8th Army (Wehrmacht)

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The 8th Army / Army High Command 8 (AOK 8) 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.

Pre-war period

In the peace structure of the army , the highest command authorities were referred to as army group commands ; army high commands were only set up in the event of mobilization. An 8th Army was set up several times before the actual beginning of the Second World War as part of Hitler's expansion and revision policy.

According to Hitler's instructions of March 11, 1938 for the military implementation of the " Anschluss " of Austria , Army Group Command 3 (Dresden) under Infantry General Fedor von Bock was mobilized on the same day and renamed the 8th Army. In order to fulfill their mission, the Army Corps VII (Munich) and XIII (Nuremberg) as well as the motorized XVI. Subordinate to Army Corps, the headquarters were set up in Mühldorf am Inn . Units of the police, the SS disposable troops and the air force, including airborne troops, should also take part in the invasion . The operational plans for the invasion had previously been drawn up by the General Staff of the Army ( General of the Artillery Ludwig Beck ) with major participation from Major General Erich von Manstein . March 12th was set as the day of the invasion.

The invasion met with no resistance on the part of the Austrian Armed Forces , to which the corresponding orders had been issued the night before, which, according to Hitler's instructions, should have been broken “with the greatest ruthlessness by force of arms”. On March 13, the new Austrian government under Arthur Seyß-Inquart passed the “Law on the Reunification of Austria with the German Reich”.

The 8th Army was renamed Army Group 3 again after operations were completed.

In the course of the Sudeten crisis in September 1938, the 8th Army was mobilized again. Together with other associations, she took part in the non-fighting occupation of the Sudetenland after the Munich Agreement .

The 8th Army, meanwhile under Johannes Blaskowitz , was deployed a third time in the " smashing of the rest of the Czech Republic " in March 1939. This took place again without a fight, as the Czech government under Emil Hácha gave in to massive German pressure.

Second World War

Poland 1939

The 8th Army was reorganized on August 1, 1939 from Army Group Command 3 under Infantry General Johannes Blaskowitz . For the attack on Poland she was subordinated to Army Group South ( Colonel General Gerd von Rundstedt ). On September 1, 1939, she entered Lower Silesia from her staging area and advanced in the direction of Łódź . Left staggered, it granted the 10th Army ( General of the Artillery Walter von Reichenau ), which was already driving a powerful armored wedge against Warsaw to the right , flank protection against the Polish Army Łódź . While the Łódź Army had to decline with heavy losses, the Poznań Army threatened to be enclosed by the 4th Army (Artillery General Günther von Kluge ) and the 8th Army. When the commander of the Polish army, General Tadeusz Kutrzeba , decided to withdraw behind the Vistula , this led to the crisis in the 8th Army. Colonel-General Rundstedt saw this as a possibility to decide the fight, in fact the front of the 30th Infantry Division with the support of Air Fleet 1 and 4 was able to withstand the Polish pressure. As a result, the corps of the 10th Army of the 8th came to the rescue: the XVI. Army Corps relocated the Poznań Army , the XI. and XIII. Army corps caught up against the Bzura and the III. Army Corps of the 4th Army completed the enclosure in the Kutno area . About 170,000 Poles surrendered in the cauldron on September 19; a few thousand escaped into the woods, but only a few hundred men made their way to Modlin or Warsaw. Although the Polish capital, which had been included since September 8th, was still fighting, the OKH moved from September 20th to 21st. September Troop units on the German western border. So the 8th Army replaced the 10th in front of Warsaw and, until the surrender of Warsaw on September 27th, tightened the siege ring in fierce fighting. On October 20, 1939, the 8th Army was renamed the 2nd Army when it moved from Poland to the west .

Ukraine 1943

After the end of the Citadel enterprise and the loss of Kharkov during the subsequent Belgorod-Kharkov operation of the Red Army, the 8th Army was formed in Ukraine on August 22, 1943 under General of Infantry Otto Wöhler by converting Army Group South ( v. Manstein ) subordinate army division Kempf reorganized. From July to December 1943, the Red Army carried out a series of attacks across a front stretching from Smolensk to Rostov .

Outline on October 4, 1943

Under the pressure of the continuing Soviet attacks, Manstein took back his army group in a well-ordered retreat on the Dnieper , contrary to Hitler's orders . But even this line could not be kept: on Christmas Eve the 1st Ukrainian Front advanced westward via Zhitomir . The front was torn in several places, and the Soviet troops crossed the former Polish border.

The 8th Army had during the Kirovograd operation in mid-January before the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Front from the room Kirovograd retreat. Due to this flank threat, the 6th Army of Army Group A ( von Kleist ), which was still defending the industrial area of Nikopol - Krivoy Rog - Kherson on Hitler's orders , gradually withdrew, with one city after another being lost. On January 24th, the 2nd Ukrainian Front started a new offensive. Together with the left wing of the 1st Ukrainian Front, the XI. and XXXXII. Army Corps of the 8th Army in the Cherkassy Battle in the Korsun area to include and largely destroy. By the end of March 1944, the 8th Army was pushed back as far as the Prut on the left wing ; on the right, together with the 6th Army, it still held a small front arch between the Dniester and the Bug on the Balta - Nikolaev line . At the beginning of April this front arch was also dented and on April 10th Odessa had to be evacuated. At the same time, the Red Army fought the Crimea against the 17th Army that remained there.

Angry about the previous defeats, Hitler took over from Manstein and Kleist at the end of March and transferred them to the Führerreserve . In their place, General Field Marshal Walter Model and General Colonel Ferdinand Schörner took command of the newly formed Army Groups of Northern and Southern Ukraine , with the 8th Army subordinate to the latter, with a reputation for ruthless energy . At the same time, the Soviet attacks in the south of the Eastern Front subsided, as the major offensive Operation Bagration against the Army Group Center , which was still far in Soviet territory, was being prepared.

Romania 1944

At the end of June / beginning of July 1944, Army Group Center collapsed under the Soviet offensive, which had an impact on the situation on the entire German Eastern Front: while Army Group North was cut off from all communications, Army Group South Ukraine was still threatened with this fate. Another advance of the Red Army, however, also threatened the links between the German units in Greece and the Balkans . Schörner was the new commander of Army Group North, his successor in Army Group South Ukraine was Johannes Frießner . Two Soviet army groups with a total of around 929,000 men were ready for the fight on the Southeast European theater of war: the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian fronts, which were supported by the Black Sea Fleet and two air armies. The numerical ratio to the German units was at least 6: 1 for men, guns , grenade launchers and tanks , and 3: 1 for aircraft. In contrast, the Germans held an unfavorable line at a width of 645 km. Only 15 percent of the experienced officers and subordinates had survived the war in Russia, all intervention reserves were missing and the artillery did not have enough ammunition. On August 20, the attack ( Operation Jassy-Kishinev ) began in the 8th Army sector near Jassy : the front was penetrated over a width of 16 km. The attack came to a standstill, but the next day the Soviet troops turned in from two sides and surrounded parts of the 8th Army in several pockets in the Jassy - Huși area . In view of the Soviet breakthroughs, Marshal Antonescu was arrested on August 23 and a radio statement read out towards evening in which Romania announced the end of its fight against the Soviet Union (see also: Royal coup in Romania 1944 ). Two days later, under pressure from Stalin , Romania declared war on Germany.

Hungary 1944 / Czechoslovakia 1945

The 2nd Ukrainian Front ( Malinowski ) flooded the Hungarian lowlands with 63 divisions and drove the 8th Army, which had shrunk to an army group. Their attempt to cut them off at Debrecen failed, but it was still necessary to withdraw the German lines behind the Tisza , since the enemy, which was constantly attacking, had already won a bridgehead at Szeged for the jump to Budapest . The Hungarian ruler Horthy tried to save his country and turned to the allies , who had no way of helping Hungary. In this situation he was forced to send a delegation to Moscow to negotiate . The Soviet Union demanded the evacuation of the areas acquired in 1937, the subordination of the Hungarian armed forces to the Red Army and the declaration of war on Germany. Horthy accepted and read out a corresponding radio statement on October 15, 1944. However, a command under Otto Skorzeny kidnapped his son and German paratroopers occupied the seat of government. Horthy had to withdraw the explanation. After heavy fighting and several tank battles , Frießner led his troops back to the Danube bridges near Budapest and Mohács . At the beginning of December, the combined Soviet and Romanian troops broke through the lines of the Hungarian 3rd Army and, after overcoming the Margaret position on both sides of Lake Balaton, were able to enclose Budapest. On December 28, Otto Wöhler took command of Army Group South; his successor in the 8th Army, which was now subordinate to the newly formed Army Group Center (Schörner), was General Hans Kreysing . The 8th Army north of Budapest was pushed back into Slovakia from the beginning of January 1945 under pressure from the 2nd Ukrainian Front . By the end of the war, the ring formed by the 1st, 2nd and 4th Ukrainian Fronts and the 1st and 3rd US Armies became increasingly narrow. Finally, Army Group Center, which was completely encircled in the narrow space between Prague , Gablonz and Pardubitz, with almost a million men, surrendered on May 11, 1945, three days after the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht .

Commander in chief

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Text of the directive on documentarchiv.de
  2. ↑ Erich von Manstein: From a soldier's life 1887–1939 , Bonn 1958, pp. 320–332

literature

Web links