384th Infantry Division tactical symbol
West of Stalingrad on August 22, 1942, the 384th Infantry Division defended the bridgehead east of Nizhne-Akatov against the 39th Guards Rifle Division. The division lost 26 NCOs/enlisted killed in action; four officers and 104 NCOs/enlisted were wounded in action; five men were reported missing in action. To the north was the 389th Infantry Division; to the south was the 76th Infantry Division. (Stalingrad: The Death of the German Sixth Army on the Volga, 1942-1943)
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Albert Laumbacher. Son of a brewery worker, Albert Laumbacher was born on September 26, 1921, in Wangen, Württemberg; he graduated from grade school and trade school before becoming a baker’s apprentice. Catholic and single, he stood 5’9” tall when joined the Waffen-SS on April 1, 1939. Laumbacher was promoted to SS-Sturmmann on June 1, 1940 and to SS-Rottenführer on September 1, 1941. He served in the Fourth Battalion of the SS Infantry Regiment Deutschland in the Das Reich and then the staff company of the regiment and finally the security company of the Deutschland before transferring to the 8th (Heavy) Company just before the offensive. At Kursk he served as a gunner. Albert remained in the Das Reich until April 28, 1944. Promoted to SS-Unterscharführer on April 1, 1944, Laumbacher later was assigned as a gunner in Tiger 134 in the Third Platoon in the 1st Company of the 102nd SS Heavy Panzer Detachment. He later was a Tiger gunner in the same company of the 502nd SS Heavy Panzer Detachment. He was married and had a son. During the war he received the Infantry Assault Badge on March 22, 1941 and the War Service Cross Second Class with Swords on August 22, 1942. Albert Laumbacher survived the war, spent several years in a Soviet prisoner of war camp and after his return to Germany was a factory worker in Memmingen, Bavaria; he died in February 1998. (Waffen-SS Tiger Crews at Kursk: The Men of SS Panzer Regiments 1, 2 & 3 in Operation Citadel, July 5-15, 1943)