Panzer Brigade

Panzer Brigades were formations in the German Army during World War II.

The 1st Panzer Brigade was organized in 1934, followed by others during Germany's rearmament. Before the war, a Panzer Brigade was composed of a staff and two panzer regiments.

From the beginning of the war in 1939 Panzer Brigades were present and operational in the German Order of Battle until at least the summer of 1943. Apart from the official Order of Battle, German tank forces often operated in ad hoc formations, especially after the reverse of fortunes on the battlefield required makeshift units to tackle crisis situations more often. The philosophy behind these brigades was that smaller but stronger tank units could manoeuvre and counteract more swift than cumbersome panzer divisions, which can be easily detected by enemy intelligence. Nevertheless, when Hitler ordered the creation of the Panzer Brigades in July 1944, they were rather born out of necessity than a new defence doctrine of the German armed forces. Ten Panzer Brigades are created on July 7, 1944 on the orders of Adolf Hitler to stabilize the Eastern Front. The order resulted from observations on the successes of ad-hoc kampfgruppes like Schwere Panzer Regiment under Oberst Franz Bäke. Hitler stated that the small, mobile, fast and armored Kampfgruppes could be useful during this situation and such Kampfgruppe could quickly be sent into action to meet the attacking enemy armored spearheads. He thought that the appropriate organization for these Kampfgruppe should be one panzergrenadier battalion mounted in half-tracks, one panzer battalion with thirty to forty Panther tanks, one Pak-Kompanie and several Flak-Wagon. He also requested about twelve of such Kampfgruppe, named as Brigaden.

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