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)
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“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The view of Jerusalem is the history of the world; it is more, it is the history of earth and of heaven.”
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)
“The history of a soldier’s wound beguiles the pain of it.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)