In 1934, Austrian manufacturer Steyr merged with Austro-Daimler-Puch to form Steyr-Daimler-Puch and were primarily producers of high-end civilian cars. At the outbreak of war, Austria had been annexed the year before by Germany and formed part of the Third Reich. Steyr-Daimler-Puch went into full military vehicle production for the war effort including the production of the Steyr Raupenschlepper Ost (RSO). One of the war machines which had already been conceived and produced 8-years earlier by Austro-Daimler Puchwerke AG was the ADGZ (M35 mittlerer Panzerwagen), a heavy 12-wheeled armoured police and reconnaissance car designed for the Austrian army. Several of the ADGZ vehicles had been pushed into German military and policing service before the outbreak of war. At the outbreak of war, several ADGZ vehicles formed part of the attack on Poland in September 1939. The PzKpfwSteyr ADGZ armoured cars were assigned primarily to Police detachments and SS units. By 1941, the SS ordered an additional 25 ADGZ vehicles and these were pushed into service on the Eastern Front and in the Balkans with the 7th SS Freiwillingen-Gebirgs-Division 'Prinz Eugen' for anti-partisan purposes. Sources are short on details regarding the number of ADGZ armoured cars produced, but close approximation was 53 in total between 1934 and 1942 (25 produced in early 1942 for the SSand 38 produced for Austrian Army by 1938).
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