6th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht)
The 6th Panzer Division () was an armoured division in the German Army, the Heer, during World War II, established in October 1939. The division, initially formed as a light brigade, participated in the invasions of Poland, Belgium, France and the Soviet Union. From 1941 to 1945 it fought on the Eastern Front, interrupted only by periods of refitting spent in France and Germany. It eventually surrendered to US forces in Czechoslovakia in May 1945 but was handed over to Soviet authorities, where the majority of its remaining men would be imprisoned in Gulag hard labour camps. History The 1st Light Brigade was a mechanized unit established in October 1937 in imitation of the French Division Légère Mécanique. It was intended to take on the roles of army-level reconnaissance and security that had traditionally been the responsibility of cavalry. It included mechanized reconnaissance units, motorized infantry, and a battalion of tanks. The concept of the Light Brigade, of which three were planned by the Wehrmacht, quickly showed its flawed nature and was abandoned. In April 1938 the brigade was enlarged to become the 1st Light Division, receiving the 11th tank regiment as an attachment for its participation in the occupation of the Sudetenland in October 1938 and the subsequent disestablishment of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. Following the latter the division received 130 Czech-built tanks which were superior to the Panzer I and Panzer II the division had been equipped with. In 1939, the division fought in the Invasion of Poland. Due to shortcomings that the campaign revealed in the organization of the Light divisions, it was reorganized as the 6th Panzer Division in October 1939, as were the other three light divisions which became the 7th, 8th and 9th Panzer Divisions. As the 6th Panzer Division, it participated in the 1940 Battle of France. The division contained a single panzer regiment, the Panzer-Regiment 11, which in turn contained three Abteilungen, or battalions. The 11th Regiment was equipped with 75 Czech-built Panzer 35(t) tanks, which proved efficient but difficult to maintain because the maintenance manuals were in Czech rather than German, and spare parts were less readily supplied and harder to easily requisition as a result. Furthermore, there were six Befehlspanzer 35(t), which were a subtype of the 35(t) designed for military commanders, as well as 45 Panzer II and 27 Panzer IV. The division was part of the German advance to the English Channel through Belgium. It then swung back towards the French-Swiss border before relocating to Eastern Prussia in September 1940 where it remained until June 1941. At the time of the German invasion of the Soviet Union the division had 239 tanks, but only twelve of those were Panzer III, which still struggled to pierce the armour of Soviet tanks such as the T-34 and KV-1. In June 1941, it joined Operation Barbarossa, fighting at first under Army Group North for Leningrad. At the Battle of Raseiniai two of its Kampfgruppes consisted of: Kampfgruppe Von Seckendorff consisting of