17th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht)  The 17th Panzer Division () was a formation of the Wehrmacht in World War II. It was formed in November 1940 from the 27th Infantry Division. It took part in Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, and in the winter of 1941–42 participated in the Battle of Moscow. In November 1942, the division was sent to the southern sector of the Eastern Front where it participated in Operation Winter Storm, the failed attempt to relieve the surrounded troops at Stalingrad. The division was held in reserve during the Battle of Kursk in 1943, and thereafter retreated through Ukraine and Poland, before ending the war in Czechoslovakia. The "27th Infantry Division" was formed in October 1936 in Augsburg, Bavaria, as a peacetime division of the new German Wehrmacht. The division was mobilised on 26 August 1939 and took part in the Invasion of Poland and the Battle of France. In 1943, a Nazi propaganda book was published about the division's actions in France 1940, titled "Über Somme, Seine, Loire" (English: "Across the Somme, the Seine, the Loire"). The 17th Panzer Division was formed in late 1940, when the 27th Infantry Division was converted to an armored division. In part, the 2nd Panzer Division provided personnel for the new division. The majority of its troops came from the Bavarian region of Swabia, then the Nazi Gau Swabia  In May 1941, the division was transferred to the central sector of the planned attack on the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa, and became part of the XXXXVII Panzer Corps, which in turn was part of the 2nd Panzer Group, commanded by Heinz Guderian. The division's commander, Hans-Jürgen von Arnim, was wounded within the first few days of the campaign, on 24 June, but later returned to his unit. His temporary replacement, Karl Ritter von Weber, was mortally wounded south of Smolensk on 17 July, putting Wilhelm Ritter von Thoma in charge until von Arnim returned. The division crossed the Bug River and advanced south of Minsk, where it made contact with the 3rd Panzer Group. It took part in the Battle of Białystok–Minsk, where it recorded up to 100 Soviet tanks destroyed in a single day, 9 July, at Orsha. It then crossed the river Dnjepr south of Orsha and took part in defensive operations south of Smolensk in August and September.