The 4th
Luftwaffe Field Division, one of several
Luftwaffe Field Divisions of the
Luftwaffe (German Air Force), was formed in mid-1942 in Gross-Born Troop Maneuver Area, under the command of
Oberst Rainer Stahel. Intended to serve as infantry, its personnel were largely drawn from surplus
Luftwaffe ground crew as well as men who were training at Flieger-Ausbildungs Regiment 14 in Austria. In November 1942, it was assigned to
Army Group Centre on the
Eastern Front. Posted to a sector near
Vitebsk as part of the
II Luftwaffe Field Corps, commanded by
Alfred Schlemm, it had the task of securing the connection between
Army Groups North and Centre and defended this sector against Soviet operations. It fought in the
Battle of Nevel and through the autumn/winter of 1943 around
Vitebsk in
Byelorussia. In November 1943, responsibility for the division was transferred to the
Army and it was renamed
4th Field Division (L). Its Field
Jager battalions became the 49th, 50th and 51st
Jager regiments. Early the following year, it received some of the surviving personnel of the
3rd Field Division (L), which had just been disbanded. In the summer of 1944, the 4th Field Division (L) was still defending Vitebsk as part of the
LIII Corps in the
3rd Panzer Army. When the Red Army began the
Vitebsk–Orsha Offensive of
Operation Bagration on 22 June 1944, the corps was surrounded within days. Encircled at Vitebsk it was subsequently destroyed, along with LIII Corps, with the divisional commander,
Generalleutnant Robert Pistorious, killed in action. ==Commanders==