The book 2. Panzer-Division, Ardennes, Autumn 1944 – January 1945 – Volume IV – traces the four months of engagement of the Austrian armoured division between mid-September 1944 and mid-January 1945. A period of unit rebuilding followed by combat covering two major phases: the restructuring of Autumn 1944 between the Rhine and the Westwall that would lead it to the heart of the German offensive "Wacht am Rhein" carried out in Luxembourg and Belgium from 16 December 1944.
The veterans of Normandy at Caumont, Mortain and Chambois had suffered heavy losses during the summer 1944 fighting. The faded memories of the survivors all evoked the "Jabo Rennstrecke" (fighter-bomber racetrack) that was Normandy. The powerful Panzer-Regiment 3 of Papa Guderian had left virtually all of its vehicles in the Bocage, and the Division's motorised and mechanised transport had been decimated. In early September 1944, at the moment of crossing the Belgian and Luxembourg borders, it was unimaginable that the 2. Panzer-Division could find itself at the spearhead of a massive German offensive nearly 80 kilometres deep into American lines after only eight days of fighting! And yet, the German conscription effort, industrial and materiel production of Autumn 1944, combined with the experience of the officers, made it possible to achieve this miraculous but risky feat!
A bold race to the Meuse as far as the outskirts of Dinant that proved progressively destructive and marked the beginning of a slow agony for the 2. Panzer-Division. Oberst von Lauchert's unit was henceforth forced to fall back on localised defensive actions, before a withdrawal in January 1945 to the November positions in the Westwall.
For the 2. Panzer-Division, there had been the Blitzkrieg of 1939/1940 in Poland and France, the sweep through the Balkans and Greece, then the bogging down before Moscow in 1941, the deadlock of the Battle of Kursk/Orel in 1943, and then Normandy… A succession of violent and deadly engagements punctuated by long periods of restructuring.
The eight days of the December 1944 offensive would bring difficult moments for the 2. Panzer-Division: the crossing of the Our at Dasburg and the fighting at Marnach, the heights of Munshausen and Hosingen, the capture of Clervaux, the brilliant assault on the Féitsch/Allerborn crossroads, the attack on Noville, the bridge at Ortheuville, then the destructive encirclement at Celles/Foy/Conjoux before Dinant, before the final acts of resistance at Bure and Oberwampach in January 1945.
In a Volume V we will cover the final months of engagement of the 2. Panzer-Division through the days of the Battle of Prüm in Germany, then the disaster on the Rhine, and finally, as the last battles, the defensive line between Fulda and Steinach before the slow dissolution of the unit across the German and Czech landscape in May 1945…
