Bautruppen

Bautruppen were the Construction troops of the World War II era Heer (German army), and were in effect that army's equivalent of Construction engineers. They constituted a separate branch from the Heer's pioneer battalions, but were ultimately merged with them starting from late 1941 onwards as the demand for front line combat engineers continued to grow.

History

The Bautruppen had their origins in World War I, when the Pioneer Battalions (Pionier-Bataillone) of the Imperial German Army found themselves being increasingly overstretched; due to unceasing demand for their services as combat engineers on the front lines, they were gradually becoming unable to divert personnel and other resources to carry out routine but vital construction & repair jobs in the rear areas, not to mention on the Home front. In order to try and address this problem, the Oberste Heeresleitung (Supreme Army Command) requested that private construction firms provide technical personnel and skilled workers on loan for urgent non-combat work. These were then organized into special mobile units under army control for emergency construction and repair work.

This arrangement proved successful enough that it was continued on a smaller scale in the era of the Weimar Republic; it's new army the Reichswehr was severely constrained by the Treaty of Versailles and the Allied Control Commission in the number of personnel in uniform or out, much less under arms. As nominally private contractors the special units could get around this to some degree. Over time the special mobile units evolved until by the second half of the 1920s they had become an official uniformed service arm of the Reichswehr, albeit one that was explicitly noncombatant in order not to unnecessarily violate treaty obligations. By the time of the Nazi's coming to power in 1933 however, the Bautruppen had gained a secondary/emergency combat role in addition to it's primary taskings.

Organisation

Up until 1943, the Bautruppen were a distinct service arm of the Heer in their own right, known as the Waffengattung Bautruppen (Constuction troops Service arm^[a]). The branch was headed by a General der Waffengattung (Lit. 'General of the Service Branch'), whose formal title was General der Bautruppen i.e. General of the Construction troops. As was also the case with the head of it's rival the Waffengattung Pioniere (the General der Pioniere), the General der Buatruppen reported for administrative and other purposes such as training & materiel both to the Inspekteur der Baupioniere (Inspector of Construction Engineers) and to the Inspekteur der Pioniere und Eisenbahnpioniere (Inspector of Pioneers and Railway Pioneers).

Similar to the Pioneer branch, the Bautruppen mainly organised it's operational units as battalions and independent companies.

Known specialised unit types included:

Brückenbaubataillone
Eisenbahnbaubataillone
Festungsbaubataillone
Telefon-Bautruppen

Employment

Bautruppen were second line troops, and were mostly considered to be of inferior status to Pioneers and regular front line troops despite their undoubted utility. They were generally reserved for such tasks as bridge construction (Brückenbaubataillone) e.g. replacing assault and other temporary bridges constructed by the Pioneer Battalions during advances or as emergency replacements with more permanent stuctures, road building, railway construction & maintenance (Eisenbahnbaubataillone)^[b], and fortification works (Festungsbaubataillone). The Bautruppen also acted as garrison engineers, sometimes sharing this role with the specialised Festungspioniere (Fortress pioneers, often translated as Fortress engineers) of the Pioneer branch which had it's own sub-branch.^[c]

Prior to being merged into the Waffengattung Pioniere in 1943 the Bautruppen branch, in the form of the Telefon-Bautruppen, was also primarily responsible for the construction and maintenance of army telephone systems both on the field (at the Army Group (Heeresgruppen) and Field army GHQ levels) and in the rear areas, working in co-ordination with the Signal Troops (Nachrichtentruppen).

Equipment

Fate

Notes

^ An alternative translation of Waffengattung is 'Service branch'.
^ Usually working in a support role to the Eisenbahnpioniere (Railway pioneers, often loosely translated as Railway engineers) who were a component of the Railway troops of the Nachschubtruppen, or Supply troops (prior to a November 1942 reorganisation they were part of the Transport troops, or Fahrtruppen).
^ This sub-branch could trace it's history all the way back to the elite Festungspionier (Fortress pioneer) battalions of the Imperial German Army.