History
In October 1938, the decision was made to raise the 7th Flieger (Air) Division. This was to be a well-trained paratroop formation intended for vertical envelopment operations against enemy defenses. The commander chosen to lead the 7th Flieger Division was the then Major-General Kurt Student.
Organizationally, a Fallschirmjäger Division was intended to be organized along the lines of a German infantry division, with three parachute rifle regiments, an artillery regiment, and divisional support units. However due to various reasons the Division was not brought up to full strength before 1941. Nevertheless, elements of the division played significant roles during the Wehrmacht operations in 1940 in the West. At the start of World War II, the Division consisted of the 1st and 2nd Parachute Regiments and some support units.
Read more about this topic: 1st Parachute Division (Germany)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Humankind has understood history as a series of battles because, to this day, it regards conflict as the central facet of life.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)