116. Panzer (SD2)

116. Panzer is an Axis Armored division in Steel Division II, available as part of the Back to War pack.

Formed only three months before D-Day by merging survivors from the East Front with reserve units, the 116. Panzer Division was a motley crew. Although lacking in experience and training on their newest tanks, the 116. had the particularity, unlike other Panzer divisions, of having been able to retain some of its older, lighter models.

An aristocrat, Graf (Count) 'Gert' von Schwerin had proven himself to be a skilled and charismatic infantry commander on the Russian front, but any hope of Germany winning the war was lost to him by the time he arrived in Normandy.

Von Schwerin started his career, aged 19, in the Kaiser's Guard during the last year of WW1. An anti-Nazi from the start, he tried to warn British intelligence about Hitler before the war, but to no avail. Nevertheless, he served with the German military during WW2, in France, North Africa and the USSR, distinguishing himself on several occasions before being given command of his own division in late 1942.

In 1944, convinced that the war was lost, Schwerin was involved in (or at least aware of) the 20th July plot against Hitler, and thus showed no zeal in conducting Hitler's desperate counter-attack at Mortain in Normandy. After the retreat to the German border, he tried to deliver Aachen to the Allies without useless destruction, but his attempt was discovered by the Nazis, who had him relieved.