina, but there is a Leontinesti in Moldavia: http://www.hartionline.ro/ro/harta/i4.html. It is West of Bacau.

Leontina was apparently in Bessarabia. here is a map of the operations on 20 August 1944

http://rkkaww2.armchairgeneral.com/maps/19...s2_Aug20_44.jpg

I see the German 306 Infantry Division is mentioned on it. This unit was part of teh 6th Army and was stationed in the area around Chisinau/Kishinev.

Thank you Jivana and Victor for all your useful information.

I'm not able to find Leontina on todays Moldova map. I expect it to be on the line Tiraspol-Tighina-Chisinau-Iasi.

Perhaps somebody from Bessarabia before 1940 may be able to help me locate the place.

Regards