Prague operation

Prague operation

Part of: Second World War

date	May 6. bis 11. May 1945
place	Prague , Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
output	Victory of the Soviet Union and its allies

Parties to the conflict
German Empire	Soviet Union Romania Poland Czechoslovak Resistance
Commander
Ferdinand Schörner Lothar Rendulic	Ivan Konew Michael I. Karel Klapálek
Troop strength
900,000? Soldiers 9,700? Guns	2,028,000 soldiers 30,500? Guns 2,000 tanks 3,000 aircraft
losses
860,000 captured	11,997 killed or missing, 40,501 injured or sick

The Prague Operation ( Russian: Пражская операция ) was the Red Army's last major offensive in Central Europe during World War II . During the operation carried out from May 6 to May 11, 1945, the still intact German Army Group Center in the area east of Prague was encircled by three Soviet fronts and forced to surrender.

background

On April 25, 1945 American ( 1st US Army ) and Soviet troops (5th Guards Army) met at Torgau ; the last connection between the German Army Group Vistula and Army Group Center was cut off. The German resistance in the Berlin area was weaker than assumed and the victorious conclusion of the battle for Berlin could be considered certain. Because the Stawka feared another advance by the Americans across the Elbe into Dresden and Prague, at the end of April they accelerated their planned offensive against the rear connections of Army Group Center. The German troops in Breslau surrendered on May 6, four days after the last defenders of Berlin laid down their arms.

On May 5th, the Prague uprising against the German occupation forces broke out and the rebels called on the Allies for support. By the morning of May 6th, over 1,000 barricades had already been erected. The insurgents had brought half of the city under their control. The German garrisons scattered all over the city had been eliminated. On May 6, German forces outside the city tried to recapture important lost positions. After the 5th Corps of the 3rd US Army had reached the city of Pilsen in western Bohemia , the hopes of the Prague insurgents were high that American troops would soon reach the capital, which is about 100 km east of Pilsen. What was unknown, however, was that a demarcation line agreed with the Soviet leadership ran 70 km away from Prague, which General Patton's troops were not allowed to cross. During the German counterattack, the 1st ROA Division (Colonel Bunjatschenko ), which had previously fought against the Red Army, offered a change of front, which the rebels did not accept.

March

The 1st Ukrainian Front under Marshal Ivan Konev was determined to lead the main thrust , but had to wait for the regrouping of the 3rd Guards Panzer Army (General Rybalko ) from Berlin . Together with the armies of the 2nd and 4th Ukrainian Fronts under Malinovsky and Jerjomenko , Konev's troops had a total of 2,028,000 soldiers, 30,500 artillery pieces, 2,000 tanks and 3,000 aircraft.

The circled Army Group Center under General Field Marshal Schörner still stood on the right wing with the 4th Panzer Army (General Gräser ) facing north in Saxony and Sudetenland and with the 1st Panzer Army (General Nehring ) in mountain positions in central Slovakia . The German 8th Army (General Kreysing ) of Army Group Ostmark was pushed back through Moravia under pressure from the 2nd Ukrainian Front and was placed under Army Group Center on April 27th. These troops tried to return from the Zwettl area (northern Lower Austria) via the Thaya to Znaim in the direction of Budweis in order to be taken prisoner by the Americans . Army Group Center and the remnants of the 8th Army were able to oppose this superior force with between 860,000 to 900,000 soldiers, 9,700 artillery pieces and around 300 tanks.

course

1st Ukrainian front offensive

The right flank of the 1st Ukrainian Front under Marshal Konev began the offensive to Prague from the Döbeln area . The attack, which took place a day earlier than planned, was supported by the 2nd Air Army under Lieutenant General Krassowski . The leading 3rd and 4th Guards Panzer Army reached the northern Ore Mountains on the left bank of the Elbe on the evening of May 7th . The flanks accompanied the 13th Army (General Puchow ) on the left and the 3rd Guard Army (General Gordow ) on the right . From Upper Lusatia , the 28th and 52nd Armies attacked the front of the German 4th Panzer Army in the direction of Löbau and Görlitz . While the 3rd Guard Army on the Elbe also advanced towards Meissen with a slight delay , the troops of the left wing (31st, 21st and 59th Army ) of the 1st Ukrainian Front opposite the Giant Mountains initially remained on the Reichenberg line and north of the Glatzer Snow mountains in their defensive positions. The Saxon capital Dresden , thereby circumvented to the right , was encircled, but was not occupied until May 8th by the 5th Guard Army (Colonel General Schadow ), who followed in the second season .

Sketch for the Prague operation in May 1945

Offensive on the 2nd and 4th Ukrainian fronts

On the morning of May 7th, the 4th Ukrainian Front ( 1st Guard , 38th , 60th and 18th Armies ) on both sides of the Moravian Gate began their offensive in the direction of Olomouc. In the association of the Soviet 18th Army (General Gastilowitsch ) the Czechoslovak 1st Army Corps was used under General Ludvik Svoboda . The ground troops were supported by the 8th Air Army under Lieutenant General VN Zhdanov . In order to avoid an impending encirclement, the German 17th Army withdrew between Reichenberg and Gablonz on the Lusatian Mountains . The Polish 2nd Army took the city of Bautzen on May 8th and the Soviet 52nd Army (General Korotejew ) occupied Görlitz . On the same day, the Czech cities of Teplitz, Bilin and Brüx in the west and Olomouc in the east were liberated.

The general attack of the 2nd Ukrainian Front (Marshal Malinowski) between Znojmo and Brno with a general attack on Prague was also opened on May 7th. The attack on this front was supported not only by the 5th Air Army (Colonel General Gorjunow ), but also by the 17th Air Army (Colonel General WA Sudetz ) of the 3rd Ukrainian Front . The German 1st Panzer Army , which was still concentrated in an eastern arc between Troppau and Zlin , withdrew to Olomouc before the threat of being cut off .

While the 5th Guards Panzer Corps (General Saweljew ) of the 6th Guards Panzer Army (General Kravchenko ) as the head of the 2nd Ukrainian Front (Marshal Malinowski), which was concentrated in Moravia, began its advance from the Brno area via Jihlava towards Prague and 53rd Army (Lieutenant General Managarow ) advanced from the south towards Ölmütz, the 7th Guard Army accompanying them to the south (Lieutenant General Schumilow ) occupied the city of Znojmo on May 8th . To the south of it the 9th Army of the Guard (Colonel General Glagolew ) and the 46th Army (Lieutenant General Petruschewski ) reaching on the left wing to Korneuburg led their advance towards Tábor and Budweis .

The German XXXXIX. Mountain Corps (General von Le Suire ), only a narrow corridor remained for the retreat on Olomouc on May 7th. The 97th Jäger Division , which returned to Prossnitz on May 8, tried in vain to move to the Deutschbrod - Iglau area . The 4th Mountain Division received the order to move behind the March on May 8th . The 1st Ski-Jäger-Division reached Landskron on the same day and went from there 45 kilometers east to the Königgrätz - Pardubitz line . All streets were blocked by units flowing back, and Soviet troops that had broken through blocked the roads leading to the west.

Liberation of Prague

The 3rd and 4th Guards Panzer Army (General Leljuschenko ) of the 1st Ukrainian Front advanced almost 80 kilometers without resistance during the night of May 9th and occupied the capital Prague on the morning of May 9th together with Czech insurgents. This included the main forces of the German 4th Panzer Army and 17th Field Army in the area north and east of Prague on the upper Elbe as far as Pardubitz .

On the same day at 10 a.m. the advance guard of the 4th Ukrainian Front, the 302nd Rifle Division of the 60th Army (Colonel General PA Kurotschkin ) and mobile forces of the 38th Army (Colonel General KS Moskalenko ) arrived in front of Prague.

Only 13 hours after the occupation of Prague did the troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front arrive from the south, the 6th Guards Armored Army first with the 24th Rifle Corps. This was followed by the 7th Panzer Corps (Major General FG Katkow ) of the mechanized cavalry group of General Issa A. Pliyev .

The surrender

In his will, Hitler had appointed the fanatical Field Marshal Schörner as Commander-in-Chief of the Army on April 30th . Although the German Wehrmacht had surrendered to the Western Allies on May 7, the majority of the trapped units continued to fight the Red Army. On the one hand, the official radio report of the German surrender was declared false by Schörner; on the other hand, every soldier tried to escape Soviet captivity.

The remnants of the 8th Army (XXXXIII Army Corps and IV Panzer Corps), which stood separately on the southern sector, stopped fighting after reaching the demarcation line on May 8th. The Americans in the Budweis area did not accept the surrender. The tank corps “Feldherrnhalle” was delivered back to the Soviet armed forces after a while. On May 8, an American delegation led by Lieutenant Colonel Robert Pratt brought the German document of surrender to Schörner's headquarters in Bad Welchow . The next day Schörner fled in civilian clothes and with a few thousand marks from the staff treasury in a Fieseler Storch to an alpine pasture in Göriach ( Austria ), where he was captured by American troops. Without a chance to escape from the cauldron, the German troops of Army Group Center, which were increasingly crowded together, had to surrender on May 10 and 11 and were taken prisoner by the Soviets.

On May 10th, the Red Army met units of the 3rd US Army along the western demarcation line near Chemnitz (13th Army) and on May 11th near Budweis (46th Army) .

Losses and consequences

The Red Army penetrated an average of 160 to 200 kilometers deep into central Bohemia with three army fronts on a front around 1200 kilometers wide , took 860,000 prisoners and captured 9500 guns, 1800? Tanks and 1100? Airplanes Likewise, according to Soviet data, the own losses amounted to 11,165 dead and 38,083 wounded, a total of 49,348 soldiers. 390,000 participants in the operation (40,000 of them citizens of Czechoslovakia ) received the medal “For the Liberation of Prague” .

literature

• Д. Д. Лелюшенко : Москва-Сталинград-Берлин-Прага . Записки командарма, Moscow 1987.
• Алексей Анатольевич Пишенков: Последний бой. Кто освободил Прагу? , Moscow 2017, ISBN 9785699994793 .

Web links

• Prague operation in Soldaty 20 weka (Russian)
• Prague operation in Soldat.ru ( memento of March 30, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) (Russian)
• Prague Operation in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia ( Memento of November 21, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (Russian)
• Prague Operation (Russian)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Tomáš Staněk: Persecution 1945: the position of the Germans in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. Böhlau, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-205-99065-X . (excerpts online) .
2. ↑ David M. Glantz, Jonathan House: When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 1995, ISBN 0-7006-0899-0 .
3. ↑ Contemporary history: The bloodhound is back , Zeit 2005, issue 37, accessed on February 4, 2016.
4. ↑ Пражская операция (May 6-11, 1945). on: wwii-soldat.narod.ru .