2nd Panzer Army (Red Army)

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2nd Panzer Army

active January 1943 to 1990s
Country Soviet Union 1923Soviet Union Soviet Union
Armed forces Soviet Union 1923Soviet Union Red Army
Armed forces Land Forces
Type army

The 2nd Panzer Army was a large armored unit of the Red Army , which was set up in January 1943 in the area of ​​the Brjansk Front . Subordinated to the Central Front in February 1943 , she took part in the Battle of Kursk in July , then in the Oryol Operation and the further advance of the Central Front on Chernigov . Subsequently assigned to the reserve of the High Command, she was subordinated to the 1st Ukrainian Front at the beginning of 1944 and took part in the Dnepr-Carpathian operation until April . In June 1944 she returned to the 1st Belarusian Front and took part in the Lublin-Brest Operation in the final phase of Operation Bagration . At the end of July she reached the Warsaw suburb of Praga , before she was badly hit by a German counterattack in early August and had to be assigned to the reserve. In November 1944 it was given guard status and was henceforth called the 2nd Guard Armored Army . As such, she took part in the Vistula-Oder operation in early 1945 and in the Battle of East Pomerania until early April . Your last war mission was in the battle for Berlin . After the end of the war, it was known as the 2nd Guards Mechanized Army for several years . Until the early 1990s, the army was part of the group of Soviet armed forces in Germany . It was dissolved in the Volga Military District in 1998. Your current successor in the Army of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation has been the 2nd Guard Army in Samara since 2001 .

history

Second World War

On January 10, 1943, order No. 46002 was issued by the Stawka to set up the 2nd Panzer Army by February 1 in the area north of Jelez . The army was to be created through the reorganization of the 3rd Reserve Army (2nd Formation), and Prokofi Logvinowitsch Romanenko was appointed its commander . As of February 1, its inventory included the 16th Panzer Corps, three rifle divisions and other units. The army was initially subordinate to the Brjansk Front , on February 15 it was subordinated to the newly formed Central Front . From the end of February to the end of March she took part in the operations of this front in the Sevsk - Dmitriev area. At the end of April she was assigned to the 3rd Panzer Corps from the Stawka Reserve, which replaced the 11th Panzer Corps.

From July 5 to 23, the army took part in the Kursk defensive battle and was the target of attacks by the German 9th Army on the northern section of the Kursk front on the Tepoloje-Olchowatka- Ponyri line .

Structure on July 10, 1943
3rd Panzer Corps Major General Maxim Denisovich Sinenko 50th, 51st and 103rd tank brigades and 57th motorized rifle brigade
16th Panzer Corps Major General Vasily Efimowitsch Grigoryev 107th, 109th and 164th tank brigade and 15th motorized rifle brigade
19th Panzer Corps Major General Vasilyev 79th, 101st and 102nd tank brigades, and 26th motorized rifle brigade

After the German attacks broke off, she was partly involved in the Oryol operation . In August 1943 it received the 7th Guards Mechanized Corps from the 3rd Guards Armored Army . At the end of August, the army was involved in the attack on the central front in the direction of Chernigov when, on September 2, the command of the high command issued the order to transfer the army to the reserve. She was transferred back to Lgow , where she was refreshed.

On December 19, the Stawka issued another directive, according to which the 2nd Panzer Army was to be deployed in the Chernobyl area by January 15, 1944 . This was changed several times in the further course of the Soviet winter offensive, so that the army was finally deployed east of Zhitomir . She was then ordered to the Fastiv area and placed under the 1st Ukrainian Front , with which she participated in the Korsun-Shevchenkovsk operation until mid-February . Parts of up to four Soviet tank armies were involved in this battle. After the completion of the operation, the army was subordinated to the 2nd Ukrainian Front , with which it took part in the Uman-Botoșaner Operation from March to April . In this operation she covered more than 200 kilometers and reached the Prut near Iași .

On June 10, 1944, the Stawka issued a directive to move the 2nd Panzer Army from June 14th by rail to the front area of ​​the 1st Belarusian Front . She intervened here from July 18 in the fighting of Operation Bagration and advanced with the 8th Guard Army on Lublin and Dęblin , which were captured on July 24 and 25. At the end of the month the Warsaw suburb of Praga was reached. The Warsaw Uprising then broke out in Warsaw on August 1st , in the expectation that the city could be liberated with the help of the Red Army. However, the 2nd Panzer Army was attacked by superior German forces ( III Panzer Corps and IV SS Panzer Corps ) and largely smashed. At the end of August it was therefore relocated to the Kovel area and assigned to the reserve in order to be practically completely re-assembled. In October, their inventory included the 1st Mechanized Corps and the 3rd and 9th Panzer Corps. From the middle of the month it was relocated to the area of ​​the 1st Belarusian Front and initially concentrated in the Łuków area. Here she was given Guard status on November 20th.

From January 14, 1945, the army attacked from the Magnuszew bridgehead south of Warsaw in a north-westerly direction and reached the Küstrin area via Inowrocław . It was then used in the Battle of East Pomerania . In the battle for the Seelow Heights on April 16, she attacked from the bridgehead at Küstrin together with the 5th shock army and reached the Berlin motorway ring on April 21 . Then she took part in the storm on the city .

post war period

Locations of the GSSD armies in 1991

After the end of the war, the army was stationed in Fürstenberg / Havel as part of the Group of Soviet Occupation Forces in Germany (GSBT, later GSSD) . In June 1945 it was renamed the 2nd Guards Mechanized Army , which was reversed in 1957. Its composition changed over time towards a combined arms army. The last of their wartime units were withdrawn from the army in the late 1970s.

With the withdrawal of the western group of troops in the early 1990s, the 2nd Armored Guard Army also left the reunified Germany. In 1993 she was transferred to the Volga Military District. In 1998 it was dissolved, but in 2001 it was re-established as the 2nd Guard Army (Russian 2-я гвардейская общевойсковая армия ).

Commander in World War II

2nd Panzer Army

2nd Guards Armored Army

  • Alexei Ivanovich Radsijewski - November 20, 1944 to January 7, 1945
  • Semyon Ilyich Bogdanov - January 7th to May 9th 1945

Web links