white, 135th Tank Brigade (T-34/85, markings: -in diamond- and xx, e.g. Leningrad Pearl Harbor However, I SS Panzer Corps launched its attack on time, but even then surprise was not achieved and the gains were smallthe deepest penetration being a mere four kilometers. Dietrich did not relay the order to his troops. Artillery Regiment (SU-100, markings: 4xx), 1953rd Self-prop. [29] The operation would be considered a success if 1) Operation Konrad III could pin the Soviets between the Vrtes mountains and the Danube, 2) the 8th Army could secure its Front in Northern Hungary, 3) if the incoming panzer armies could be refitted during transit to create the advantage of surprise. There the attack involved Sepp Dietrichs Sixth Panzer Army and the III Panzer Corps of the Sixth Army, with some 300 tanks and Sturmgeschutze self-propelled assault guns. On 16th March the Red Army attacked in strength and the Germans were driven back to the same positions which they were at the start of the offensive. Warsaw, Lodz, and Cracow had fallen, and a Soviet Army had entered East Prussia. Based on the results from aerial observation, motorized columns of at least 3,000 vehicles are moving out of the rear area from Budapest to the southwest, most of them in the direction of Zamoly. He wasted no time. red, 170th Tank Brigade (T-34/85, markings: 5xx, e.g. 615th Ground Attack Regiment (IL-2m3 Sturmovik), e.g. The whole study is written in the heroic style. There was no possibility of either divisions tanks or heavy equipment reaching the forward assembly areas in time for the attack. Indeed, in view of the massive, and by now almost continuous, Allied air onslaught, the general state of the German war economy and not least, the appalling casualty rate sustained in five and a half years of war, it is astounding that Dietrichs formation was made ready for an offensive action at all in such a short time, actually less than a month. The Germans succeeded in eliminating the Soviet bridgehead on the west bank of the river Hron in preparation for Operation Spring Awakening. The army was to advance from an area north of Lake Balaton on a wide front. Upload media Wikipedia. white, 1952nd Self-prop. The 14th was mainly sunny, and the temperature climbed, drying the ground. The Soviet counteroffensive continued and these positions were soon overrun. Leyte Operation Spring Awakening represented Nazi Germany's last major attack in World War Two. The attack reached a high point about five kilometers northwest of Sarosd but then bogged down. The operation was referred to in Germany as the Plattensee offensive and in the Soviet Union as the Balaton defensive operation. At that time, Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary that failure of the offensive was likely. I, III./SG 2 (Fw 190F, Ju 87G 10. On the right of I SS was I Cavalry Corps. Adolescence and the Spring Awakening. Tempest [24] A glimpse of the ensuing verbal exchange during this argument was captured in Alfred Jodl's (OKW) post-war interrogation where he quotes Hitler saying: "You want to attack without oil good, we'll see what happens when you attempt that". The closer one came to the assembly area, the more widespread the land that was under waterimpassable for all kinds of vehicles. On the 15th, Das Reich continued to beat off repeated Soviet counterattacks. This transfer was part of an overall restructuring of the Third Ukrainian Front. [23] By 20 February, the Soviet fronts in Hungary began to understand what the Germans planned to do. Lots of variety in German divisions; King Tigers, Waffen SS, Panzer Grenadier, Mark IV, Stug III, Motorized infantry, Mountain Infantry, as well as Hungarian and Croatian Infantry. Heers-Sturm. [32] On 25 February, Hitler ordered Otto Whler, Maximilian von Weichs, and Sepp Dietrich to personally present the plans for Operation Sd to him, along with Guderian (OKH) and Alfred Jodl (OKW),[33] at the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, where he ultimately chose Lsung C2. [18] Before the end of the 4th day, the Germans had recaptured 400 square kilometers of territory, an achievement comparable to the initial German gains during the Ardennes offensive and the Western Front in December 1944. This offensive was also known in German as the Plattensee Offensive , in Russian as the Balaton Defensive Operation (6 - 15 March 1945), and in . It was a failure for Nazi Germany. It was spearheaded by the German Sixth SS Panzer Army. [51] Nonetheless, if successful, it was envisioned that the meeting of Army Group E's Waldteufel and the 6th SS Panzer Army's Frhlingserwachen would encircle both the Soviet 26th Army and the Soviet 57th Army. It was to advance from an area north of Lake Balaton, through the two lakes (Balaton and Velence), and southeast to capture territory from the Si Channel to the Danube. It took place in Western Hungary on the Eastern Front and lasted from 6 March until 15 March, 1945. Lapland . Despite early gains, the operation was a prime example of Hitler's reckless military judgement towards the end of the war; its key flaw was that the offensive was too ambitious in scope. Nevertheless, Hitler rejected a proposal that these Soviet forces should be dealt with first or at least engaged, and the date of Spring Awakening was confirmed as March 6. The Germans were driven back to the positions they had held before Operation Spring Awakening began. In January 12, 1945, Adolf Hitler received the news he had been dreadingthe Soviet Red Army had launched its winter offensive. [61] A prime example of the scale of defensive installments can be seen in the 26th Army's 135th Rifle Corps. Many were abandoned due to a lack of fuel. Army Group Souths hopes of launching an attack across the Sarviz in this area in support of II SS Panzer Corps were proving overly optimistic. [69] The attack was spearheaded by the 6th SS Panzer Army and included elite units such as the LSSAH division. Artillery Regiment (SU-76M), 1201st Self-prop. The failure of II SS Panzer Corps to make progress on the east side of the Sarviz canal was inevitably causing deep concern at Headquarters Army Group South and Sixth Panzer Army and this led, on the night of the 8th, to the release of the 23rd Panzer Division from the Army Group South reserve to I SS Panzer Corps. ( , . Marshal Tolbukhin reinforced Lt. Gen.Gagyen, the Twenty-Sixth Army commander, with two tank brigades and three antitank regiments from his reserve XVIII Tank Corps, and Gagyen ordered these units to take up positions confronting III Panzer and II SS Panzer Corps. In one last desperate attempt to change his fortunes, Hitler would launch the. Operation Spring Awakening (Unternehmen Frhlingserwachen) (6 - 16 March 1945) was the last major German offensive of World War II. Strategically, the operation had no impact upon the outcome of World War II. Operation Spring Awakening [for Android] $ 5.99 $ 3.99 (33% off) Verify price before downloading. Spring Awakening was designed to secure the vital oil deposits in southern Hungary and perhaps even regain the oil fields of Romania. This secured the jumping-off positions for the final attack on Simontornya, which was to be carried out the following day. By 14 March, Operation Spring Awakening was at risk of failure. Even regiments were redesignated as construction teams. First Indochina War This area included some of the last oil reserves still available to the Germans. Panzers Last Stand is a Battalion Combat Series game depicting the Axis relief operations of Budapest from January to March 1945 in what became Germany's last major offensives in the war. [23], Tolbukhin's 3rd Ukrainian Front had 5 Armies plus 1 Air Army, in addition it also had the 1st Bulgarian Army[56] with the 3rd Yugoslav Partisan Army also partaking in the defense. events, and resources. In early 1945, the Fhrer launched his final offensive operationin Hungary. German losses were heavy. white, 2nd Guards Mechanized Brigade (BA-64, e.g. On 10 March, the Axis forces fighting under Operation Spring Awakening around Lake Balaton had a total of 230 operational tanks and 167 operational assault guns between their 17 divisions. This attack was designed primarily to cut off and destroy all Soviet troops north of a line drawn from Lake Balaton through Szkesfehrvar (known to the Germans as Stuhlweissenburg) to Budapest, and secondly to liberate that citythe Pest garrison had in fact withdrawn across the Danube to the hills of Buda the night before. Cryptography Operation Spring Awakening involved many German units withdrawn from the failed Ardennes Offensive on the Western Front including the Sixth SS Panzer Army. The entire landscape was a morass of mud, and it was soon clear that it would be impossible to launch the divisions panzer regiment. Only 1 Left in Stock! To ensure sufficient supply of war materials and fuel, additional temporary bridges and gas pipeline were built on the river Danube. The fact that they were facing reverses in one area did not distract them from their long-term aim, and the albeit serious situation on the west side of the Sarviz was seen as an opportunity rather than as a setback. The Allies were well established in Europe and advancing quickly. Art. white, 912nd Self-prop. For Operation Spring Awakening (Unternehmen Frhlingserwachen) you have been given third of all the Panzer formations on the Eastern Front: two Panzer Armies strengthened with King Tiger. Spring Awakening p1. This was expected to be on the 15th or 16th. The attack order was a Fhrer Order, and that was that. This offensive was also known in German as the Plattensee Offensive, in Russian as the Balaton Defensive Operation (6 15 March 1945), and in English as the Lake Balaton Offensive. Italy (Spring 1945) The offensive got under way on 6 March. However, due to well-prepared defense and rapid movement of tank reserves by the Soviets, over a period of 10 days and after suffering heavy casualties, German troops only managed to advance 1530km. [37] The chosen course of action on 25 February, "Lsung C2", favored the quicker and farther-reaching joint operation of the 2nd Panzer Army and 6th SS Panzer Army, while "Lsung B" opted to first secure the left flank of the main thrust "Frhlingserwachen" (between Lake Velence and the Danube) before moving south toward the 2nd Panzer army. At 1:45 am, in spite of Hitlers refusal to allow any changes to his master plan or any major redeployments without his personal permission, the Chief of Staff Army Group South, Lt. Gen. von Grolmann, instructed Dietrich to prepare I SS Panzer Corps for just such an attack. Here Marshal Fyodor Tolbukhin massed three armies together with two tank corps and a guards mechanized corps. [57] The 26th Army's Corps' would be layered in two belts whose defensive preparations had originally begun back on 11 February,[57] prior to any sign of German offensive intentions. As a result of this report, a request was made to Headquarters Army Group South that the attack should be postponed for at least two days, and Dietrich himself asked General Guderian in Berlin to support the proposalto no avail. One of its primary objectives was to safeguard German access to the oil fields of Romania. It took place in Hungary on the Eastern Front. G.F. Krivosheyev, 'Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the twentieth century', London, Greenhill Books, 1997, G.F. Krivosheyev, 'Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the twentieth century', London, Greenhill Books, 1997, p. 156-7, G.F. Krivosheyev, 'Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the twentieth century', London, Greenhill Books, 1997, p.156-7, 16th SS Panzer Grenadier Division Reichsfhrer-SS, Military history of Bulgaria during World War II, "Hitler's Last Offensive: Operation Spring Awakening", "New achievements in WW II. Safety starts with understanding how developers collect and share your data. [40] Other units from other armies were also sent to the Hungarian theater, for example the 16th SS Panzer Grenadier Division Reichsfhrer-SS who was brought up from Italy through the Brenner straight and sent to the 2nd Panzer Army. Over 400 square kilometres of ground had been recaptured from the Soviets in Operation South-wind. Finally on this day, Tolbukhin ordered a division from his reserve army into a second defensive line opposite II SS Panzer Corps; a complete rifle corps from east of the Danube to move to a new position to the south of Simontornya; and two tank regiments of I Guards Mechanized Corps to begin moving west toward Sarbogard. Operation Keelhaul [35], OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht) was the overarching military command for the German army in WW2, while the OKH (Oberkommando des Heeres) was officially a high command operating under OKW. Fresh in the mind of Speer was Hitler's thinking behind Operation Spring Awakening. The offensive failed in the face of Soviet resistance, and the ensuing Red Army offensive . The Leibstandartes attack on the town of Simontornya on March 12 was launched from the high ground north of the Sio canal. By 15 April, the remnants of the Sixth SS Panzer Army were north of Vienna, facing the Soviet 9th Guards Tank Army and 46th Army. This offensive was also referred to in Germany as the Plattensee Offensive and in the Soviet Union as the Balaton Defensive Operation. Artillery Battalion (SU-76M), 122nd Separate Self-prop. The immediate Soviet objectives were Tata and Gyr in the north and Varpalota and Veszprem in the south. Verband Jaguar (captured T-34/85, e.g. Panther tanks of Operation Spring Awakening, the last German offensive of WWII, abandoned on the road near Lake Balaton, Hungary, due to lack of fuel. Dietrichs chief operations officer reported, In the constricted area between Lakes Balaton and Valencei the mud became alarming. [23] Knowing that German Panzer divisions were not created for defensive purposes, the Soviet Fronts in Hungary became suspicious of the enemy's intentions. 1202nd Self-prop. Western Ukraine white, 11th Guards Separate Motorcycle Battalion, 864th Self-prop. The initial attack by Tolbukhin was to be made as soon as the Sixth Panzer Armys offensive had been halted. IL-2m3. Atomic bombings SS-Pz.Rgt 3 (Panther Ausf. Plastic Soldier Battlegroup Spring Awakening Book is a general overview of the war in Hungary in 1945. Spring Awakening is a two player wargame of Operation Fruhlingserwachen, the final major German offensive of World War II. When this news reached Hitler, he immediately began to plan a major offensive on this Front. With some 50 tanks, Jagdpanzers, and Sturmgeschtzes, the division was ordered to follow behind the Leibstandarte and to be prepared to cross the Sarviz canal and attack the Soviet forces in the rear of the II SS Panzer Corps in the Sarkeresztur area. [26] Almost all support units of the 6th SS Panzer Army were pulled from the Ardennes by 22 January, while the 9th SS Panzer Division was the last to leave on 23 January. H), This page was last edited on 1 January 2023, at 12:31. Surrender of Germany It's 1945 and you're in command of Axis forces tasked with securing the last Axis oilfields located in Hungary and Austria by both re-taking the town of Budapest and clearing the western aspect of the river Danube of the Red Army divisions which have shaped a large beach-head . [73], On 22 March, the remnants of the 6th SS Panzer Army withdrew towards Vienna. It took place in Hungary. There were only two hard surface roads running southeast from Szkesfehrvar, and even these had been turned into rivers of mud by the thaw. Add to Want List. [55] The two tanks Corps would remain under the 26th and 27th Armies to be utilized only in dire need. 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