1st Panzer Division (Wehrmacht)

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1st Panzer Division

Troop registration number of the 1st Panzer Division

Troop registration numbers 1935–1940 and 1943–1945
active October 15, 1935 to May 8, 1945
Country German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era) German Empire
Armed forces Wehrmacht
Armed forces army
Branch of service Armored force
Type Panzer Division
structure Panzer Brigade 1
Rifle Brigade 1
Artillery Regiment 73
garrison Weimar
insignia
Troop registration numbers 1935–1940 and 1943–1945 Oak leaf symbol of the 1st Panzer Division
Troop registration numbers for the 2nd half of 1940 Yellow Kenaz rune
Troop registration 1941–1942 Yellow cross

The 1st Panzer Division was a large unit of the army of the German Wehrmacht . It was the first operational tank division before the Second World War .

history

The 1st Panzer Division was formed from the 3rd Cavalry Division in Weimar in October 1935 . First it consisted of a tank brigade with two regiments, a motorized infantry brigade, a reconnaissance department, an artillery regiment and other support units. When the war began, it was one of six tank divisions that had been set up by then. She was under the XVI. Army Corps of the 10th Army .

1939-1940

The 1st Panzer Division began the attack on Poland in 1939 together with the 4th Panzer Division in northern Poland and advanced towards Warsaw . Between September 16 and 20, it repulsed a Polish counterattack on the Bzura .

Soldiers and tanks from Schmidt's division in Karlsbad, 1938
Parade of the 1st Panzer Division in Karlsbad on October 4, 1938
Division tanks at the Meuse crossing near Sedan, 1940

In May 1940 the Panzer Division was moved to the Western Front and under the command of General of the Panzer Troop Heinz Guderians XIX. Army Corps . The division advanced through the Ardennes in the western campaign and reached the breakthrough at Sedan on May 16 . At the end of May she was operating against the British Expeditionary Forces , but received the order to stop 15 km from Dunkirk . After the mission in northern France, it was moved to the Aisne to break the remaining resistance in western France. On June 12, the division achieved the breakthrough in the direction of Belfort . The division then continued south until France surrendered in Compiègne on June 22nd .

After the end of operations in the west, the division was restructured. The 2nd Panzer Regiment was transferred to the 16th Panzer Division , the division received the 113th Rifle Regiment as compensation.

1941-1943

During the attack on the Soviet Union , the division operated with Army Group North as part of Panzer Group 4 and was part of the XXXXI. Mot. Army Corps (General of Reinhardt Armored Troops ) subordinated. It crossed Estonia and reached Luga on July 14 , 65 km from Leningrad . The division stayed there for three weeks while the front was straightened out. With the beginning of the Leningrad blockade and the reaching of Lake Ladoga by the Wehrmacht, the division began to advance as an armored spearhead towards the center of Leningrad. The division reached the city perimeter on September 8, but was withdrawn from the front on the 18th as operations against Lake Ladoga had stalled.

In October the Panzer Division was deployed to the Battle of Moscow and placed under the command of Panzer Group 3. The division was about 20 km from Moscow at the end of November, but could not reach the city until the Soviet counter-offensive began on December 6th. During the next two months the division was involved in heavy defensive battles. The division's withdrawal began in Klin and ranged from 100 to 200 km west of Moscow. At the end of the year she was with Rzhev , from where she was transferred to France in January 1943 for rearmament.

1943-1945

In June 1943 the division was relocated to the Balkans , then to Greece for coastal defense. She was only transferred to Ukraine in November , where she took part in the Battle of Kiev . The division fought in the spring of 1944 during the Soviet Dnepr-Carpathian operation in the sector of the 1st Panzer Army . She was in the Association of III. Panzer corps deployed on Lysjanka to relieve the Stemmermann group trapped in the Korsun pocket (February 1944). In March / April the division was trapped in the so-called Hubekessel during the Kamenez-Podolski battle, but managed to break out. In September 1944 the division was relocated to the Carpathians , in October to Hungary , where it was part of the LVII. Panzer Corps took part in the Battle of Budapest . At the beginning of March 1945 the division was again in the area of ​​III. Panzer Corps (General Breith ) deployed and pushed back into the eastern foothills of the Alpine region ( Wechsel region ). After a last tactical counterattack on April 16, 1945 in the eastern Styrian Joglland ( Vorau area ), the division was replaced by the 1st Volks-Gebirgs-Division and withdrawn to Ebersdorf- Hartberg . At the beginning of May it went back to Graz via Weiz and Gleisdorf together with the remains of the 3rd Panzer Division to the south . By May 8th, she moved with mass to the northwest to the Enns , where troops of the 3rd US Army were already standing to surrender there. That happened after the armistice with the Americans came into effect. The members of the division were therefore not prisoners of war, but disarmed Germans who were released relatively quickly.

Commanders

No. Rank Surname date
1. Lieutenant General Maximilian von Weichs October 1, 1935 to September 30, 1937
2. Major general Rudolf Schmidt October 1, 1937 to November 2, 1939
3. Major general Friedrich Kirchner November 2, 1939 to July 16, 1941
4th Major general Walter Kruger July 17, 1941 to December 31, 1943
5. Major general Richard Koll January 1 to February 19, 1944
6th Lieutenant General Werner Marcks February 19-25, 1944
7th Lieutenant General Eberhard Thunert September 25, 1944 to May 8, 1945

organization

1st Panzer Division

  • 1st Panzer Brigade
    • 1st Panzer Regiment
      • Panzer-Division I (repealed July 1941; reorganized January 1943)
      • Panzer Division II
    • Panzer Regiment 2 (repealed October 1940)
      • Panzer Division I
      • Panzer Division II
  • 1st Rifle Brigade
    • Rifle Regiment 1 (renamed Panzergrenadier Regiment July 1, 1941)
      • Rifle Battalion I
      • Rifle Battalion II
      • Rifle Battalion III (established October 1939, disbanded November 1940)
    • Rifle Regiment 113 (renamed Panzergrenadier Regiment 113 July 1941)
      • Rifle Battalion I (established November 1940)
      • Rifle Battalion II (set up February 1941)
    • Motorcyclist Battalion 1
  • 73rd Artillery Regiment
    • Artillery Division I
    • Artillery Division II
    • Artillery Division III (established in 1941)
  • Reconnaissance Department 4
  • Panzerjäger detachment 37
  • Army Flak Department 299 (established in 1943)
  • Engineer Battalion 37
  • Grenadier Replacement Division 1009
  • News Section 37

Well-known members of the division

literature

  • Rolf O. Stoves: The 1st Panzer Division 1935–1945. Positioning, arming, missions, men. Nebel Verlag, Utting, 2001, ISBN 978-3-89555-042-3 .
  • Horst Riebenstahl: The 1st Panzer Division in the picture: Path and fate of the 1st Panzer Division in 700 photos; 1935-1945. Podzun-Pallas, 1986, ISBN 3-7909-0280-2 .
  • Fate calls us ... memories of the Erfurt Panzer Regiment 1. Rockstuhl Publishing House, Bad Langensalza 2010, ISBN 978-3-86777-197-9 .
  • Veit Scherzer : German troops in World War II. Volume 2. Scherzers Militaer-Verlag, Ranis / Jena 2008, ISBN 978-3-938845-08-0 .
  • 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 2. The Land Forces 1–5 . 2nd Edition. Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 1973, ISBN 3-7648-0871-3 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Fritz Posch: History of the administrative district Hartberg Volume 2, Leykam Verlag, Graz 1978, pp. 91-102

Web links

Commons : 1st Panzer Division (Germany)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files