     Private Sadi Schneid of the 2nd SS Panzer Division gripped his Mauser and clung to the back of the Panther tank. The German tank column was moving slowly down the road, straight toward the American positions in Manhay. In its lead was a captured American Sherman tank. Would the Americans be fooled? Or would they open fire on the Germans, sitting ducks bunched together on the road? The night was dark; perhaps the ruse would work.
     The German column rolled straight into Manhay, unchallenged. Suddenly shots broke out. One of the German tanks opened fire. Panic broke out as Americans everywhere scattered and ran. A whistle blew. Schneid and his companions leapt off the tank and spread out, firing at fleeing Americans. The fight was short; the Americans were completely routed. They abandoned all their equipment, their trucks and guns and tanks. Schneid and his friends laughed; this was too easy.
     "Back on the tanks! We've got to keep moving!" came the order, and once again they were rumbling down the road to another American defensive position. Speed was their greatest protector; if they reached the next roadblock ahead of the refugees from the first roadblock, the trick would work again. Once again they were right on top of the roadblock before the Americans recognized them; once again they routed the green troops and captured all their equipment.
     But now a new order came: spread out in defensive positions. Schneid and other eager SS troopers gathered around a command tank, frustrated and angry. Why couldn't they push on now that they had the Americans on the run?
     "Not enough gas," a sturmbahnfuhrer explained. "The rest of the division is stuck a few kilometers behind us. We've got to wait for them to get enough gas to catch up."
/Das Reich
     The 2nd SS Panzer Division, "Das Reich", started the war as a motorized infantry regiment. Motorized infantry were infantry in trucks, the idea being that they could keep up with advancing panzer divisions. ("Panzer" is German for "armored" or "tank".) The regiment fought in Poland, France, and Russia. The bitter fighting in Russia inflicted heavy casualties on the elite unit, but each time it was pulled out of the line and rebuilt. In 1942 it was upgraded to a full panzer division.
     In March 1944 Das Reich was pulled out and sent to France in anticipation of the impending Allied invasion. But southern France didn't turn out to be the idyll the exhausted veterans of the Eastern Front had expected. The French Resistance, the maquis, murdered unwary German soldiers and sabotaged rail lines. When the invasion came, Das Reich's march north to Normandy was slowed by Resistance activity and it reacted savagely, shooting and hanging civilians and cold-bloodedly killing all 650 men, women, and children in the village of Oradour.
    The Normandy battles shattered Das Reich. Of 15,000 men and over 200 tanks sent to Normandy, only about 2,000 men and 3 tanks got out. But Das Reich was rebuilt and began the Battle of the Bulge at nearly full strength, where it was once again shattered.
     After the Bulge, 2nd SS Panzer was sent to Hungary, where it participated in one last offensive against the advancing Russians. It remained on the Eastern Front until the end of the war./