4th Panzer Army (Wehrmacht)

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Panzer Group 4
4th Panzer Army

active February 17, 1941 to May 8, 1945
Country German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era) German Empire
Armed forces Wehrmacht
Armed forces army
Type army
Second World War German-Soviet War
Supreme command
list of Commander in chief

The 4th Panzer Army / Panzer Army High Command 4 (PzAOK 4) was a large unit of the Army of the Wehrmacht during the Second World War . At the beginning of Operation Barbarossa , the large formation was referred to as Panzer Group 4 and during the Battle of Stalingrad from December 1942 to January 1943 also as Army Group Hoth . During the war, the high command had changing army corps and numerous special troops.

history

The Panzer Group 4 was on February 17, 1941 by conversion from the General Command XVI. Army corps (mot.) Formed, which had previously been used in the Polish and western campaigns . Erich Hoepner , promoted to Colonel General on July 19, 1940, remained the leader of the association . The Panzer Group was initially under the 18th Army of Army Group B before it was placed under Army Group C , later Army Group North , in May 1941 . At the beginning of the eastern campaign, Panzer Group 4 was under two motorized army corps (General Reinhardt and General von Manstein) with a total of three tank, two motorized and three infantry divisions.

Structure on June 22, 1941

The task of Panzer Group 4 was to break through after the Memel crossing in the direction of Schaulen and then to act as the "battering ram" of Army Group North during the further advance through the Baltic States to Leningrad . By the end of August 1941 she had advanced to Luga via Pskow south of Lake Peipus . At the end of September, following the discontinued attack on Leningrad, the group was regrouped and placed under Army Group Center for the planned offensive against Moscow (→  Operation Taifun ). The Panzer Group took part with the 4th Army against Vyazma and reached the area around Moshaisk . In the battle for Moscow , the German advance on the Moscow-Volga Canal was stopped in early December . On January 1, 1942, the name was changed to 4th Panzer Army . Since Colonel-General Hoepner ordered a tactical retreat at the beginning of January against Hitler's order to halt due to strong Soviet pressure , he was deposed on January 8 and replaced by Richard Ruoff .

The 4th Panzer Army then withdrew to the Gschatsk - Vyazma area. In April 1942 the Panzer-AOK was relocated to Army Group South in the Kursk area for a new use . As part of the von Weichs Army Group ( 2nd Army , 4th Panzer Army, Hungarian 2nd Army ), she took part in the attack on Voronezh in June / July 1942 under her new Commander-in-Chief Hermann Hoth .

Structure on June 28, 1942

On 9 July 1942 she was in the course of the summer offensive Case Blue of Army Group B allocated erected to 21 July two bridgeheads on Don and then operated against Stalingrad . In the Battle of Stalingrad she was given the task of covering the southern flank of the 6th Army , which was tasked with attacking the city .

Outline on August 15, 1942

From November 19, 1942, during Operation Uranus , a serious crisis arose at the front of Army Group B due to simultaneous Soviet attack operations north and south of Stalingrad. The encirclement of the German 6th Army could not be prevented. In Operation Wintergewitter , the Hoth Army Group (4th Panzer Army and Romanian 4th Army ) carried out a relief operation, but the Red Army was able to prevent its success . Only in the battle of Kharkov , in which the powerful II SS Panzer Corps was subordinate to the army , could the front be stabilized again in the spring of 1943. In July 1943, the 4th Panzer Army was deployed as the most important attack force in the Citadel operations, with the XXXXVIII as well as the II. SS Panzer Corps assigned . and LII. Army Corps . However, the breakthrough to the north on Kursk planned in the tank battle near Prokhorovka did not succeed. This was followed by tough defensive battles during the Belgorod-Kharkov Operation and the subsequent Battle of the Dnieper , which lasted until the end of 1943. From the end of September to the end of December 1943, the 4th Panzer Army struggled in vain to maintain the Dnieper line between Lyutesch and Kanew . After the 1st Ukrainian Front succeeded in taking Kiev on November 6, 1943, Colonel General Hoth was replaced by Hitler with General Erhard Raus of the Panzer Force .

Outline on December 26, 1943

During the Red Army's Lviv-Sandomierz operation in July and August 1944, the 4th Panzer Army was pushed back over the Bug to the Vistula and then fought over the Baranov bridgehead . During the Vistula-Oder operation in January 1945, it was pushed back to Lower Silesia , where it built a new line of defense on the Oder . After the Glogau Fortress fell , it withdrew to the area between Forst and Görlitz behind the Lusatian Neisse .

Structure from April 30, 1945

In May 1945, after the final offensive of the 1st Ukrainian Front, it was pushed south from there to the Ore Mountains and enclosed in the pocket northeast of Prague. At the surrender , parts of the army were taken prisoner by the Soviets, others by the US .

Commander in chief

Chiefs of the General Staff

structure

Army troops

  • Senior Artillery Commander 312
  • Commander of the rear army area 593, 585 (from 1943)
  • Panzergruppen- / Panzerarmee-Nachrichten-Regiment 4
  • Panzer Group Supply Leader 4 / Panzer Army Supply Leader 4 / Commander of the Panzer Army Supply Forces 4

Subordinate major associations

July 1941
October 1941
December 1941
July 1942
August 1942
January 1943
March 1943
July 1943
July 1944
February 1945
May 1945

See also

literature

  • Walter Chales de Beaulieu: The advance of Panzer Group 4 on Leningrad - 1941. (= Wehrmacht in combat. Volume 29). Vowinckel, Neckargemünd 1961.
  • James Lucas: The Wehrmacht 1939–1945. Numbers, data, facts. Tosa Verlagsgesellschaft, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-85492-880-7 .
  • Georg Tessin : Associations and troops of the German Wehrmacht and Waffen SS in World War II 1939–1945. Volume 2. The Land Forces 1–5 . 2nd Edition. Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 1973, ISBN 3-7648-0871-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Schramm : OKW-Kriegstagebuch Volume 1, p. 1373.
  2. ^ Schramm: OKW war diary Volume 1, p. 1378.
  3. ^ Schramm: OKW-Kriegstagebuch Volume 3, p. 1147.