[VideoView]
Konstantin Forestier
"fast division"
video length:
03:18
interviewer:
Ruth Deutschmann
photography:
Benjamin Epp
copyright location:
Innsbruck
date of recording:
2008-08-20
English translation by:
Sylvia Manning ? Baumgartner
Italian translation by:
Nicole D´Incecco
???iuimd_video_v_zeit_zuordnung_en???:
1936
transcription:
Maybe you still remember: We had an automobile company: Austro Daimler Steyr. It was contracted by the former military administration to build a vehicle, which didn’t run on chains, but on wheels, which was fully all-terrain. The army was of the opinion that a re-organisation of the army had to be carried out. This was also implemented. The original military of the first republic had six bicycle battalions. These six bicycle battalions got re-structured. The first two - they still had money then - were equipped with Austro Daimler Steyer vehicles, which were the best you could get in Central Europe,at that time. Pretty much the whole army of the Third Reich was built on the basis of these two battalions. They didn’t want to know, and they also didn’t want to admit, that is was like that, but it’s a fact. All the motorized companies were on all-terrain vehicles.The vehicles could go for cover. On one vehicle you could get a group of ten men. The Austrian army back then set up the so called ?fast division’.But exactly like in Germany more than once it happened that the different components never fit together. This 'fast division' consisted of two mounted regiments, then a few bicycle battalions and motorized battalions, and also artillery. Nevertheless it was progress.