Kŏnigskogel Flak Batterie Zwŏlfaxing Austria

[Sparky]

Looking for information about the Kŏnigskogel Flak Batterie near Zwŏlfaxing Austria WWII. I have visited the site, and the Brundlkircke Cemetery where the crew of this batterie were buried after the batterie was destroyed by Soviet troops in April 1945. Any information will be greatly appreciated.


Sparky Bohnstedt
460th Bomb Group Historian
dlbjb460@aol.com

[Larry deZeng]

Hey Sparky -

The Königskogel Batterie bei Zwölfaxing would have been under Flak-Rgt. 28 (Flakgruppe Wien-Süd)/24. Flak-Division. One contender might have been schwere Heimat-Flak-Batterie 303/XVII at Wien-Schwechat, which was just a stone’s throw from Zwölfaxing. For more information, I suggest you try and obtain the following books through interlibrary loan. If that fails, then you could could try e-mailing the Wiener Stastarchiv.

Banny, Leopold. Drohnender Himmel, brennendes Land: der Einsatz der Luftwaffenhelfer in Osterreich 1943-1945. Wein:
Bundesverlag, 1988.
Holzmann, Gustav. Der Einsatz der Flak-Batterien im Wiener Raum, 1940-1945. Wien: Osterr Bundesverlager, 1970.

L.

[Sparky]

Good morning Larry:

Thank you very much for the quick reply. I have followed your suggestions and think that my question is answered. We have Leopold Banny's book DRÖHNENDER HIMMEL BRENNENDES LAND and when I checked it I found that I had highlighted Flak-Untergruppe
Rauchenwarth on page 417. I went through the listing of Flak units and came to the same conclusion as you.

My interest in this location comes from the fact that the target for my bomb group on 26 July 1944 was the Me 109 assembly facility at Zwölfaxing for which my bomb group was awarded a Distingquished Unit Citation. We lost three planes over the trarget. We visited Zwölfaxing in May 2000 and were able to visit the crash sites of these. Several other planes were badly damaged, some did not make it back to our base. Again, thank you very much for answering our request. If you will send us your e-mail address we will send you a couple photos from the site of the flak batterie and the cemetey where some of those killed are buried.

Sparky & Betty Bohnstedt
460th Bomb Group Historians

4670th Bomb Group Historians

[Larry deZeng]

Thanks for your nice reply, Sparky. I am sending my e-mail address by PM so be sure to check your "Notifications" box in the upper right of the screen.

Larry

P.S.

Rauchenwarth is 3.1 km SSW of Schwechat airfield and 4.1 lm ESE of Zwölfaxing, so the Flakuntergruppe there may be the right one.

There is another outstanding Flak reference that I checked:

Nicolaisen, Hans-Dietrich. Gruppenfeuer und Salventakt: Schüler und Lehrlinge bei der Flak 1943-1945. 2 volumes (I and II). Büsum: Selbstverlag (privately published) Dr. Hans-Dietrich Nicolaisen, 1993. Pb. 1,792p. Illus. End of chapter source notes.

Unfortunately, while this outstanding work covers the Flak forces in the Reich down to individual battery level in exhausting detail, it does not include Austria! Can you imagine? Why Dr. Nicolaisen (in 1993 a retired public school superintendent from Schleswig-Holstein) left out Austria is beyond me.