The Fallschirm-Panzer-Division 1. Hermann Göring (1st Paratroop Panzer Division Hermann Göring - abbreviated Fallschirm-Panzer-Div 1 HG) was a German Luftwaffe armoured division. The HG saw action in France, North Africa, Sicily, Italy and on the Eastern Front during World War II. The division began as a battalion-sized police unit in 1933. Over time it grew into a regiment, brigade, division, and finally was combined with the Parachute-Panzergrenadier Division 2 Hermann Göring on 1 May 1944 to form a Panzer corps under the name Reichsmarschall. It surrendered to the Soviet Army near Dresden on 8 May 1945. Its personnel was initially recruited from volunteers from Nazi organizations such as the Hitler Youth, later receiving intakes from the Army (especially panzer troops) and conscripts of the Luftwaffe. The unit was stationed in Berlin in the newly built Hermann Göring barracks (today's Julius Leber barracks) and in Velten; being named after the Reichsmarschall and Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe Hermann Göring. This naming was intended to establish a close connection between Wehrmacht units and National Socialism, while at the same time documenting the domestic power within the party hierarchy. Among its combat missions, the Hermann Göring maintained guard forces, such as a guard in the Reichsmarschall's estate at Carinhall and the Flak defense of Hitler's headquarters and personal train. The division, during its time in Italy, committed a number of war crimes, and, together with the 16th SS Panzergrenadier Division Reichsführer-SS, was disproportionately involved in massacres of the civilian population, the two divisions accounting for approximately one-third of all civilians killed in war crimes in Italy. Formation Establishment and initial phase - Police Administration When Hitler, of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), was appointed Reich Chancellor on January 30, 1933, Captain Hermann Göring was appointed the Prussian Minister of the Interior in February 1933. This gave him the supreme command of the entire Prussian police and a general's rank. On February 24, 1933, Göring established the Polizeiabteilung z. b. V. Wecke (z. b. V. meaning "for special use"). His intention was to create a police association that was loyal to the NSDAP regime. The outfit was named after its commander Major der Schutzpolizei Walther Wecke, a veteran of the First World War and a member of the NSDAP. Numbering 400 men, it was stationed in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin - a notoriously left-wing working-class area. The battalion soon became notorious for