Dragon 6053 German Signal Troops

In the German army at the end of World War I, about 189,000 officers and soldiers served in communication units, and the army was very well aware of the role of communication on the battlefield. In the period 1919-1933, i.e. in the Reichswehr era, communication was intensively developed, as evidenced by the fact that each of the then German infantry divisions (7 in number) had a communications battalion consisting of: headquarters, telephone company and radio company. In the years 1933-1939, the development of communications troops significantly accelerated, along with the rapid quantitative development of the German Wehrmacht. Two terms were also used to name communication units: Nachrichtentruppen (units securing higher-level communication - e.g. divisions or corps) and Truppen-Nachrichtenverbände (subunits responsible for communication on the levels from the regiment downwards). At the field army level, a special communications regiment consisting of three battalions with radio and telephone communications companies was responsible for communications. The army corps had its own communications battalion consisting of: headquarters, telephone and construction company, telephone and radio company, light communications column and a motor vehicle workshop. At the regiment and infantry battalion level, there were organic communications platoons ranging from 20 to 32 men. It is worth adding that all communication units were fully motorized or - later - mechanized.