Spanish StuG III: versions and serial numbers

Arrival in Spain: the Bär Program

In late 1943 Nazi Germany supplied Francoist Spain with a batch of thirty armoured vehicles — twenty Panzer IV Ausf. H and ten StuG III Ausf. G — under the Bär Program (Programa Bär), the wartime scheme through which Germany paid for Spanish raw materials (chiefly wolfram) with military hardware (1)(2). The ten StuG IIIs were supplied directly by their manufacturer, Daimler-Benz of Stuttgart, and travelled to Spain by rail, entering through the border station at Irún before continuing on to Cuatro Vientos, Madrid (2)(3).

In Spanish service the StuG IIIs were kept together as an Experimental Battery attached to the Escuela de Aplicación y Tiro de Artillería (EATA), remaining in that role into the 1950s, while the accompanying Panzer IVs were split between the “Alcázar de Toledo” and “Brunete” armoured regiments (1)(3). In 1967 the surviving StuG IIIs were sold on to Syria, where they saw combat against Israeli forces during the Six-Day War (4).

The serial numbers below identify which of these ten vehicles crossed into Spain, cross-referenced against the general Sturmgeschütz III production data recorded in Panzer Tracts.

Production data

Extract of Sturmgeschuetz Series with Fgst.Nr. from PANZER TRACTS No.23 Panzer Production from 1933 to 1945, page 23-44:

Assembly plant, by radio

• 2 radios (4):

  • 93214 Alkett
  • 93263 Alkett
  • 95767 Miag
  • 95774 Miag

• 1 radio (6):

  • 93205 Alkett
  • 93211 Alkett
  • 93225 Alkett
  • 93227 Alkett
  • 93241 Alkett
  • 95783 Miag

Fgst.Nr. by assembly plant

• Alkett (7): 93214, 93263, 93205, 93211, 93225, 93227, 93241
• Miag (3): 95767, 95774, 95783

Sources

1. Programa Bär - Wikipedia
2. Panzer IV y StuG III. El grupo acorazado alemán del programa “Bär” - Soldiers.es
3. Lucas Molina Franco, La ayuda militar alemana a España 1939-1945 (PhD thesis, Universidad de Valladolid)
4. Spanish State and Kingdom of Spain (Cold War) - Tank Encyclopedia