WW2 Death Card of Gefreiter Franz Rickl, who served in a panzer division.

Throughout his service he was awarded the black wound badge. One the info I could find he served with 8th Company, Panzer Regiment 15. I’m unsure of what type of tank he served in or what position he operated. On February 13th 1943 he was killed in action at Alexandrowka and is buried in Konstantinowka by Donezk, Ukraine. Any additional info on him would be greatly appreciated if possible.

 

8th Company was normally Panzer IV, but by 1943 you would need to look into the specific OOB for the regiment.

All the best

Andreas

 

Panzer Regt.15 belonged to the 11.Pz division which was one of the Panzer divisions to have a Pz Regt. consisting of 3 Abteilungen each of 3 Kompanien, each Abteilung had 2 leichte and 1 mittler Kompanie. The 8.kompanie was in the III./Pz Regt.15 and was equipped with the Pzkpfw III.

 

Thank you!

 

Thank you for this information!

 

Place and time of death show that the man died during the 3rd Battle of Kharkov.
Third Battle of Kharkov - Wikipedia
Aleksandrovka today is called Oleksandrivka
(exactly 79 years later the place was again hit by heavy fighting)

That Rickl burned to death in his tank because of a direct hit, at best he will have received a field grave, because fierce battles were going on in the region for months
According to Volksbund his grave location is unknown
Franz Rickl | Gräbersuche-Online

Konstantinowka/Kostjantyniwka as burial place I would exclude compellingly, that lies 226km far away from the death place.
I rather suspect that he is buried - if at all - as an unknown soldier among the 48,000 dead at the military cemetery in Karkiv.