Brandenburgers

Battalion – December 1939 Division – February 1943 – March 1944 Panzergrenadier-Division – 1944–1945.
Division "Brandenburg" Vehicle Insignia
Active	1939–1945
Country	Nazi Germany
Branch	Army
Role	Special Operations Special Reconnaissance Airborne infantry Covert operations Amphibious warfare
Size	Company (initial) Division (at peak)
Part of	Abwehr
Garrison/HQ	Stendal Friedenthal
Nickname(s)	'Brandenburg'
Engagements	World War II
Commanders
Notable commanders	Theodor von Hippel Adrian von Fölkersam

The Brandenburgers (German: Brandenburger) were members of the Brandenburg German Special forces unit during World War II. Originally the unit was formed by and operated as an extension of the military's intelligence organ, the Abwehr. Members of this unit took part in seizing operationally important targets by way of sabotage and infiltration. Comprised by foreign German nationals who were convinced Nazi volunteers, constituent members had lived abroad and were proficient in foreign languages as well as being familiar with the way of life in the area of operations where they were deployed.

The Brandenburg Division was generally subordinated to the army groups in individual commands and operated throughout Eastern Europe, in southern Africa, Afghanistan, the Middle East and in the Caucasus. In the later course of the war, parts of the special unit were used in the fight against partisans in Yugoslavia before the Division, in the last months of the war, was reclassified and merged into one of the Panzer Grenadier Divisions. Not unlike many of the operational military units within the Nazi war machine, they committed various atrocities in the course of their operations.

The unit was the brainchild of Hauptmann (captain) Theodor von Hippel, who, after having his idea rejected by the Reichswehr, approached Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, commander of the German Intelligence Service, the Abwehr. Hippel proposed that small units, trained in sabotage and fluent in foreign languages, could operate behind enemy lines and wreak havoc with the enemy's command, communication and logistical tails. Canaris was at first against the proposal as he viewed such measures similar to what the Bolsheviks had done and was suspicious of Hippel's motives. Still determined to form the unit, Hippel looked to his section chief, Helmuth Groscurth, who supported the unit's formation and the two men conferred on the matter on 27 September 1939. Just a few days subsequent their meeting, the Army General Staff put forth a directive authorizing the creation of "a company of saboteurs for the West." As part of the Abwehr's 2nd Department, Hippel was tasked with creating the unit.

Brandenburg units were deployed as small commando outfits to penetrate into enemy territory and conduct both sabotage and anti-sabotage operations. Despite their demonstrated successes while incurring minimum casualties, many traditionally minded German officers still found their use abhorrent. Dissimilar to the German Fallschirmjäger who used the element of surprise attacks and overwhelmed the enemy by force of arms, the Brandenburg troops relied on deception. Most of them were fluent in other languages, which allowed them to penetrate into the Netherlands in 1940 disguised as Dutch barge crews. In 1941, they preceded the invasion of Yugoslavia undercover as Serbian workers. Before Operation Barbarossa began, they were already operating in the Soviet Union as Russian workers and soldiers and even adorned themselves in Arab garments to conduct surveillance on Allied warships traversing between the Straits of Gibraltar and North Africa ahead of the Wehrmacht deployment there. Correspondingly, Department II of the Abwehr, under which the Brandenburgers were subsumed, had a distinct sub-component for army, navy, and air force operations.