Best Heer Panzer division in Wehrmacht ?

[sebastian]

for me the 116 der windhund,fightings on east and westfront

[Helmut]

I don't believe the 116th ever fought on the Eastern Front as such. it fought there as the 16th Mot/ Pz Gren, buut not as the 116 Pz. Just an observation

REgards,

Helmut

[sebastian]

Helmut,
yes it did,but if you really want to put the dots on the i you are right
Cheers
Seb

[Obergefreiter]

For the Heer, I'd have to say Panzer-Lehr.

Panzer Lehr was never able to show it's full potential as the only fully armored Panzer Division. It had all of it's four Panzergrenadier-Battalions and the Combat Engineer Battalion equipped with APC's. Usually Panzer-Divisions had only one or two of it's Battalions armored, the others rode on trucks or heavy passenger cars.
With this equipment, Panzer Lehr alone should have inflicted serious damage to the Russian Operation Bagration.
Instead, those 700 invaluable APC's had to be left behind when the division went into line in Normandy only to be ground down in attrititional fight.
Greetings,
Obergefreiter

[Joe Cleere]

Probably the 1st Panzer Division. This division always performed very well from 1939-1945. This is the division that was primarily responsible for the successful crossing of the Meuse at Sedan in May 1940, which in turn led to the defeat of France.

Most of the Panzer divisions were close in performance, however, making it difficult to determine just who was the best of the best.

[mike4rest]

I don't know much about the divisions that fought primarily on the Eastern Front but here are my nominations:

7th Panzer for leading the charge across France and the Low Countries while under the command of Rommel. In particular the crossing of the Meuse and reaching the farthest poin of the Wehrmacht in 1940 at Cherburg. Was always ahead of the other panzer divisions during that campaign.

15th Panzer for fighting gallantly in North Africa and Italy while nearly always outnumbered!

16th Panzer for being the first to reach the Volga near Stalingrad and after being reformed giving the Allies a lot of trouble in Italy.

21st Panzer for North Africa and later stopping the Canadian 1st Division in front of Caen on D-Day.

Panzer Lehr for fighting well against incredible odds from D-Day to the end in the Ruhr.