Sources
Help build the largest human-edited directory on the web.
Submit a site - Become an editor
Wikipedia. Licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Are you an expert in this subject? Join the discussion and share your knowledge at Wikipedia.org.
Vienna Offensive
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Vienna Offensive | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of World War II | |||||||
|
|||||||
| Combatants | |||||||
 Nazi Germany |
 Soviet Union Bulgaria |
||||||
| Commanders | |||||||
| Sepp Dietrich |
Fyodor Tolbukhin |
||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| One army (under strength) Local irregulars |
Four armies (full strength) | ||||||
| Eastern Front |
|---|
| Barbarossa – Baltic Sea – Finland – Leningrad and Baltics – Crimea and Caucasus – Moscow – 1st Rzhev-Vyazma – 2nd Kharkov – Stalingrad – Velikiye Luki – 2nd Rzhev-Sychevka – Kursk – 2nd Smolensk – Dnieper – 2nd Kiev – Korsun – Hube's Pocket – Belorussia – Lvov-Sandomierz – Balkans – Hungary – Vistula-Oder – Königsberg – Berlin – Prague |
| Hungary 1944-1945 |
|---|
| Debrecen – Budapest – Balaton – Vienna |
The Vienna Offensive was launched by the Soviet 3rd Ukrainian Front against Vienna, Austria. The offensive lasted from April 2 to April 13, 1945. The city of Vienna was surrounded and under siege for most of the offensive.
Contents |
After the failure of Operation Frühlingserwachen, Sepp Dietrich's 6th SS Panzer Army retreated in stages to the Vienna area. [1] The Germans desperately prepared defensive positions in an attempt to guard the city against the fast arriving Soviets.
During the spring of 1945, the advance of Soviet General Fyodor Tolbukhin's 3rd Ukrainian Front through western Hungary gathered momentum on both sides of the Danube. [2]
On March 30, the advancing Soviets forced the Hron River, forced the Nitra River, and, after they took Sopron and Nagykanizsa, crossed the border between Hungary and Austria. [3] Tolbukhin was now ready to advance into Austria and take Vienna.
On April 2, 1945, Vienna Radio denied that the Austrian capital has been declared an open city. On the same day, Soviet troops approached Vienna from the south after they over-ran Wiener Neustadt, Eisenstadt, Neunkirchen, and Gloggnitz. [4] Baden and Bratislava were over-run on April 4.
After arriving in the Vienna area, the armies of the Soviet 3rd Ukrainian Front surrounded, besieged, and attacked the city. Involved in this action were the Soviet 4th Guards Tank Army, the Soviet 6th Guards Tank Army, the Soviet 9th Guards Tank Army, and the Soviet 46th Army. The only major German force facing the Soviet attackers was the German 6th SS Panzer Army (of course, as was typically the case this late in the war, the Germans also had whatever ad hoc forces could be scraped up locally).
The battle for the Austrian capital was characterized by fierce urban combat. The Soviets started with Vienna's southern suburbs, and the German defenders kept the Soviets out of the city’s southern suburbs until April 7. However, after successfully achieving several footholds in the southern suburbs, the Soviets then moved into the western suburbs of the city on April 8. The western suburbs were especially important to the Soviets because they included Vienna's main railway station. The Soviet success in the western suburbs was followed quickly by infiltration of the eastern and northern suburbs later the same day. Central Vienna was now cut off from the rest of Austria. By April 9, the Soviet troops managed to begin infiltrating the center of the city, but the senseless street fighting continued for several days more. Vienna finally fell when the last defenders in the city surrendered on April 13.
While the street fighting was still intensifying in the southern and western suburbs of Vienna on April 8, other troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front by-passed Vienna altogether and advanced on Linz and Graz. [5]
By April 15, 1945, armies of the Soviet 3rd Ukrainian Front had managed to push even further into Austria. The completely exhausted remnants of what had been the 6th SS Panzer Army were forced to flee to the area between Vienna and Linz. Just behind the retreating Germans were elements of the Soviet 9th Guards Tank Army and the Soviet 46th Army. The Soviet 26th Army and the Soviet 27th Army advanced towards the area north of Graz just behind the retreating German 6th Army. The Soviet 57th Army and the Bulgarian 1st Army advanced towards the area south of Graz (near Maribor) just behind the retreating German 2nd Panzer Army. None of these German armies was in any shape to do more than temporarily stall the advancing Soviet forces.
On May 12, Sepp Dietrich was finally captured by American troops of the US Third Army. [6] He was captured four days after Victory in Europe Day on May 8.
On April 30, 1945, the following order of battle was recorded by the German Army High Command (OKW). They were on the run. From April 20 to May 2, OKW moved from Zossen (near Berlin) to Mürwik (part of Flensburg in north Germany). [7] This order of battle shows what remained of the German armies that fought in Hungary and Austria.
- German 6th SS Panzer Army - east of Linz
- 117th Rifle Division (arriving)
- Ist SS Panzer Corps
- 1st SS Panzer Division
- 356th Assault Division
- 12th SS Panzer Division
- 710th Infantry Division
- IInd SS Panzer Corps
- 3rd SS Panzer Division
- Fuehrer-Grenadiers Division)
- German 6th Army - north of Graz
- IVth SS Panzer Corps
- 3rd Panzer Shock Division
- 5th SS Panzer Shock Division
- 14th Waffen SS Grenadiers (1st Ukrainian)
- IIIrd Panzer Corps
- 1st Volks Alpine Division
- 1st Panzer Division
- IVth SS Panzer Corps
- German 2nd Panzer Army - south of Graz (near Maribor)
- LXVIIIrd Corps
- 71st Infantry Division
- 13th SS Alpine Division
- 118t Rifle Division
- XXIInd Mountain Corps
- 297th Infantry Division
- Hungarian Szentlaszlo Infantry Division
- Ist Cavalry Corps
- 23rd Panzer Division
- 4th Cavalry Division
- 3rd Cavalry Panzer Division
- 16th SS Grenadiers Division
- LXVIIIrd Corps
- Eastern Front (World War II)
- History of Germany during World War II
- Battle of Budapest - 1944/45
- Operation Frühlingserwachen - 1945
- Prague Offensive - 1945
- Soviet 3rd Ukrainian Front
- German 6th SS Panzer Army
- End of World War II in Europe
- ^ Page 199, The Decline an Fall of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, Hans Dollinger, Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 67-27047
- ^ Page 449, Brassey's Dictionary of Battles, John Laffin, ISBN 0-7607-0767-7
- ^ Page 182, The Decline an Fall of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, Hans Dollinger, Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 67-27047
- ^ Page 182, The Decline an Fall of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, Hans Dollinger, Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 67-27047
- ^ Page 182, The Decline an Fall of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, Hans Dollinger, Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 67-27047
- ^ Page 182, The Decline an Fall of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, Hans Dollinger, Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 67-27047
- ^ Page 177, The Decline an Fall of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, Hans Dollinger, Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 67-27047
Categories: Battles and operations of World War II | Soviet-German War | Battles involving the Soviet Union | Sieges involving the Soviet Union | Battles involving Bulgaria | Battles involving Germany | Sieges involving Germany | Battles involving Ukraine | Battles involving Hungary | Conflicts in 1945 | Urban warfare | World War II Eastern European Theatre