1.
12th Panzer Division (Bundeswehr)
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The 12th Panzer Division was a West German armoured formation. It was part of the III Corps of the Bundeswehr, which incorporated in 1985 the 5th Panzer Division. III Corps was part of NATOs Central Army Group, along with the Bundeswehrs II Corps, in the wake of military restructuring brought about by the end of the Cold War, the 12th Panzer Division was disbanded in 1994. The division was constituted as the 12th Panzergrenadier Division in Tauberbischofsheim on January 1,1961, at that time, it commanded the 35th Panzergrenadier Brigade, and in 1963 the 36th Panzer Brigade was also subordinated to the division. Subsequently, the 12th was re-designated a panzer division, in 1970, the division was relieved from assignment to the II Corps and assigned to the III Corps. A third active brigade was not authorized for the division until 1975 during the Heeresstruktur III reforms, by 1977, the divisions main components were the 14th Panzer, the 35th Panzergrenadier, and the 36th Panzer Brigades. In 1981, the 14th Panzer Brigade became the 34th Panzer Brigade, following the end of the Cold War, the 12th Panzer Division was disbanded in 1994
2.
Division (military)
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A division is a large military unit or formation, usually consisting of between 10,000 and 20,000 soldiers. Infantry divisions during the World Wars ranged between 10,000 and 30,000 in nominal strength, in most armies, a division is composed of several regiments or brigades, in turn, several divisions typically make up a corps. In the West, the first general to think of organising an army into smaller units was Maurice de Saxe, Marshal General of France. He died at the age of 54, without having implemented his idea, victor-François de Broglie put the ideas into practice. He conducted successful practical experiments of the system in the Seven Years War. The first war in which the system was used systematically was the French Revolutionary War. It made the more flexible and easy to manoeuvre. Under Napoleon, the divisions were grouped together into corps, because of their increasing size, napoleons military success spread the divisional and corps system all over Europe, by the end of the Napoleonic Wars, all armies in Europe had adopted it. In modern times, most military forces have standardized their divisional structures, the peak use of the division as the primary combat unit occurred during World War II, when the belligerents deployed over a thousand divisions. With technological advances since then, the power of each division has increased. Divisions are often formed to organize units of a particular type together with support units to allow independent operations. In more recent times, divisions have mainly been organized as combined arms units with subordinate units representing various combat arms, in this case, the division often retains the name of a more specialized division, and may still be tasked with a primary role suited to that specialization. For the most part, large cavalry units did not remain after World War II, in general, two new types of cavalry were developed, air cavalry or airmobile, relying on helicopter mobility, and armored cavalry, based on an autonomous armored formation. The former was pioneered by the 11th Air Assault Division, formed on 1 February 1963 at Fort Benning, on 29 June 1965 the division was renamed as the 1st Cavalry Division, before its departure for the Vietnam War. After the end of the Vietnam War, the 1st Cavalry Division was reorganised and re-equipped with tanks, the development of the tank during World War I prompted some nations to experiment with forming them into division-size units. Many did this the way as they did cavalry divisions, by merely replacing cavalry with AFVs. This proved unwieldy in combat, as the units had many tanks, instead, a more balanced approach was taken by adjusting the number of tank, infantry, artillery, and support units. A panzer division was a division of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS of Germany during World War II
3.
NATO Joint Military Symbology
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NATO Joint Military Symbology is the NATO standard for military map marking symbols. Originally published in 1986 as Allied Procedural Publication 6, NATO Military Symbols for Land Based Systems the standard has evolved over the years and is currently in its fourth version, the symbols are designed to enhance NATO’s joint interoperability by providing a standard set of common symbols. It covers all of the joint services and can be used by them, the first basic military map symbols began to be used by western armies in the decades following the end of the Napoleonic Wars. However, the now in use is broadly based on that devised by the US Army Corps of Engineers in 1917. The infantry symbol of a saltire in a rectangle was said to symbolise the crossed belts of an infantryman, with the formation of NATO in 1949, the US Army system was standardised and adapted, with different shapes for friendly, hostile and unknown forces. APP-6A was promulgated in December 1999, the NATO standardization agreement that covers APP-6A is STANAG2019, promulgated in December 2000. APP-6A replaced APP-6, which had been promulgated in November 1984, the U. S. is the current custodian of APP-6A, which is equivalent to MIL-STD-2525A. APP-6A addresses the efficient transmission of information through the use of a standard methodology for symbol hierarchy, information taxonomy. All sorts of graphical and textual modifiers may surround them, specifying categories, quantities, dates, direction of movement, there are point, line and area symbols in this category. Meteorological and oceanographic symbology is the set not under the standards control, rather. The Signals Intelligence and Military Operations Other Than War symbology sets stand apart from Units, Equipment and they do not appear in APP-6A proper, having been introduced by MIL-STD-2525B. Most of the symbols designate specific points, and consist of a frame, a fill, a constituent icon, the latter are optional text fields or graphic indicators that provide additional information. The frame provides an indication of the affiliation, battle dimension. The use of shape and colour is redundant, allowing the symbology to be used under conditions such as a monochrome red display to preserve the operators night vision. The frame serves as the base to which other symbol components, in most cases a frame surrounds an icon. One major exception is equipment, which may be represented by icons alone, the fill is the area within a symbol. If the fill is assigned a colour, it provides an enhanced presentation of information about the affiliation of the object, if colour is not used, the fill is transparent. A very few icons have fills of their own, which are not affected by affiliation, the icons themselves, finally, can be understood as combinations of elementary glyphs that use simple composition rules, in a manner reminiscent of some ideographic writing systems such as Chinese
4.
Panzer
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Panzer /ˈpænzər/ is a German word that means armour. It is also used by the Germans as an abbreviation meaning armoured fighting vehicle or tank, the full German word for armoured combat vehicle is Panzerkampfwagen. The word Panzer is occasionally used in English and some languages as a loanword in the contexts of German military. It is mostly used in the names of military formations. The dated but official German term is Panzerkampfwagen, ‘tank’ or literally ‘armoured combat vehicle’, the first German tank, the A7V of 1918, was referred to as Sturmpanzerwagen. The German word Panzer refers to any kind of armour, as in Plattenpanzer, ‘plate armour’, Kettenpanzer, ‘mail’, or generally gepanzert, the word also refers to an animals protective shell or thick hide, as in Schildkrötenpanzer, ‘turtle shell. Steel electrical conduit is called Stahlpanzerrohr, literally steel armour pipe, bulletproof glass is called Panzerglas, literally armoured glass. It derives through the French word pancier, ‘breastplate’, from Latin pantex, ‘belly, paunch’, German tanks in World War II Panzerschreck Panzerschiff
5.
Nazi Germany
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Nazi Germany is the common English name for the period in German history from 1933 to 1945, when Germany was governed by a dictatorship under the control of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Under Hitlers rule, Germany was transformed into a fascist state in which the Nazi Party took totalitarian control over all aspects of life. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich from 1933 to 1943, the period is also known under the names the Third Reich and the National Socialist Period. The Nazi regime came to an end after the Allied Powers defeated Germany in May 1945, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933. The Nazi Party then began to eliminate all opposition and consolidate its power. Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, and Hitler became dictator of Germany by merging the powers and offices of the Chancellery, a national referendum held 19 August 1934 confirmed Hitler as sole Führer of Germany. All power was centralised in Hitlers person, and his word became above all laws, the government was not a coordinated, co-operating body, but a collection of factions struggling for power and Hitlers favour. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending, extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of Autobahnen. The return to economic stability boosted the regimes popularity, racism, especially antisemitism, was a central feature of the regime. The Germanic peoples were considered by the Nazis to be the purest branch of the Aryan race, millions of Jews and other peoples deemed undesirable by the state were murdered in the Holocaust. Opposition to Hitlers rule was ruthlessly suppressed, members of the liberal, socialist, and communist opposition were killed, imprisoned, or exiled. The Christian churches were also oppressed, with many leaders imprisoned, education focused on racial biology, population policy, and fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed, recreation and tourism were organised via the Strength Through Joy program, and the 1936 Summer Olympics showcased the Third Reich on the international stage. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels made effective use of film, mass rallies, the government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others. Beginning in the late 1930s, Nazi Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands and it seized Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939. Hitler made a pact with Joseph Stalin and invaded Poland in September 1939. In alliance with Italy and smaller Axis powers, Germany conquered most of Europe by 1940, reichskommissariats took control of conquered areas, and a German administration was established in what was left of Poland. Jews and others deemed undesirable were imprisoned, murdered in Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the tide gradually turned against the Nazis, who suffered major military defeats in 1943
6.
German Army (Wehrmacht)
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The German Army was the land forces component of the Wehrmacht, the regular German Armed Forces, from 1935 until it was demobilized and later dissolved in August 1946. The Wehrmacht also included the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe, during World War II, a total of about 13 million soldiers served in the German Army. Only 17 months after Adolf Hitler announced publicly the rearmament program, during the autumn of 1937, two more corps were formed. In 1938, four corps were formed with the inclusion of the five divisions of the Austrian Army after the Anschluss in March. During the period of its expansion by Adolf Hitler, the German Army continued to develop concepts pioneered during World War I, combining ground, the German Army entered the war with a majority of its infantry formations relying on horse-drawn transport. The infantry remained foot soldiers throughout the war, artillery also remained primarily horse-drawn, however their motorized and tank formations accounted for only 20% of the Heers capacity at their peak strength. The armys lack of trucks was a handicap to infantry movement especially during. Panzer movements also depended upon rail, driving a tank over 150 kilometers wore out its tracks, the Oberkommando des Heeres was Germanys Army High Command from 1936 to 1945. In theory the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht served as the military General Staff for the German Reichs armed forces, in practice OKW acted in a subordinate role as Hitlers personal military staff, translating his ideas into military plans and orders, and issuing them to the three services. However, as the war progressed the OKW found itself exercising increasing amounts of direct command authority over military units and this created a situation where by 1943 the OKW was the de facto command of Western Theatre forces while the Army High Command is the same on the Eastern Front. The Abwehr was the Army intelligence organization from 1921 to 1944, the term Abwehr was used as a concession to Allied demands that Germanys post-World War I intelligence activities be for defensive purposes only. After 4 February 1938, its title was Overseas Department/Office in Defence of the Armed Forces High Command, the method OKW adopted was to separate the Field Army from the Home Command, and to entrust the responsibilities of training, conscription, supply and equipment to Home Command. The German Army was mainly structured in Army groups consisting of several armies that were relocated, restructured or renamed in the course of the war, Forces or allied states as well as units made up of non-Germans were also assigned to German units. The army used the German term Kampfgruppe which equates to the English combat group or battle group and these provisional combat groupings ranged from an Army Corps size such as Army Detachment Kempf to commands composed of several companies and even platoons. They were named for their commanding officers, German operational doctrine emphasized sweeping pincer and lateral movements meant to destroy the enemy forces as quickly as possible. This approach, referred to as Blitzkrieg, was an operational doctrine instrumental in the success of the offensives in Poland, the military strength of the German army was managed through mission-based tactics, and an almost proverbial discipline. Once an operation began, whether offensive or defensive, speed in response to changing circumstances was considered more important than careful planning and coordination of new plans. These technologies were featured by propaganda, but were only available in small numbers or late in the war, as overall supplies of raw materials
7.
Armoured warfare
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Armoured warfare, mechanised warfare or tank warfare is the use of armoured fighting vehicles in modern warfare. It is a component of modern methods of war. The premise of armoured warfare rests on the ability of troops to penetrate defensive lines through use of manoeuvre by armoured units. Under these conditions, any sort of advance was very slow. Tanks were first developed in Britain and France in 1915, as a way of navigating the barbed wire, British Mark I tanks first went to action at the Somme, on 15 September 1916, but did not manage to break the deadlock of trench warfare. The first French employment on 16 April 1917, of the Schneider CA, was also a failure, in the Battle of Cambrai British tanks were more successful, and broke a German trenchline system, the Hindenburg Line. Despite the generally unpromising beginnings, the military and political leadership in both Britain and France during 1917 backed large investments into armoured vehicle production and this led to a sharp increase in the number of available tanks for 1918. The German Empire to the contrary, produced only a few tanks, twenty German A7V tanks were produced during the entire conflict, compared to over 4,400 French and over 2,500 British tanks of various kinds. Tactically, the deployment of armour during the war was typified by an emphasis on direct infantry support. The tanks main tasks were seen as crushing barbed wire and destroying machine-gun nests, theoretical debate largely focussed on the question whether a swarm of light tanks should be used for this or a limited number of potent heavy vehicles. Though in the Battle of Cambrai a large concentration of British heavy tanks effected a breakthrough, the manoeuvrability of the tank should at least in theory regain armies the ability to flank enemy lines. Following the First World War, the technical and doctrinal aspects of armoured warfare became more sophisticated and diverged into multiple schools of doctrinal thought, during the 1920s, only very few tanks were produced. There were however, important theoretical and technical developments, various British and French commanders who had contributed to the origin of the tank, such as Jean Baptiste Eugène Estienne, B. H. Liddell Hart and J. F. C. Fuller, theorised about a future use of independent armoured forces, containing a large concentration of tanks. Especially Liddell Hart wrote many books about the subject, partly propagating Fullers theories, such doctrines were faced with the reality that during the 1920s the armoured vehicles, as early road transport in general, were extremely unreliable, and could not be used in sustained operations. Mainstream thought on the subject was more conservative and tried to integrate armoured vehicles into the infantry and cavalry organisation. To save weight, such designs had thin armour plating and this inspired fitting small-calibre high-velocity guns in turrets, J. Collins, after Fuller refused the function. The unit carried out operations on Salisbury Plain and was observed by the major nations, the United States, Germany
8.
Wehrmacht
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The Wehrmacht was the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1946. It consisted of the Heer, the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe, after the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, one of Adolf Hitler’s most overt and audacious moves was to establish the Wehrmacht, a modern armed forces fully capable of offensive use. In December 1941, Hitler designated himself as commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht, the Wehrmacht formed the heart of Germany’s politico-military power. In the early part of World War II, Hitlers generals employed the Wehrmacht through innovative combined arms tactics to devastating effect in what was called a Blitzkrieg, the Wehrmachts new military structure, unique combat techniques, newly developed weapons, and unprecedented speed and brutality crushed their opponents. Closely cooperating with the SS, the German armed forces committed war crimes and atrocities. By the time the war ended in Europe in May 1945, only a few of the Wehrmacht’s upper leadership were tried for war crimes, despite evidence suggesting that more were involved in illegal actions. The German term Wehrmacht generically describes any nations armed forces, for example, the Frankfurt Constitution of 1848 designated all German military forces as the German Wehrmacht, consisting of the Seemacht and the Landmacht. In 1919, the term Wehrmacht also appears in Article 47 of the Weimar Constitution, establishing that, from 1919, Germanys national defense force was known as the Reichswehr, a name that was dropped in favor of Wehrmacht on 21 May 1935. In January 1919, after World War I ended with the signing of the armistice of 11 November 1918, in March 1919, the national assembly passed a law founding a 420, 000-strong preliminary army, the Vorläufige Reichswehr. The terms of the Treaty of Versailles were announced in May, the army was limited to one hundred thousand men with an additional fifteen thousand in the navy. The fleet was to consist of at most six battleships, six cruisers, submarines, tanks and heavy artillery were forbidden and the air-force was dissolved. A new post-war military, the Reichswehr, was established on 23 March 1921, General conscription was abolished under another mandate of the Versailles treaty. The Reichswehr was limited to 115,000 men, and thus the armed forces, under the leadership of Hans von Seeckt, though Seeckt retired in 1926, the army that went to war in 1939 was largely his creation. Germany was forbidden to have an air-force by the Versailles treaty, nonetheless and these officers saw the role of an air-force as winning air-superiority, tactical and strategic bombing and providing ground support. That the Luftwaffe did not develop a strategic bombing force in the 1930s was not due to a lack of interest, but because of economic limitations. The leadership of the Navy led by Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, officers who believed in submarine warfare led by Admiral Karl Dönitz were in a minority before 1939. By 1922, Germany had begun covertly circumventing the conditions of the Versailles Treaty, a secret collaboration with the Soviet Union began after the treaty of Rapallo. Major-General Otto Hasse traveled to Moscow in 1923 to further negotiate the terms, Germany helped the Soviet Union with industrialization and Soviet officers were to be trained in Germany
9.
Military district (Germany)
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The Field Army was separate from the Home Command. The responsibilities of training, conscription, supply, and equipment were entrusted to the Home Command, in peacetime, the Wehrkreis was the home to the army corps of the same number and all subordinate units of that formation. The corps commander also commanded the Wehrkreis, Command of the Wehrkreis passed to the corps second-in-command at the outbreak of war. Before the start of the war, there were also four Motorized Army Corps and these had no corresponding military districts, but were served by the districts in which Corps headquarters or subordinate formations had their Home Garrison Stations. Armeekorps Each Wehrkreis controlled Wehrbezirk Hauptquartier and Wehrersatzbezirk Hauptquartier and these in turn controlled Bereich Hauptsitze, which controlled Unterregion Hauptsitze. At the start of the war, there were fifteen Districts in Germany, during the war, four were added, and some Districts had territory added to them from other countries conquered by Germany. XX - Danzig XXI - Posen Two additional Wehrkreise were established after the conquest of Poland, Wehrkreis General-Government controlled the remainder of Poland. Wehrkreis Böhmen-Mähren controlled the so-called Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia, those parts of the Czech lands not part of the Sudetenland, hogg, Ian V. German Order of Battle 1944, The Regiments, Formations and Units of the German Ground Forces London
10.
Szczecin
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Szczecin is the capital city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in Poland. Located near the Baltic Sea, it is a major seaport, as of June 2011, the population was 407,811. Szczecin is located on the Oder, south of the Szczecin Lagoon, the city is situated along the southwestern shore of Dąbie Lake, on both sides of the Oder and on several large islands between the western and eastern branches of the river. The citys recorded history began in the 8th century as a Slavic Pomeranian stronghold, in the 12th century, when Szczecin had become one of Pomeranias main urban centres, it lost its independence to Piast Poland, the Duchy of Saxony, the Holy Roman Empire and Denmark. At the same time, the House of Griffins established themselves as rulers, the population was Christianized. The native Slavic population was subjected to discrimination and Germanization in the following centuries, between 1237 and 1243, the town was rebuilt, granted extensive autonomy rights and eventually joined the Hanseatic League. After the Treaty of Stettin in 1630, the town came under the control of the Swedish Empire, in the late-19th century Stettin became an industrial town, vastly increasing in size and population, and served as a major port for Berlin. During the Nazi era, opposition groups and minorities were persecuted and treated as enemies, by the end of World War II Stettins status was in doubt, and the Soviet occupation authorities at first appointed officials from the citys almost entirely German pre-war population. In July 1945, however, Polish authorities were permitted to take power, Stettin was renamed Szczecin and became part of the newly established the Polish Peoples Republic, and from 1989 the Republic of Poland. From 1999 onwards, Szczecin has served as the site of the headquarters of NATOs Multinational Corps Northeast, the names Szczecin and Stettin are of Slavic origin, though the exact etymology is the subject of ongoing research. Other medieval names for the town are Burstaborg and Burstenburgh and these names, which literally mean brush burgh, are likely derived from the translation of the citys Slavic name. The recorded history of Szczecin began in the century, when West Slavs settled Pomerania. Since the 9th century, the stronghold was fortified and expanded toward the Oder bank, Mieszko I of Poland took control of Pomerania between 960 and 967, and the region with the city of Szczecin became part of Poland in 967. Subsequent Polish rulers, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Liutician federation all aimed to control the territory, after the decline of the neighbouring regional centre Wolin in the 12th century, the city became one of the more important and powerful seaports of the Baltic Sea. In a campaign in the winter of 1121–1122, Bolesław III Wrymouth, the inhabitants were Christianized by two missions of Bishop Otto of Bamberg in 1124 and 1128. At this time, the first Christian church of Saints Peter, Polish minted coins were commonly used in trade in this period. The population of the city at that time is estimated to be at around 5, Polish rule ended with Boleslaws death in 1138. There, a Polish contingent supplied by Mieszko III the Old joined the crusaders, however, the citizens had placed crosses around the fortifications, indicating they already had been Christianised
11.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
12.
Operation Barbarossa
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Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Nazi Germanys invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II, which was launched on Sunday 22 June 1941. In the two leading up to the invasion, the two countries signed political and economic pacts for strategic purposes. Nevertheless, the German High Command began planning an invasion of the Soviet Union in July 1940, over the course of the operation, about four million Axis personnel invaded the western Soviet Union along a 2, 900-kilometer front, the largest invasion force in the history of warfare. In addition to troops, the Wehrmacht employed some 600,000 motor vehicles, the offensive marked an escalation of the war, both geographically and in the formation of the Allied coalition. Despite their successes, the German offensive stalled in the Battle of Moscow and was pushed back by the Soviet winter counteroffensive. The Red Army repelled the Wehrmachts strongest blows and forced the unprepared Germans into a war of attrition, the Wehrmacht would never again mount a simultaneous offensive along the entire strategic Soviet–Axis front. The failure of the operation drove Hitler to demand further operations of limited scope inside the Soviet Union, such as Case Blue. The failure of Operation Barbarossa proved a point in the fortunes of the Third Reich. Most importantly, the operation opened up the Eastern Front, in more forces were committed than in any other theater of war in world history. The German armies captured 5,000,000 Soviet prisoners of war who were not granted protections stipulated in the Geneva Conventions, a majority of them never returned alive. The Nazis deliberately starved 3.1 million of the prisoners to death as part of a Hunger Plan that aimed to reduce the population of Eastern Europe, over a million Soviet Jews were murdered by Einsatzgruppen death squads and gassing as part of the Holocaust. On 10 February 1939, Hitler told his commanders that the next war would be purely a war of Weltanschauungen. Totally a peoples war, a racial war, on 23 November, once World War II had already started, Hitler declared that racial war has broken out and this war shall determine who shall govern Europe, and with it, the world. The racial policy of Nazi Germany viewed the Soviet Union as populated by non-Aryan Untermenschen, Hitler claimed in Mein Kampf that Germanys destiny was to turn to the East as it did six hundred years ago. Accordingly, it was stated Nazi policy to kill, deport, or enslave the majority of Russian and other Slavic populations and repopulate the land with Germanic peoples, under the Generalplan Ost. Likening the Soviets to the forces of Genghis Khan, Hitler told Croatian military leader Slavko Kvaternik that the Mongolian race threatened Europe. Following the invasion, Wehrmacht officers told their soldiers to target people who were described as Jewish Bolshevik subhumans, the Mongol hordes, the Asiatic flood, German army commanders cast the Jews as the major cause behind the partisan struggle. The main guideline policy for German troops was Where theres a partisan, theres a Jew, many German troops viewed the war in Nazi terms and regarded their Soviet enemies as sub-human
13.
Battle of Kursk
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The Battle of Kursk was a Second World War engagement between German and Soviet forces on the Eastern Front near Kursk in the Soviet Union during July and August 1943. The German offensive was code-named Operation Citadel and led to one of the largest armoured clashes in history, the German offensive was countered by two Soviet counter-offensives, Operation Polkovodets Rumyantsev and Operation Kutuzov. For the Germans, the battle was the strategic offensive that they were able to launch on the Eastern Front. Their extensive loss of men and tanks ensured that the victorious Soviet Red Army enjoyed the strategic initiative for the remainder of the war. The Germans hoped to weaken the Soviet offensive potential for the summer of 1943 by cutting off a number of forces that they anticipated would be in the Kursk salient. The Kursk salient or bulge was 250 kilometres long north to south and 160 kilometres from east to west. The plan envisioned an envelopment by a pair of breaking through the northern and southern flanks of the salient. Adolf Hitler believed that a victory here would reassert German strength and improve his prestige with his allies and it was also hoped that large numbers of Soviet prisoners would be captured to be used as slave labour in the German armaments industry. The Soviet government had foreknowledge of the German intentions, provided in part by the British intelligence service, aware months in advance that the attack would fall on the neck of the Kursk salient, the Soviets built a defence in depth designed to wear down the German armoured spearhead. The Germans delayed the offensive while they tried to build up their forces and waited for new weapons, mainly the new Panther tank and this gave the Red Army time to construct a series of deep defensive belts. The defensive preparations included minefields, fortifications, artillery fire zones and anti-tank strong points, Soviet mobile formations were moved out of the salient and a large reserve force was formed for strategic counter-offensives. The Battle of Kursk was the first time in the Second World War that a German strategic offensive was halted before it could break through enemy defences, the maximum depth of the German advance was 8–12 kilometres in the north and 35 kilometres in the south. Though the Red Army had succeeded in winter offensives previously, their counter-offensives following the German attack at Kursk were their first successful strategic summer offensives of the war. As the Battle of Stalingrad slowly ground to its conclusion the Red Army moved to an offensive in the south. Army Group Center came under significant pressure as well, Kursk fell to the Soviets on 8 February 1943, and Rostov on 14 February. The Soviet Bryansk, Western, and newly created Central Fronts prepared for an offensive which envisioned the encirclement of Army Group Center between Bryansk and Smolensk, by February 1943 the southern sector of the German front was in strategic crisis. Since December 1942 Field Marshal Erich von Manstein had been strongly requesting unrestricted operational freedom to him to use his forces in a fluid manner. On 6 February 1943, Manstein met with Hitler at the headquarters in Rasternburg to discuss the proposals he had previously sent and he received an approval from Hitler for a counteroffensive against the Soviet forces advancing in the Donbass region
14.
Courland Pocket
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The Courland Pocket refers to the Red Armys blockade or isolation of Axis forces on the Courland Peninsula from July 1944 through May 1945. The Soviet commander was General Ivan Bagramyan and this action isolated the German Army Group North from the rest of the German forces between Tukums and Liepāja in Latvia. Renamed Army Group Courland on 25 January, the Army Group remained isolated until the end of the war. When they were ordered to surrender to the Soviet command on 8 May, they were in blackout and did not get the order before 10 May. It was one of the last German groups to surrender in Europe, Courland, along with the rest of the Baltic eastern coast and islands, was overrun by Army Group North during 1941. Army Group North spent most of the two years attempting to take Leningrad, without success. In January 1944, the Soviet Army lifted the siege of Leningrad, on 22 June 1944, the Red Army launched the Belorussian Strategic Offensive, codenamed Operation Bagration. The goal of this offensive was to liberate the Belorussian SSR from the German occupation, Operation Bagration was extremely successful, resulting in the almost complete destruction of Army Group Centre, and ended on 29 August. In its final stages, Operation Bagration saw Soviet forces strike deep towards the Baltic coast, after Operation Bagration ended, the Soviets continued the clearing of the Baltic coast, despite German attempts to restore the front. The Red Army fought the Memel Offensive Operation with the goal of isolating Army Group North by capturing the city of Memel, on 9 October 1944, the Soviets reached the Baltic Sea near Memel after over-running headquarters of the 3rd Panzer Army. As a result, Army Group North was cut off from a route to East Prussia, hitlers military advisors—notably Heinz Guderian, the Chief of the German General Staff—urged evacuation and utilisation of the troops to stabilise the front in central Europe. However, Hitler refused, and ordered the German forces in Courland and this would allow German forces to focus on the Eastern Front, using the Courland Pocket as a springboard for a new offensive. Soviet forces launched six major offensives against the German and Latvian forces entrenched in the Courland Pocket between 15 October 1944, and 4 April 1945. From 15 to 22 October 1944 — Soviets launched the Riga Offensive Operation on the 15th at 10,00 after conducting a heavy artillery barrage. Hitler permitted the Army Group Commander, Ferdinand Schoerner, to commence withdrawal from Riga on 11 October, the front stabilised with the main remnant of Army Group North isolated in the peninsula. From 27 October to 25 November — Soviets launched an offensive trying to break through the front toward Skrunda and Saldus including, Soviets also attacked southeast of Liepāja in an attempt to capture that port. 80 divisions assaulted the Germans from 1 to 15 November in a front 12 km wide, despite a 10,1 advantage in manpower at critical sectors, the Soviet breakthrough stalled after roughly 4 kilometers. The 3rd grand battle started on 21 December with a Soviet attack on Germans near Saldus, the Soviet 2nd Baltic and 1st Baltic Fronts commenced a blockade, precipitating the German defence of the Courland perimeter during Soviet attempts to reduce it
15.
Minsk
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Minsk (Belarusian, Мінск pronounced, is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Belarus, situated on the Svislach and Nyamiha rivers. It is the centre of the Commonwealth of Independent States. As the national capital, Minsk has an administrative status in Belarus and is the administrative centre of Minsk Region. In 2013, it had a population of 2,002,600, the earliest historical references to Minsk date to the 11th century, when it was noted as a provincial city within the principality of Polotsk. The settlement developed on the rivers, in 1242, Minsk became a part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It received town privileges in 1499, from 1569, it was a capital of the Minsk Voivodeship in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was part of a region annexed by the Russian Empire in 1793, from 1919 to 1991, after the Russian Revolution, Minsk was the capital of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic within the Soviet Union. Minsk will host the 2019 European Games, Minsk is located on the southeastern slope of the Minsk Hills, a region of rolling hills running from the southwest to the northeast – that is, to Lukomskaye Lake in northwestern Belarus. The average altitude above sea level is 220 metres, the physical geography of Minsk was shaped over the two most recent ice ages. There are six smaller rivers within the city limits, all part of the Black Sea basin, Minsk is in the area of mixed forests typical of most of Belarus. Pinewood and mixed forests border the edge of the city, especially in the north, some of the forests were preserved as parks as the city grew. The city was built on the hills, which allowed for defensive fortifications. Minsk has a warm summer humid continental climate, owing to its location between the strong influence of the moist air of the Atlantic Ocean and the dry air of the Eurasian landmass. Its weather is unstable and tends to change often, the average January temperature is −4.5 °C, while the average July temperature is 18.5 °C. The lowest temperature was recorded on 17 January 1940, at −40 °C and the warmest on 29 July 1936 at 35 °C and this results in frequent fogs, common in the autumn and spring. Minsk receives annual precipitation of 690 millimetres, of one third falls during the cold period. Throughout the year, most winds are westerly and northwesterly, bringing cool, similar climatic regimes are found in Stockholm, Sweden and in Halifax, Canada. The ecological situation is monitored by Republican Centre of Radioactive and Environmental Control, during 2003–2008 the overall weight of contaminants increased from 186,000 to 247,400 tons
16.
Smolensk
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Smolensk is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River,360 kilometers west-southwest of Moscow. The walled city in the center of Smolensk was destroyed several times throughout its history because it was on the invasion routes of both Napoleon and Hitler. Today, Smolensk is noted for electronics, textiles, food processing, the name of the city is derived from the name of the Smolnya River. The origin of the name is less clear. One possibility is the old Slavic word смоль for black soil, an alternative origin could be the Russian word смола, which means resin, tar, or pitch. Pine trees grow in the area, and the city was once a center of resin processing, the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII recorded its name as Μιλινισκα. Within the city and its surroundings the river takes in small tributaries. In the valleys are stretched streets, high ridges, hills, Smolensk is situated on seven hills. The old part of the city occupies the high, rugged left bank of the Dnieper River, the area features undulating terrain, with a large number of tributaries, creeks and ravines. Smolensk is among the oldest Russian cities, the first recorded mention of the city was 863 AD, two years after the founding of Kievan Rus. According to Russian Primary Chronicle, Smolensk was located on the area settled by the West Slavic Radimichs tribe in 882 when Oleg of Novgorod took it in passing from Novgorod to Kiev, the first foreign writer to mention the city was the Byzantine Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus. In De Administrando Imperio he described Smolensk as a key station on the route from the Varangians to the Greeks. The Rus people sailed from the Baltics up the Western Dvina as far as they could then they portaged their boats to the upper Dnieper. It was in Smolensk that they supposedly mended any leaks and small holes that might have appeared in their boats from being dragged on the ground and they used tar to do that, the Principality of Smolensk was founded in 1054. Due to its position in Kievan Rus, the city developed rapidly. By the end of the 12th century, the princedom was one of the strongest in Eastern Europe, numerous churches were built in the city at that time, including the church of Sts. Peter and Paul and the church of St. John the Baptist, the most remarkable church in the city is called Svirskaya, it was admired by contemporaries as the most beautiful structure east of Kiev. Smolensk had its own veche since the beginning of its history
17.
Eastern Front (World War II)
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The battles on the Eastern Front constituted the largest military confrontation in history. They were characterized by unprecedented ferocity, wholesale destruction, mass deportations, and immense loss of life due to combat, starvation, exposure, disease, and massacres. The Eastern Front, as the site of nearly all extermination camps, death marches, ghettos, of the estimated 70 million deaths attributed to World War II, over 30 million, many of them civilian, occurred on the Eastern Front. The Eastern Front was decisive in determining the outcome of the European portion of World War II and it resulted in the destruction of the Third Reich, the partition of Germany for nearly half a century and the rise of the Soviet Union as a military and industrial superpower. The two principal belligerent powers were Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, along with their respective allies. Though never engaged in action in the Eastern Front, the United Kingdom. The joint German–Finnish operations across the northernmost Finnish–Soviet border and in the Murmansk region are considered part of the Eastern Front, in addition, the Soviet–Finnish Continuation War may also be considered the northern flank of the Eastern Front. Despite their ideological antipathy, both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union shared a dislike for the outcome of World War I. The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact signed in August 1939 was an agreement between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. It contained a secret protocol aiming to return Central Europe to the pre–World War I status quo by dividing it between Germany and the Soviet Union, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania would return to Soviet control, while Poland and Romania would be divided. I need the Ukraine so that they cant starve us out, the two powers invaded and partitioned Poland in 1939. The annexations were never recognized by most Western states, the annexed Romanian territory was divided between the Ukrainian and Moldavian Soviet republics. Adolf Hitler had argued in his autobiography Mein Kampf for the necessity of Lebensraum, acquiring new territory for Germans in Eastern Europe, Wehrmacht officers told their troops to target people who were described as Jewish Bolshevik subhumans, the Mongol hordes, the Asiatic flood and the red beast. The vast majority of German soldiers viewed the war in Nazi terms, Hitler referred to the war in unique terms, calling it a war of annihilation which was both an ideological and racial war. In addition, the Nazis also sought to wipe out the large Jewish population of Central, after Germanys initial success at the Battle of Kiev in 1941, Hitler saw the Soviet Union as militarily weak and ripe for immediate conquest. On 3 October 1941, he announced, We have only to kick in the door, thus, Germany expected another short Blitzkrieg and made no serious preparations for prolonged warfare. Throughout the 1930s the Soviet Union underwent massive industrialization and economic growth under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, Stalins central tenet, Socialism in one country, manifested itself as a series of nationwide centralized Five-Year Plans from 1929 onwards. It served as a testing ground for both the Wehrmacht and the Red Army to experiment with equipment and tactics that they would later employ on a wider scale in the Second World War
18.
Panzer IV
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The Panzerkampfwagen IV, commonly known as the Panzer IV, was a German medium tank developed in the late 1930s and used extensively during the Second World War. Its ordnance inventory designation was Sd. Kfz, the Panzer IV was the most widely manufactured German tank of the Second World War, with some 8,500 built. The Panzer IV saw service in all combat theaters involving Germany and was the only German tank to remain in production throughout the war. Upgrades and design modifications, intended to counter new threats, extended its service life, the Panzer IV was the most widely exported tank in German service, with around 300 sold to Finland, Romania, Spain and Bulgaria. After the war, Syria procured Panzer IVs from France and Czechoslovakia, the Panzer IV was the brainchild of the German general and innovative armored warfare theorist Heinz Guderian. In concept, it was intended to be a tank for use against enemy anti-tank guns and fortifications. Ideally, each battalion in a panzer division was to have three medium companies of Panzer IIIs and one heavy company of Panzer IVs. On 11 January 1934, the German army wrote the specifications for a medium tractor, development was carried out under the name Begleitwagen, or BW, to disguise its actual purpose, given that Germany was still theoretically bound by the Treaty of Versailles ban on tanks. MAN, Krupp, and Rheinmetall-Borsig each developed prototypes, with Krupps being selected for further development, the chassis had originally been designed with a six-wheeled Schachtellaufwerk interleaved-roadwheel suspension, but the German Army amended this to a torsion bar system. Permitting greater vertical deflection of the roadwheels, this was intended to improve performance, in the turret, the tank commander sat beneath his roof hatch, while the gunner was situated to the left of the gun breech and the loader to the right. The turret was offset 66.5 mm to the left of the center line. Due to the layout, the right side of the tank contained the bulk of its stowage volume. Accepted into service as the Versuchskraftfahrzeug 622, production began in 1936 at Fried, Krupp Grusonwerk AG factory at Magdeburg. The first mass-produced version of the Panzer IV was the Ausführung A and it was powered by Maybachs HL 108TR, producing 250 PS, and used the SGR75 transmission with five forward gears and one reverse, achieving a maximum road speed of 31 kilometres per hour. As main armament, the vehicle mounted the short-barreled, howitzer-like 75 mm Kampfwagenkanone 37 L/24 tank gun, against armored targets, firing the Panzergranate at 430 metres per second the KwK37 could penetrate 43 millimetres, inclined at 30 degrees, at ranges of up to 700 metres. A7.92 mm MG34 machine gun was mounted coaxially with the weapon in the turret. The main weapon and coaxial machine gun were sighted with a Turmzielfernrohr 5b optic while the machine gun was sighted with a Kugelzielfernrohr 2 optic. A was protected by 14.5 mm of armor on the front plate of the chassis
19.
Saint Petersburg
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Saint Petersburg is Russias second-largest city after Moscow, with five million inhabitants in 2012, and an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea. It is politically incorporated as a federal subject, situated on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea, it was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on May 271703. In 1914, the name was changed from Saint Petersburg to Petrograd, in 1924 to Leningrad, between 1713 and 1728 and 1732–1918, Saint Petersburg was the capital of imperial Russia. In 1918, the government bodies moved to Moscow. Saint Petersburg is one of the cities of Russia, as well as its cultural capital. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Saint Petersburg is home to The Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world. A large number of consulates, international corporations, banks. Swedish colonists built Nyenskans, a fortress, at the mouth of the Neva River in 1611, in a then called Ingermanland. A small town called Nyen grew up around it, Peter the Great was interested in seafaring and maritime affairs, and he intended to have Russia gain a seaport in order to be able to trade with other maritime nations. He needed a better seaport than Arkhangelsk, which was on the White Sea to the north, on May 1703121703, during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured Nyenskans, and soon replaced the fortress. On May 271703, closer to the estuary 5 km inland from the gulf), on Zayachy Island, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. The city was built by conscripted peasants from all over Russia, tens of thousands of serfs died building the city. Later, the city became the centre of the Saint Petersburg Governorate, Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712,9 years before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war, he referred to Saint Petersburg as the capital as early as 1704. During its first few years, the city developed around Trinity Square on the bank of the Neva, near the Peter. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to be built out according to a plan, by 1716 the Swiss Italian Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be located on Vasilyevsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed, but is evident in the layout of the streets, in 1716, Peter the Great appointed French Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond as the chief architect of Saint Petersburg. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences, University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great, in 1725, Peter died at the age of fifty-two. His endeavours to modernize Russia had met opposition from the Russian nobility—resulting in several attempts on his life
20.
Siege of Leningrad
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The siege started on 8 September 1941, when the last road to the city was severed. Although the Soviets managed to open a land corridor to the city on 18 January 1943. It was one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history, Leningrads capture was one of three strategic goals in the German Operation Barbarossa and the main target of Army Group North. By 1939 the city was responsible for 11% of all Soviet industrial output and it has been reported Adolf Hitler was so confident of capturing Leningrad that he had invitations printed to the victory celebrations to be held in the citys Hotel Astoria. According to a sent to Army Group North on 29 September, After the defeat of Soviet Russia there can be no interest in the continued existence of this large urban center. Following the citys encirclement, requests for surrender negotiations shall be denied, since the problem of relocating and feeding the population cannot, in this war for our very existence, we can have no interest in maintaining even a part of this very large urban population. Hitlers ultimate plan was to raze Leningrad to the ground and give areas north of the River Neva to the Finns, Army Group North under Feldmarschall Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb advanced to Leningrad, its primary objective. Finnish military forces were north of Leningrad, while German forces occupied territories to the south, thus, it is argued that much of the Finns participation was merely defensive. The Germans planned on lack of food being their weapon against the citizens. On 27 June 1941, the Council of Deputies of the Leningrad administration organised First response groups of civilians, in the next days, Leningrads civilian population was informed of the danger and over a million citizens were mobilised for the construction of fortifications. Several lines of defences were built along the perimeter to repulse hostile forces approaching from north and south by means of civilian resistance. In the south, the line ran from the mouth of the Luga River to Chudovo, Gatchina, Uritsk, Pulkovo. Another line of defence passed through Peterhof to Gatchina, Pulkovo, Kolpino, in the north the defensive line against the Finns, the Karelian Fortified Region, had been maintained in Leningrads northern suburbs since the 1930s, and was now returned to service. Even the guns from the cruiser Aurora were moved inland to the Pulkovo Heights to the south of Leningrad, the 4th Panzer Group from East Prussia took Pskov following a swift advance and managed to reach Novgorod by 16 August. The Soviet defenders fought to the death, despite the German discovery of the Soviet defence plans on an officers corpse, after the capture of Novgorod, General Hoepners 4th Panzer Group continued its progress towards Leningrad. However, the 18th Army — despite some 350,000 men lagging behind — forced its way to Ostrov and Pskov after the Soviet troops of the Northwestern Front retreated towards Leningrad. On 10 July, both Ostrov and Pskov were captured and the 18th Army reached Narva and Kingisepp, from where advance toward Leningrad continued from the Luga River line. This had the effect of creating siege positions from the Gulf of Finland to Lake Ladoga, the Finnish Army was then expected to advance along the eastern shore of Lake Ladoga
21.
Operation Bagration
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The Soviet Union achieved a major victory by destroying the German Army Group Centre and completely rupturing the German front line. On 23 June 1944, the Red Army attacked Army Group Centre in Byelorussia, by 28 June, the German Fourth Army had been destroyed, along with most of the Third Panzer and Ninth Armies. The Red Army exploited the collapse of the German front line to encircle German formations in the vicinity of Minsk and destroy them, with Minsk liberated on 4 July. With the end of effective German resistance in Byelorussia, the Soviet offensive continued further to Lithuania, Poland and Romania over the course of July and August. The Red Army successfully used the Soviet deep battle and Maskirovka strategies for the first time to full extent, Army Group Centre had previously proved tough to counter as the Soviet defeat in Operation Mars had shown. Operation Suvorov had seen Army Group Centre itself forced to retreat westwards from Smolensk during the autumn of 1943. By the middle of June 1944, the Western Allies on the Cotentin Peninsula were just over 1,000 km from Berlin, for the Third Reich, the strategic threats were about the same. Army Group Centre only had a total of 580 tanks, tank-destroyers and they were opposed by over 9000 Soviet machines. The redeployment of forces from Army Group Center left only 80 men defending every kilometer of the front line, the operation enabled the next operation, the Vistula–Oder Offensive, to come within sight of the German capital. The Soviets were initially surprised at their success of the Belorussian operation which had nearly reached Warsaw, the Soviet advance encouraged the Warsaw uprising against the German occupation forces. The military tactical operations of the Red Army successfully avoided the mobile reserves of the Wehrmacht, despite the massive forces involved, Soviet front commanders left their adversaries completely confused about the main axis of attack until it was too late. The Russian word maskirovka is roughly equivalent to the English word camouflage, during World War II the term was used by Soviet commanders to describe measures to create deception with the goal of inflicting surprise on the Wehrmacht forces. The Oberkommando des Heeres expected the Soviets to launch a major Eastern Front offensive in the summer of 1944, the Stavka considered a number of options. The timetable of operations between June and August had been decided on by 28 April 1944, the Stavka rejected an offensive in either the Lvov sector or the Yassy-Kishinev sectors owing to the presence of powerful enemy mobile forces equal in strength to the Soviet strategic fronts. The first two options were rejected as being too ambitious and open to flank attack, the third option was rejected on the grounds the enemy was too well prepared. The only safe option was an offensive into Belorussia which would enable subsequent offensives from Ukraine into Poland, the Soviet and German High Commands recognised western Ukraine as a staging area for an offensive into Poland. This was the purpose of Bagration. In order to maximize the chances of success, the maskirovka was a double bluff, the Soviets left four tank armies in the Lvov-Peremyshl area and allowed the Germans to know it
22.
Josef Harpe
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Josef Harpe was a German general during World War II who commanded the 9th Army. He was a recipient of the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Harpe served on the Eastern Front, where he commanded XXXXI Panzer Corps and the 9th Army. From September 1944 to January 1945 Army Group A, when he was relieved of his due to the inability of German forces to stop the Soviet Vistula–Oder Offensive. He ended the war commanding the 5th Panzer Army on Western Front, panzer-Division Oak Leaves on 31 December 1941 as Generalmajor and commander of the 12. Panzer-Division Swords on 15 September 1943 as General der Panzertruppe and commanding general of the XXXXI, Panzerkorps German Cross in Gold on 19 February 1943 as General der Panzertruppe and commanding general of the XXXXI. Panzerkorps
23.
Panzer division
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The term panzer division as commonly used in English language refers almost exclusively to the armored division in the army branch of the Wehrmacht and of Nazi Germany during World War II. The panzer divisions were the key element of German success in the Blitzkrieg operations of the years of the war. Later the Waffen-SS formed panzer divisions, and even the Luftwaffe fielded a panzer division, the term Panzerdivision is still used in todays Army of the Bundeswehr. A panzer division was a combined formation, having both tanks and infantry as organic components, along with artillery, anti-aircraft, signals, etc. However, the proportions of the components of a panzer division changed over time, heinz Guderian first proposed the formation of panzer units larger than a regiment, but the inspector of motorized troops, Otto von Stuelpnagel, rejected the proposal. After his replacement by Oswald Lutz, Guderians mentor, the idea gained more support in the Wehrmacht, the first three panzer divisions were formed on 15 October 1935. Most other armies of the era organized their tanks into tank brigades that required additional organic, Panzer divisions had their own organic infantry and artillery support. This led to a change in doctrine, instead of the tanks supporting operations by other arms. Since the panzer divisions had the arms included, they could operate independently from other units. These first panzer divisions were composed of two regiments, one motorised infantry regiment of two battalions each, and supporting troops. Some of these divisions had quite a large proportion of Panzerkampfwagen I in them. After the invasion of Poland in 1939, the old divisions were partially reorganised, around this time, the newly organised divisions diverged in organisation, each on average with one tank regiment, one separate tank battalion, one or two infantry regiments. The number of tanks in the 1941-style divisions was relatively small, all other units in these formations were fully motorised to match the speed of the tanks. During the winter 1941/42, the divisions underwent another reorganisation, composing each tank regiment of one to three battalions, depending on location, throughout 1942, the reconnaissance battalions were merged into the motorcycle battalions. By the summer of 1943, the Luftwaffe and Waffen-SS also had panzer divisions, a renewed standardization of the tank regiments was attempted. Each was now supposed to consist of two battalions, one Panzer IV and one Panzer V, in reality, the organization continued to vary from division to division. The first infantry battalion of the first infantry regiment of each division was now supposed to be fully mechanised (mounted on armoured half-tracks. The first battalion of the regiment replaced its former light-towed howitzers with a mix of heavy
24.
Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania
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Mechanicsburg is a borough in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, United States,8 miles west of Harrisburg. It is part of the Harrisburg–Carlisle Metropolitan Statistical Area, as of the 2010 census it had a population of 8,981. Mechanicsburg is located in eastern Cumberland County at 40°12′44″N 77°00′22″W and it is in a rich agricultural region known as the Cumberland Valley, a broad zone between South Mountain and the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians. Pennsylvania Route 641 is the main east-west street through the borough, leading east 4 miles to Camp Hill and west 10 miles to Carlisle, Pennsylvania Route 114 leads north out of town on York Street and south on Market Street. Interstate 76, the Pennsylvania Turnpike, passes just south of Mechanicsburg, according to the United States Census Bureau, the borough has a total area of 2.41 square miles, of which 1.1 acres, or 0. 07%, is water. Mechanicsburg was settled in 1806 and incorporated as a borough on April 12,1828 and it was named in recognition of the number of mechanics who settled the area. Mechanicsburg was the site of Union Army recruitment during the days of the Civil War. Specifically, Company C of the 16th Infantry regiment of Volunteers which trained at Camp Curtin was mustered there and it was involved in several early battles including the Battle of Williamsport in Maryland. During the Gettysburg Campaign Mechanicsburg was occupied by Confederate forces for two days, Mechanicsburg is home of Jubilee Day, the largest and longest-running one-day street fair on the East Coast. It is estimated as many as 60,000 people attend Jubilee Day annually, in 1900,3,841 people lived here, in 1910,4,469, which increased to 5,709 in 1940. As of the 2010 census, the population was 8,981. As of the census of 2000, there were 9,042 people,4,023 households, the population density was 3,494.6 people per square mile. There were 4,169 housing units at a density of 1,611.3 per square mile. The racial makeup of the borough was 96. 97% White,0. 43% African American,0. 09% Native American,1. 15% Asian,0. 28% from other races, hispanic or Latino of any race were 0. 83% of the population. Of all households,32. 8% were made up of individuals, the average household size was 2.23 and the average family size was 2.85. In the borough the population was out, with 21. 5% under the age of 18,7. 3% from 18 to 24,30. 8% from 25 to 44,24. 6% from 45 to 64. The median age was 39 years, for every 100 females there were 91.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 86.7 males, the median income for a household in the borough was $45,200, and the median income for a family was $54,228
25.
Stackpole Books
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Stackpole Books is an trade publishing company in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. It was founded by E. J. Stackpole Jr. in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Stackpole publishes nonfiction books in the areas of crafts, outdoors, regional and travel, military history, and military reference. The current CEO is M. David Detweiler, and the Publisher, the publishing company that became Stackpole Books has its origins with the Harrisburg newspaper Evening Telegraph, which was founded in the early 19th century. In 1901, controlling interest in the Telegraph Press was acquired by E. J. Stackpole Sr. The business was carried on by Stackpole’s son, Edward James Stackpole Jr. a decorated general in World War I who received the Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star, and three Purple Hearts. In 1930, the National Service Publishing Company of Washington, D. C. which had established in 1921, was acquired by Telegraph. Renamed Military Service Publishing Company, it published textbooks for the services, including Army Officer’s Guide. Also in 1930, E. J. Stackpole Jr. and his brother Albert Stackpole began a company called Stackpole Sons. Stackpole Sons published books starting in 1936 on a variety of subjects, including fiction by Damon Runyon and John Fante and autobiographies by Benny Goodman, both Military Service Publishing Company and Stackpole Sons were divisions of Telegraph Press. A brief merger of Stackpole Sons with the Heck Company in the 1940s resulted in the short-lived Stackpole & Heck, after the union dissolved, the trade division became the Stackpole Company. During World War II, Military Services Publishing Company produced small, about twice the size of Armed Services Editions, these books were still small enough to carry easily in military uniform cargo pockets. Like the ASEs, these books were entertaining and noncontroversial in content, in the 1950s, Stackpole developed a strong emphasis on nonfiction books, especially outdoors and history titles. In 1959, Stackpole and Military Service merged into a single company, in recent years, the house has continued publishing in military reference, history, and outdoors. In the latter category, Stackpole has been noted for their books on fly fishing. New lines include crafts and regional and travel, in 2015, Stackpole Books was bought by Rowman & Littlefield. Stackpole Magazines were sold to Ampry Publishing in 2016
26.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
27.
Bad Nauheim
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Bad Nauheim is a town in the Wetteraukreis district of Hesse state of Germany. As of 2012, Bad Nauheim has a population of 30,788, the town is approximately 35 kilometres north of Frankfurt am Main, on the east edge of the Taunus mountain range. It is a resort, noted for its salt springs. A Nauheim or effervescent bath, named after Bad Nauheim, is a type of spa bath through which carbon dioxide is bubbled. This bath was one of several types of hydrotherapy used at Battle Creek Sanitarium and it was used at Maurice bathhouse, in Bathhouse Row in the early 1900s. The Konitzky Foundation, a foundation and hospital for those without means, was founded in 1896. On September 29,1945 General Dwight D, General Patton was assigned to command the Fifteenth Army, actually a group of historians given status as an Army, with its headquarters in Bad Nauheim. On December 9,1945, General Patton left Bad Nauheim for a trip near Mannheim. The Grand Hotel in Bad Nauheim was also the location of the Gestapo-led internment of around 115 Americans who worked in the U. S. Embassy in Berlin, the group left Bad Nauheim on May 12,1942. In addition, during World War II Adolf Hitler had a complex in nearby Langenhain-Ziegenberg called Adlerhorst. Bad Nauheim was used as an area for American occupation forces after World War II. Despite its proximity to Frankfurt am Main and Hitlers command complex, American occupants from that time were told that President Roosevelt had loved the town so much from his days there that he ordered it spared. The novel The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford is set in part at Bad Nauheim, the gate, the Burgpforte, was used by Elvis Presley as the motif of a record cover for his 1959 #1 hit record A Big Hunk o Love. Presley lived in Bad Nauheim during his time with the United States Army in Friedberg, there is an annual Elvis festival in the city, starting in 2002. Patton, who celebrated his birthday in the grand ballroom of the Grand Hotel and Albert Kesselring. Before the Holocaust nearly 400 Jews lived in the town, making up nearly 3% of the population, on Kristallnacht the schoolhouse was desecrated and ransacked as well as Jewish stores, businesses and the synagogue. Many Jews were taken that night to concentration camps, of those let out many were rearrested. By the end of the Holocaust there were just three Jews left in Bad Nauheim, for the most part those who werent murdered had left the country
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Heinz Guderian
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Heinz Wilhelm Guderian was a German general during World War II, noted for his success as a leader of Panzer units in Poland and France and for partial success in the Soviet Union. Guderian had pioneered motorized tactics in the army, while keeping himself well informed about tank development in other armies. In particular, he promoted the use of communication between tank-crews, and devised shock-tactics that proved highly effective. In 1940, he led the Panzers that broke the French defences at Sedan, France, in 1941, his attack on Moscow was delayed by orders from Hitler with whom he disagreed sharply. After the German defeat at the Battle of Moscow he was transferred to the reserve and this marked the end of his ascendancy. He was then appointed Chief of the General Staff of the Army, from 1945-48, Guderian was held in U. S. custody, but released without charge. He then advised on the re-establishment of military forces in West Germany, Guderian was born in Kulm, West Prussia, the son of Clara and Friedrich Guderian. He entered the Army in 1907, on 1 October 1913 he married Margarete Goerne, with whom he had two sons, Heinz Günther and Kurt. At the outset of World War I Guderian served as a Signals Officer in the 5th Cavalry Division, on 28 February 1918 Guderian was appointed to the General Staff Corps. Like many Germans, he disagreed with Germany signing the armistice in 1918, early in 1919, Guderian was selected as one of the four thousand officers to continue on in military service for the reduced size German army, the Reichswehr. He was assigned to serve on the staff of the command of the Eastern Frontier Guard Service. In June 1919, Guderian joined the Iron Brigade as its second General Staff officer, the commanders of the regular German army had intended that this move would allow the army to reassert its control over the Iron Division, however, their hopes were disappointed. Rather than restrain the Freikorps, Guderians anti-communism caused him to empathize with the Iron Divisions efforts to defend Prussia against the Soviet threat, Guderian was assigned as a company commander for the 10th Jäger-Battalion. Later he joined the Truppenamt, which was a form of the Armys General Staff which had been officially forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles. In 1927 Guderian was promoted to major and transferred to the command of Army transport and this placed Guderian at the center of German development of armoured forces. Guderian, who was fluent in both English and French, studied the works of British maneuver warfare theorists J. F. C, in 1931, he was promoted to Oberstleutnant and became chief of staff to the Inspectorate of Motorized Troops under Oswald Lutz. In 1933 he was promoted to Oberst or Colonel, Guderian wrote many papers on mechanized warfare during this period. Some of these trial maneuveres were conducted in Soviet Russia, in October 1935 he was made commander of the newly created 2nd Panzer Division
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Ballantine Books
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Ballantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann in 1998, ballantines logo is a pair of mirrored letter Bs back to back. The firms early editors were Stanley Kauffman and Bernard Shir-Cliff, following Fawcett Publications controversial 1950 introduction of Gold Medal paperback originals rather than reprints, Lion Books, Avon and Ace also decided to publish originals. When the first Ballantine Book, Cameron Hawleys Executive Suite was published in 1952, houghton Mifflin published the $3.00 hardcover at the same time Ballantine distributed its 35¢ paperback. By February 1953, Ballantine had sold 375,000 copies and was preparing to print 100,000 more, houghton Mifflin sold 22,000 hardback copies in its first printing. Ballantines sales soon totaled 470,000 copies, instead of hurting hardback sales as some predicted, the paperback edition instead gave the book more publicity. After the film rights were sold to MGM, Robert Wise directed the 1954 film, on the heels of that kind of sales and publicity, other Ballantine titles were seen in spinner racks across the country. During the early 1950s, Ballantine attracted attention as one of the publishers of paperback science fiction and fantasy. The Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth novel had first appeared in Galaxy Science Fiction under the title Gravy Planet, Kauffman scored when he acquired and edited Ray Bradburys Fahrenheit 451. Ballantines science fiction also included the unusual Star Science Fiction Stories. With cover paintings by Richard Powers, this anthology series offered new fiction rather than reprints. Edited by Frederik Pohl, it attracted readers by successfully combining the formats of both magazines and paperbacks. In the early 1960s, the company engaged in a rivalry with Ace Books for the rights to reprint the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. A separate Canadian edition of the books was published with different front cover art work, Tolkien asked for permission to add the back cover message. There was literally no publication that did not carry some kind of outraged article, and of course, the whole science fiction fraternity got behind the book, this was their meat and drink. In 1969, Lin Carter edited the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, during the mid-1970s, Ballantine published the Star Trek Logs, a ten-volume series of Alan Dean Foster adaptations of the animated Star Trek. In 1968, Ballantine published a book related to Star Trek, The Making of Star Trek by Stephen E. Whitfield. After publishing The World of Lil Abner, Ballantine introduced Shel Silverstein in 1956 with his Grab Your Socks, collection of cartoons from Pacific Stars and Stripes
30.
1st Panzer Division (Wehrmacht)
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The 1st Panzer Division was an elite armoured division in the German Army, the Wehrmacht, during World War II. The division was one of the three tank divisions established by Germany in 1935. It took part in pre-war occupations of Austria and Czechoslovakia and the invasions of Poland in 1939 and Belgium, from 1941 to 1945 it fought on the Eastern Front, except for a period in 1943 when it was sent for refitting to France and Greece. At the end of the war the division surrendered to US forces in Bavaria, the 1st Panzer Division was formed on 15 October 1935 from the 3rd Cavalry Division, and was headquartered in Weimar. It was one of three tank divisions created at the time, the two being the 2nd and 3rd Panzer Division. Initially the division was equipped with the sub-standard light Panzer I, despite this the division was also equipped with obsolete Panzer IIs up until 1941. In 1938 the division participated in the Anschluss of Austria and the occupation of the Sudetenland in 1938, in September 1939 the 1st Panzer Division took part in the invasion of Poland, reaching the outskirts of Warsaw after eight days. After Warsaw the division was moved to support the 18th Infantry Division before returning to Germany in November 1939, in May 1940 the 1st Panzer Division was part of the invasion of France, Luxembourg and Belgium. It took part in the battles of Sedan and Dunkirk before swinging south to participate in the attack on the Weygand Line and it advanced towards the Swiss border and occupied Belfort before the surrender of France. During the battle of France the division suffered relatively low casualties, the 1st Panzer Division remained in France until September 1940 when it was moved to East Prussia. It supplied a substantial amount of units to the new 16th and 18th Panzer Divisions, from 22 June 1941 it took part of Operation Barbarossa, crossing the former German-Lithuanian frontier as part of the Army Group North and the 4th Panzer Group. The division was involved in fighting and, by mid-August, had only 44 of the 155 tanks it had started out less than two month earlier left in serviceable condition. It continued to advance towards Leningrad until early October when it was transferred to the Army Group Centre to take part in the advance on Moscow, the division advanced within 32 kilometres on Moscow before being forced to retreat during the Soviet counterattack. The division was part of the defence of the Rzhev Salient during early 1942, initially being very short on tanks, the 1st Panzer Division was engaged in the defence of the supply lines of the 9th Army in the centre of the Eastern Front. It suffered heavy casualties during the defence against repeated Soviet attacks in the Winter of 1942–43 before eventually being transferred back to France in January 1943 for refitting. After month in northern France the division was sent to occupied Greece in June 1943 because of the threat of an Allied landing there. Instead the landing place in Sicily and the division participated in the disarming of Italian forces in Greece when the former defected from the Axis in September 1943. The 1st Panzer Division was brought up to strength again in October when it received a substantial number of Panther and Tiger I tanks
31.
2nd Panzer Division (Wehrmacht)
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The 2nd Panzer Division was an armoured division in the German Army, the Wehrmacht, during World War II. It took part in the Balkans campaign and then transferred to the Eastern Front in September 1941, the division fought with Army Group Centre in the battles of Moscow and Kursk. After heavy losses on the Eastern Front it was sent to France for rehabilitation and it fought in Normandy and was almost completely destroyed in the Falaise Pocket. It was rebuilt once more and fought in the Battle of the Bulge and in the defence of the Rhine, the 2nd Panzer Division was formed on 15 October 1935 and was headquartered in Würzburg, Bavaria. It was one of three tank divisions created at the time, the two having been the 1st and 3rd Panzer Division. It formed part of the garrison in Vienna, Austrias capital with most of its personnel now recruited from former Austria, in early September 1939, the 2nd Panzer Division took part in the invasion of Poland, crossing the Polish-Slowak border and advancing towards Kraków. The division suffered heavy losses fighting in central Poland. In May 1940, the took part in the Battle of France as a part of the XIX Army Corps under the command of Guderian. The division was involved in fighting in Belgium and the Mosel River valley and it arrived in the town of Abbeville on the 20th. Later the division formed the armoured element which flanked the British Expeditionary Army, the 2nd Panzer Division then advanced along the River Aisne into the interior of France. At the end of the campaign in the last months of 1940, the division was reassigned to the XVIII Mountain Corps of the 12th Army on 6 April 1941 to play a role in Operation Marita, the invasion of Greece. The German army pushed through the south of Yugoslavia, reaching the Greek border, on 9 April the division took the city of Salonika and forced the surrender of the Greek Eastern Macedonia Army Section. The division, together with the 5th Mountain Division, the 6th Mountain Division, after the 6th Division had taken Verroia and formed a spearhead, on the other side of the River Haliacmon, the 2nd Panzer Division crossed the river, taking Katerini on 14 April. After the Battle of Thermopylae, the 2nd Panzer Division entered Athens together with the 6th Mountain Division, in October 1941, the 2nd Panzer Division was sent to the Eastern Front, reinforcing Army Group Centre in their push towards Moscow, Operation Typhoon. It was attached to the XL Panzer Corps of the 4th Panzer Army during the Battle of Moscow. The division retreated following a counterattack of the Red Army in the winter of 1941, in 1943 the 2nd Panzer Division took part in Operation Citadel, as part of the XLVII Panzer Corps of the 9th German Army of Army Group Centre. Following the operations failure, the Red Army launched Operation Kutuzov in Army Groups Centers sector, in late 1943 the 2nd Panzer Division was sent to France for refitting after the heavy losses it suffered on the Eastern Front. The division was equipped with Panther tanks, following the invasion of Normandy, the division was moved to Normandy in June, it engaged British troops of the 50th Infantry Division and the 7th Armoured Division
32.
3rd Panzer Division (Wehrmacht)
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The 3rd Panzer Division was an armoured division in the German Army, the Wehrmacht, during World War II. The division was one of the three tank divisions established by Germany in 1935. The division participated in the Invasions of Poland, Belgium, France, from 1941 to 1945 it continuously fought on the Eastern Front. It was one of three tank divisions created at the time, the two being the 1st and 2nd Panzer Division. Members of the tank regiment participated in the Spanish Civil War on the Nationalist side as part of the German Legion Condor. The division also took part in the annexation of Austria, the so-called Anschluss, the 3rd Panzer Division participated in the1939 invasion of Poland, where it was engaged in the northern sector, operating from Pommerania, and advancing via Toruń to Brest-Litovsk. In May 1940 it was part of the German forces invading Belgium, advancing via the Albert Canal to Brussels and into France. Like the other German tank divisions the 3rd lost one of its two regiments in late 1940 to allow for the creation of further tank divisions. The 3rd Panzer Division was part of Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, initially it was engaged in the central sector of the advance but was than redirected south to participate in the Battle of Kiev. From there it participated in the Battle of Moscow, advancing towards Tula, with the Soviet counterattacks in the winter of 1941–42 the division acted as a stand-by emergency force and, in March 1942, participated in the defence of Kharkov. The division participated in the Case Blue, the German attack in the sector of the Eastern Front in June 1942. Initially successful the operation was altimately a failure, with the division suffering heavy casualties in the process and it narrowly escaped encicrlement on its retreat by crossing the frozen Sea of Azov near Rostov. The 3rd Panzer Division took part in the Battle of Kursk, following the German failure the division was engaged in the defence and retreat that followed. It remained on the Eastern Front for the remainder of the Second World War, fighting in the Ukraine, Romania, Poland, at the end of the war saw the division engaged in Styria where it evaded Soviet forces and managed to surrender to the US Army instead. The majority of the soldiers were released from captitivity by July 1945. Die Gepanzerten und Motorisierten Deutschen Grossverbände 1935 –1945, david M. Glantz. The Battle of Kursk
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4th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht)
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The 4th Panzer Division was an armoured division in the German Army, the Wehrmacht, during World War II, established in 1938. It participated in the 1939 invasion of Poland, the 1940 invasion of France, and it remained on the Eastern Front, mainly under Army Group Centre, until it was trapped on the coast at Courland in the summer of 1944. It was evacuated by sea and returned to the front in West Prussia in January 1945. It surrendered to the Soviets there at the end of the war, during the Polish campaign, the division engaged in a series of massacres against the civilian population and POWs. Alongside the 4th Panzer Division the 5th was formed at Oppeln, now Opole in Poland, Würzburg had previously been the garrison town for the 2nd Panzer Division which had moved its headquarters to Vienna after the Anschluss of Austria in March 1938. At the beginning of the Invasion of Poland, the division was one of the first to cross the border in the area of Army Group South. Equipped with roughly 341 tanks, including 183 Panzer I,130 Panzer II,12 Panzer IV and 16 PzBef, the division lacked some infantry and anti-tank units. After supporting 1st Panzer, the took part in the break-through of the Polish lines near Kłobuck. Three days later, the 4th Panzer Division continued its move towards Warsaw and it reached the Polish capital on 8 September and tried to take the city by surprise. At 17.00, the forces of the 4th Panzer Division supported by the 31st Infantry Division attempted an assault on Warsaws western borough of Ochota, the assault was repulsed and the German forces suffered heavy casualties. The following day, the division was reinforced with artillery and the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler motorised infantry regiment, well-placed Polish anti-tank guns and barricades erected on main streets repulsed this assault. On several occasions, the lack of armament on the Polish side was made up for by ingenuity, one of the streets leading towards the city centre was covered with turpentine from a nearby factory. When German tanks approached, the liquid was set on fire, the German forces suffered heavy casualties and had to retreat. After the failed assault on Warsaw, 4th Panzer Division was withdrawn westward and took part in the Battle of the Bzura, where it supported a German counter-attack. Polish-Jewish historian, Szymon Datner, stated that on 18 September, in the village of Śladów, after that it was withdrawn to the Niederrhein. During the Battle of France in 1940, the division came under the command of Erich Hoepners XVI Panzer Corps, part of von Kleists Panzer Group in the 6th Army commanded by Walther von Reichenau. After a blitzkrieg assault through Liege and Charleroi, it reached the area of Bethune, however, due to Adolf Hitlers orders, it did not manage to capture Dunkirk itself. In early June 1940, the managed to cross a large part of France in several days
34.
5th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht)
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The 5th Panzer Division was an armoured division in the German Army, the Wehrmacht, during World War II, established in 1938. The division fought in Poland, France, the Balkans and in the Soviet Union, first as part of Army Group Centre, the division surrendered to Soviet and Western Allied forces in April and May 1945. Alongside the 5th Panzer Division the 4th had been formed in Würzburg five days earlier, the personnel of the division was mainly made up of Silesians and Sudeten Germans, the Sudetenland having been annexed by Germany shortly before. The 5th Panzer Dvision played a greater role in the German invasion of France. It took part in the battle of Belgium, advanced towards Lille and it continued its advance south, took Brest on 19 June and continued on towards the French-Spanish border. The division remained in France until January 1941, the 5th Panzer Division was send to Romania and Bulgaria in early 1941 and took part in the German invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece. It advanced through southern Yugoslavia and into Greece and was engaged in fighting against the 2nd New Zealand Division. Coming within 34 km of the city the division was forced to retreat after the Soviet counterattack in December 1941 and remained in a defensive position throughout the winter of 1941–42. It did not take part in the German advance on the Caucasus, the division did not actively participate in the German offensive during the Battle of Kursk but was involved in defensive battles after the failure of the former. For the remainder of the war the division continued to retreat and fight in battles on the Eastern Front in Poland, briefly in Courland. It was trapped on the Samland peninsula in April 1945 and parts of the division were evacuated by the German Navy, the remainder surrendered to Soviet forces in April 1945. Throughout the fighting on the Eastern Front the division was seen as one of the best German units by their Soviet counterparts. Up until July 1944, when Operation Bagration caused the destruction of the German Army Group Center, the German Order of Battle - Panzers and Artillery in World War II. Die Gepanzerten und Motorisierten Deutschen Grossverbände 1935 –1945
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6th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht)
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The 6th Panzer Division was an armoured division in the German Army, the Heer, during World War II, established in 1939. The division, initially formed as a brigade, participated in the invasions of Poland, Belgium, France. From 1941 to 1945 it fought on the Eastern Front, interrupted only by periods of refitting spend in France and it eventually surrendered to US forces in Czechoslovakia in May 1945 but was handed over to Soviet authorities. The 1st Light Brigade was a unit established in October 1937 in imitation of the French Division Légère Mécanique. It was intended to take on the roles of army-level reconnaissance and it included mechanized recon units, motorized infantry, and a battalion of tanks. The concept of the Light Brigade, of three were planned by the Wehrmacht, quickley showed its flawed nature and was abandoned. Following the latter the division received 130 Czech-build tanks which were superior to the Panzer I, in 1939, the division fought in the Invasion of Poland. The division was part of the German advance to the English Channel through Belgium and it then swung back towards the French-Swiss border before relocating to Eastern Prussia in September 1940 where it remained until June 1941. At the time of the German invasion of the Soviet Union the division had 239 tanks, but only twelve of those were Panzer III, in June 1941, it joined Operation Barbarossa, fighting at first under Army Group North for Leningrad. 6th Panzer Division was soon transferred to Army Group Center, where it fought in the Battle of Moscow, with the Soviet counter offensive in December 1941 the division was pushed back and suffered the loss of all its tanks and most of its vehicles. Severely decimated the 6th Panzer Division was sent to France to be rebuilt in March 1942 and equipped with more modern tanks. It was moved to southern France after the US landing in North Africa and it was part of the failed German attempt to break through to the encircled forces but then had to retreat to escape encirclement itself. The division was part of the German retreat and counter offensive at Kharkov, the 6th Panzer Division was part of the only partially successful relief operation at the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket as well as the escape from the Kamenets-Podolsky pocket. It was part of the German defence of northern Poland and East Prussia before being relocated to Hungary in December 1944 and it took part in the battles around Budapest before retreating into Austria and taking part in the defence of Vienna. When the city fell it moved into Czechoslovakia where it surrendered to US 3rd Army in May 1945 but was handed over to Soviet forces, soldier of the division executed an unknown number of black prisoners of war from the 12th Senegalese Tirailleurs regiment in mid-June 1940. V. Generalleutnant Rudolf Freiherr von Waldenfels Oberst Friedrich-Wilhelm Jürgens Generalleutnant Rudolf Freiherr von Waldenfels The organisation of the division, Mitcham, die Gepanzerten und Motorisierten Deutschen Grossverbände 1935 –1945
36.
7th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht)
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The 7th Panzer Division was an armored formation of the German Army in World War II. It participated in the Battle of France, the invasion of the Soviet Union, the occupation of Vichy France, the division fought successfully in France in 1940, and then again in the Soviet Union in 1941. In May 1942, the division was withdrawn from the Soviet Union and sent back to France to replace losses and refit. The division fought in the offensive at Kursk in the summer of 1943, suffering heavy losses in men. Through 1944 and 1945, the division was understrength and continuously engaged in a series of defensive battles across the eastern front. It was twice evacuated by sea, leaving what was left of its equipment behind each time. After fighting defensively across Prussia and northern Germany, the men escaped into the forest. In October 1939, the 2nd Light Division became the 7th Panzer Division and it consisted of 218 tanks in three battalions, with two rifle regiments, a motorcycle battalion, an engineer battalion, and an anti-tank battalion. Newly promoted General Erwin Rommel, who had served on Hitlers staff during the Invasion of Poland, was able, with an intervention from Hitler, upon taking command on 10 February 1940, Rommel quickly set his unit to practicing the maneuvers they would need in the upcoming campaign. The invasion began on 10 May 1940, Rommel was active in the forward areas, directing the efforts to make a crossing, which were initially unsuccessful due to suppressive fire by the French on the other side of the river. By 16 May the division had reached his objective at Avesnes. On 20 May the division reached Arras, General Hermann Hoth received orders that the town should be bypassed and its British garrison thus isolated. He ordered the 5th Panzer Division to move to the west and 7th Panzer Division to the east, the following day the British launched a counterattack, deploying two infantry battalions supported by heavily armoured Matilda Mk I and Matilda II tanks in the Battle of Arras. The German 37 mm anti-tank gun proved ineffective against the heavily armoured Matildas, the 25th Panzer Regiment and a battery of 88 mm anti-aircraft guns were called in to support, and the British withdrew. On 24 May, Hitler issued a halt order, the reason for this decision is still a matter of debate. He may have overestimated the size of the British forces in the area, the halt order was lifted on 26 May. 7th Panzer continued its advance, reaching Lille on 27 May, for the assault, Hoth placed the 5th Panzer Division under Rommels command. The Siege of Lille continued until 31 May, when the French garrison of 40,000 men surrendered
37.
8th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht)
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The 8th Panzer Division was a formation of the Wehrmacht Heer. The division was formed by reorganising the 3rd Light Division in January 1940 and it was transferred to the west and fought in the Battle of France, in May 1940, and the German invasion of the Balkans in April 1941. Soon after the division advanced towards Leningrad under Army Group North in Operation Barbarossa, staying on defensive fronts, it saw action in the relief of Kholm in 1942, Orel and the withdrawals of Army Group Centre in 1943, until transferred to Army group South. The division then fought in a serious of retrograde movements, back through the Ukraine, into Hungary and finally into Silesia, during its existence, the division was headquartered in Cottbus, in the German military district Wehrkreis III. In 1938, the 3rd Light Division was formed, consisting of the 67th Panzer Battalion, the 3rd Light Division was sent to participate in the 1939 Invasion of Poland, after which it was converted to the 8th Panzer Division in the winter of 1939. As part of the reorganization its reconnaissance regiment of two battalions was split, one going to the 10th Panzer Division and the other staying with the 8th Panzer Division. The panzer battalions were equipped primarily with Czech tanks and Mk II light tanks, the divisional artillery was supplied by two battalions of 105mm Howitzers. By February 1941 the division was organised as follows, 8th Rifle Brigade, the Artillery Regiment had gained another battalion of heavy Guns from the 645th heavy Artillery Battalon. It was made a part of XLI Motorized Corps for the Battle of France, in the battles of the Meuse Crossings, French forces were initially able to repel German attacks. Eventually, however, the French were forced to retreat in the face of an assault by German Panzers. The division was involved in the destruction of the 1st and the 7th Armies in May 1940, attacking in the pre dawn hours of 22 June 1941, the division soon found a gap in the Russian border defences and by nightfall had penetrated to a distance of 70 km. Its combat engineers, with the assistance of a company of Brandenburgers, mounted a rouse, soon the 8th Panzer Division had tanks and infantry across the River, but was forced to halt and wait for resupply and the other Panzer corps of Panzer Group 4 to catch up. The following days were spend gradually expanding its bridgehead whilst fending off Russian counterattacks from the Soviet 21 Mechanised Corps, resumed a rapid advance to the east against a Russian forces now in complete disarray. On 7 October it began to snow in the Army Group North area, General Leeb completed his regrouping for the continued attack across the Volkov river towards Tikhvin. The infantry formed bridgeheads from which 8th Panzer and the mobile units of XXXIX attacked on 19 October. However progress was slow, the muddy roads almost impassable to any but tracked vehicles. The Corps finally reached and captured Tikhvin on 11 November, leaving a 100 kilometre flank weekly covered by the 8th Panzer. The freezing weather meant that the roads improved slightly, which helped the transport of supplies, here the division remained for most of 1942 until it was transferred to Army Group Centre, in the winter of 1942
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9th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht)
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The 9th Panzer Division was a panzer division of the Wehrmacht Army during World War II. It came into existence after 4th Light Division was reorganized in January 1940, the division was headquartered in Vienna, in the German military district Wehrkreis XVII. Originally raised from Austrian forces annexed into Germany before the war, sweeping east, the division was then a component of Operation Barbarossa, the German attack on the Soviet Union, it was badly mauled at the Battle of Kursk. Returning to France to rebuild in 1944, the division was rushed to counter Operation Overlord and it was destroyed several successive times by British and American forces as the German Army was pushed back across Europe. The division suffered casualties in armor and personnel until it finally collapsed in March 1945. The divisions few survivors were pushed into the Ruhr Pocket where they surrendered to the Allies at the end of the war, in 1942, the division was organized around three regiments. Its tanks were organized into the 33rd Panzer Regiment, which was supported by two regiments of panzergrenadiers, or mechanized infantry and these were the 10th Panzer Grenadier Regiment and the 11th Panzer Grenadier Regiment. Following the Anschluss annexation of Austria in 1938, the 4th Light Division was formed in Vienna after converting a mobile division of the Austrian army in April of that year. It initially consisted of the 33rd Panzer Battalion, the 102nd Motorized Artillery Regiment, and the 10th and 11th Motorized Cavalry Regiments. In 1939 it fought in the Invasion of Poland, on the flank of Army Group South, attacking out of Slovakia, pushing over the San River on 10 September. It then moved to establish a bridgehead over the Bug River at Krylow on 14 September, the division then turned west, blocking the escape of several units of the Polish Army. In the process the division took tens of thousands of prisoners, on 24 October, the division departed Salzberg, returning to Vienna by train. That winter it was converted to the 9th Panzer Division and formally redesignated 3 January 1940 and it consisted of the 9th Rifle Brigade, the 33rd Panzer Battalion, the 102nd Panzer Artillery Regiment, and several other divisional units. Part of the 18th Army which defeated The Netherlands in a five days. The division was the only German mechanized force allocated to 18th Army and intended primarily to link up with airborne forces landed near Rotterdam and The Hague. Before that, near Breda, the split up, sending one battalion north over the Moerdijk bridges to try and enter the Dutch National Redoubt. On 13 May, however, during its first actual fighting of the campaign, on 14 May, the battalion stood ready to assault Rotterdam, but the Dutch surrendered the same day after a carpet bombing of that citys civilian centre by the Luftwaffe. The other part of the division went south, after the retreating French 7th Army, following the evacuation of Dunkirk, 9th Panzer Division was assigned to Panzer Group Guderian and participated in the Battle of France
39.
10th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht)
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The 10th Panzer Division was a formation of the German Army during World War II. It was formed in Prague in March 1939, and served in the Army Group North reserve during the invasion of Poland of the same year. The division participated in the Battle of France in 1940, including the Siege of Calais, after taking heavy casualties on the Eastern Front it was sent back to France for rehabilitation and to serve as a strategic reserve against potential Allied invasion. The division was rushed to Tunisia after Operation Torch and spent six months in that theatre and it caused severe losses to the green US Army in some of their first encounters with the Germans under Field Marshal Erwin Rommel at the Battle of Kasserine Pass. It was later lost in the general Axis surrender in North Africa in May 1943, for most of its history, the division was organized into three regiments, 7th Panzer, and 69th and 86th Panzergrenadier. Other units included a regiment and one each of motorcycle, reconnaissance, tank destroyer, engineer. The 10th Panzer Division was first formed on 1 April 1939 in Prague, many of these units were transferred from the 20th Motorized Division, the 29th Motorized Division, and the 3rd Light Division. By the fall of 1939, the division was still forming, for that reason, the 10th Panzer Division remained in reserve for most of that campaign. It was moved from Pomerania in August into Poland, where it was given control of the 7th Panzer Regiment. The division completed its formation by the start of 1940 and it consisted of the 10th Rifle Brigade with the 69th and 86th Rifle Regiments, the 4th Panzer Brigade with the 7th and 8th Panzer Regiments, and the 90th Artillery Regiment. Once complete, the division was sent to France to participate in the invasion of that country. Committed to the XIX Motorized Corps, the 10th Panzer Division was deployed to the axis of the fight, with the 1st. It moved through Luxembourg and broke through the French lines at the Meuse River near Sedan, at Sedan, the division remained briefly in reserve to protect the German bridgehead across the river from French counterattack. From there, the division pushed Allied forces from the ports in the Flanders region, following this, the division engaged in occupation duties and training in France. In March 1941, the division was recalled to Germany, once the invasion was launched, the division participated in the Battle of Białystok–Minsk, in engagements at Smolensk and Vyasma, and in the Battle of Moscow. During the Soviet winter offensive of 1941-1942, it held positions at Yukhnov, near Rzhev, afterwards, the depleted division was withdrawn to Amiens, France to be reformed. In 1942, the division was transferred to Dieppe, where it played a role in countering the Dieppe Raid by Allied forces. Once the Allies landed in North Africa, the 10th Panzer Division was placed on duty in Vichy France
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11th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht)
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The 11th Panzer Division was an armoured division in the German Army, the Wehrmacht, during World War II, established in 1940. The division saw action on the Eastern and Western Fronts during the Second World War, the formations emblem was a ghost. Most of its members were from Silesia, the 11th Panzer Division saw action for the first time in the invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, passing through Bulgaria, it arrived in Belgrade and assisted in the capture of that city. The division was sent to the Eastern Front where it was part of the Army Group South. It participated in the battle of Kiev and later took part in the Battle of Moscow, at the Battle of Moscow the 11th Panzer Division had its legendary encounter with Panfilovs Twenty-Eight Guardsmen. The division was engaged in retreat and defensive operations after the Soviet counter offensive in December 1941, the 11th Panzer Divisions advance finally came to a cease due to the strong resistance of the 8th Guards Motor Rifle Division and the 78th Rifle Division. Harsh weather conditions were also a factor and it was finally The 11th Panzer Division was part of Case Blue from June 1942 onward, participating in the capture of Voronesh and the drive towards Stalingrad. It avoided being entrapped with the 6th Army in the city and it was engaged in the failed relieve attempt on Stalingrad and than participated in the defence of Rostov, which allowed the German troops retreating from the Caucasus to escape. In July 1943, it participated in the battle of Kursk and it was entrapped in the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket in February 1944 and almost completely destroyed in the break out of the pocket. The division was withdrawn from the front and sent to Bordeaux, after being stationed in the Toulouse area, the division was moved to a section of the Rhône in July 1944. When the Allies invaded southern France in August 1944, it was forced to retreat via the Rhône corridor, later entering combat in Alsace, it helped in the defence of the Belfort Gap after going back to the Saar. In December 1944, the division fought as part of the Army Group G, at the beginning of the battle of the Bulge, which it participated in, the division had 3,500 personnel, including 800 infantry. It was then shifted to the sector of the front, with its forces stationed in. The 11th Panzer Division retreated south east, eventually surrendering to US forces in the area around Passau on 2 May 1945, die Gepanzerten und Motorisierten Deutschen Grossverbände 1935–1945
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13th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht)
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The 13th Panzer Division was an armoured division in the German Army, the Wehrmacht, during World War II, established in 1940. The division was formed as an infantry division in 1934. In 1937 it was motorized and named the 13th Motorized Infantry Division which participated in the campaigns against Poland, following the Fall of France in June 1940, the division was reorganized as the 13th Panzer Division. It participated in Operation Barbarossa in 1941 and the advance on the Caucasus in 1942, the division suffered heavy losses in the retreats of 1943 and 1944. It was partially refitted in Hungary, where it was encircled and destroyed by Allied forces in the winter of 1944-1945, the formation was reformed as Panzer Corps Feldherrnhalle in the spring of 1945 and surrendered in May 1945. During the invasion of Poland, the troops of the division committed war crimes, including killings, using civilians as human shields. The 13th Motorized Infantry Division participated in the invasion of Poland, as part of the southern thrust, the 13th Panzer Division was formed in Vienna in October 1940 from the 13th Motorized Infantry Division and was immediately sent to Romania but was not part of the Balkan campaign. It served in Operation Barbarossa as part of Panzer Group 1, at the end of 1941, it was positioned at Rostov, however, it was forced to retreat due to fierce Soviet counter-attacks. In 1942 and 1943, the formed part of the First Panzer Army, it was involved in the battles for the Caucasus oil fields. In the fall of 1943, it was withdrawn to Western Ukraine, the offensive of the Soviet Army pushed the Germans to their starting positions of June 1941. The 13th Panzer Division was attached to Army Group South Ukraine, the Red Army offensive of August 1944 resulted in the deaths or imprisonment of most of the division. The division was reformed in July and it received modern equipment, including the Panther G tank, in the Battle of Debrecen, the division helped to annihilate three Soviet corps, however, it was encircled in Budapest at the end of 1944 and destroyed in January 1945. In the spring of 1945, the division was reformed under the name Feldherrnhalle 2, the last engagements with the Soviets were fought on the Austro-Hungarian border. The Division surrendered in Austria in May 1945, killings have also been reported in nearby settlements of Gielniów, Kamienna Wola, Klwów, Ossa, Przysucha, Potok, Rozwady and Zarzęcin. Die Gepanzerten und Motorisierten Deutschen Grossverbände 1935 –1945
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14th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht)
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The 14th Panzer Division was an armoured division in the German Army during World War II. It was created in 1940 by the conversion of the 4th Infantry Division, the division took part in the invasion of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, eventually being destroyed in the battle of Stalingrad. Reformed, the 14th Panzer Division soon returned to the Eastern Front, 14th Panzer Division was formed in August 1940 from units of the 4th Infantry Division and 4th Panzer Division. 4th Infantry Division provided both Divisional Organisation and the components, while 4th Panzer Division provided the tank element by transferring 36th Panzer Regiment to the new division. In April 1941, the took part in the Invasion of Yugoslavia. Soon after, it returned to Germany in preparation for Operation Barbarossa, in June 1941, as part of Army Group South, the division took part in the invasion of the Soviet Union. It was involved almost continuously in the fighting throughout 1941, including the first winter on the Eastern Front, in the spring of 1942, the division took part in the German summer offensives as Army Group South advanced through the Kharkov and Don regions. The Division was transferred to Friedrich Paulus VI Army, which was encircled at Stalingrad soon after, by February 1943, the Division was destroyed in the fighting at the Battle of Stalingrad. The division was reformed in Brittany, France, by November 1943, it was combat ready, transferring back to Army Group South on the Eastern Front. It now had a battalion of StuG assault guns, the III/36 Panzer Regiment. The division was part of Army Group South up to June 1944, in August, after being refitted, it was transferred to Army Group North to the Courland area. The refit included delivery of Panther tanks, in January 1945, the Red Army launched a number of major offensives across the Eastern Front. Much of Army Group North - including 14th Panzer Division - was bypassed and became trapped in the Courland Pocket, the division was disbanded during the last weeks of the war, with its personnel being formed into two panzer brigades. Parts of the division were evacuated to Germany in the last week of the war, die Gepanzerten und Motorisierten Deutschen Grossverbände 1935 –1945
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15th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht)
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The 15th Panzer Division was an armoured division in the German Army, the Wehrmacht, during World War II, established in 1940. The division, formed from the 33rd Infantry Division, fought exclusively in North Africa from 1941 to 1943, eventually ceasing to exist after surrendering in Tunisia in May 1943. The 33rd Infantry Division, forerunner of the 15th Panzer Division, was formed in April 1936 and it participated in the invasion of France and remained there after the French surrender as an occupation force. It returned to Germany in September 1940 to be converted to a tank division, the division took part in all major German operations in North Africa except the first, for which it arrived to late. It was part of the successful German defence against British attempts to relieve Tobruk, Operation Brevity, on 18 November British forces began Operation Crusader with the objective of relieving the besieged forces at Tobruk. The 15th Panzer Division was situated to the east of Tobruk, the 15th Panzer Division was part of the German offensive in January 1942 that retook Benghazi. It participated in the battle of Gazala, the capture of Tobruk, the division suffered severe loses at the Second battle of El Alamein in November 1942 and was forced to retreat along with the rest of the Afrikakorps. After the retreat of the Axis forces to Tunisia the 15th Panzer Division was part of the battle of Kasserine Pass against inexperienced US forces in February 1943, the division eventually surrendered alongside other Axis forces in Tunisia in May 1943 and was not reestablished. Survivors of the division that had escaped the North African surrender in while in hospitals in Europe became part of the new 15th Panzergrenadier Division, die Gepanzerten und Motorisierten Deutschen Grossverbände 1935 –1945
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16th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht)
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The 16th Panzer Division was a formation of the German Army in World War II. It was formed in November 1940 from the 16th Infantry Division and it took part in Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, operating in the southern sector of the Eastern Front. After the Soviet offensive in November 1942 the division was trapped in Stalingrad, a new 16th Panzer Division was formed in 1943 and sent to Italy where it was part of the unsuccessful German defense against the Allied invasion of Italy. It eventually surrendered to Soviet and US American forces in Czechoslovakia in May 1945, the division was formed in Autumn 1940 from the 16th Infantry Division which had previously taken part in the German invasion of France in 1940. The new tank division was sent to Romania and Bulgaria in early 1941 but kept in reserve and did not take part in the German invasion of Yugoslavia and it briefly returned to Germany before being sent to Poland for the preparation of the invasion of the Soviet Union. The division fought in the sector of the Eastern Front, taking part in the Battle of Kiev. By late November the 16th Panzer Division had run out of supplies and it fought in defensive positions during the winter of 1941–42 and took part in anti-partisan operations in the Stalino region. The division participated in the fighting of the Second Battle of Kharkov and, following this, the Division was part of the offensive towards Stalingrad and reached the Volga river north of the city on 23 August 1942. Supporting the flank of the German attack on the city the division suffered losses and. During its withdrawal from the front line the division was caught up in the Soviet counter offensive, Operation Uranus, most of the division was trapped in what became the Stalingrad pocket while a smaller number of units were pushed west. Reformed in Brittany in March 1943 from new recruits and units who had not been trapped at Stalingrad the division was sent to Italy in June 1943. Despite the 16th Panzer Division performing adequately under his command, Rudolf Sieckenius was made a scapegoat for the German defeat at Salerno and it took part in the German retreat and defensive operations in Italy until November 1943 when it was sent back to the Eastern Front. The 16th Panzer Division was used in a number of locations in the sector after this in an attempt to stabilize the German front lines. After limited resupplies the division part in the German retreat to Poland. In January 1945 the division was entrapped once more with the start of the Soviet Vistula–Oder Offensive, after a short rest and resupply in February it fought in Silesia and Czechoslovakia. With the German surrender the division attempted to reach US American lines, with some parts succeeding in doing so, in 1942 the Rifle regiments were renamed to Panzergrenadier-Regiments 64 and 79, while most of the other units remained in their previous state. The main units of the division were reformed after their destruction at Stalingrad in 1943, after the war a memorial was erected in Münster, the original garrison headquarters of the division, for the soldiers of the 16th Panzer Division. A small number of Stalingrad survivors held annual reunions in the city up until the 1990s and his research also established that, of the unknown number of soldiers of the division that surrendered at Stalingrad only 128 returned after the war
Germany
Wehrmacht
