15th Medical Battalion (German Army)



The 15th Medical Battalion (Sanitätsabteilung 15) was a non-combat battalion of the German Army Medical Service during the First World War, the interwar period and the Second World War. It was based in Frankfurt and consisted of personnel from Hesse.

Its personnel were military personnel, most of whom conscripted military physicians and other medics, but were non-combatants under international humanitarian law with the status of protected persons under the Geneva Conventions, entitled to use the red cross as a protective sign. While not formally part of it, voluntary Red Cross nurses served alongside it.

It consisted of the following squadrons:
 * Aschaffenburg Medical Squadron
 * Büdingen Medical Squadron
 * Frankfurt/Main Medical Squadron
 * Fulda Medical Squadron
 * Hanau Medical Squadron
 * Ohrdruf Medical Squadron

The battalion existed already during the First World War, originally as a battalion of the Royal Prussian Army. In 1919, its headquarters were moved to Kassel and it was merged with the 11th Medical Battalion. From the 1930s it was attached to the IX Army Corps and headquartered in Frankfurt.

Commanding officers

 * Colonel (later Major-General) Dr August Blum (1889–1952), 1938–26 August 1939
 * Colonel (later Brigadier General) Dr Georg Ludewig (1887–1962), 11 June 1940 – 11 June 1941

Literature

 * Alex Buchner, The German Army Medical Corps in World War II, Schiffer Publishing (Schiffer Military History), 1999, ISBN 0764306928, originally published in German as Der Sanitätsdienst des Heeres 1939–1945, Podzun-Pallas, 1995, ISBN 3790905542