The 24th Panzer Division was formed in late 1941 from the 1st Cavalry Division based at Königsberg.
The division fought on the Eastern Front from June 1942 to January 1943, when it was destroyed in the battle of Stalingrad. Reformed, it once more returned to the Eastern Front in late 1943 and remained there until surrender to Soviet forces in May 1945.
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Blitzkrieg (Lightning/Flash Warfare) is a word used to describe a combined arms surprise attack, using a rapid, overwhelming force concentration that may consist of armored and motorized or mechanized infantry formations, together with artillery, air assault, and close air support. The intent is to break through an opponent's lines of defense, dislocate the defenders, confuse the enemy by making it difficult to respond to the continuously changing front, and defeat them in a decisive Vernichtungsschlacht: a battle of annihilation.
During the interwar period, aircraft and tank technologies matured and were combined with the systematic application of the traditional German tactic of Bewegungskrieg (maneuver warfare), involving the deep penetrations and the bypassing of enemy strong points to encircle and destroy opposing forces in a Kesselschlacht (cauldron battle/battle of encirclement). During the invasion of Poland, Western journalists adopted the term blitzkrieg to describe that form of armored warfare. The term had appeared in 1935, in the German military periodical Deutsche Wehr ("German Defence"), in connection to quick or lightning warfare.
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