Alfred Becker

Alfred Becker (20 August 1899 – 26 December 1981) was a German engineer and artillery officer who served during the First and Second World Wars. During the Second World War he took captured British and French vehicles and refurbished and rebuilt them to supply the German army with armoured fighting vehicles. With his engineering and organizational skills, he converted the Hotchkiss plant on the outskirts of Paris into a vehicle modification and fabrication center. He used the vehicles to mobilize German guns, rocket launchers and mortars. Working with Altmärkische catenary Gmbh (Alkett), steel shielding was shipped from Germany to armour the vehicles. The men from his artillery command did the metal work and conversion on 1,800 recovered vehicles.

During the winter of 1943-44 Becker's work focused on equipping the 21st Panzer Division. He used the tracked carriages of French light tanks to mobilize the 7.5 cm Pak 40 anti-tank gun and the 10.5 cm leFH 18 howitzer. Becker had the tank turrets removed, mounted the guns upon the chassis and placed steel plates around the crew compartment to give them some measure of protection. The vehicles were formed into a fire support unit, the ''Sturmgeschütz Abteilung'' 200. Becker was made the commander of this motorized assault gun battalion, and led the unit during the battles in Normandy. Some of Becker's unit escaped the encirclement at Falaise and they retreated across France and into Belgium. Becker was captured in Alsace on the French/German border in December 1944.

First World War

Becker was born and raised in Krefeld. At the outset of The Great War Becker volunteered at the age of 15. He served in the artillery and became an officer. He was awarded the Iron Cross for his actions at Verdun and again at Cambrai. He was injured by poison gas a few weeks before the end of the war.

Interwar period

Following the armistice Becker attended university and earned a doctorate in mechanical engineering. He worked as a designer in the textile industry and was co-owner of the company Volkmann & Company in Krefeld. He also formed a small manufacturing firm, Alfred Becker AG of Bielefeld.

World War II

Battery chief

On 28 August 1939 Becker was called up to serve in the 227th Infantry Division "Rhine-Westphalian", drawn from the Krefeld area during the 3rd wave mobilization. Becker was made an officer in the division's 15th Artillery Regiment, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Edgar Feuchtinger. He was rapidly promoted to the rank of captain and made Batterychief of Battery #12. When Germany invaded Poland the 227th Infantry Division was on the western frontier with the 5th Army performing border protection in the Eifel region, near Belgium.

In December 1939 Becker's division was reassigned and became a part of Army Group B under command of ''Generalfeldmarshall'' Fedor von Bock, in preparation for ''Fall Gelb''. Becker's artillery regiment was re-numbered the 227th Artillery Regiment. On 10 May 1940 the division engaged in the offensive into the Netherlands and Belgium as part of the 18th Army. Becker's artillery battery provided fire support as the division made its way through Enschede and Deventer. All the guns in Becker's artillery regiment were pulled by horse drawn limbers and caissons, the standard practice for infantry divisions of the Heer. Becker's division reached the Grebbe line, where it was held up for three days. An attack on 13 May supported by artillery fire was unable to break the line. That night the Dutch forces withdrew under the cover of night. When the 227th went in to resume the attack the next morning they found the positions abandoned. Becker and the 227th crossed the Leie and continued the advance, taking Amersfoort just before the Dutch capitulation on 19 May 1940.

While his unit was at Amersfoort Becker came across the abandoned motor transport of a well-equipped Dutch artillery regiment. There were a large number of heavy vehicles which he believed he could use. To pull the artillery pieces, a battery such as Becker's depended on the use of 126 horses. To replace them, Becker chose the large wheeled Brossel TAL artillery lorry. Becker used other captured Belgian trucks to motorize the field piece transport of his division's reconnaissance battalion, thereby increasing this unit's mobility as well. The limbers were left behind, and later transported to France by rail. Motorizing the transport for his battery made it far more mobile, allowing his battery to keep up with the advance of the division's lead elements.

Early conversions

Following the German victory in France in July 1940 the 227th Division was assigned occupation, security and coastal defense duties along the Normandy coast near Le Havre. There Becker came across many discarded British light tanks and light personnel carriers. After achieving improved mobility by use of motor tractors, Becker considered the benefits that could be derived from mounting the guns directly onto the abandoned motorized carriages. Becker selected the light but reliable British Light Tank Mk.VI, more than 300 of which had been left behind, for the undercarriage. The design of this British light tank made them suitable for use as artillery self-propelled guns, since the motor, transmission, steering assembly and drive wheels were all grouped together in the front of the chassis, leaving the rear of the vehicle available for the gun and crew. The superstructure and turret of the tanks were removed, replaced by the installation of an artillery gun. The vehicle used a four-man crew.
Though the men in his battery had occupation duties, like Becker they were from Krefeld, an area with a strong manufacturing heritage. Many of his men had worked in manufacturing jobs and were skilled metal workers. Recruiting the men of his battery and working by shift day and night, he set about his project. Becker had the machine gun turret removed and mounted a 10.5 cm leFH 16 howitzer upon the chassis. The lightweight chassis of the Mk VI did not provide much mass to act as a counter to the heavy gun. To stabilize the howitzer when firing, Becker arrived at the solution to direct the recoil forces to the ground through a lowered rear spur. Becker's personal relationship with Deutsche Edelstahlwerke Gmbh in Krefeld secured the 20 mm thick armor plates used to protect the crew compartment. In six months his unit succeeded in creating a complete battery, mobilizing twelve of the battalion's 10.5 cm leFH 16 howitzers to make the , and he mounted six of the larger 15 cm sFH 13 guns on a larger chassis. In addition, he built twelve munitions-carrying versions of the Mk.VI, several munitions-carrying versions of the Bren gun carrier and four armoured command tank versions of the Mk. VI.

By mobilizing his guns Becker had built the first battery of self-propelled artillery. This marked the start of a development that led to the creation of a separate tank artillery, and was a significant contribution to the further development of the panzer division. The battery's initial test firing was done at the range at Harfleur near Le Havre, France. The complete battery was tested at the training grounds at Beverloo, Belgium. For his work on mobilizing the artillery pieces Becker was awarded the German Cross in Gold.

In June 1941 the German army invaded Soviet Russia. In September Becker and his 227th Infantry Division were transferred to Army Group North. His was the only infantry division on the Eastern Front to have a motorized artillery battery. By December the division had become involved in fighting near Leningrad. Becker's homemade self-propelled guns of the 12th Battery proved successful. Due to its mobility, Becker's unit was used as a fire brigade to reinforce areas that were in distress.

Over the course of the campaign it became apparent that German infantry formations had great difficulty defending against Soviet tank attacks. The standard anti-tank gun in use, the 3.7 cm Pak 36, did not have the penetrative power to stop the larger Soviet tanks, and the high mobility of the Soviet tank forces made it difficult to get the higher caliber weapons to where they were needed. Alkett had earlier made a conversion vehicle when they mounted a 4,7 cm Pak (t) anti-tank gun on a French Renault R35 chassis, and from May to October in 1941 had produced 174 of these . They also used the Renault R35 to produce the , which simply was the R35 with the turret removed to make a tractor. They produced 26 units of the tractor version.

Becker was ordered back from the east front to the Alkett company to consider a means by which they might mobilize the 7.5 cm Pak 40 anti-tank gun. Becker and the Alkett consultants worked closely together on the solution of the overall concept. Among the vehicles they considered for the project was the French built Lorraine tractor, about 360 of which had fallen into German hands. Due to its reliability, the Lorraine was well suited to the maneuver warfare battles the Germans favoured. The captured tractors had been first used by the Germans to pull artillery pieces, and were renamed the . These tractors provided the German army with a fully tracked vehicle to carry supplies or tow artillery pieces. Such a vehicle was badly needed due to the extremely poor road conditions in Russia, all the more so as the Germans had not yet produced such a vehicle themselves. The Lorraine chassis looked to be a good choice, as unlike German tank designs, the engine in the Lorraine was housed in the front of the vehicle, leaving the rear portion open for the housing and operation of the gun.

On 25 May 1942 a presentation of a self-propelled gun based on the Lorraine tractor was made. The presentation was successful and the decision made that all 160 Lorraine tractors still available should be converted into self-propelled guns, with 60 of them mounting the 7.5 cm Pak 40. On 4 June 1942, a final decision was made by Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel on the 78 Lorraine tractors repaired at the HKP Bielitz, and another 24 tractors were released for mounting of the 7.5 cm Pak 40. This became the tank hunter that was used initially to provide a mobile anti-tank defense for infantry divisions in the east.

In August 1942, one of the Becker-designed vehicles was withdrawn at the request of the German Army High Command, the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH), and shipped to Berlin. On 2 September 1942 it was presented in the garden of the Reich Chancellery by Becker and one of his crews to Adolf Hitler and officers in charge of the Army Ordnance Office. The demonstration was a success. The OKH chose Alkett in Berlin-Spandau to create more of these self-propelled artillery pieces. The Army Ordnance Department had made use of the Alkett plant in Berlin for this kind of work previously due to their manufacturing flexibility and workers skilled in solving problems in tank construction. Becker was transferred to this company and given access to their experience and expertise.

Becker's assignment at Alkett was to create mobile field pieces for Rommel in North Africa. The battles of the open desert placed a premium on mobility. Becker chose the French ammunition carriers as the platform for a self-propelled 150 mm sFH 18 heavy field howitzer. The Lorraine chassis, with its forward engine design, lent itself to this conversion. This vehicle, known then as , met with great approval from the OKH. The vehicles were shipped to North Africa for use with the Afrika Korps.

After Becker had completed this project he was ordered by Hitler to return to France, take an inventory of all remaining British and French armored vehicles, and determine if they were suitable for German requirements. He was then to collect them and convert them to practical German use. The order required Becker to create enough usable equipment to form "at least" two panzer divisions.

Baukommando Becker

Under the authority of the Reich Minister for Armaments and War Production Becker (Construction Unit Becker) was created. The command made use of three factories in France, the Matford Factory, the Talbot Factory and the Hotchkiss Factory, all near Paris. A large quantity of damaged Allied military vehicles were available in France, but their utility in 1942 was in serious doubt. Those French armoured vehicles undamaged following the campaign of 1940 had been assigned to occupation forces, training units and anti-partisan forces. These early French built tanks, designed with small gun turrets and mounting small caliber main guns, were of little value in 1942 for combat against such weapons as the Russian T-34. The German army did not assign them to front line troops. Though lightly armoured and under-gunned by the combat standards of the day, these were fully tracked vehicles, a feature which Becker believed could be usefully exploited. In addition to the wrecked and captured French and British tanks, Becker also had access to a large number of soft-skinned half-tracked vehicles such as the SOMUA MCG and the smaller Unic P107. These vehicles were in various states of disrepair, mostly located in northern France but present throughout the whole country, often left out and rusting in the elements. The task before Becker was enormous.
Becker set up his headquarters at the Matford Factory in Poissy in the Paris outskirts, just northwest of the city. He organized his men into special parties to commence a thorough search of the occupied territory in the west for wrecked vehicles previously thought useful only for scrapping. Vehicles were recovered from streams, rivers and fields and collected at the repair facilities near Paris.Imperial War Museum, German film archive, Alfred Becker
/ref> The vehicles collected were divided into three main groups: those requiring minor repairs and refits, those requiring major repair and refits, and those that were beyond use and were to be used as a source for spare parts. Becker was assigned an engineering staff, who set about their work modifying what was available.

The wrecks were disassembled, cleaned, and changes to the design were worked out. Then an assembly line was set up at one of the factories to do a production line on the type and a run of the modified vehicles was created. The bodies of the overhauled vehicles were given purpose appropriate superstructures. Becker's basic idea for the conversion was straightforward in principle: he would build a prototype of the replacement superstructure by framing it out of wood panels and sending these to Alkett. Alkett would then produce a run of replacement superstructures made out of steel. These were then shipped back to France where Becker had completed the engineering plans for the conversion. The conversion process was streamlined, the Hotchkiss assembly line was brought up and a run of assembly was completed. The vehicles were refitted and repaired by importance, all of one type at a time. Remaining parts were stored away for spares. A special effort was made to guarantee that a spare parts supply would be available. For important parts subject to special wear a 10% supply of parts was created, while for parts subject to general wear a 30% supply of parts was stored up. Leftover materials were shipped back to the steelworks.

The most innovative aspect of the work was the battle-value assessment of the vehicles, that is determining how to make the most effective use of each vehicle type in relation to the current battlefield conditions. From 1942 through 1943 Becker salvaged all the usable tank wreckage that could be found in France. Some 1,800 armoured fighting vehicles were created at his Becker, which produced a variety of innovative designs. From July to August 1942 Becker converted 170 armoured vehicles into the . A further 106 chassis were converted into self-propelled artillery pieces, with 94 conversions to carry the 150 mm howitzer, and 12 more for the 105 mm. In addition, he produced 30 artillery observation vehicles using this same chassis.

The artillerymen of the 12th Battery that Becker had left in Russia were in harsh conditions. Battling the cold and engaged in heavy fighting, over time their vehicles were slowly lost, either due to mines or from direct fire from Soviet tanks. When their guns were lost the surviving crews were put to use as infantrymen. The 227th Infantry Division was involved in heavy fighting near Leningrad defending against the Red Army's main offensive at Sinyavino Heights and the south shore of Lake Ladoga. From August through September 1942 the division suffered many casualties in this offensive, which was called the Battle of Lake Ladoga. Concerned for the men in his old unit and needing their skills for the work he was doing, Becker requested the transfer of the men from the 12th Battery back to his command in Paris. Strict rules prohibited such transfers of operational troops from Russia to France. Contacting his old divisional commander, Becker devised a work around. Making use of mandatory leave requirements, the commander of the 227th Infantry Division sent ten of Becker's Krefelders back to Germany each week. When their leave was up the men were ordered to France to report for duty at Becker. By Christmas 1942 almost all of Becker's men had reached Paris. In exchange Becker provided the commander of the 227th Infantry Division with 20 of his armoured vehicles.

In 1943 Becker began conversion of the Hotchkiss H35 and H39 light tanks, which had carried a 37 mm gun. He refitted them to mount a 7.5 cm Pak 40 anti-tank gun or 10.5 cm leFH 16 howitzer assault gun. These were the units that were used extensively in the equipping of the reformed 21st Panzer Division, and can be seen in images of Rommel reviewing the unit in May 1944.

Another major project undertaken at this time was the work he did on the soft-skinned French half-tracked vehicles, the SOMUA MCG and the Unic P107. Both these vehicles were armoured to make them more survivable in the battle environment. In addition he used the SOMUA MCG as a platform for a number of weapons, including the , the , and the , his own creation of a battery of up to twenty 81 mm mortars. The smaller Unic P107 light halftrack was reinforced with armour and used primarily as a troop carrier in substitute for the Sd.Kfz. 251.

Early in 1943 the Becker was visited by Albert Speer, and the Matford factory was reviewed by Speer, with General Feuchtinger and Major Becker. Film taken at this time documents the visit and shows many of the conversions completed at the site. A notation in the film states the film was taken so that Hitler could see what was being done there. Over the course of 1943 a number of other high ranking German officers visited Becker, including Erich Marcks, Gerd von Rundstedt, and Heinz Guderian.

On 15 March 1943 Major Becker's unit, the Brigade of Brigade West, participated in a memorial to the men of 15 Regiment 227 killed in action during the Leningrad siege of 1941-42. Becker and his officers laid wreaths in their memory.

Division West

Edgar Feuchtinger was appointed commander of a forming unit called Division West (Fast Division West). The divisions were conceived as highly mobile units that would be stationed in France to serve as a rapid response force. Being highly motorized, they were to be able to cover a great deal of ground to reach any point of invasion. The divisions were to be more completely motorized than a panzer division.

By 1943 German industry was hard pressed to produce the arms and vehicles needed to replace losses on the Eastern Front. Vehicles were in short supply, and as OKH was well aware of the production out of Becker, they made the unusual requirement that the reforming 21st Panzer Division not make a request for any equipment or vehicles. The OKH instruction issued 27 June 1943, read: "Equipment and vehicles are not allotted. It is expressly forbidden to requisition material for 21. Panzer Division in any way. The necessary equipment and motor vehicles are to be secured exclusively from captured French vehicles or from OB West." Feuchtinger turned to Becker, whom he had known from early in the war, to generate the equipment needed to motorize his unit. The brigade was equipped with captured French built tanks, which were under-gunned by 1943 standards. Becker produced a great many vehicles for , soon to be expanded into a division. In the summer of 1943 Feuchtinger gave Becker command of the 200, a part of his rebuilding 21st Panzer Division. 200 formed from the with four batteries. Becker's unit was equipped with his conversion assault guns. In addition, he had two batteries of 88 mm guns under his command. Becker produced a great number of half-tracks making use of captured and refurbished French vehicles. These he armoured. He produced enough of these to motorize one of the two infantry regiments of the 21st Division. To provide the division with mobile firepower he also mounted rockets, mortars and even 7.5 cm Pak 40 guns on these armoured half-tracks. The majority of this work was completed at Becker.

In early 1944, Becker's combat unit, 200, moved to its new deployment area near Mauron in Brittany. The unit's headquarters were in the town of Voves