German-Romanian relations: the sacrifice of the Alushta Det.

[Victor]

I decided to present this little known episode of the fighting in Crimea in 1944, which can shed more light on the ups and downs in the German-Romanian military relations on the Eastern Front.

In April 1944, the Red Army had begun the final offensive aimed at recapturing Crimea. After braking through the defences in the Perekop Isthmus the 4th Ukrainian Front was advancing towards Sevastopol and in the same time was trying to cut off the retreat of the Axis forces in the Kerch Peninsula. Thus on 14 April, Soviet elements made contact with the 23rd Mountain Battalion (from the Alushta Detachment) at Perival. The gen. Karl Allmedinger, the CO of the 5th German Corps, ordered the 1st Mountain Division to hold the line with the Alushta Detachment at any cost so that the remaining German forces in Feodosiya could retreat. They were allowed to fall back to Alushta only at 19:15 on 15 April, from where they would be evacuated by sea.

The Alushta Detachment, commanded by col. Ionescu, was made up of the 23rd Mountain Battalion (lt. col. Aurel Vulcanescu), the 7th Mountain Battalion (lt. col. Vasile Teofanescu), one battery from the 4th Artillery Regiment and one battery from the 1st Artillery Regiment. The 23rd Battalion was in the first line at Perival, while the 7th was further behind it north of Shumy. The artillery consisted of 75mm field guns, which were not suited for fighting in a rugged terrain.

During the night of 14/15 April, at 2:30, the Soviet forces started the attack on the 23rd Mountain Battalion’s positions. After several assaults, they managed to make a breach in the center. At 8:00, the <i>vanatori de munte</i> had to retreat to the line of the reserve company, 2 km south of Perival, and attempted to resist. But because the battalion was in danger of being outflanked and it lacked reserves, it was ordered at 9:45 to fall back in the second line, behind the 7th Mountain Battalion. At noon, the Romanian troops started to fall back towards Alushta and at 15:30 they were on the Alushta-Yalta highway, 8 km west of Alushta.

The 5th Corps’ motorized rearguard, which had to cover the retreat of the <i>vanatori de munte</i> to Alushta, left at 11:30, before carrying out its mission. Worse, the six MFPs, under the command of col. Hartung (chief of 5th Corps’ pioneers), which had to take the Romanians to Balaklava, also left when the first Soveit troops entered the city at 14:00. Col. Hartung even refused to pick up the troops directly from the beach and sailed for Sevastopol. Thus the two battalions and batteries were deserted at Alushta, after they have fought hard to allow the German troops to retreat to safety.

Only a handfull of men made it back to the Axis lines, under the leadership of cpt. Lazar Oprisor, from the 7th Mountain Battalion.

[Florin]

QUOTE

........................................................................ The 5th Corps? motorized rearguard, which had to cover the retreat of the vanatori de munte to Alushta, left at 11:30, before carrying out its mission. Worse, the six MFPs, under the command of col. Hartung (chief of 5th Corps? pioneers), which had to take the Romanians to Balaklava, also left when the first Soveit troops entered the city at 14:00. Col. Hartung even refused to pick up the troops directly from the beach and sailed for Sevastopol. Thus the two battalions and batteries were deserted at Alushta, after they have fought hard to allow the German troops to retreat to safety. Only a handfull of men made it back to the Axis lines, under the leadership of cpt. Lazar Oprisor, from the 7th Mountain Battalion.

My family used to spend many summer holidays at Constanta at the same host. If you remember, it was a good bussiness for the people of Constanta to rent their rooms.
The landlord was a soldier in a Romanian mountain unit trapped in Crimea. He said that in the last days the soldiers were desperate to reach the last available boats. One day the German soldiers stroke with their bayonets some Romanian soldiers and cut their fingers as they grasped the parapet of the boat. The Romanian soldiers fell in the sea, with their fingers cut. Other Romanian soldiers opened fire against the German soldiers, and this degenerated into a skirmish. Eventually some order was established by the officers, and also some order was set for evacuation.

During a "retreat" of both Germans and Romanians (other words for such a "retreat" could be "fled" and "run away"), my grandfather was running after a German truck. The German soldiers helped him to get in by pulling him up. It seems my grandfather was a lucky person, because there were certain cases when Romanian soldiers grasping retreating German trucks and hanging on them were beaten over hands by the Germans until they dropped. Such cases were reported through the hierarchy, from soldier to NCO, from NCO to officer, and from officer to general. Then the Romanian generals forwarded the matter to the German generals.
And a saying started to run around: "We were good and praised during advance, and now, at retreat, we are not needed any more?"

Florin