Talk:369th Croatian Reinforced Infantry Regiment (Wehrmacht)

Legionnaires post-Stalingrad
The story of how some legionnaires formed a new unit which fought for the allies should be in a separate article about the "Yugoslav Legion". The 369 Legion ceased to exist after Stalingrad, and that is what this article is about.--Thewanderer (talk) 18:31, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Valid point technically speaking. You forget the fact that legionnaires were in majority in the Yugoslav Legion and did not get a chance to vote on keeping their old 369th unit name. I do think the various circles of hell these men had to descend during WW2 is now incomplete without this. In my opinion the terrible fate surviving legionaires of 369th regiment experienced in Tito's JA at Čačak and later should be added as a chapter here to see their story to its conclusion. Many of them become heroes and most lost their lives for causes they had little chance to understand or control. Removal of this chapter may not help average reader get the whole story. --Lone plunger (talk) 19:33, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * This article is about a military unit which fought for NDH/Germany against the Cominterm. That unit ceased to exist during Stalingrad operations and its members who joined the Partisans ceased to be legionnaires regardless of their reasons for doing so. As a registered user, you're free to create a new article about the First Yugoslavian Brigade (the Serbian Wiki already has such an article). While this article can summarize the fate of its soldiers after their service in the unit, it shouldn't go into detail about the movements and battles of a separate unit.--Thewanderer (talk) 00:46, 23 April 2008 (UTC)


 * All I want to do is to tell the 369th legionaire story to the end. Fact is surviving legionnaires commanded and formed the majority soldiers of this new JA unit.  Tito ordered them to be slaughtered in unequal battle against their former comrades in arms.  For all intents and purposes they were the same unit until after Cacak disaster.

" Approximately 1000 legionnaires were evacuated from Stalingrad by air. They were awarded the Croatian Legion 1941 Linden Leaf for their service and formed the core of a new unit, the 369th Infantry Division.[6] "

I did not see any real reference(s) to 1,000 evacuation by air except on this internet site. It seems to be inflated considering difficulties Luftwaffe had, I doubt 1000 wounded made it out of Stalingrad by air. It seems more likely from Pojic that there were in total approx 1000 men wounded + sick + trained but never dispatched to Stalingrad left after fall of Stalingrad. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lone plunger (talk • contribs) 08:31, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Questionable statement
"German soldiers who survived post Stalingrad captivity and returned after the war mostly refuse to comment or discuss when interviewed their Russian captivity days as ' too hard to discuss, time when all human values were destroyed and men were turned into animals'. Stalingrad German (and Croat) veterans POW hardships resulting in only some 5% returning home alive after the war is likely unparallelled in modern history of war."

How is this "likely unparallelled" if we know from various sources that Germans routinely starved entire Armies of Soviet POWs, sometimes over 100,000 AT ONCE (with no survivors)? Let's reserve "unparallelled" moniker to occurences, which truly are unique and beyond comparison. Goliath74 (talk) 20:33, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I did not know about 100,000 Russian POWs starved at once, history is not my profession. If you can quote a source we should rephrase this of course. I did not hear or read about such large POW attrition rate ever, hope you are wrong ....... but fear you could be right. We are not talking 'civilian' extermination camp victims, POWs I hope? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.139.57.91 (talk) 20:38, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Is this really accurate?
at the start of the section on 'Stalingrad Battle' there is the sentence "It is important to note that Paulus and his 6th Army group were the best military unit German Wermacht and Hitler ever had. They were the most experienced, most disciplined, best trained and equipped German units with past successes unparalleled in Europe until they reached Stalingrad". was this ever officially recognized? Seems a bit arbitrary. They may well have been very good troops but the best Hitler ever commanded? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Red Rock Rover (talk • contribs) 05:56, 14 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The 6th Army group was the most highly decorated Army Group of the Wehrmacht, but if Hitler actually felt this way towards the Army, or if they were indeed the most skilled group is indeed unverifiable. EduardIIS (talk) 11:16, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

I do not know if this is accurate but I do think Paulus and his 6th army were the best Hitler had,. Of course until Stalingrad. I do not know official German historians position ...... maybe we should study their sources. I wrote this and if wrong ....... I am happy we remove it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.139.57.91 (talk) 20:34, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Title
I consider this article should be moved to 369th (Croatian) Reinforced Infantry Regiment (Wehrmacht). It reads as if it was a unit of the Croatian Army/Home Guard, but it was a Wehrmacht formation recruited from volunteers from the NDH. Peacemaker67 (talk) 02:55, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I have now moved it to that title. Peacemaker67 (talk) 11:10, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I have moved this article back to the (Wehrmacht) disambiguation title while we discuss the most appropriate title here. There are several options, but it bears discussion. The Wehrmacht (or strictly speaking the Heer) had numerous Reinforced Infantry Regiments, including 368 and 370, and the US also had regiments in the same number series eg 369th Infantry Regiment (United States). Strictly speaking, the official name of this unit appears to have been "verstärkte kroatische Infanterieregiment 369". For contrast, the titling of other units of foreign volunteers in the Wehrmacht were usually like "13. Waffen-Gebirgs-Division der SS „Handschar“ (kroatische Nr. 1)" or "392. (Kroatische) Infanterie-Division". It may be that the current title should not have the Croatian in parentheses, as it does not in the German official title. Perhaps the most correct Anglicisation of "verstärkte kroatische Infanterieregiment 369" is therefore actually "369th Reinforced Croatian Infantry Regiment". However, if we look at sources, Tomasevich 2001 p. 266 refers to it as "369th Reinforced Infantry Regiment". Google books searches show, , . Not conclusive by any stretch. Another option is "Croatian Legion", but I think a proper unit name is more appropriate. To my mind, consistency with other Wehrmacht unit articles is important, and the current approach is to use a (Wehrmacht) disamiguator after the unit title so there is no confusion. I also think that "369th Reinforced Croatian Infantry Regiment" is insufficiently precise because it then appears to have been a Croatian unit, when in fact it was part of the Wehrmacht. For this reason, I propose "369th Reinforced Croatian Infantry Regiment (Wehrmacht)". Peacemaker67 (talk) 04:56, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Overhaul of article
I've completed an overhaul of this article using WP:RS, but there are still a lot of unsourced paragraphs, peacock terms and weasel words. Can anyone who can navigate to the Croatian language book that is used as a source help out? Peacemaker67 (talk) 08:58, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I have repaired a couple of citation errors (including corresponding editing of content), but the inline citation issue is significant, with a large number of Wikipedia articles used as references.--Soulparadox 08:47, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Stalingrad
I just completed some major edits in this section and am hoping it has been sufficiently improved. Any feedback or constructive criticism would be nice.DaltonCastle (talk) 07:20, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Also, I reorganized the timeline of events because they were not in any cohesive order. I will continue to look for that, but I am just giving the heads up now that events might not be in chronological order.DaltonCastle (talk) 07:27, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

One more thing. I noticed there were some paragraphs that were almost entirely incomprehensible and several others just proposed their entire deletion. However, after reading carefully through them, there are some important and notable details that can be picked out. Just an idea to keep an eye out for.DaltonCastle (talk) 07:48, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Great work, DaltonCastle. Thanks for the big improvements. It is a pretty obscure unit, and sources are rare. I was finding it basically impenetrable. Peacemaker67 (talk) 10:51, 1 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Totally agree. Its all interesting stuff, but its so hard to find reliable sources for all the information.  Everyone has a story, but not a reliable source!  Thanks for the comment.  Glad to be of service, and I'll try to add more. DaltonCastle (talk) 03:21, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Moved to 369th Croatian Reinforced Infantry Regiment (Wehrmacht). There was little discussion but ample time and I cannot see consensus to move to the initially proposed target. However, what I see is unanimous consensus that we should avoid gave two parenthetical terms in the title, as have enacted that particular aspect. :) · Salvidrim!  ·  &#9993;  09:33, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

369th (Croatian) Reinforced Infantry Regiment (Wehrmacht) → Croatian Legion – I thought this move wouldn't be controversial, but I was reverted after I did it myself. Croatian Legion is the WP:COMMONNAME for this unit. It's much more concise, avoids the ugly effect of two terms in parentheses in one title, and already redirects here (full disclosure: I just made the redirect earlier today). I get 29,400 hits for versus 12,400. In Scholar it's 18 to 1; in Books it's 342 to 23. I'd give you an Ngram, but I can't get it to understand the current official name in any form. --Relisted Tyrol5   [Talk]  04:35, 11 January 2013 (UTC) --BDD (talk) 05:54, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose. G'day BDD. No need to be so dismissive, we are all on the same team here. The Google hits you have linked are essentially meaningless, all I will say about them is add -"Books, LLC" per WP:UCN and the hits become 6,940 to 12,200. 'nuff said. As far as Scholar and Books are concerned, Scholar is pointless, this is such an obscure unit that there has been very little written about it. Books results with the additional search string become 104 to 19, but a cursory look at the first page of each set of results shows that only 2 of the 10 "Croatian Legion" hits could possibly be about the unit in question. And that's without taking out the couple of dozen hits from "Popular Mechanics"... There are several "Croatian Legion"'s in history, including one recruited by the Italians for the Russian Front, a shorthand reference for the three Croatian "legionnaire" divisions (369, 373 and 392) raised by the Wehrmacht, and various pre and post-war political groups. There is also the issue of the fact that "Croatian Legion" is often used to refer to the entire force committed to fight the Russians, which consisted of the 369th, two squadrons that flew with the Luftwaffe, and a maritime unit. A little more to it, I'm afraid. Regards, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 06:43, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * But as long as Croatian Air Force Legion and Croatian Naval Legion are separate articles, doesn't it look a bit strange to have this article titled the way it is? --BDD (talk) 17:24, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't be assuming that those articles are titled IAW WP:TITLE, but if we make that leap, I conclude your argument regarding this article is based on consistency? My response is that it is not a good sign for the WP:COMMONNAME argument that only two of the first ten Google Books hits are actually about this unit. My point is that your contention about "Croatian Legion" being the common name for this unit is dubious at best, and should be set aside. Once we put the common name argument to one side we can talk about how we weigh the other title criteria such as consistency. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 23:50, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I would, however, consider supporting the removal of the brackets around "Croatian". Peacemaker67 (send... over) 06:47, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

My edit
I know my summary says see talk page. Sorry, no time now. I'll add details later.Howicus (talk) 17:53, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Ok, my first edit was grammar, wiki links, etc. The second was the removal of a paragraph that talked only about German POWs, with no mention of the Croatians, and an addition of a citation needed tag.  I'm also going to remove the grammar/speeding tag, because I see no problem in that area.  Howicus (talk) 22:03, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 21:32, 26 June 2016 (UTC)