GUIDES TO GERMAN RECORDS ... - Sturmpanzer.com

R E A EThis Guide is one of a series of finding aids describingthe declassified seized German records deposited in the NationalArchives. The series was initiated by the Microfilming Projectof the Committee for the Study of War Documents of theAmerican Historical Association in cooperation with the NationalArchives and the Department of the Army. With the terminationof the Microfilming Project in July 1963, the National Archivesassumed sole responsibility for the reproduction of records andthe preparation of Guides,This is one of a number of Guides describing the recordsof one German Army field commands. These records fall intofive categories: Records of Army Groups, Records of Armies,Records of Corps, Records of Divisions, and Occupational andOther Records.This Guide, which constitutes Part I of records of thepanzer armies, describes the contents of 227 rolls of microfilmreproducing the records of Panzer Armies 1 and 2. Includedis material on the campaigns in the West in 194-0, inthe Balkans in 194-1, and in Russia in 194-1-45. Part II willcover the records of Panzer Armies 3-5 and Africa.The provenance to which the documents are attributed isthe army headquarters that originally kept the file, althougha large proportion of the items had in fact been retired bythe units to the Heeresarchiv Potsdam for permanent retention.There an accession number was stamped or written on the cover,and it is by this numbering system that the folders were organize-din the World War II Records Division and its predecessor,the Departmental Records Branch of the Department of the Army,which offices administered the records prior to the assumptionof these duties by the Archival Projects Division, Office ofMilitary Archives. All folders accessioned by the Heeresarchivwere assigned numbers in sequence and logged in by unit in theso-called Potsdam Catalog, All such folders bear numbers below75000. Folders that had not gone through the Heeresarchiv accessioningprocess before capture or had never been retired to theHeeresarchiv were given folder numbers in an extension of theHeeresarchiv system using numbers above 75000, but otherwise followingthe Potsdam pattern. Considerable information on the fate ofall German military records during World War II, and especially onseveral fires with subsequent efforts to reconstruct the files, maybe found in the records of the Chef des Heeresarchivs in the GermanArmy High Command. (These records were filmed in T-78, Rolls 1-38,and are described in Guide No. 12 of this series.)The descriptive material for the panzer armies was preparedon cards and each card has been filmed before the folder it describes.The cards for all folders on one roll of film are alsofilmed at the beginning of that roll. This Guide contains thetext of the cards.A short unit history and an organization index by staff section(Abteilung) precede the file item listing for each panzerarmy. The unit history has also been filmed at the beginning ofeach roll of the unit's records.The term "Roll" in the Guide refers to the sequence of thefilm. "1st Frame" gives the frame number of the first page ofthe folder. The "Item No." is the identification symbol on theoriginal folder. The "Item" provides (a) the abbreviation ofthe staff section that originated the document, and (b) the titleappearing on the document cover or other information providinga general idea of the contents of the item.The original records have been returned to the Federal Republicof Germany. The Microfilm has been deposited asill