When Adolf Hitler and the “Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei” (NSDAP – Nazi Party) came to power in 1933, one of their main goals was that of “Lebensraum”, the expanding of territory in order to support and increase the German “Aryan” population. After the mostly peaceful additions of Austria, Czechoslovakia and the Memel regions to the existing Third Reich German homeland, war quickly escalated when Hitler’s troops crossed the Polish frontier in a quest to take back areas lost at the end of World War I. Combat in this new era would be fought much differently than it had been during 1914-1918.
Hitler, who had served in the hellish and stagnant trenches of WW1 saw the need for “blitzkrieg”, or lightning war, which combined rapid air strikes with fast-moving infantry and armored ground attacks. The need for mobile armor to support the infantry brought about the development of the “Sturmgeschutz” (StuG) assault gun, which was
