They had covered over 800 kilometers in weeks. But as they neared the city, the orders changed. The 1st Panzer was being redirected. The high command needed their speed and hitting power for the drive on Moscow.
Inside the cramped, oil-scented hull of his Panzer III, Feldwebel Kurt Himmels checked his throat microphone one last time. His loader, a nineteen-year-old named Hans, was sweating despite the morning chill, his hands hovering near the 50mm shells. Achtung Panzer, Marsch! With the 1st German Pan...
Weeks passed. The dust of Lithuania gave way to the marshes of Russia. The 1st Panzer Division was now a veteran machine, but the wear was showing. The tanks were caked in a fine gray silt that jammed zippers and fouled filters. They had covered over 800 kilometers in weeks
The first few days were a blur of motion and dust. The Panzer III was a thoroughbred of the plains, and the 1st Panzer pushed it to the limit. They bypassed pockets of Soviet infantry, leaving them for the following motorized divisions. Their goal was the bridges. The high command needed their speed and hitting
By the second day, they reached the Dubysa River near Raseiniai. It was here that Kurt saw the face of a new kind of war. Emerging from the treeline was a Soviet monster—the KV-2. It was a massive, slab-sided tank that dwarfed their Panzer IIIs.
The dawn was not a gradual light, but a sudden, violent eruption of fire. At 03:15, the horizon behind the 1st Panzer Division’s staging area turned white-hot as thousands of German guns opened the symphony of Operation Barbarossa .