Das Ehrenmal (Memorial)

Every November on Volkstrauertag, the annual day set aside to honor and commemorate the victims of war.
On this day the surviving members of the 272nd meet and decorate the divisions monument (Denkmal) in the city park.


Eilenriede City Cemetery
Hannover, Germany

The monument reads:
Den Gefallenen des Inf. Regts. 368
Und der Niedersachs.Inf.Div. 216/272

This monument to the fallen of the Hanoverian WWI Infantry Regiment 368 (1914-18)
and to those of the WWII 216th and 272nd Infantry Divisions of Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen)



This photo was taken on the 216th/272nd Infantry Division Reunion in November 1997 and pictures Leutnant Klaus von Below shortly before
he passed away. He was the Adjutant of the 2nd Battalion, Grenadier Regiment 980 from October '44 until March '45, when he was seriously
wounded in action. On each side of the Denkmal are honor guards from today's Bundeswehr.



216th/272nd Veteran reunion in November 2001.



Artillery veteran, Wolfgang Peukert, standing at the monument during a reunion. The black, red, and gold are the national colors of today's Germany.

 

This monument was jointly erected by the veterans of the US 78th Infantry Division and the German 272nd Volksgrenadier Division to commemorate
the Battle of Kesternich that took place on December 13-18, 1944. Over 1400 American and 770 Germans were killed, captured or wounded there.

The man seen in the photo is 272nd VGD veteran, Grenadier Gerd Hoerner from Wuppertal. He was the last German Volksgrenadier to pull out of
Kesternich when he was only eighteen years old. As a member of a Marsch Battalion, he was originally scheduled to be assigned to the 344th Infantry
Division but had been diverted to the 272nd instead. Arriving in Kesternich on the 22nd of December and assigned to the heavy machinegun team, he
barely escaped capture on February 1st when he was forced to hastily evacuate a cellar in Kesternich only a few seconds ahead of an American assault with
Sherman tanks.



This wreath was placed during the dedication of the Denkmal from both the US 78th and German 272nd Divisions, Kesternich Germany, June 1993.
 

 

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Photos generously provided by
Douglas E. Nash

Author of:
Victory Was Beyond Their Grasp
With the 272nd Volks-Grenadier Division
from the Huertgen Forest to the Heart of the Reich

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