87066 WWII GERMAN TANK CREW D.A.K. WITH ROMMEL BUST

Erwin Rommel (full name: Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel) was born in 1891 and died probably by forced suicide in 1944. He was one of the most famous German generals of the Second World War - he was nicknamed the Fox of the Desert. Erwin Rommel gained his war experience from the first weeks of the First World War. In its course, as an infantry officer, he was active in Argons in France, Italy and Romania. In the course of this conflict, he often showed personal courage and skillfully led his troops into battle. For his achievements on the Italian front, he was awarded the highest order of imperial Germany - Pour Le Merite. After 1918, he remained in Reichswer. During this period, he also wrote a great and still up-to-date book "Piechota attacks!" (in German "Infanterie greif an!"). At the beginning of World War II, in recognition of his merits, he was the head of Adolf Hitler's Headquarters in Poland. However, already in the summer of 1940, he commanded the German 7th Armored Division with great success during the French campaign. However, in the years 1941-1943 he led the Afrika Korps during his fights in North Africa, often at that time presenting an unconventional, courageous, extremely offensive action, sometimes not taking into account the conditions of logistics. Ultimately, due to the numerical superiority of the Allied forces and its own problems with supplies - the campaign in North Africa was lost by the Axis countries. In the period 1943-1944 he held high command positions in France. Due to the still unclear role of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in the attack on Hitler of July 20, 1944, he was most likely forced to commit suicide in October 1944.The first tanks in the German army appeared at the end of World War I - these were the A7V machines. After the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, the German armed forces were forbidden to develop armored weapons, but the German side did not honor these restrictions and secretly developed armored weapons. However, after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, this development became fully official, and in 1935 the 1st Armored Division was formed. In the period 1935-1939, further divisions were formed, and their main equipment was the Pz.Kpfw cars: I, II, III and IV. A single armored division at that time was composed of a tank brigade divided into two armored regiments, a motorized infantry brigade and support units, among others: reconnaissance, artillery, anti-aircraft and sappers. It consisted of about 300 tanks in full time. It is also worth adding that the German armored forces (German: Panzerwaffe) were trained and prepared to implement the doctrine of lightning war, and not - as in many armies of the time - to support infantry activities. Therefore, emphasis was put in training "pancerniaków" on the interchangeability of functions, independence in decision-making by officers and non-commissioned officers and the best technical mastery of the tanks owned. All this resulted in great successes of German armored weapons in Poland in 1939, but especially in Western Europe in 1940. Also in the course of the fighting in North Africa - especially in the period 1941-1942 - the German armored forces turned out to be a very difficult opponent. Before the invasion of the USSR, the number of German armored divisions almost doubled, but the number of tanks in these units decreased to about 150-200 vehicles. Also in the course of the fighting on the Eastern Front - especially in 1941-1942 - the German armored forces were superior in training and organization to their Soviet opponent. However, contact with such vehicles as the T-34 or KW-1 forced the introduction of the Pz.Kpfw V and VI tanks to the line in 1942 and 1943. Growing losses on the Eastern Front, as well as lost battles - at Stalingrad or Kursk - made the German Panzerwaffe weaken. Its structure included heavy tank battalions (with 3 tank companies), and in 1943, armored grenadier divisions were established. There was also an increasingly clear advantage of the Soviet side, and from 1944 - the need to simultaneously fight the Soviet troops in the east and the Allies in the west. It is also assumed that it was then (in the years 1944-1945) that the training of the German armored forces was weaker than in the previous period and did not constitute such a significant advantage on the German side than before. The last large-scale operations of the German Panzerwaffe were the offensives in the Ardennes (1944-1945) and in Hungary (1945).