Please add to the list if you have any good sites in your favourites !! A pocket German Army - pre-1914 Heer organization and order of battle. In English with German unit denominations. http://users.hunterlink.net.au/~maampo/militaer/milindex.html
There appears to be a problem with the website at the moment, but a lot of rare German regimental histories , verlustlisten and other WW1 histories and documentation (such as the complete Reichsarchiv collection) are available on CD ROM from... http://home.versanet.de/~eschallert/start_e.html
Many regimental verlustlisten available online also. Try here for starters... http://www.denkmalprojekt.org/covers_vl/vl_wk1_index.htm
A free download of Histories of two hundred and fifty-one divisions of the German army which participated in the war (1914-1918) by the AEF Intelligence Section of the US General Staff (1920) is available on PDF here... http://www.vlib.us/wwi/resources/germanarmywwi.html (There is another outlet of this on the WWW, but I can't remember where i've seen it!!!)
I think thats the one Michel posted on his thread ..... it's huge and he forgot to warn me !! So don't be impatient like me ... and let it load properly !! ( it froze me up ... I didn't realise it was as big as it is !! but it's great !! ) Annie
Easier download from the gutenberg project (I remembered where I got my (electronic copy) from!!!)... Not as easy to navigate as the hard copy , but OK for free! (Wishthey'd di the British Intelligence version - it's miles better!)... http://www.archive.org/details/historiesoftwohu00unit
A couple, but a contact of mine has quite a lot. Any particular regiment in mind? (...please don't say the Kgl. Bayerisches 16. Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment - it must just about be the most widely written about (in several languages) Bavarian regiment of them all!)
To be honest we're not quite sure !! but the Germans ( the Bavarians ) were here in the Spring Offensive April 1918 .... ( and we think this is the one we want !! ) we did think of going the other way round and try finding the British regimental war diaries but it got complicated !! ( see Michels thread ... though it's a long one .. but interesting !! ) http://ww1talk.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=204
Well, for day 1 of the Lys offensive (and just talking about Bavarian units), you're looking at the Portugese facing the 1st Bavarian Reserve Division and the 8th Bavarian Reserve division. The 1st BR Div went out of action on the 15th April and the 11th Bav Div joined the Fray on 16th/17th with the 4th Bavarian Div joining in soon after. In other words, Bavarian (infantry)regimental involvement in this battle was made up of Kgl. Bayerisches 1. Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment Kgl. Bayerisches 2. Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment Kgl. Bayerisches 3. Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment Kgl. Bayerisches 3. Infanterie-Regiment Kgl. Bayerisches 4. Infanterie-Regiment Kgl. Bayerisches 5. Infanterie-Regiment Kgl. Bayerisches 9. Infanterie-Regiment Kgl. Bayerisches 16. Infanterie-Regiment Kgl. Bayerisches 19. Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment Kgl. Bayerisches 22. Infanterie-Regiment Kgl. Bayerisches 22. Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment Kgl. Bayerisches 23. Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment (then, of course, there are the mountain troops!)
We have a list a mile long on the other thread ....... ... but how do you find the war diaries ? I found the AlpenKorps .... just a matter of wading through them ... ! Difficult ... when you're trying to track down just one man !! Annie
OK - but you'll have to give me a synopsis of that thread now I've actually read it - I've now twice tried to work my way over it and got totally lost!!! (I think I've worked out the basic idea though) . Most war diaries went up in smoke during WW2, but you "might" be lucky with the Bavarians. I think the Alpenkorps "diary" on Malte's website is actually the abbreviated version of events found in the Korps History, rather than the actual war diary. Unfortunately, these details are very much all that's left to work from. . Especially so, when there's so little evidence of who he actually is or which particular unit he served with.
Totally off topic here .... but here goes .... OK .... in a nutshell ... we have a German body aged approx 30 years old ... hard worker ( maybe farmer ! ) with big boots - a Bavarian button with WB on it and a 1912 pffenig ... oh ! and a picture of General Graf von Bothmer ........ found in the river by LaCouture and Richebourg - and thats the only facts we have !! Conjecture .... could have been 1918 Spring Offensive !
