Degenhart, Richard

Nationality:: German

Biography

Beginning the war in the 9th motorised reconnaissance unit, Leutnant Degenhart would have seen service in the Polish Campaign of 1939. Moving to the Western Front for the campaign in 1940 the unit fought its way through the Netherlands via Rotterdam before moving through France.
n the early part of 1941 the 9th Panzer Division of which his unit was now part as the 5/59th Motorcycle Reconnaissance Battalion, took part in the Yugoslavia and Greek Campaigns in April and May 1941.
The Division took part in Operation Barbarossa as part of Army Group South, fighting its way around Uman , onto the capture of Kiev in September and up to the Dnieper River in September 1941. The unit was most likely involved in the breakdown of the giant Kiev Pocket that was formed in September 1941 and led to the capture of upwards of 600,000 Russian Prisoners in what was the largest mass surrender in history. After reaching the Dnieper the Division moved to Army Group Centre where it took part in the reduction of the Bryansk pocket in front of Moscow, another Russian mass-surrender.
Throughout the winter of 1941-42 the 9th Panzer Division fought defensive battles against the widespread Russian counterattacks in the area of Kursk. Transferring to the 4th Panzer Army the Division took part in the first stage of the summer offensive in the attempt to capture the strategically important city of Voronezh. Fighting here lasted for several months as the Germans captured the city, and the Russians counterattacked violently on multiple occasions in an attempt to retake it. It was during this fighting that Degenhart performed an act of gallantry on 23rd August 1942, a date on which he was also wounded for the first time, that led to the award of an Iron Cross 1st Class in the field. The Division took part in fighting around Orsha and Mogilev before being entangled in the bitter fighting in the Rzhev area between December 1942 and March 1943 when the salient was evacuated.
By July 1943 the Division was fighting around the area of Orel to the north of Kursk, it was at this time Degenhart was awarded the Close Combat Bar in Bronze on 2nd July 1943, just prior to Operation Citadel (The Battle of Kursk), where the division fought as part of the northern pincer, before it was repulsed in a wide ranging Russian counterattack in the area.

The 9th Panzer Division then was caught up in the general retreat of Army Group Centre, before being transferred to Army Group South in September, where it fought defensive battles on the Mius River, and in the areas around Stalino, Zaporozhe and eventually Krivoi Rog. It would have been for the fighting around Zaporozhe and Krivoi Rog that Degenhart would have been awarded the German Cross in Gold on 17th November 1943, perhaps for an action on either 30.9.1943 or 18.10.1943 when he was wounded on both occasions.

The last wound being his 4th, so serious that he received the Gold Wound Badge and then saw no further active service during the course of the war, the award of the German Cross in Gold being forwarded to his Reconnaissance Battalion in his absence and then forwarded to him in a Reserve Hospital in Germany where he was recuperating.

It is interesting to note that Borkhoff, the Commanding Officer of Degenhart’s Panzer Reconnaissance unit was awarded the Knights Cross on 18th November 1943, a day after the award of the German Cross in Gold to Degenhart himself, it would be safe to assume therefore that Borkhoff was decorated for his part in the same action.

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