First of all I hope this is the correct Subreddit for this.
So I was browsing threw some old family books when I was home for Christmas and stumbled upon my grandfathers old school atlas. I was flipping through the pages until I came across a map of Poland and noticed handwriting on it. I knew my grandfather joined the German army at the age of 17. After I asked my dad about it he said his father never really talked about the war and destroyed all his fills before passing away. All we know is that my grandfather was involved with tanks, he said he used to look out the top of the tank, so maybe a tank commander? So I guess im asking if anyone could help me find out what division he was in or something like that.
The retreat from Warsaw that's plotted on the map corresponds in time and places to the so called "wandering cauldron of Kielce" of parts of the 342 Infantry Division - more specifically the XXIVth Panzerkorps. "Cauldron battle" is the German term for an encirclement battle - the troops were encircled by the Soviet troops and fought themselves free along Petrikau, Shiraz, Kalisch and Lissa on to Glogau in Germany. These places are all marked on the map in a dashed line, most likely to mark a retreat (opposed to the straight line marking the march to the front to Warschau/Warsaw).
While I haven't been able to pinpoint any more specific units your grandfather may have fought in, I hope this might serve as a first pointer to someone more versed in these matters than me. It's late here and I need to go to bed, but I'll have another look at it tomorrow and try to find out about these battles around Warsaw to further narrow down which unit your grandfather may have belonged to.
Edit: Had another quick glance at the map - the unit your grandpa was in seems to have ended the war near the town of Budweis/Budějovice. (From the location on the map, even though it is not mapped itself. But if you'd draw a triangle between Budweis, Prague and Pilsen, and put it on the map from your grandfather, you'd get approximately the same area that he plotted). The XXIVth Panzerkorps ended the war in this area and was dissolved there, so it seems very likely that your grandfather volunteered/got drafted, trained in Germany and sent to Warsaw where he joined the XXIVth Panzerkorps, fought in the retreating battles of the Eastern front and then saw the end of the war in the Czech Republic.
Looks like your gramps helped stifle the Warsaw Uprising. Knowing the number and scale of atrocities commited by Germans against the people of Warsaw during that time, odds are good that your grandfather was a war criminal, which would explain his secrecy.
I highly recommend that you visit the Warsaw Uprising Museum any chance you get if you want to learn more, it's a life-changing experience.
