Douglas E. Nash Sr. - From the Realm of a Dying Sun: Volume III - IV. SS-Panzerkorps from Budapest to Vienna, February–May 1945
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The scholarship that went into these books is impeccable, with the author deftly weaving primary and secondary sources to form an excellent and thought provoking picture of this period in the Second World War.Globe at War
In the closing months of World War II, with Budapests fall on 12 February 1945 and the breakout attempt by the IX SS-Gebirgskorps having failed, the only thing the IV. SS-Panzerkorps could do was fall back to a more defensible line and fortify the key city of Stuhlweissenburg. Exhausted after three relief attempts in January 1945 and outnumbered by the ever-increasing power of Marshal Tolbukhins Third Ukrainian Front, SS-Obergruppenfhrer Gilles veterans dug in for a lengthy period of defensive warfare. However, Adolf Hitler had not forgotten about the Hungarian theater of operations nor the countrys rich oilfields and was sending help.
To the detriment of the defense of Berlin, SS-Oberstgruppenfhrer Sepp Dietrichs legendary 6. Panzerarmee was on its way, not to retake Budapest, but to encircle and destroy Tolbukhins forces and completely reverse the situation in south-eastern Europe in Hitlers favor. This overly ambitious offensive, known as Frhlingserwachen (Spring Awakening), was soon bogged down in the face of resolute Soviet defenses aided by the springtime thaw. Heralded as Nazi Germanys last great offensive of World War II, it resulted in great losses to Hitlers last armored reserve in exchange for only minor gains. Though it played a supporting role during the battle, the IV. SS-Panzerkorps was soon caught up in its aftermath, after the Red Army launched its Vienna Operation that nearly swept the armies of Heeresgruppe Sd from the battlefield.
Withdrawing into Austria, Gilles battered corps attempted to bar the route into Germany, while the Red Army bore down on Vienna. Forced to endure relentless Soviet attacks as well as the caustic leadership of the 6. Armee commander, General Hermann Balck, the men of the IV. SS-Panzerkorps fought their way through Austria to reach the safety of the demarcation line where it finally surrendered to U.S. forces on 9 May 1945 after nearly a year of relentless campaigning.
Table of Contents
Introduction
List of Maps
List of Figures
Illustrations
Chapter 1: A South Wind Brings Hope
Chapter 2: Operation Spring Awakening
Chapter 3: The Defense of Stuhlweissenburg
Chapter 4: Withdrawal to the Reichsschutzstellung
Chapter 5: Defending the Reich
Chapter 6: Wars End
Appendices
Endnotes
Bibliography
Index
In the closing months of World War II, with Budapests fall on 12 February 1945 and the breakout attempt by the IX SS-Gebirgskorps having failed, the only thing the IV. SS-Panzerkorps could do was fall back to a more defensible line and fortify the key city of Stuhlweissenburg. Exhausted after three relief attempts in January 1945 and outnumbered by the ever-increasing power of Marshal Tolbukhins Third Ukrainian Front, SS-Obergruppenfhrer Gilles veterans dug in for a lengthy period of defensive warfare. However, Adolf Hitler had not forgotten about the Hungarian theater of operations nor the countrys rich oilfields and was sending help.
To the detriment of the defense of Berlin, SS-Oberstgruppenfhrer Sepp Dietrichs legendary 6. Panzerarmee was on its way, not to retake Budapest, but to encircle and destroy Tolbukhins forces and completely reverse the situation in south-eastern Europe in Hitlers favor. This overly ambitious offensive, known as Frhlingserwachen (Spring Awakening), was soon bogged down in the face of resolute Soviet defenses aided by the springtime thaw. Heralded as Nazi Germanys last great offensive of World War II, it resulted in great losses to Hitlers last armored reserve in exchange for only minor gains. Though it played a supporting role during the battle, the IV. SS-Panzerkorps was soon caught up in its aftermath, after the Red Army launched its Vienna Operation that nearly swept the armies of Heeresgruppe Sd from the battlefield.
Withdrawing into Austria, Gilles battered corps attempted to bar the route into Germany, while the Red Army bore down on Vienna. Forced to endure relentless Soviet attacks as well as the caustic leadership of the 6. Armee commander, General Hermann Balck, the men of the IV. SS-Panzerkorps fought their way through Austria to reach the safety of the demarcation line where it finally surrendered to U.S. forces on 9 May 1945 after nearly a year of relentless campaigning.
Table of Contents
Introduction
List of Maps
List of Figures
Illustrations
Chapter 1: A South Wind Brings Hope
Chapter 2: Operation Spring Awakening
Chapter 3: The Defense of Stuhlweissenburg
Chapter 4: Withdrawal to the Reichsschutzstellung
Chapter 5: Defending the Reich
Chapter 6: Wars End
Appendices
Endnotes
Bibliography
Index
Douglas E. Nash Sr.: author's other books
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Hitler Adolf
Frank McDonough
Weitz Sonia Schreiber
Hitler Adolf
The Editors of TIME
Grehan John
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FROM THE REALM OF A DYING SUN
FROM THE REALM OF A DYING SUN
Volume III: IV. SS-Panzerkorps from Budapest to Vienna, FebruaryMay 1945
DOUGLAS E. NASH SR.
Published in the United States of America and Great Britain in 2021 by
CASEMATE PUBLISHERS
1950 Lawrence Road, Havertown, PA 19083, USA
and
The Old Music Hall, 106108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JE, UK
Copyright 2021 Douglas E. Nash Sr.
Hardcover Edition: ISBN 978-1-61200-956-8
Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-61200-957-5
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher in writing.
Maps by Thomas Houlihan and Phillip Schwartzberg
For a complete list of Casemate titles, please contact:
CASEMATE PUBLISHERS (US)
Telephone (610) 853-9131
Fax (610) 853-9146
Email:
www.casematepublishers.com
CASEMATE PUBLISHERS (UK)
Telephone (01865) 241249
Email:
www.casematepublishers.com
Introduction
This is the final volume of three volumes, which together trace the history of the IV. SS-Panzerkorps ( IV. SS-Pz.Korps ) from its inception in August 1943 until the end of the war. The first volume focused on the activation of the corps, its structure and organization, leadership, and the history of its two core divisionsthe 3. SS-Panzerdivision Totenkopf and the 5. SS-Panzerdivision Wiking . It then traced the history of the corps after its introduction to battle on 28 July 1944, its participation in the massive tank battle of Praga, its role in the three defensive battles of Warsaw, and ended on 26 November 1944 with the siege of Modlin and the transfer of the corps to . The first volume described some of the heaviest fighting ever witnessed on the Eastern Front, which forged the IV. SS-Pz.Korps into a responsive and lethal instrument of war. This phase of the corps history, which began with its participation in a highly mobile, fluid battle, ended with its troops engaged in static trench warfare reminiscent of World War I.
The second volume traced the history of the corps from the end of November 1944, where the first left off, with the corps still engaged in defending the so-called Wet Triangle, that tactically significant chunk of terrain situated between the Narew and Vistula Rivers. Seemingly relegated to a secondary front, the corps was jolted out of its holiday preparations when the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht ( OKW ) ordered it to begin moving by rail to another theater of operations on Christmas Eve. Thus would begin the final phase of the war in the East, with the corps once again called upon to carry out one of the most audacious attacks of World War IIthe relief of an encircled city. During the see-saw fighting that ensued, the IV. SS-Pz.Korps , including several divisions of the , sought in vain to relieve the embattled garrison of Budapest and to re-establish the old front line along the lower Danube.
This final volume of this trilogy picks up the thread of the corps history where it left off in mid-February 1945, and focuses on the last three months of the war, which witnessed not only the Third Reichs last large-scale offensive of the war, Operation Frhlingserwachen ( Spring Awakening ), but the Red Armys Vienna Operation, which drove German and Hungarian forces completely out of Hungary and advanced deeply into southeastern Austria until the Third Reich finally capitulated on 8 May 1945. During this period, the corps witnessed the fall of Vienna, though fortunately it was not directly involved in that final, fateful battle. Volume 3 concludes with the last-minute surrender by the IV. SS-Pz.Korps to U.S. forces and the postwar fate of some of its leading members.
This period of the war witnessed the near-destruction of Obergruppenfhrer Herbert Gilles beloved IV. SS-Pz.Korps in the ill-fated defense of the operationally important Hungarian city of Stuhlweissenburg (Szkesfehrvr) that began one day after the cancellation of Operation Frhlingserwachen on 15 March 1945. Overwhelmed by the combined power of three attacking Soviet armies and outnumbered by 10 to one, the corps was split in two, with the Totenkopf Division being forced to pull away in one direction, never to rejoin the corps again, while the Wiking Division and Gilles headquarters went in another. As the Wiking Division barely escaped from the city, it, along with the rest of the IV. SS-Pz.Korps , would then undergo a harrowing retreat along the northern shore of Lake Balaton, which witnessed the near-collapse of General der Panzertruppe Hermann Balcks 6. Armee .
Partly due to Balcks uncharacteristically poor direction of his army, and partly to the incredible combat power and deft handling of the Third Ukrainian Front under its commander, Marshal Fyodor Tolbukhin, Balcks army, along with the remnants of the IV. SS-Pz.Korps , barely made it back to the presumed safety of the Reichsschutzstellung defensive wall in southeastern Austria. Here, Gille and his weary troops would engage in heavy defensive warfare until the last week of April 1945. Throughout, Gille and his staff would have to undergo increasingly meddlesome and petty interference by Balck in the corps operations, leading to yet another demand by Balck for Gilles relief of command. Shortages of ammunition, fuel, and above all the armored fighting vehicles upon which his panzer divisions relied, the IV. SS-Pz.Korps was forced to wage positional warfare in the Styrian Mountains, where infantry skills once again became paramount in order to keep the Red Army at bay.
The corps history ends after its hectic withdrawal from the front lines east of Graz and its surrender to U.S. forces between 8 and 9 May 1945. To do this, Gille first had to order his troops to pull out from their positions without attracting the attention of Soviet forces and conduct a road march of over 200 kilometers through the Austrian Alps to reach the Allied demarcation line along the Enns River by midnight on 8 May. Shadowed by the Red Army throughout its withdrawal, Gilles rear guards managed to keep their opponents at a safe distance while simultaneously fighting off attempts by the Austrian resistance to impede their movement. Upon reaching the Enns, the corps had only 24 hours to cross to safety, only to endure months or even years of privation in Allied prisoner of war camps, de-Nazification, and re-education.
Finally, after being released from internment camps throughout Europe in the late 1940s (and even longer if held captive in the U.S.S.R.), Gille and his troops, , returned to a West Germany that no longer welcomed them. Back home, the survivors faced the reality that their organization had been made the scapegoat for all of the Third Reichs war crimes and crimes against humanity. Slowly, the survivors of the IV. SS-Pz.Korps reintegrated into civil society, a trend that accelerated when West Germanys Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle) began to gather momentum in the mid-1950s. Some returned to their previous professions, while others found new employment, and not a few joined the new West German Army, the Bundeswehr . Throughout this period, former Waffen-SS members, led by prominent men like Felix Steiner and Herbert Gille, began to organize and formally establish SS veterans associations, and seek a political voice to address some of their concerns arising from their perceived second-class citizenship status. Although they were only partially successful in achieving their goals, by the early 1960s, nearly all of the survivors of the IV. SS-Pz.Korps had been accepted as full-fledged citizens by their countrymen, except for those few accused of having committed war crimes.
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