5th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht)

5th Panzer Division
	; ; Troop registration number 1940
active	November 24, 1938 to May 8, 1945 (surrender)
Country	German Empire
Armed forces	Wehrmacht
Armed forces	army
Branch of service	Armored force
Type	Panzer Division
garrison	Opole
Second World War	Attack on Poland ; French ; campaign Balkan campaign ; German-Soviet war Battle for Moscow Operation Bagration
insignia
Troop registration number 1940
Troop registration 1941–1945
Troop plates during the Citadel Company

The 5th Panzer Division was a large unit of the army of the German Wehrmacht .

history

The 5th Panzer Division was established in November 1938 in Opole in the military district VIII (Breslau) set up. When the war began , it was one of six tank divisions that had been set up by then.

The 5th Panzer Division took part in the attack on Poland and was then transferred to the Lower Rhine to take part in the western campaign. In September 1940, as part of the reorganization of the tank force, the 15th Panzer Regiment was transferred to the 11th Panzer Division .

Units of the 5th Panzer Division advance into Athens (1941)

After another relocation to occupied Poland, the division was used in the Balkan campaign and advanced to Greece by June 1941 . Parts of the division took part in the Battle of Crete .

The division was then reclassified again, again downsized and, from September 1941, relocated to the Eastern Front.

In 1941/43 the division was subordinate to Army Group Center and fought in the Battle of Moscow in the winter of 1941/42 and in the Battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943.

In general retreat from autumn 1943 to summer 1944, the division went back through the towns of Bryansk , Prypiat , Babruysk and Kovel . During the Soviet summer offensive from June 22, 1944, it was the core of a hastily assembled combat group under the command of Lieutenant General Dietrich von Saucken , with which the 4th Army should be prevented from being surrounded by the village of Baryssau . Due to the overwhelming strength of the Red Army, this task could not be fulfilled. The loss of Minsk on July 3rd could not be prevented due to the catastrophic overall military situation of Army Group Center . The Saucken combat group , which at that time essentially consisted of the 5th Panzer Division, the 505 Heavy Panzer Division and the 170th Infantry Division , had to fight its way back from the Beresina to Molodechno before the superiority of the 3rd Belarusian Front .

At the end of July 1944, the division withdrew fighting via Suwalki towards Lithuania and led in August as part of the XXXIX. Panzer Corps, together with the 4th Panzer Division, successfully counterattacks in Courland ( Operation Doppelkopf ). After fighting retreat towards West Prussia , the division surrendered to the Red Army near Danzig in April 1945 together with other units of the 2nd Army and thus ceased to exist.

Commanders

Lieutenant General Heinrich von Vietinghoff - September 2 to October 8, 1939
Lieutenant General Max von Hartlieb-Walsporn - October 8, 1939 to May 29, 1940
General of the Panzer Troop Joachim Lemelsen May 29 to November 25, 1940
Lieutenant General Gustav Fehn - November 25, 1940 to August 10, 1942
Lieutenant General Eduard Metz August 10, 1942 to February 1, 1943
Major General Johannes Nedtwig - February 1 to June 20, 1943
Lieutenant General Ernst Felix Fäckenstedt - June 20 to September 7, 1943
Lieutenant General Karl Decker - September 7, 1943 to October 16, 1944
Major General Rolf Lippert - October 16, 1944 to February 5, 1945
Major General Günther Hoffmann-Schoenborn - February 5 to April 1945
Colonel of the reserve Hans Herzog - April 1945 until surrender

structure

France 1940	Eastern Front 1943
Panzer Brigade 8 15th Panzer Regiment 31st Panzer Regiment	31st Panzer Regiment
Rifle Brigade 5 Rifle Regiment 13 Rifle Regiment 14th	Panzer Grenadier Regiment 13 14th Panzer Grenadier Regiment
Reconnaissance Department 8	Panzer Reconnaissance Division 5
Artillery Regiment 116 (2 divisions)	Panzer Artillery Regiment 116 (3 divisions)
Panzerjäger Division 53	Panzerjäger detachment 53
	Army Flak Artillery Department 288
Pioneer -Bataillon 89	Panzer Pioneer Battalion 89
News Department 77	Panzer News Department 77
Resupply Troops 85	Tank Supply Troops 85

literature

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 .
Anton Detlev von Plato: The History of the 5th Panzer Division 1938 to 1945 . Community of the members of the former 5th Panzer Division, Lüchow 1978.
Otto Will: Diary of an Eastern Front Fighter. In action with the 5th Panzer Division 1941-1945. Pour le Mérite Publishing House. ISBN 978-3-932381-56-0 .

Web links

Organizational History of the German Armored Forces 1939 - 1945. (PDF; 292 kB) Retrieved September 15, 2011 (English).

Individual evidence

^ ^A ^b ^c ^d ^e 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 ; P. 293 f.

[Lexikon_der_Wehrmacht-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 2. The Land Forces 1–5. 2nd Edition. Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 1973, ISBN 3-7648-0871-3 ; P. 293 f.