Kurowski, Franz. The Brandenburgers: Global Mission. Winnipeg, Manitoba: J.J. Fedorowicz, 1997.

ISBN 0-921991-38-X
305 pages

Note of Thanks; photos; maps; documents; Bibliography.

Under Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the German Abwehr -- technically the OKW Amt Ausland/Abwehr (OKW Office for Foreign and Counter-Intelligence) -- included departments for foreign intelligence, counter-espionage and sabotage operations. It was as part of the latter section that the first Brandenburger unit -- 800th Special Purpose Construction Training Battalion -- was formed in December 1939. The 800th Battalion was formed on the orders of Canaris to undertake special missions and comprised carefully selected volunteers who were highly trained in commando operations, communications, explosives, sabotage, and demolitions, and other black arts.

After minor roles in the invasions of Denmark and Norway (including seizing the bridge over the Belt), the first important operational use of the Brandenburgers came during the German assault on France and the Low Countries when they were used to capture bridges and tunnels, lead German assault troops through enemy territory, seize or destroy various installations, and attempt to capture headquarters and government buildings.

   On 30th May, with the fall of Paris imminent, a special group of Brandenburgers consisting of an assault team with two Abwehr officers, drove along the main road to Paris, working their way into the melee of refugees and headed for the French capital. They reached the city on 9th June. Disguised as Dutch, French, and Belgian refugees, they spoke to one another in those three languages. They were not found out. The assault team drove to the government quarter and stopped in front of the annex of the bureau deuxieme, the seat of the French secret service. The mood there was one of disintegration. Trucks sat in the courtyard. Soldiers were busy loading the secret files in heavy crates.
   The Brandenburgers abandoned their disguises and seized the staff of the office. The soldiers were captured and the files secured. The French government left the city on 10th June. All the secret files captured in Paris by the Germans were shipped to Berlin aboard several trains. They included the central card index and the files of the surete nationale, the national security agency, which was subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior.

Subsequently the Brandenburgers were designated for key assignments in the abortive Operations Sea Lion (the cross-channel invasion of the UK) and Felix (the assault on Gibraltar) and played roles in operations in Yugoslavia and Greece.

As German successes brought more distant realms into their sights and the Abwehr was assigned wider and more far-flung missions, so too the Brandenburgers began to undertake more ambitious tasks. Among the most interesting sections of Kurowski's book are those that deal with Abwehr/Brandenburger operations in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, India, and Burma.

German operatives were essential in the escape of Subhas Chandra Bose, a leader of India's independence movement, from British custody through Afghanistan and the Soviet Union to Berlin. When he later returned to the Far East (via a U-boat and then a Japanese submarine) he was also accompanied by German agents. Following the defeat of the Japanese and Bose's Indian National Army in Burma, "nothing is known of the Brandenburgers and the men of the Abwehr who remained with the Indian Freedom Army. The majority were rumored to have joined the French Foreign Legion in Saigon."

Meanwhile, other Brandenburger teams were active in Afghanistan carrying out intelligence-gathering activities and sabotage against British roads and installations across the border in India.

   On 8 September 1942 a relay station was set up in the Caucasus in order to make the radio link between Kabul and Berlin more secure and less prone to breakdown. The operation, code-named "Tiger's Castle", was carried out under extreme secrecy. Long after the Caucasus had been evacuated by German forces, four Abwehr radio operators and two Caucasian assistants remained and made possible the continued work by German agents in Front-Line Detachment 200 in Afghanistan and India.

Similar operations were conducted in the Near East and in Africa. The operatives in Iraq, Kurowski tells us, included the "Arabian Brigade" detachment (numbers are unclear, but this could not have been more than a very small handful of men) who managed to "destroy or capture two British gunboats and about 50 supply ships" and "completely wiped out a force of about 100 British, including 11 officers, in an ambush in the Tigris valley." "At the same time preparations were made to block the Shatt el Arab waterway by sinking a German ship in the entrance, thus preventing British troops from being transported from India to Basra."

On the main fronts of the war, meanwhile, the Brandenburger battalion was growing into a regiment and then a division and eventually into Panzer-Grenadier Division Brandenburg. In addition to the usual assortment of bridge seizings, sabotage operations, covert mission behind Soviet lines, and infiltrations staged in Soviet uniforms, the Brandenburgers were active from the oilfields in the south to Lapland in the north. As the unit grew in size, it began to commit troops to traditional combat roles. When the unit was transformed into a panzer-grenadier division on 13 September 1944 (for which a full order of battle is provided), it was soon involved in the final bitter fighting on the Russian Front.

   After this prelude the Red Army opened up its main offensive at the Neisse with a barrage that surpassed anything the Brandenburg Division had ever experienced. A hail of iron rained down on the bunkers. The artillery barrage, which included fire from the notorious Katyusha rocket launchers, lasted about three hours. When the barrage ended the Red Army attacked. They approached through the forest south of Kahlen Meile in dense masses, but also in smaller, fast-moving groups. Waiting for them there was I Battalion, 2nd Light Infantry Regiment under Major Steidl. The first T 34s had forded the Neisse. They drove west, planning to turn north in several kilometers and then encircle and destroy the Brandenburg Division.

A good job of alternating the view from the top with detailed examinations of specific operations. Some of the claims for Brandenburger successes ("two British gunboats and about 50 supply ships" in Iraq) seem a bit exaggerated (or at least garbled), but this is an engrossing account of some of the more creative and daring feats of arms by special forces during the war.

Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from J.J. Fedorowicz.

Thanks to Fedorowicz for providing this review copy.