Deprun, Frédéric 2. Panzer-Division. Volume 4: Wacht am Rhein. Ardennes. Automne 1944 - Janvier 1945

The work covers the four months of operations of the German 2nd Panzer Division between mid-September 1944 and mid-January 1945, a period of reorganisation of the unit followed by fighting covering two strong periods: the reorganisation in the autumn of 1944 between the Rhine and the Western Wall, which will lead them into the heart of the German offensive "Wacht am Rhein", which took place in Luxembourg and Belgium from 16 December 1944.

The Normandy fighters in Caumont, Mortain and Chambois had suffered heavy losses during the fighting in the summer of 1944. The faded memories of the survivors all recalled the "Jabo racetrack" that Normandy had been. Guderian's powerful Panzer Regiment 3 had left almost all its vehicles behind in the bocage and the division's motorised and mechanised forces were decimated. In early September 1944, at the hours of crossing the Belgian and Luxembourg borders, it was inconceivable that the 2nd Armoured Division could find itself at the head of a massive German offensive almost 80 kilometres deep in the heart of the American lines after only eight days of fighting! But German conscription, industrial and material production in the autumn of 1944 and the experience of the officers made this miraculous but risky development possible. An intrepid race along the Meuse to the edge of Dinant, which gradually proved destructive and ushered in the slow agony of the 2nd Armoured Division. Colonel von Lauchert's unit now had to entrench itself in localised defence actions before it was able to withdraw to its November positions on the Siegfried Line in January 1945. The eight days of the offensive in December 1944 brought the 2nd Armoured Division the crossing of the Our at Dasburg and the fighting at Marnach, the Munshausen and Hosingen heights, the capture of Clervaux, the brilliant attack on the Féitsch/Allerborn crossroads, the attack on Noville, the Ortheuville bridge and then the devastating encirclement of Celles/Foy/Conjoux before Dinant, before the last acts of resistance at Bure and Oberwampach in January 1945. In a fifth volume, we will cover the last months of the 2nd Armoured Division's deployment during the days of the Battle of Prüm in Germany, then the disaster on the Rhine and finally, as the last battles, the line of defence between Fulda and Steinach, before the unit slowly disintegrated into the German and Czech countryside in May 1945...