11th Infantry Regiment

The 11th Infantry Regiment

This website is about the history around the German 11th Infantry Regiment from Leipzig. The 14^th Infantry Division and the Battle’s they were in during their presence in the Rzhew-Wjasma salient.

Contents

About the site

Favorite websites

Contact and Adresses.

About the site,

On this site you will find some acts of war in which the German 11^th Infantry Regiment took part.

Especially the events around the Russian place Rzhev are the most important subjects. For the moment only the events around Rzhev will be mentioned here, but later I will try to get the complete history of the 11^th IR on the web.

The events in the Rzhev salient are not so well known as the events of Stalingrad, Kursk, Charkov or Leningrad. Tough the whole standoff take more than a year. From mid January 1942 until early March 1943 the Germans and Russians where fighting. In the two winters with temperatures of -40° Celsius and in the summer with temperatures up in the 30° the Russians lost more than 1.500.000 man and the Germans more than 70.000 man.

Looking at these figures it is unbelievable that this story, these battles and these sacrifices have been forgotten by history.

Because of this I will not only tell the personal tragedy of Karl Lessig but also the thing that happened in the salient with the 11^th IR and the 14 ID.

The most information a used about the battle around Rzhev has been published in the following publications;

The German publications;

Geschichte des 11.(Sachs.) Infanterie-regiments, späteren Infanterie-Regiments 11 und Grenadier-Regiments 11 von 1918-1945.

Rzhev: Eckpfeiler der Ostfront. By Horst Grossman 1962

Rzhew 1942-1943 Aus der Geschichte der 36. infanterie division (Conrady)

And the English publications;

Counterpoint to Stalingrad, operation Mars: November-december 1942: Marshal Zhukov’s Greatest Defeat. Published by D.M. Glantz.

And

The failures of historiography: Forgotten battles of the German_Soviet war (1941-1945) by D.M. Glantz.

The translations have been combined to get a clearly structured overview from both side’s. The German publication; Rzhev Eckpfeiler der Ostfront is written in 1962 by Horst Grossman, commander of the German 6^th Infantry Divisions.

The publications by D.M. Glantz are more seen from the Soviet side.

Besides these publications I got some publications from Internet. Frome these articles I mentioned the author and the internet address with the article.