6th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht)

6th Panzer Division
Troop registration
active	October 18, 1939 to May 8, 1945 (surrender)
Country	German Empire
Armed forces	Wehrmacht
Armed forces	army
Branch of service	Armored force
Type	Panzer Division
structure	structure
garrison	Wuppertal
Second World War	French campaign German-Soviet war Vyazma Cauldron Battle Battle for Moscow Company winter storm Kursk
Commanders
list	Commanders

The 6th Panzer Division was a large unit of the army of the German Wehrmacht in World War II . It was formed on October 18, 1939 from the 1st light division .

history

The 6th Panzer Division was set up in Wuppertal on October 18, 1939 . They were set up by reclassifying and renaming the 1st light division (which in turn had been created around a year earlier (on April 1, 1938) from the 1st light brigade set up on October 12, 1937 ). She took part in the western campaign and was used in Belgium from the Ardennes to Flanders . In September 1940 she was moved to East Prussia .

She took part in the attack on the Soviet Union in the area of Army Group North . On June 22, 1941, it passed in the area of Panzer Group 4 and in the association of the XXXXI. Army Corps (mot.) The Memel in the area west of Tilsit . Together with the 1st Panzer Division and the 36th Motorized Division , a Soviet counterattack by the 3rd and 12th Mechanical Corps in the Raseiniai area was repulsed by June 26th. Via Schaulen it reached the Daugava near Friedrichstadt and forced an advance on Pleskau . After the breakthrough through the Soviet Luga position, the attack on Leningrad began in September 1941 . For the company Taifun, the division of the Army Group in mid and early October under the XXXXI. Army Corps (General Harpe ) opened the attack in the direction of Moscow . During the advance on Klin (December 1941), in the Battle of Moscow and in defending against the Soviet counter-offensive, the division suffered such high losses that it was reorganized in France from March to November 1942 . The division received a thorough re-training and completely new equipment.

In December 1942, the 6th PzDiv. at Kotelnikowo south of the Don one with 21 tanks II, 105 tanks III, 24 tanks IV, 9 tank command vehicles, 42 assault guns III and 4,200 motor vehicles as well as fully filled personnel. She was transferred to Army Group Don to take part in Operation Wintergewitter , the relief attack on the 6th Army. After considerable initial success, it had to be relocated there due to the Soviet offensive on the 8th Italian Army on the central Don, which brought the end of the attacks towards Stalingrad. The 6th Panzer Division continued to fight in Army Group Don, later in the South; it took part in the Battle of Kursk in July 1943 and fought its way back to Galicia in many battles until April 1944. Then it was transferred to the Reich and refreshed again in Munsterlager until July 1944. From August 1944 she fought with Army Group Center on the Narew Front. At the end of December 1944, the 6th PzDiv was relocated to Hungary - despite the imminent Soviet offensive on East and West Prussia - where it was deployed until the end of the war (most recently in Austria and Moravia). In May 1945 the 6th Panzer Division surrendered to the Red Army near Brno in Moravia Brno .

Commanders

• General of the Panzer Troop Werner Kempf - October 18, 1939 to January 6, 1941
• Lieutenant General Franz Landgraf - January 6th to September 1st, 1941
• General of the armored troop Wilhelm von Thoma - June to September 15, 1941
• Lieutenant General Franz Landgraf - September 15, 1941 to April 1, 1942
• Lieutenant General Erhard Raus - April 1, 1942 to February 7, 1943
• Lieutenant General Walther von Hünersdorff - February 7 to July 17, 1943
• Major General Wilhelm Crisolli - July 14 to August 21, 1943
• Lieutenant General Rudolf Freiherr von Waldenfels - August 21, 1943 to February 8, 1944
• Lieutenant General Werner Marcks - February 8 to February 21, 1944
• Lieutenant General Rudolf Freiherr von Waldenfels - February 21 to March 13, 1944
• Lieutenant General Walter Denkert - March 13-28 , 1944 (deputy)
• Lieutenant General Rudolf Freiherr von Waldenfels - March 28, 1944
• Colonel Hans-Otto von Bernuth -
• Colonel Friedrich-Wilhelm Juergens - November 23, 1944 to January 18, 1945
• Lieutenant General Rudolf Freiherr von Waldenfels - January 20 to May 8, 1945 (surrender)

structure

Changes in the structure of the 6th Panzer Division from 1940 to 1943

April 1940 Western campaign	1943 Eastern Front
11th Panzer Regiment Panzer Department 65 (until June 1942)	11th Panzer Regiment
Rifle Brigade 6 Rifle Regiment 4 Motorbike Rifle Battalion 6	Panzer Grenadier Regiment 4 114th Panzer Grenadier Regiment
76th Artillery Regiment	76th Panzer Artillery Regiment
	Army Flak Artillery Department 298
Reconnaissance Department 57	Panzer Reconnaissance Division 6
Panzerjäger Division 41	Panzerjäger detachment 41
Pioneer -Bataillon 57	Panzer Pioneer Battalion 57
News Department 82	Panzer News Department 82
Supply Troops 57	Tank Supply Troops 57

literature

• 6th Panzer Division. In: Veit Scherzer (Ed.): German troops in the Second World War. Volume 3. Scherzers Militaer-Verlag, Ranis / Jena 2008, ISBN 978-3-938845-13-4 , pp. 309-338.
• Samuel W. Mitcham : German Order of Battle.Panzer, Panzer Grenadier, and Waffen SS Divisions in World War II. Stackpole Books, 2007, ISBN 978-0-8117-3438-7 .
• Georg Tessin : Associations and troops of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen SS in World War II 1939–1945. Volume 3: The Land Forces 6-14 . 2nd Edition. Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 1974, ISBN 3-7648-0942-6 .

Web links

Commons : 6th Panzer Division (Germany)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature on the 6th Panzer Division in the catalog of the German National Library
• Organizational History of the German Armored Forces 1939 - 1945. (PDF; 292 kB) Retrieved September 15, 2011 (English). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} cf. Scherzer 2008; 309-315.
2. ↑ Don't go down! See Scherzer 2008; P. 315 f.
3. ↑ See Scherzer 2008; P. 309 f.