German Units
The Prague Rescue Operation
Part of the convoy out of Prague! Towards the end of April 1945, Das Reich Division was fragmented as its commanders sought to carry out the conflicting orders being received from Berlin. Deutschland’ Regiment finished the war fighting the Americans in the St Poelten area of Austria. The panzer regiment, the artillery regiment, the Flak, the engineer battalion and the…
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13th SS Volunteer Mountain Division
The mountain infantry company of the ‘Handschar’ division on the parade ground. Apart from the recruitment of ethnic Germans and ‘Germanic’ volunteers, from 1942 onwards Himmler began increasingly to recruit men who, in Nazi jargon, were termed ‘ethnic aliens’. As early as 1940 he had formed ‘legions’ in north-west Europe—with…
The fate of the 17 Tigers on Sicily
Tiger Tank 222 on the ferry crossing the straights of Messina. The evacuation of Sicily by the Germans in August 1943. The fate of the 17 Tigers on Sicily was reported by Major Gierga, commander of Panzer-Abteilung 215, in the following report to the Generalinspekteur der Panzertruppen dated 28 August…
Sixth Panzer Armee at Ardennes 1944
For purposes of this offensive, Hitler created the Sixth SS Panzer Army, consisting of four Panzer divisions under the command of Josef A. “Sepp” Dietrich, an SS officer both fierce and trusted. From the northern Ardennes in the vicinity of Monschau, Dietrich would lead the Schwerpunkt (principal thrust) of a…
Barbarossa – Panzer Divisions
The first weeks of Barbarossa saw the Panzers make rapid advances and Soviet forces taking heavy losses, outshining the German achievements of 1940. However, problems soon surfaced. The lack of a suitable road network slowed down the German follow-up infantry and supplies, with the result that the Panzers failed to…
The German Perspective: Rommel’s ‘Longest Day’
Littry; one 4,7 cm Pak (t) Panzer- Kampfwagen 35 R (f) abandoned. This is a Czech anti-tank gun mounted on French Renault R35 chassis. It belonged to the Schnelle-Abteilung 517 of 716. ID; 20 June 1944. On 23 June 1944 a detailed operations report was completed under the auspices of…
Vlasov and the Nazis
These men are Russian officers in the ROA, the Russian Liberation Army (In Russian: Russkaya Osvoboditelnaya Armiya). They are a part of captured Russian soldiers who joined the Germans and their Allies in the struggle against Bolshevism. The officer second from the left is General Vlasov. The ROA consisted of…