Johann Mickl was an Austrian-born army officer and division commander who served Nazi Germany during World War II.
36 Facts About Johann Mickl
1.
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Johann Mickl was commissioned shortly before the outbreak of World War I, and served with Austro-Hungarian forces on the Eastern and Italian Fronts as a junior officer in the Imperial-Royal Mountain Troops.
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Johann Mickl served with the Austrian Army from 1920 until the Anschluss in 1938, when it was absorbed by the Wehrmacht, and he transferred to the German Army as an Oberstleutnant.
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Johann Mickl commanded an anti-tank battalion during the invasion of Poland and Battle of France.
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Johann Mickl was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross for his leadership of a battle group during the British Operation Crusader.
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Johann Mickl briefly commanded the 90th Light Division in late 1941 before being wounded.
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Johann Mickl commanded the 12th Rifle Brigade of the 12th Panzer Division in the east, taking over the 25th Panzergrenadier Regiment when his brigade headquarters was disestablished.
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Johann Mickl then commanded the 11th Panzer Division during the Battle of Kursk.
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Johann Mickl's father Mathias was a German farmer from Terbegofzen, and his mother Maria, was from Zelting, and of at least partially Slovene heritage.
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Johann Mickl spent time in a military hospital and was then employed in the regimental replacement battalion as an instructor until 15 April 1915.
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On 2 May 1922, Johann Mickl married Helene Zischka in Klagenfurt; their only child, Manfred, was born in 1923.
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In 1925, Johann Mickl passed the examinations for the general staff.
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On 26 July 1930, Johann Mickl was appointed an honorary citizen of the town of Radkersburg.
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On 14 March 1938, following the Anschluss, Johann Mickl was absorbed at his rank into the German Army, but as a troop officer, not a general staff officer.
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Helene soon moved to Gera in Thuringia to join Johann Mickl, leaving the 15-year-old Manfred at the cadet school until his graduation.
16.
Johann Mickl commanded the 42nd Panzerjager Battalion of Generall Georg Stumme's 2nd Light Division during the September 1939 invasion of Poland, during which the division was involved in difficult fighting through Kielce and Radom in central Poland to Modlin on the Vistula.
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Johann Mickl remained in charge of the 42nd Panzerjager Battalion during the invasion.
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Johann Mickl's soldiers derided their guns as Panzeranklopfgerat, due to their failure to penetrate the British Matilda I and Matilda II tanks.
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Johann Mickl's battalion tried to protect the exposed flank of the division, but was overrun.
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Johann Mickl remained in command of the 7th Rifle Regiment during occupation duties in southwestern France, redeployment to Germany, and during the division's preparation for the invasion of the Soviet Union.
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In May 1941, Johann Mickl was posted to a new role in Germany, raising the headquarters of the 155th Rifle Regiment for service in North Africa.
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Johann Mickl considered that this would be sufficient for an attack on defensive positions, but completely inadequate for mobile operations.
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That afternoon, British armoured cars and tanks appeared, and Johann Mickl's force was hard-pressed to hold its positions barring the British approach to Tobruk from the south and south-east, as little tank support was available.
24.
On 25 March 1942, Johann Mickl was appointed to command the 12th Rifle Brigade of Generalmajor Walter Wessel's 12th Panzer Division on the Eastern Front.
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The division was the main reserve formation of Army Group North, and when Johann Mickl joined his brigade headquarters it was located on the coast near Narva west of Leningrad.
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When Johann Mickl arrived to take command, elements of his command were fighting as part of a total of twenty 18th Army battle groups engaged in encircling and destroying cut-off Soviet units.
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Johann Mickl then concentrated his troops' efforts on securing winter quarters and building shelters for the regiment's vehicles.
28.
On 26 January 1943, Johann Mickl received orders to report to Berlin on 2 February.
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When Johann Mickl took command, the 11th Panzer Division had not yet finished rebuilding after suffering serious losses during the December 1942 Operation Winter Storm, the attempted relief of German forces encircled at Stalingrad and during the Third Battle of Kharkov in February and March 1943.
30.
For nearly that whole week, Johann Mickl's division bore the brunt of the Soviet attacks on the XLVIII Panzer Corps.
31.
Four days later, Johann Mickl returned to Gera, disappointed and resentful about the demotion, as he felt that he had made a good enough impression during the fighting to be retained as commander of the division.
32.
Johann Mickl's performance commanding the division had not been markedly worse than comparable divisional commanders during the preceding battles, and it is possible that Wehrmacht or Army Headquarters had decided Mickl was better suited to fighting insurgents in his native Balkans, especially given his fluency in several local languages.
33.
Johann Mickl was appointed to this command on 13 August 1943.
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Johann Mickl's division was placed under the command of the XV Mountain Corps as part of the 2nd Panzer Army, with its headquarters to be established in Karlovac.
35.
Johann Mickl identified that the Partisan 13th Division was using the Dreznica valley as a huge armoury, hiding captured Italian arms and ammunition in villages, basements, and even in fake graves in cemeteries.
36.
Johann Mickl was transported to hospital in Fiume, and died the following day.