4th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht)

4th Panzer Division
Troop registration 1939
active	November 10, 1938 to May 8, 1945 (surrender)
Country	German Empire
Armed forces	Wehrmacht
Armed forces	army
Branch of service	Armored force
Type	Panzer Division
structure	Panzer Regiment 35 Panzer Regiment 36 Rifle Regiment 12 Rifle Regiment 33 Artillery Regiment 103
garrison	Wurzburg
Second World War	Invasion of Poland Campaign in France War against the Soviet Union 1941–1945 Battle for Moscow Battle for Kursk Kurland bag Battle for East Prussia
insignia
Troop registration 1939
Troop registration 1940 and 1943–1945 (variant)
Troop registration 1942

The 4th Panzer Division was a large unit of the army of the German Wehrmacht .

history

1935-1938

The 4th Panzer Division was set up in Würzburg in November 1938 as a replacement for the 2nd Panzer Division , which had been relocated to Vienna in the spring of 1938 after the annexation of Austria .

When the war began, it was one of six tank divisions that had been set up by then.

1939-1940

The 4th Panzer Division took part in the attack on Poland ; then it was relocated to the Lower Rhine for the western campaign . After its end, the 36th Panzer Regiment was given over to the 14th Panzer Division as part of the restructuring of the Panzer Divisions .

1941-1943

The division came to East Prussia in May 1941 and was relocated to the eastern Generalgouvernement in early June .

For Operation Barbarossa , the 4th Panzer Division was subordinated to the XXIV Army Corps under Geyr von Schweppenburg , which was subordinated to Panzer Group 2 under Guderian and this in turn subordinated to Army Group Center under von Bock .

After the start of the war against the Soviet Union she crossed on June 22 as part of the XXIV. Mot. Army Corps with the 3rd Panzer Division, the Bug in the area south of the fortress of Brest-Litovsk in Kodeń and penetrated about Slutsk to Berezina at Bobruisk in front. The division fought as part of Panzer Group 2 from October to early December 1941 during the Battle of Moscow in space Tula and then remained in the trench warfare until the summer of 1943, the 2nd Panzer Army in the room Oryol assumed. During the Battle of Kursk (July 1943) she was part of the 9th Army as part of the XXXXVII. Panzer Corps set to break through towards Tepolje. After the German withdrawal from the Orel front arc, the division was placed under the 2nd Army and defended in the Brjansk area on the Desna sector.

1944-1945

In the general retreat in 1944 the division went back to Bobruisk via Gomel and Pripyat . Then she fought in the spring of 1944 as part of the 4th Panzer Army at the LVI. Panzer Corps in the Kowel area and in August 1944 in Courland ( Doppelkopf company ) and was finally pushed back to West Prussia in 1945 . The division surrendered to the Red Army in the Danzig area at the end of March 1945 as part of the East Prussian Army that had been pushed back to the Baltic Sea .

Criminal orders

The historian Christian Hartmann stated in his post-doctoral thesis published in 2009 that the leadership of the 4th Panzer Division issued direct calls for the murder of Jews in 1941/42 . A divisional daily order from October 1941 reads: “In relation to the Jews, Hermann Löns ' words apply to the German soldiers : Need knows no command: Sla tot, sla tot!” On February 10, 1942, the slogan of the day read: “Jewish Civilians and partisans do not belong in the prison camps, but on the gallows ! "

Commanders

• Lieutenant General Georg-Hans Reinhardt - Listed by February 10, 1940
• Lieutenant General Ludwig Ritter von Radlmaier - February 11 to April 5, 1940
• Lieutenant General Johann Joachim Stever - April 6 to May 15, 1940
• Colonel Hans von Boineburg-Lengsfeld - May 15-19, 1940
• Lieutenant General Johann Joachim Stever - May 19 to July 23, 1940
• Colonel Hans Freiherr von Boineburg-Lengsfeld - July 24 to September 7, 1940
• Major General Willibald Freiherr von Langermann and Erlencamp - September 8, 1940 to December 23, 1941
• Major General Dietrich von Saucken - December 24, 1941 to January 6, 1942
• Major General Heinrich Eberbach - January 6th to March 1st, 1942
• Lieutenant General Otto Heidkämper - March 2 to April 3, 1942
• Lieutenant General Heinrich Eberbach - April 4 to November 23, 1942
• Lieutenant General Erich Schneider - November 24, 1942 to May 31, 1943
• Lieutenant General Dietrich von Saucken - May 31, 1943 to January 14, 1944
• Lieutenant General Hans Junck - January 15 to February 5, 1944
• Lieutenant General Dietrich von Saucken - February 5 to May 20, 1944
• Lieutenant General Clemens Betzel - May 20, 1944 to March 27, 1945 (killed near Danzig)
• Colonel Ernst-Wilhelm Hoffmann - March 27, 1945 until surrender

structure

Division 1940 France	Structure 1943 Eastern Front
Panzer Brigade 5th 35th Panzer Regiment 36th Panzer Regiment	35th Panzer Regiment
Rifle Brigade 4 Rifle Regiment 12 Rifle Regiment 33	Panzer Grenadier Regiment 12 Panzer Grenadier Regiment 33
Motorcyclist Battalion 34
Artillery Regiment 103rd	Panzer Artillery Regiment 103
	Army Flak Artillery Division 290
Panzer Reconnaissance Division 7	Panzer Reconnaissance Division 4
Panzerjäger Division 49	Panzerjäger detachment 49
Pioneer -Bataillon 79	Panzer Pioneer Battalion 79
News Department 79	Panzer News Department 79
Resupply Troops 84	Tank Supply Troops 84
	Field Replacement Battalion 103

Source:

Well-known members of the division

• Gerlach von Gaudecker (1909–1970), German knight's cross holder and later colonel in the army of the Bundeswehr
• Wilhelm-Ernst Freiherr Gedult von Jungsfeld (1893–1966), from July 1942 to May 1943, Commander of Panzerjäger Department 49, participant in World War II, later war literary officer
• Hellmuth Reinhardt (1900–1989), was from 1960, as major general of the army of the German armed forces , commander of the defense area V
• Fritz-Rudolf Schultz (1917–2002), was from 1970 to 1975 the defense commissioner of the German Bundestag
• Hans-Joachim Schulz-Merkel (1913–2000) doctor, medical officer and medical officer

photos

• 

  Units of the 4th PD cross the Albert Canal (Belgium, May 11, 1940)

• 

  Panzer IV of the 4th PD (Russia, 1944)

• 

  Troop plates during the battle for Kursk

literature

• Christian Hartmann: Wehrmacht in the Eastern War. Front and military hinterland 1941/42. Munich: Oldenbourg 2009. ISBN 978-3-486-58064-8 , review in sehepunkte.de
• Veit Scherzer (Ed.): German troops in World War II. Volume 3. Scherzers Militaer-Verlag, Ranis / Jena 2008, ISBN 978-3-938845-13-4 .
• 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 .

Web links

• Literature on the 4th 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 d e} Georg Tessin : Associations and troops of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS in World War II 1939–1945. Volume 1. The Land Forces 1–5, 2nd edition. Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 1974, ISBN 3-7648-0871-3 ; P. 242 f.
2. ^ Schramm: OKW-KTB, Kriegsgliederung Volume I, p. 1140, Volume II, p. 733.
3. ^ Christian Hartmann: Wehrmacht in the Eastern War. Front and military hinterland 1941/42. Munich: Oldenbourg 2009, p. 666 f.
4. ^ Christian Hartmann: Wehrmacht in the Eastern War. Front and military hinterland 1941/42. Munich 2009, p. 666.
5. ^ Christian Hartmann: Wehrmacht in the Eastern War. Front and military hinterland 1941/42. Munich 2009, p. 667.