Panzer-Lehr (SD2)

Panzer-Lehr is an Axis Armored division in Steel Division II, available with the Back to War pack.

With Panzer-Lehr being formed from an instruction unit, most of its members were instructors or seasoned veterans. One of the Reich's most elite Panzer divisions, Panzer-Lehr was the best equipped one, even possessing its own Tiger I & Tiger II tanks.

Bayerlein was more of a skilled and cold-minded Panzer specialist than a dashing frontline commander. He was one of the few German commanders to have served in almost every stage of the war. A WW1 veteran, Bayerlein was a staff officer during the Interwar, and served in the early campaigns of WW2 under none other than General Guderian & Rommel.

In 1943, he was given command of 3. Panzer Division on the Russian Front, which he managed to save from an encirclement, leading it in a breakout against Hitler's order to stand and fight… and was rewarded with command of the elite Panzer-Lehr for that feat! Yet he resented this 'heavy' division being wasted in the close-fighting in Normandy, where it couldn't give the best account of itself.

Bayerlein never shied away from transgressing orders, especially those that he considered militarily absurd or inhuman: he resisted the deportation of Hungarian Jews from his division's sector, refused to apply the scorched-earth policy in Germany, and despite threat against his life and that of his family's, organised the mass-surrender of his troops in the Ruhr instead of having them fight and die to the end.