Panzer-Lehr Division

▣ Unit · 1944 – 1944

The Panzer-Lehr Division was one of the best-equipped and best-trained armoured formations in the German army, a demonstration and training unit that was committed to Normandy soon after the landings began. Moving up from its assembly area, it was delayed by Allied air attack and then thrown into the defence west and south-west of Caen. Through June and July it fought some of the heaviest armoured actions of the campaign against the British and Canadian forces, losing large numbers of tanks and vehicles that could not be replaced. In August it was heavily engaged in the retreat from Normandy and was largely destroyed in the Falaise pocket, the survivors escaping in small groups. The positions shown here are schematic and follow the division's general area of operations around the Caen front. Its heavy losses in Normandy were never made good, and the division ceased to exist as an effective armoured formation.

Sources

• Wikimedia Commons — Charnwood (SVG, by EyeSerene)
• Wikimedia Commons — Operations Greenwood and Pomegranate, Normandy, July 1944 (EN.svg)
• Wikimedia Commons — Operation Tractable (SVG, by EyeSerene)
• Wikipedia — 352nd Infantry Division (CC BY-SA 4.0)
• Wikipedia — Falaise pocket (CC BY-SA 4.0)
• Wikipedia — Normandy landings (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• Wikipedia — Operation Overlord (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Related

• Normandy landings

Reuse this data: open dataset (GeoJSON / CSV, CC BY 4.0)