History
In 1938, the 3rd Light Division was formed, consisting of the 67th Panzer Battalion, and the 8th and 9th Mechanized Cavalry Regiments as well as the 8th Reconnaissance Regiment.
The division was sent to participate in the 1939 Invasion of Poland. In the winter of 1939 it was converted to the 8th Panzer Division, losing its two reconnaissance battalions to the 10th Panzer Division, but gained the 10th Panzer Regiment from East Prussian forces. It gained the 8th Rifle Brigade, controlling the 8th Rifle Regiment and the 8th Motorcycle Battalion. The battalion was equipped primarily with Czech tanks.
It was made a part of XLI Motorized Corps for the Battle of France. In the Battles of the Meuse Crossings, the as French forces were initially able to repel German attacks. Eventually, however, the French were forced to retreat in the face of overwhelming attack by German Panzer tanks. The division was involved in the destruction of the French 1st Army and the French 7th Army in May 1940, and remained on the line in France until the country's conquest in June 1940. After a brief service in the Balkans in 1941, it was sent to the Eastern Front in July 1941, where it remained until the end of 1944.
Read more about this topic: 8th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“What would we not give for some great poem to read now, which would be in harmony with the scenery,—for if men read aright, methinks they would never read anything but poems. No history nor philosophy can supply their place.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Three million of such stones would be needed before the work was done. Three million stones of an average weight of 5,000 pounds, every stone cut precisely to fit into its destined place in the great pyramid. From the quarries they pulled the stones across the desert to the banks of the Nile. Never in the history of the world had so great a task been performed. Their faith gave them strength, and their joy gave them song.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)
“For a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)