On the Eastern Front the Fallschirmjäger fought as infantry, but soon earned a reputation for courage and steadfastness in a series of vicious and unrelenting battles against the Red Army. But the parachute divisions were to discover to their cost that courage and audacity are no substitute for superior armoured and artillery firepower.

The usual reason given for the lack of any large-scale airborne operations after the Battle of Crete in 1941 was that Hitler, horrified at the losses incurred, would not sanction risky airborne missions. While this is true, a post-war study on German airborne operations commissioned by the US Army provides another reason. The contributors to the study included von der Heydte, Kesselring, Meindl and Student, and their comments are pertinent: "The airborne operation against Crete resulted in very serious losses ... The parachute troops were particularly affected. Since everything Germany possessed in the way of parachute troops had been committed in the attack on Crete and had been reduced in that campaign to about one-third of their original strength, too few qualified troops remained to carry out large-scale airborne operations at the beginning of the Russian campaign. Air transportation was also insufficient for future operations." Thus when Operation "Barbarossa", the German invasion of the Soviet Union, opened on 22 June 1941, the 7th Flieger Division was back at its bases in Germany for rest and refitting after the losses suffered on Crete.

The German advance in Russia slowed at the end of September 1941, as Army Groups North, Centre and South ground to a halt in the mud and against stiff Soviet resistance, and units of the division were mobilised for service in the East. The 1st and 3rd Battalions of the 1st Parachute Regiment and the 2nd Battalion of the Luftlande-Sturmregiment (Airlanding Assault Regiment) were sent to the Leningrad area to fight with Army Group North's Eighteenth Army.

The Fallschirmjäger were deployed to the east of the city on the River Neva, where Red Army troops of the Volkhov Front were pushing west to relieve Leningrad. The fighting on the Neva in October 1941 was bitter, but the paratroopers managed to hold off the Soviet attacks. The 7th Flieger Division's headquarters arrived at the front in mid-October, and the Parachute Engineer Battalion shortly after. The latter went straight into action in woods on the west side of the Neva. For the next two months the Red Army battered the Fallschirmjäger, to no avail. In December 1941, the Fallschirmjäger in the Leningrad area were pulled out of the line and sent back to Germany for rest.

The 2nd Parachute Regiment, a battalion of the Assault Regiment and units of the Antitank and Machine Gun Battalions were sent to the Ukraine to bolster Army Group South. This force - Kampfgruppe Sturm, commanded by Oberst Alfred Sturm - defended a sector along the River Mius around the town of Charzysk throughout the winter of 1941 and into early 1942.During this period the Russians and the weather inflicted heavy casualties on the paras.

Battles of attrition

The new year witnessed a number of Soviet offensives, against which the paratroopers showed their true worth. As élite troops they were ideally suited to holding ground in the face of overwhelming odds, as they had displayed on Crete. This certainly endeared them to Hitler, who was obsessed with not yielding an inch of territory. Kampfgruppe Sturm held all Soviet assaults, and Kampfgruppe Meindl (formed from the Assault Regiment's 1st Battalion, units of the Artillery Regiment and the Regimental Headquarters) was rushed south to reinforce Sturm's men. A series of battles developed in the Yuknov sector which lasted for weeks, with the paras holding back the Soviets and inflicting heavy casualties on the attackers. Once the attacks abated, Kampfgruppe Meindl was sent north to an area around the River Volkhov, southeast of Leningrad. In March 1942, the 2nd Parachute Regiment was also moved to the Volkhov Front, being placed under the command of the 21st Infantry Division.

The Soviet forces of the Volkhov and Northwest Fronts launched a massive offensive east of Leningrad to try to break the siege on 8 May. The 2nd Parachute Regiment, located in and around the small town of Lipovka, put up a desperate resistance and threw back waves of Soviet tanks and infantry. The paras held, but were so depleted that in July they were back in Germany for some well-earned rest. 

In the summer of 1942 the majority of the 7th Flieger Division was resting and refitting in Normandy, where a 4th Parachute Regiment was added to its order of battle to make up for the transfer of the 2nd Parachute Regiment to North Africa. This unit was commanded by Oberst Erich Walther.

During this period OKW devised a plan for an airdrop in southern Russia to capture a number of oil fields. This operation was cancelled in September, though, and the 7th Flieger Division was allocated to Army Group Centre. The division moved into positions near Smolensk, being tasked with defending a 90km (56-mile) sector north of the Smolensk-Vitebsk highway. The winter was fairly quiet, as the Wehrmacht and Red Army were locked in combat in and around Stalingrad farther south. The lull lasted until March 1943.

Expansion of the airborne arm

At the end of the month the Soviets opened their offensive against the positions held by the 7th Flieger Division. Massive artillery barrages and infantry and tank attacks failed to overrun the Fallschirmjäger. Generalmajor Richard Heidrich was allowed to pull his men out of the line once the attacks had petered out. Transferred to southern France, it was joined by the newly raised 2nd Parachute Division, and both divisions were grouped under XI Flieger Corps. The 7th Flieger Division now became the1st Parachute Division. All other para units fighting on the Eastern Front had been withdrawn for refitting by July 1943, but the worsening situation in Russia meant that it would not be long before they were again sent east.

Away from the front there was a major expansion of the German airborne arm in 1943. As well as the two divisions mentioned above, the 3rd Parachute Division was formed in October 1943 and the 4th Parachute Division was created in November 1943. The new divisions were needed: by end of the year the Germans had lost the Battle of Kursk and the strategic initiative in the East.

In early November 1943, the 2nd Parachute Division was ordered to the Eastern Front to take up positions near the Russian-held town of Zhitomir. Arriving between 17-27 November 1943 under the command of Generalleutnant Gustav Wilke, it was placed under the command of XXXXII Corps and deployed east of Zhitomir. The Red Army aim was to take Kiev, destroy the Fourth Panzer Army, seize communications centres west of the Dnieper, including Zhitomir, and eventually annihilate the entire German southern wing. By December the Red Army had massed a large force northeast of the city to breach the German defences and reach the Dniester, though German units managed to plug the gaps created by the Soviet advance. On 15 December the 2nd Parachute Division was airlifted to Kirovograd and put into the line at Klinzy. It was supported by the 11th Panzer Division and the 286th Self-Propelled Brigade. Fierce fighting developed around Novgorodka and the surrounding hills. By 23 December the division had stabilised the line, but had taken many casualties.

In early January 1944 the Red Army renewed its offensive against the 2nd Parachute Division, and numbers began to tell. The 2nd Battalion of 5th Regiment was destroyed, and by 6 January the 7th, 5th and 2nd Regiments had been forced to pull out of the Novgorodka area due to Red Army pressure. Taking up positions near Kirovograd, the paras dug in and waited for the next attack. It came in March, when Russian forces near Kiev struck south towards the 2nd Parachute Division's positions. By the last week of March the Fallschirmjäger had been forced across the River Bug where they set up defensive positions on the opposite bank. Being pushed back all the time, by May they were on the River Dniester. They had been decimated in the fighting, and so at the end of the month the division was transferred to Germany for rest and refitting. It was the last time that the 2nd Parachute Division would see action on the Eastern Front.

The only other paratrooper unit to see action in 1944 was the 21st Parachute Pioneer Battalion under the command of Major Rudolf Witzig of Eben Emael fame. In mid-1944 Army Group Centre had been shattered by the Red Army's Operation "Bagration", and by July the Soviets were approaching the Baltic. On 25 July 1944, Witzig's engineers were positioned on the road between Dunaburg and Kovno in Lithuania. The Soviet tanks, supported by infantry and artillery, attacked the next day. Despite fighting heroically the engineers were soon encircled, and Witzig was forced to retreat to the main German lines. Witzig's battalion stayed on the Eastern Front until October 1944, but by then it had been decimated by combat and was disbanded, the survivors being sent to other parachute units.

By the beginning of 1945 the Red Army was about to commence the final operations that would bring about victory on the Eastern Front. The Wehrmacht scraped together its last reserves for this final campaign, but at this stage of the war many units were very depleted both in personnel and equipment. The newly raised 9th and 10th Parachute Divisions, for example, were both understrength. The 9th was deployed outside Stettin on the Baltic, and in April it was containing a Russian bridgehead on the west bank of the River Oder. On the 16th the 9th was subjected to an intense artillery barrage, and from then on its units began to disintegrate. The 2nd Battalion, 27th Regiment, and the 3rd Battalion, 26th Regiment, were wiped out. The rest of the division pulled back, but was then overpowered by Soviet tanks.

By late April 1945 the Red Army had surrounded Berlin itself. What was left of the 9th Parachute Division withdrew to the central district of the city to defend the Führerbunker and surrounding ministry buildings. When the city surrendered the remnants of the division went into Soviet captivity.

The 10th Parachute Division was sent to southern Austria to contain a developing crisis early in April 1945: Soviet forces were flooding through Hungary, and Army Group South desperately needed reinforcements. On 3 April advance units of the division reached Graz. Digging in around the town of Feldbach, the paras held off T-34 tanks with infantry antitank weapons and 88mm guns. However, losses were high and the Artillery Battalion was all but destroyed.

On 27 April, the 10th Parachute Division was pulled out of the line (though the 30th Regiment remained in the Danube Valley) and transported by railway to Bruenn in the Sudetenland to join what was left of the Eighteenth Army. The remnants of the 10th Parachute Division made their last stand to the north of Bruenn, where they were wiped out. The 30th Regiment managed to surrender to US forces, but was subsequently handed over to the Russians. The Fallschirmjäger war on the Eastern Front was over.