At the same time, the German military establishment immediately began developing a new form of warfare specifically intended to prevent a repetition of trench warfare, which was considered costly and highly disadvantageous. A new method of combat was therefore studied, based on Bewegungskrieg (the Prussian war of movement of the 19th century), adapted to take advantage of the technology available in the 1930s.
The result was Blitzkrieg, a combat philosophy in which the coordinated and concentrated employment of tanks, armoured vehicles, infantry, artillery and air power enabled deep penetrations, with the encirclement of enemy strongpoints that were bypassed and later destroyed by air attacks and follow-up troops.
Within this concept of mobile warfare, it was theorised that the tanks of future armoured divisions would be accompanied by artillery and infantry. The innovation lay in the fact that this infantry could no longer move on foot or horseback, as had been the norm until then, nor be transported in ordinary lorries, which offered neither protection nor the cross-country capability of tracked vehicles.
Taking this requirement into account, and based on studies of the pioneering French Citroën-Kégresse half-track, military engineer Ernst Kniepkamp produced the preliminary drawings of the German equivalents, featuring steerable front wheels like a conventional lorry and tracks on the rear wheels to improve traction. From these sketches, the German industry developed a complete range of such vehicles, comprising models weighing between one and 18 tonnes, fitted with torsion bar suspension, the Cletrac braking system, auxiliary steering via the tracks and, on some models, the use of sloped steel armour plates providing ballistic protection against small-arms fire and artillery splinters. In short, a new class of multi-purpose vehicles: armoured, fast and with excellent cross-country capability.
Among these, the best known, produced for the longest period and in the greatest numbers (15,567 examples in various variants), was the Sd.Kfz. 251, officially designated Mittlerer Schützenpanzerwagen Sd.Kfz. 251 (medium armoured assault personnel carrier). Designed by Hanomag, it was based on the chassis of the three-tonne Sd.Kfz. 11 half-track, subsequently fitted with an angular armoured body made of hardened steel plates with thicknesses ranging from eight to 15 mm.
With the first examples delivered to the army in 1938, it was determined that each German mechanised infantry division should be equipped with around one hundred Sd.Kfz. 251 vehicles, each intended to carry a section of Panzergrenadier infantry. Protection had to be sufficient against small-arms fire, and the armament comprised two MG 34 machine guns for anti-aircraft defence and direct support.
Throughout the conflict, the Sd.Kfz. 251 accompanied German armoured divisions in all theatres of operations, not only in the troop transport role but also in a wide array of variants. These included the ambulance (Krankenpanzerwagen), mortar carrier (Schützenpanzerwagen), bridge-layer (Pionierpanzerwagen), command vehicle (Kommandopanzerwagen), radio vehicle (Funkpanzerwagen), anti-aircraft version (Flakpanzerwagen 38), tank destroyer (PaK 40 L/46 auf Mittlerer Schützenpanzerwagen), flamethrower version (Flampanzerwagen), and truly specialised versions such as the Sd.Kfz. 251 rocket launcher (Mittlerer Schützenpanzerwagen mit Wurfrahmen), unofficially known as Stuka zu Fuß or “walking Stuka”, as well as the sophisticated infrared searchlight vehicle (Schützenpanzerwagen zur Gefechtsfeldbeleuchtung). The latter was built in only 60 examples to operate alongside platoons of five or six Panther tanks equipped with night-vision equipment.
In the specific case of the Hanomag half-track presented here, it is a standard Panzergrenadier troop carrier, yet extremely rare, as it is one of the few surviving German vehicles from the bloody Battle of the Falaise Pocket, fought in Normandy. This was the operational theatre in which the vehicle served during the summer of 1944, in service with the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend.
Bearing chassis number 813885, it is one of the early Sd.Kfz. 251 Ausf. D vehicles, the final evolution of the model featuring a simplified design that entered production in September 1943. It was built by Hanomag and equipped with a Maybach HL42 inline six-cylinder engine, in this case bearing a serial number corresponding to the year of manufacture, thus preserving the authenticity of the ensemble.
The colour scheme it displays corresponds to the directive of 18 February 1943, which stipulated that all German Army vehicles were to leave the factory painted in a uniform dark yellow (dunkelgelb), to be subsequently camouflaged at unit level, typically with applications over the original base colour in olive green (olivgrün) and reddish brown (rotbraun).