Turkey equipped with German tanks in WWII..?

[Andreas Larka]

Hi all,
Franz von Papen (German Ambassador to Turkey 1939 - 1944) writes in his memoirs that Germany, in an attempt to gain Turkey as an ally, gave Turkey "the equipment for an armoured division".

von Papen claims that he saw this division in a parade in Ankara in 1942 during the celebration of the Turkish independence day.

Does anybody of you guys know about this? An armoured division is a whole bunch of stuff! The tanks would probably be early Panzer IIIs and IVs, but what about all the auxiliary vehicles, radiocars, supply trucks, artillery etc..?

Is there any book- or online-references available? Any help is much appreciated!

[lquah]

Andreas

According to Tanks! website, 56 PzKpfw IIIs and 15 PzKpfw IV Ausf G's were delivered to Turkey.
http://mailer.fsu.edu/~akirk/tanks/Turkey/turkey.html

Excerpts from the site:

PzKpfw III
In 1943 Hitler ordered 56 of these units to be delivered to Turkey. This was done to encourage the Turks to attack the USSR or to cause the Soviets to divert military units to counter a possible Turkish threat. The type delivered had the 5cm L/60 main gun.

PzKpfw IV
Fifteen Ausf G units were delivered to Turkey starting in 1943. Seven were delivered in March and eight more delivered in May. This was done to help encourage Turkey to attack the USSR or to cause the USSR to divert manpower to defend the frontier between the two nations.

Lawrence