miRS-tonpon - Sturmpanzer.com

(Construction detachment ^ approximately 100" to" 150" men, withHilfsarbeiter (auxiliary labourers) drawn from foreign personnel.Such construction detachments were classified as OT organicpersonnel. Their movements were controlled by the OT authoritiesof higher echelons (Einsatz HQ and upward) on the basis of a constructionprogramme as agreed upon between the OT and Army or AnnyGroup HQ. The number of such personnel on any one constructionsite depended on the size of the job. (The term Bautrupps fellinto gradual disuse, due to the mass influx of foreign workersinto the OT after the German victories of 1940/41, but it wasrevived shortly before D-day.)Unskilled manpower was provided in the form of eitherprisoners of war, locally hired or impressed, or occasionally RADpersonnel. Mention is made in secondary sources of Stellungsbau,Tiefbau, Feldbahn and Strassenbahn Bataillone (Constructionbattalions specialising in the building of fortified positions,tunnels, highways and railroads). No documentary evidence hasbeen found testifying to the existence of such units in the OT,however, and it is believed that the units involved were armyconstruction units and RAD units working with the OT.Not much i s known of the early organisation of the Servicessuch as transport, medical and so forth. It may be safely assumedthat they were both mobile and, to some extent, improvised to meetchanging requirements. Protection to installations and personnel,particularly in Russia and the Balkans, was afforded by the Schutzkomnando(SK: Security Guard) composed of very small mobile contingents,so disposed as to be capable of quickly forming largerdefence units. Liaison was also maintained with Army and SS lineof communications regiments in case of emergency.Local sectors, consisting of one or more construction sitesand hence of one or more construction firms, were controlled bythe local sectorOT HQ - usually an OBL. In the early days of theQT, the control of firms and firm personnel was much looser thanat present. The main reason lay in the economic protectionafforded OT-f irms by the powerful German Construction Industry ascontrasted with the comparatively lax administration by the GeneralInspector des Deutsche Strassenwesen (Inspectorate General ofGerman Roadways). The period from mid-year I941 to mid-year 1942was a period of transition in respect to composition of personnel.The Balkan campaign and the first phase of the Russian campaignresulted in the employment by the OT of a vast number of Russiansand a proportional number of Serbs, Greeks, and so forth; inaddition Hungarian and Rumanian Engineer, or more aptly, Labourbattalions, provided another source of manpower in Russia. WhenSFEER took over control of theOT upon TODT' s death in February1942, he incorporated his Baustab SPEER with a strength of100,000 into the 0T 9 in the Crimea. (The Baustab had been buildingaerodromes for the German Air Force. Subsequently it had movedinto the Crimea to perform tasks similar to those of the OT). TheNSKK-Transport Brigade TODT was also activated in order to takecare of transport. The entire OT manpower strength in March 1942i s estimated at approximately one million men.111. "Stable" Period, 1942/44 (Foreign Labour, Kolonnen,Hundertschaften or Bereitschaften and Abteilungen).About the middle of 1942 a defensive policy became evident inGerman military strategy. Fortifications on a vast scale began tobe built in Russia, Norway and Western Europe. OT Zentrale (OTZ:OT Central HQ) in BERLIN, which had begun to make its central controlfelt especially in the West by establishing operational sectorsthere on a "permanent" basis, began systematically to co-ordinate-118­