Romanian Panthers?

In a german report on the withdrawal of Flakdivision 15 ca. 25-28.08.44 towards Buzau, there are mentioned 29 romanian Panther tanks which stopped the german troops.

Is this possible? How many Panthers and other tanks did Romania get from Germany?

Romania did not receive any Panthers from Germany. There were several in use after the end of the war, received from the Soviet Union. The tanks in question were at best Pz IVs and they surely weren't 29. There were two ad-hoc armored detachments organized during that period to fight against the German troops near Bucharest and on the Prahova valley.

The "Gen. Niculescu" Armored Detachment (aka "Jupiter" Armored Detachment ) was formed from a recon group, a tank battalion (one company equipped with 10 Pz-IVs and one company equipped with 10 StuG IIIs), one TACAM battalion (12 TACAM R-2s), a motorized vanatori battalion from the 4th Motorized Vanatori Regiment, and an AT company (12 75 mm Resita model 1943 AT guns).

With the troops of the 1st Armored-training Division was organized the "Mr. Victor Popescu" Armored Detachment. It had one R-2 tank company, one T-38 tank platoon, one R-35 tank platoon, motorized vanatori units, AA and AT units. It fought around Ploesti and was disbanded on 31 August.

Hmmm... the "Panther" as well as the exact number "29" astonished me already when I read the report.

Did these detachments troops and their troops come from Bessarabia or were the already stationed in that area before 20.08.44?

When I read a german book (from 1964) on the actions in Romania 08-09'44, I got the picture that the romanian change of sides was rather well-planned incl. passive support of the soviet offensive.

On 20th August '44 the 1st armoured division armed with PzIV was staioned south of podul Iloaiei area. They took part in the fierce battles untill the night of 23rd august and they retreated south (the route of their retreat is included in Basarbia map also the main area where they saw action).

The detachments were organized from the training units behind the frontline, as already mentioned: the Mechanized Training Center in Targoviste and the 1st Armored-training Division. They hadn't seen the front in Moldavia.

THe issue was discussed at length in another topic. German generals found it ewasier to blame their own failures on former allies, which weren't in any position to present their version of the events prior to 1990. There is a recent work by col. Klaus Schoenherr, which will probably also be published in Germany soon.

I find it strange that the retreat route of teh 1st Armored Division be on a "Basarabia" map, since the unit did not fight in Bessarabia during 20-23 August 1944.

Ahh - this is the name of an IL2 map Yogy is working on, it contains also contain Romanian part of Moldova where Divizia 1 Blindata saw action in August '44 (West edge - Carpathian Mountains, East edge Odessa), we call the map "Basarabia map".

Where can I find
- the thread about this topic?
- the report from Col. Klaus Schoenherr? His name is german, so why is it not written in german? Which language is it?

To be honest, the fact alone that there were romanian Pz.IV that far away from the front might be a hint for a plan to use them against other enemies then the Soviets...

Yogy - the romanian panzers were at the front and not far away from it when the soviet offensive begun. They were used in combat at that time untill the end of the day of 23rd august - there is even one tank commander from that romanin armoured division that wrote a book and one can read about those events - I also read it in order to extract the necesary info for Basarbia map.
The R2's were indeed far away from the frontline but anyone could hardly call those tanks apt for combat in 1944...
The book I told you about several times, the author is indeed of german origin, even more - he is in the post ww2 german army and he came to Romania to study the archives especially for this book. I only have it in romanian but I think you should be able to find it in german as well.

I found

- Luptele Wehrmachtului în România 1944 and
- Die Auswirkungen der militärischen Situation 1944 auf die deutsch-rumänischen Beziehungen

from him, which are related to our topic. Might go for the latter, as I cannot understand romanian .

Anyway, the 1964-book by Kissel "Die Katastrophe in Rumänien" gives a lot of details about the romanian armies behaviour. It says that parts of Armygroup Dumitrsecu fought the Soviets fiercely quite a long time. On the other hand, i.e. 2 divisions of 4th rom. Army (5th Cavalry & 11th) at least offered no resistance already during the first attacks on 20.08., and maybe even supported the soviet advance around the german 79.Infantry division.

Mytzu, can you maybe scan some interesting stuff from that book if readable for germans ?

As I already said these weak detachments were organized from training units. The purpose for which they were kept behind the front line was, obviously, for training. The 1st Armored Division hadn't entirely completed the training, reorganizing and re-equipping process by August 1944. The 8th Armored Cavalry Division was already in the process of forming, so there was a perfectly logical why there was a company of Pz IVs at Targoviste.

Yogy, on 23rd/24th august romanian troops did not support soviet troops - unfortunatelly many romanian soldiers went into captivity in Siberia AFTER 23rd august. The soviet troops continued to capture/kill/agress romanians even after the order was given not to engage russian troops anymore. I would recommend to read german officer's recollections from ww2 - especially when they loose a battle - with extra care, they always blamed their allies for their own failures (see Stalingrad - the best example), what happened during Iasi-Chisinau offensive was just a Stalingrad reloaded which happened due to german high command ignorance (exactly like it did at Stalingrad). It is so much easier to blame your "weak" allies who for 50 years were unable to tell their story (thank you comunism !) rather then accept your own failures.
I am sure if you and other people would have the whole story infront of you, you would think different about what happened and about how "ineffective" the allies of Germany were during WW2.

One thing I can tell you: romanian troops DID NOT offer assitence to soviet troops in the imediate time frame of 23rd august, in fact they were screwed from both sides (well.. 3 I may say, we screwed ourselfs the biggest).

i've seen various extracts from personal war journals claiming all kind of things, like bulgarian Tiger tanks at Nis etc.
to most soldiers a russian tank was a T34, a german tank a panther or a tiger, especially in '44.

OK, maybe Kissel is "a bit" Wehrmacht-Friednly in his writing. But then, what happened in rom. 5th Cavalry & 11th positions during the attack? He says they didn't offer any resistance and that there war even support for the RA.

What do your sources say to this?