Operation Gneisenau (ii)

(German field marshal of the Napoleonic Wars)

'Gneisenau' (ii) was a German emergency programme to create additional and much-needed front-line units by the use of troops stationed in the Wehrkreise (military districts) of Germany (September 1944/January 1945).

There were two such efforts, the first triggered in September 1944 by the crisis in Germany military fortunes after the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944 and subsequent break-out across France, and the second by the crisis on the Eastern Front in January 1945.