11th Army (Wehrmacht)

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The 11th Army / Army High Command 11 ( AOK 11 ) was a major unit of the Army of the Wehrmacht during the Second World War . She was the high command of changing army corps and numerous special troops.

First lineup

The 11th Army was formed on October 5, 1940 to prepare for the impending war against the Soviet Union . The army was part of Army Group South when it invaded the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa . Until the start of the planned attack, it was the task of Army High Command 11 to protect Romanian oil fields near Ploieşti in the event that the Red Army noticed the German deployment and disrupted it with its own advance. The allied Romanian armies (3rd and 4th) should also be subordinate to AOK 11, but for political reasons the Romanian leader Ion Antonescu should act as the nominal commander in chief of all German-Romanian units operating from Romania. On June 24th the Romanian declaration of war was made, and on the following day Army High Command 11 was ordered to prepare the offensive over the Prut . For the attack, which was only initiated on July 2, 1941 with the Munich company , three general commands with seven infantry divisions and the German army ( 72nd infantry division ) and air force mission (60 fighter planes) were subordinated to the 11th Army .

Outline June 1941

Against the original plan to advance on Vinnitsa first , the troops should now move first across the Dniester at Mogilew to Proskurow , where the connection to the 17th Army should be made. The resistance of the Soviet southern front (Lieutenant General IW Tjulenew) slowed the advance of the German-Romanian units considerably. When the heads of the 11th Army were in the Soroca area , their southern flank was hit on July 9 by a Soviet counterattack, which made it necessary to turn off a corps to take Kishinev . The units of the 11th Army were therefore no longer able to intervene in the kettle battle near Uman that was developing from mid-July . However, after three Soviet armies (6th, 12th and parts of the 18th Army) had been crushed in this battle, the German-Romanian units in the Ukraine gained greater freedom of movement. On August 12, Schobert received a new instruction instructing him to operate against the Dnieper and to build a bridgehead at Berislav at the beginning of September .

The 11th Army was tasked with conquering the Crimea and securing the southern flank of Army Group South advancing across the Dnjper. The LIV. and XXX. Army Corps was deployed against the Isthmus of Perekop , while the XI. Army Corps and the newly subordinated XXXXIX. (Geb.) Army Corps (General Kübler ) pursued the Red Army . After the previous Commander-in-Chief Colonel General Eugen Ritter von Schobert landed on a reconnaissance flight on September 11, 1941 in a Russian minefield and died in an explosion caused by his aircraft, General of the Infantry Erich von Manstein was appointed his successor.

Conquest of the Crimea

After the battle of the Sea of ​​Azov in September / October 1941, the 11th Army received orders to conquer the Crimea. A little later she managed to break through the Isthmus of Perekop . On October 30th, they began the 250-day siege of Sevastopol . After strong Soviet forces landed on the Kerch peninsula at the turn of 1941/42 (→ Kerch-Feodosia operation ) and threatened the 11th Army in the rear, they began operations in 1942 in May with the bustard hunt , which involved the Soviet troops on the Kerch peninsula completely wiped out and 170,000 prisoners taken. The subsequent company Störfang against Sevastopol led to the fall of the city in early July. The 11th Army successfully cut off Soviet units from access to the sea, leaving an estimated 100,000 soldiers prisoner of war in Germany. For this success Manstein was promoted to General Field Marshal.

Outline June 1942

Manstein recommended that the 11th Army should now either cross the Kerch Strait and advance to the Krasnodar region to take the city of Rostov-on-Don , or stand by as a reserve for Army Group South. However, Hitler decided that the army should not take part in Operation Blau , in which Army Group South was advancing on Stalingrad in southern Russia . Instead, the forces of the 11th Army were split up:

  • The XXXXII. Army Corps remained with the 46th and 50th Infantry Divisions for security in the Crimea.
  • The 22nd (airborne) infantry division was transferred to Crete as an occupation division.
  • The 72nd Infantry Division was transferred to Army Group Center.

The 11th Army itself was with the XXX. and LIV. Army corps and initially only four divisions moved to Army Group North . There it was planned to be reinforced to twelve divisions and then used to conquer Leningrad ( Operation Northern Lights ). In fact, however, they had to repel an attack by Soviet troops in the First Battle of Ladoga (August to October 1942) east of Leningrad. Subsequently, the Army High Command was briefly deployed at the interface between the Army Groups Center and North, where it was supposed to take over the management of a planned offensive against the large Soviet ledge around Toropez (“Operation Taubenschlag”).

On November 21, 1942, the Army High Command 11 (AOK 11) with Field Marshal Manstein was then converted into the Don Army Group Command and took over command of the 6th Army , the 4th Panzer Army and the Romanian 3rd Army .

Re-installation January 1945

On January 26, 1945 the Panzer Army High Command 11 was reorganized from parts of the Upper Rhine High Command staff by the Waffen-SS , which made the designation 11th Panzer Army and 11th SS Panzer Army common. The association was subordinated to the Vistula Army Group . On January 28, SS-Obergruppenführer Felix Steiner became Commander-in-Chief of the Army, but still remained Commanding General of the III. SS Panzer Corps . At the end of February the large association was involved in the company Sonnenwende , but had to go into defense as a result of the company; the staff was replaced by the PzAOK 3. After the staff of the 11th Army (without Commander-in-Chief ) was transferred to the Harz on the western front, Hitler dissolved it on March 25 and formed two corps staffs from them, one of which was to use Steiner for a special operation to be ordered (→ Battle of Berlin ) . On April 2nd, Army High Command 11 was re-established under the deputy supreme command of Otto Hitzfeld , and from April 7th to 9th it got into fierce fighting in the Struth area near Mühlhausen / Thuringia . A few days later, the supreme command passed to General Walther Lucht . The remnants of the 11th Army were taken prisoner of war in the Blankenburg area at the end of April .

Commander in chief

See also

literature

  • Antony Beevor : Berlin: The Downfall 1945. Viking, London 2002, ISBN 0-670-88695-5 .
  • Georg Tessin : Associations and troops of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen SS in World War II 1939–1945. Volume 3: The Land Forces 6-14 . 2nd Edition. Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 1974, ISBN 3-7648-0942-6 .
  • Wolfgang Trappe: 50 years ago in April. War in Eichsfeld. In: Eichsfeld. Monthly magazine of the Eichsfeldes. 4, 1995, ZDB ID 913387-2 , pp. 89-96.
  • Earl Frederick Ziemke: Battle For Berlin. End Of The Third Reich . Macdomald & Co, London 1969 ( Purnell's History of the Second World War, Battle Book 6), (Also: Pan Books, London 1974, ISBN 0-330-24007-2 ( The Pan / Ballantine illustrated History of World War II. Battle Book )).

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