Badinski, Curt Rudolf Theodor.

Badinski, Curt Rudolf Theodor, born 17-05-1890 in Grebenstein , joined the Army Service on 15-01-1910 as a Fahnenjunker  with the Lauenburgisches Jäger Battalion Nr 9 . Promoted to Leutnant on 16-06-1911 and at the outbreak of World War I, he as a commander of the Machine Gun Company Jäger Battalion 9  goes in the first battles. In the beginning of February 1915 he is promoted to Battalion Adjutant and is wounded  by a shell splinter on 29-06-1915 near Anterpiore in France. He became a Oberleutnant on 18-08-1916. He participates until the end of the war. Badinski received both the Iron Crosses  and the Knight Cross of the Königlich Prussian Hausordens von Hohenzollern with swords.  Badinski remained in the new Reichswehr and was promoted to Oberst on 01-08-1938, With the mobilisation before the start of World War II he took the command of the 489^th Infantry Division  and involved in the battles on the Western Front. He was transferred to the Eastern Front with his Division for Operation Barbarossa  in June 1941. The 91.000 German POWs taken at Stalingrad, 27.000 died within weeks and only 5-6,000 returned to Germany by 1955. The remainder of the POWs died in Soviet captivity. On 02-02-1943, the organized resistance of Axis troops in Stalingrad ceased. Out of the 91.000 prisoners taken by the Soviets, 3.000 were Romanian. These were the survivors of the 20^th Infantry Division  under command of Generalleutnant Erich Jaschke  , 1^st Cavalry Division and “Colonel Voicu” Detachment. Generalleutnant Erich Jaschke survived the war and died 18-10-1961 (aged 71) in Hamburg. According to archival figures, the Red Army suffered a total of 1.129.619 total casualties; 478.741 men killed or missing and 650.878 wounded. These numbers are for the whole Don region; in the city itself 750.000 were killed, captured, or wounded. Anywhere from 25.000 to 40.000 Soviet civilians died in Stalingrad and its suburbs during a single week of aerial bombing by Luftflotte 4 as the German 4^th Panzer and 6^th Armies approached the city; the total number of civilians killed in the regions outside the city is unknown. In all, the battle resulted in an estimated total of 1.7-2 million Axis and Soviet casualties. Badinsky for his bravery leading during the battle of Krasnogwardeisk, was awarded with the the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross. Promoted to Generalmajor on 17-01-1942, he is assigned to commander of the 292^nd Infantry Division   following Generalleutnant der Infanterie, Generalleutnant Willy Seeger  . Seeger also survived the war and  died old age 87, on 27-07-1978 in Stuttgart. As a Generalleutnant commander of the 276^th Infantry Division   , former commanders Generalmajor der Infanterie, Kommandeur 276^th Volks Grenadier Division, Hugo Dempwolff

 .  The division was formed in Poland in September 1944, by redesignating the 580 th  Volksgrenadier Division, under the command of Generalleutnant der Artillerie,  Kommandeur der 276^th Volksgrenadier Regiment, Kurt Moehring  . Curt Badinski was captured by American troops in August 1944 in the Falaise Pocket in France, after the surrender by General Patton’s Third Army (see George Smith Patton).

      He was held in the British Camp 11, before transferred to the USA until 1947. After his release Badinski lived in Oldenburg, near Bremen, like his fellow Generalmajor der Infanterie, Kommandeur 78^th Volkssturm Division, Erich Geissler.

  At the age of 75, Curt Badinsky, died on 27-02-1966 and is buried with his wife Ilse, on the Parkfriedhof in Oldenburg.