Panzer Archives

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Wehrmacht Pioneer Mathias Hansen Laid to Rest 70 Years After Operation Barbarossa

By Wilhelm R. Gehlen & Don A. Gregory

Letters home provide us with a glimpse into the daily lives of soldiers during the best and worst times. Read more

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Operation Crusader at Sidi Rezegh—Siege of Tobruk

By Thomas Haymes

By the end of the second day visibility was reduced to almost zero. Burning hulks of everything from ME-109s to M3 “Honey” tanks, Panzer IIIHs, and trucks of all descriptions littered the battleground that was once an airfield. Read more

With armor support, Red Army soldiers advance toward a burning farmhouse in the rugged Carpathian Mountain region. Hitler thought that the Soviet counteroffensive had run out of steam—but he was wrong.

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The Battle of Targul Frumos: A Defensive Stand on the Eastern Front

By Pat McTaggart

May 1, 1944. Marshal of the Soviet Union Ivan Stepanovich Konev had a right to be pleased with himself and his men as he gazed at the maps spread before him. Read more

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The General George Patton Museum of Calvary and Armor

By Blaine Taylor

Fifty years have gone by since the inception of the Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor at Fort Knox, Ky., Read more

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Waffen SS General Felix Steiner’s WWII Legacy

By Pat McTaggart

“Where is Steiner?” Adolf Hitler demanded as his Thousand Year Reich crumbled around him in April 1945. “Is he attacking yet?” Read more

American tanks and armored gun carriers drive over snow-covered terrain to Samree during the Battle of the Bulge. Capture of the city opened the way to Houffallize, heart of the Bulge.

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The End of the Battle of the Bulge

By Arnold Blumberg

Wednesday, December 27, 1944, found the military situation in the Ardennes Forest of Belgium stalemated. After 12 days of unrelenting struggle, the American and German forces on this part of the Western Front found themselves locked in brutal combat, unable to drive each other back. Read more

Shortly after a surrender to U.S. forces, German officers hand out rations of bread to hungry soldiers.

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The German 11th Panzer Division: Giving Up the Ghost

By Brig. Gen. Raymond E. Bell Jr.

It was an impressive sight. Upon the reviewing stand as honored guest was General Dwight D. Read more

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WWII Ordnance: The Boys Anti-tank Rifle

By Bob Cashner

When the first tanks appeared in World War I, they were relatively lightly armored and protected the crews only against small-arms fire. Read more

Polish cavalry operates in rough terrain against German forces. Not surprisingly, elite Polish cavalry units were among the last to surrender to the Germans in October 1939.

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WWII Polish Cavalryman: Lance-Wielding Anachronism?

By Alex Zakrzewski

In the late afternoon of September 1, 1939, the 18th Uhlan Regiment of the Pomorska Cavalry Brigade was holding its position along Poland’s heavily forested northwest frontier when orders arrived to attack the flank of the advancing German 20th Motorized Infantry Division. Read more

The Soviet Union’s two primary antitank rifles saw wide use in World War II despite the limitations of their small calibers.

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Russian Antitank Rifles

By Christopher Miskimon

The German panzers approached the Russian artillery column as it moved to a new position. As the troops trudged toward their new firing point, six panzers appeared, rampaging into the Russian rear area, no doubt searching for vulnerable targets to destroy. Read more

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To Conquer a Fortress

By Bastiaan Willems

The storming of Fortress Königsberg in April 1945 was the finale of a two-month Soviet siege. The city, one of the few triumphs of Hitler’s fortress strategy, had been encircled by late January and lay hundreds of kilometers behind the main front line by the time the Soviets launched their final assault toward the Nazi capital of Berlin. Read more

Lieutenant Heinz Werner Schmidt was in command of a heavy weapons company during the German charge at Sidi Rezegh.

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Operation Crusader: Erwin Rommel Learns His Lesson

By Robert Haymes

By the time of the Crusader battles in late 1941, the German panzer forces in North Africa had developed a sophisticated combined-arms doctrine. Read more

North Africa : Rommel, nicknamed the "Desert Fox", commanding the Afrika Korps, consults battle plans with his staff Date: 1941 Source: Explorer Archives. Original photographed by Desmarteau.

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Field Marshal Erwin Rommel: The “Desert Fox”

by Mike Haskew

Born on November 15, 1891, in Heidenheim, Germany, Erwin Rommel was a hero of World War I, receiving the Pour le Mérite, or Blue Max, for his actions on the Italian Front. Read more

The Battle of the Bulge, Adolf Hitler’s Ardennes Offensive, was conceived to drive west, split two Allied army groups, and capture the vital Belgian port city of Antwerp.

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World War II’s Famous Battle of the Bulge

by Mike Haskew

On December 16, 1944, Hitler launched Operation Wacht am Rhein, or Watch on the Rhine. Popularly known as the Battle of the Bulge, the ensuing offensive was a desperate effort to win a major victory in the West. Read more

In their first major battles of World War I, American Expeditionary Force troops helped blunt multiple offensives launched by the German Army in the spring of 1918.

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World War I Doughboys’ Bloody Baptism

As the fateful day drew to a close, the exhausted World War I soldiers of the German 25th and 82nd Reserve Divisions huddled in their trenches. Read more

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Erwin Rommel & Heinz Schmidt at Sidi Rezegh

By Thomas Haymes

On the afternoon of November 23, known as Totensonntag to the Germans, General Ludwig Crüwell, commander of the Afrika Korps, decided to launch both of his armored divisions at the box being defended by the 2nd South African Brigade which had laagered just south of the contested airfield at Sidi Rezegh. Read more

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Horses & The Mechanized Myth of the Eastern Front

By John Perry

Advances in military technology, including tanks, jets, and rockets, are among the popular images of Nazi Germany during World War II. Read more

On H-Hour, D-Day (June 6, 1944), Allied forces landed on the coast of Normandy in France. It was the most massive naval operation in human history.

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H-Hour, D-Day: The Normandy Invasion

by Mike Haskew

Commonly known as D-Day, the Western Allies invaded Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II on June 6, 1944. Read more

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The Allies’ Strong Stand Atop Mortain

by Kevin Hymel

A German SS officer, holding a white flag of truce, walked through the American lines and up to a tall lieutenant from Texas. Read more

Smoke from his cigar curls upward as an SS officer and his detachment pause at a road sign directing traffic toward the village of Malmedy, Belgium, during the opening hours of the German Ardennes offensive that came to be known as the Battle of the Bulge. In a field near Malmedy, troops under the command of SS Colonel Jochen Peiper committed one of the most infamous battlefield atrocities of World War II.

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Adolf Hitler Sends Joachim Peiper to the Bulge

By Josh Quackenbush

During the Battle of the Bulge, the largest battle America has ever fought, Hitler chose the Sixth Panzer Army for the German juggernaut’s most important role. Read more

From Around the Network

Savagery off Samar: Interview with Jack Yusen

Herrlisheim: What Became of the 12th Armored Division’s Lost Battalion

The M79 Grenade Launcher

The Killing of Il Duce