WWII Libya, German Troops in Bardia, 1940s Home Movie Footage

[IIJG27Rich]

Very nice footage..I thought I'd put it in here because we'll be there on the map



Edit found another video

[DerDa]

Very interesting footage!
Thanks for linking.

Do you know who the narrator is?
From what he is telling I gather that he must have been one of the officers of Rommel, commanding a company of men mainly from Berlin and Westfalen. They obviously took part in the campaigns in Poland and france before going to Africa, later they were in the Caucasus and Stalingrad.

[IIJG27Rich]

Very interesting footage!
Thanks for linking.

Do you know who the narrator is?
From what he is telling I gather that he must have been one of the officers of Rommel, commanding a company of men mainly from Berlin and Westfalen. They obviously took part in the campaigns in Poland and france before going to Africa, later they were in the Caucasus and Stalingrad.

No not at all DerDa my German is limited to a few words and that's it I always wanted to learn more

[DerDa]

The second video you linked is actually the first one.
It tells about the arrival in Tripolis, where they changed in a stadium into their tropical uniforms. They could not do this before in Italy, because the Catholic curch objected against men walking around in short trousers.

They were immediately ordered eastward. The unit seems to be a reconaissance unit, the narrator is the company commander, a tall, rather skinny guy showing up several times, once distributing medals (Iron Cross) to some men.

Going eastward they occupied a fort ('El Geyla' or something like this) that had been deserted during the nicht and took captive the british soldiers, when they returned in the morning. They also captured a considerable number of Bedford trucks they immediately put to use, because they were perfectly suited for this environment. The BMW 750 motorcycles in contrast were struggling with three fully equipped and armed men.
Unluckily they were attacked by He 111s who took them for British and 13 (out of 180) soldiers were killed. That's why they painted the big swastikas on top of the trucks.

In the other video the narrator is actually critical towards Rommel (reckless gambler), who always pushed forward without caring about supplies. He quotes Rommel with saying: 'If you are in need for fuel, go, get it from the Brits!'

[ATAG_Vampire]

Going eastward they occupied a fort ('El Geyla' or something like this).............

El Agheila, in far western Cyrenaica Libya.

07

[DerDa]

He also says that the Berlin troopers immediately changed the name from 'El Ageila' to 'Geile Ella' ('horny Ella') ...



Sorry, just translating ...

[DerDa]

I checked different Internet sources, especially
http://www.afrika-korps.de/
where they have amongst tons of other stuff a very interesting and detailed 'diary' from 1941 to 1943 based on th Kriegstagebuch des OKh plus British sources.

The unit that is shown is
1. Schwadron 1. Panzer-Späh-Kompanie
or (more likely, because of the many references to motorbikes)
2. Schwadron 2. Kradschützen-Kompanie

both belonging to Aufklärungs-Abteilung (mot.) 3
This unit was comanded by Irnfried Freiherr von Wechmar, who is not the narrator, because the narrator referrs to him, when he is shown for a short moment.
The narrator therefore could be the commanding officer of either 1. Schwadron or 2. Schwadron.