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JohnF · 12-13-2002, 04:46 PM

I think that it might be quite difficult to trace the individual officer. If the unit is the 352nd Infantry regiment, it formed part of the 246th Infantry Division, which was destroyed at Vitebsk in June 1944. Records relating to Eastern Front units at that stage of the war are hard to come by. Another possibility might be the 352nd Artillery Regiment, which was part of the 352nd Volksgrenadier Division. This unit was listed as destroyed on the Western Front in April 1945.
There was also a 352nd Infantry Division, which opposed the Normandy landings, but I doubt if an officer would mark his pistol to the division in favour of the regiment - unless staff officers did that?
If this pistol was refurbished in East Germany then that may mean that it was taken at Vitebsk by the Russians and reissued to the East Germans after the war. That, of course, is pure speculation on my part.

12-13-2002, 04:46 PM	#3
JohnF User Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: UK Posts: 167 Thanks: 0 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	I think that it might be quite difficult to trace the individual officer. If the unit is the 352nd Infantry regiment, it formed part of the 246th Infantry Division, which was destroyed at Vitebsk in June 1944. Records relating to Eastern Front units at that stage of the war are hard to come by. Another possibility might be the 352nd Artillery Regiment, which was part of the 352nd Volksgrenadier Division. This unit was listed as destroyed on the Western Front in April 1945. There was also a 352nd Infantry Division, which opposed the Normandy landings, but I doubt if an officer would mark his pistol to the division in favour of the regiment - unless staff officers did that? If this pistol was refurbished in East Germany then that may mean that it was taken at Vitebsk by the Russians and reissued to the East Germans after the war. That, of course, is pure speculation on my part.