Hello r/AskHistorians!
I am doing some research for a novel and much of it relies on rebuilding the events surrounding a small town/village in Lower Saxony, Germany by the name of Wetzen. I have eye witness accounts talking about black soldiers having been a big part of the force but after some googling, I only found the 761st tank bataillon and I am not sure if their route took them through Lower Saxony as I saw a picture on Wikipedia of them being stationed in Coburg which is way down south in Bavaria.
Could anyone help me find out which units were involved in the combat operations? Allied and Axis? Or could you point me to the archives that could help me find out? Thank you very much!
EDIT: The town I was talking about is actually called WEETZEN. It's southwest of Hannover. Still in Lower Saxony but definately not near the scenario I mentioned before.
There is a pretty comprehensive book on the fighting in the region. I haven't read it, but I think, it might include Wetzen or at least the operations in which Wetzen was seized. It's this one:
Feit, Andre; Bechtold Dieter Die letzte Front: Die Kämpfe an der Elbe 1945 im Bereich Lüneburg – Lauenburg – Lübeck – Ludwigslust
In this forum a certain 'Andre' advertises the release of this book, from my understanding it should be co-author Andre Feit, maybe this could be a way to contact him:
This is a local report on a public reading of the book, in the end there's a telephone number for further information (0171/504 45), I'm not sure, but it might also be Andre Feit's number, maybe worth a try:
Landkreis Uelzen borders directly to Landkreis Lüneburg, and in Uelzen exists a so called 'Geschichtswerkstatt' ('history workshop') with a 'Projekt Kriegsende' ('Project End-of-the-War'), the last entry is, from what I've seen, from early 2018 though
http://geschichtswerkstatt-uelzen.de/projekte_kriegsende.html
but this is the contact anyway:
http://geschichtswerkstatt-uelzen.de/Kontakt.html
Even if they can't help you directly they might now who could