War Stories

The destruction of Army Group Centre in June 1944 and the collapse of the Western Front following the Allied invasion of France in the same month caused a major drain of German manpower and materiel. Within two months dozens of divisions were wiped from the German Order of Battle by the sweeping Russian offensives in Byelorussia and Ukraine, or bled white in the war of attrition in the Normandy countryside. During the summer of 1944 the German army was beaten both in Russia and in Western Europe and fell back in full retreat. The German army reserves could not cope with the dreadful losses and ad hoc measures had to be taken in order to stabilise the situation. New kinds of units saw their birth that summer: infantry divisions were raised as so-called "Volksgrenadier-divisions" and new tank forces were created in the form of "Panzer-Brigades". The appearance of Panzer-Brigades was no novelty within the German armed forces. From the beginning of the war in 1939 Panzer-Brigades were present and operational in the German Order of Battle until at least the summer of 1943. Apart from the official Order of Battle, German tank forces often operated in ad hoc formations, especially after the reverse of fortunes on the battlefield required makeshift units to tackle mounting crisis situations. One of the most successful battlegroups, so-called "Kampfgruppen", was "schweres Panzer Regiment B ke", called after the commander dr. Franz B ke. This unit operated in Ukraine during the beginning of 1944 and managed to knock out hundreds of Russian tanks with the permanent loss of only five tanks. The success of B ke undoubtedly inspired Hitler to create strong and well-equipped regimental sized tank units. Unsurprisingly he was one of the first commanders assigned to the Panzer-Brigades.