-
Last Stug III version with Saukopfblende (pig's head armor) gun mantle called Abschlussausfuhrung (last model), official nomenclature was 7.5cm Sturmgeschutz 40 Ausf G (SdKfz 142/1). Original trapezoid gun mantle did not adequately stop enemy rounds from penetrating crew compartment, hence this Saukopf mantle (also used on Stug IV assault gun) deflected incoming ballistics away from superstructure. Photo above depicts knocked out Saukopf Stug III at Ludwigkirchplatz in Wilmersdorf district, southwestern Berlin-Germany, May 1945. Ludwigkirchplatz und Pariser Straße - www.suedwestweb-berlin.de/struktur/v0350/s0350.html
-
Inset 1 : Stug III hit on left drive sprocket, lies abandoned in Berlin 1945. This  Abschlussausfuhrung had additional features such as second layered driver armor visor, spare tracks bolted around gunner periscope on hull top for equipment protection, schurzen and spare road wheels placed next to crew compartment. Item on front glacis next to vehicle number 20 is remote-release gun travel lock. Note usage of 3 steel-resilient top track rollers instead of 4 rubber-rimmed rollers in early models.
-
Rollover : ( Rollover JPG link ) Stug III Abschlussausfuhrung ambushed with hit penetration into frontal armor which wrecked drive transmission. Right track link also hit and severed. Crew probably immediately bailed-out as Stug III rolled backward on slope.
-
Postwar historians often bewildered why Germans maintained war effort even though most privately resigned to fact that war was lost by 1944. Some speculated it was mystical father-figure of Adolf Hitler permeating throughout German society, while others asserted it was decades-long socio-political Nazi indoctrination which compelled populace to obey. One overlooked rationale was utmost German disdain for their WW1 loss in which German Imperial Crown and her political bureaucrats ordered Imperial German Army to surrender since nation was near economic collapse. German military arm never forgotten or forgiven its parliamentarians for surrendering Germany to decades-long military occupation and national humiliation. Nazi mysticism - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_mysticism
-
Thus, desire to keep fighting in WW2 to bitter end was for both national honor and to buy-time in saving as much German civilians as possible from Soviet onslaught knowing full well mass rapes, executions, and slave labor deportation will ensue. If Germans could hold Soviets at bay, while simulatenously inflict heavy battle attrition upon western Allies, then some form of conditional German surrender was possible.
-
One envisioned scenario was a conditional German surrender (ex. retain all her command structure and armed forces intact) to western Allies, immediately form new military alliance, and re-invade the Soviet Union. Germans (along with some western Allies, most vocal was British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US General George Patton), that alliance between Western democracies and quasi-imperialistic left-wing totalitarian Soviet Union was at best an un-natural relationship. End of WW2 would commence another war with the Soviets over European domination. Germans attempted to play these suspicions without success, but one humorous event was April 1945 when SS-Obergruppenführer Felix Steiner moving his 11th SS Panzer Army towards Berlin defense, planted an English roadside sign ANTI-SOVIET FRONT to encourage advancing western Allies to join his cause.
-
Postwar years saw numerous German Heer and Waffen-SS commanders sent to prison, but most were released by 1950 since new Cold War ensued and US/Western European alliance now needed German Ostfront combat experience to counter Soviet threat. For example, one Ostfront battle extensively analyzed by US/NATO was German successful defense of Targul Frumos - Romania, Spring 1944. Grossdeutschland in 1944, Targul Frumos battle, Romania - members.shaw.ca/grossdeutschland/russia4.htm
-
Inset 2 : Three Stug III Ausf G derelicts, one in front is towing second behind it with broken track links, third in back is older version with trapezoid gun mantle. Stugs upfront have schurzen bolted onto superstructure rather than hung off fender sides, spare tracks and roadwheels also bolted on for additional protection. Schurzen camouflaged with mud plaster, frontal glacis contoured with Zimmerit.
|
