Heer German officer KIA...

[Chris Boonzaier]

Can anyone give a hand in establishing if the 2 beers are the same?

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=4041...184entry39184

Thanks

Chris

[Chris Boonzaier]

To answer this... he was buried at Champigny-St.-Andr? , so in Normandy.

Question is... does anyone know if the panzer lehr was there?

There were 2-3 Pionier Lehr units, the only one in normandy would have been the on in the panzer lehr

Edited December 15, 2005 by Chris Boonzaier

[David Gregory]

There seems to be only one Lehr unit that was in Normandy at the time of Beers's death in late June 1944. The following information was taken from "Die gepanzerten und motorisierten deutschen Grossverb?nde 1935-1945" by Rolf Stoves, who also wrote the divisional history of 1. Panzer-Division.

Panzer-Lehr-Division was raised on 27 December 1943 from instructional troops and staff of Panzerschule I and II as well as personnel taken from formations in OB West. The division was assembled in the Verdun-Toul-Nancy area.

In March 1944 Panzer-Lehr-Division was transferred by rail to Vienna and was completed in Western Hungary after entering the country as part of Unternehmen "Margarete". In May 1944 the division was transported back to France to form part of OKW-Reserve with Heeres-Gruppe B in the Orl?ans area.

From June 1944 the division was deployed on the invasion front in the Tilly-sur-Seulles area in defensive fighting against the British bridgehead as part of I. SS-Panzer-Korps. The division was then withdrawn at the beginning of July before being pitched against US forces in the St. L? area.

The Pionier element of Panzer-Lehr-Division was Panzer-Pionier-Bataillon (gp) 130 and consisted of three Panzer-Pionier-Kompanien (gp), each equipped with 27 Sch?tzenpanzerwagen (SPW). This unit assignment is also confirmed by Tessin (volume 1, page 230).

Since the other men also named Fritz Beer on the Volksbund site were of completely different ranks, I would say that your man is definitely Leutnant Fritz Beer of Panzer-Pionier-Bataillon (gp) 130, Panzer-Lehr-Division, who was killed in Normandy.

That is not only a very desirable uniform ensemble, but it is also attributed to a Normandy KIA. They don't come much better than this.