Battle of Sedan (1940)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Battle of Sedan
date 13. bis 15. May 1940
place Sedan , France
output German victory
Parties to the conflict

Third French RepublicThird French Republic France United Kingdom
United KingdomUnited Kingdom 

German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era) German Empire

Commander

Third French RepublicThird French Republic Maurice Gamelin Charles Huntziger Henri Giraud Pierre Lafontaine Marcel Têtu Colonel Poncelet Patrick Playfair
Third French RepublicThird French Republic
Third French RepublicThird French Republic
Third French RepublicThird French Republic
Third French RepublicThird French Republic
Third French RepublicThird French Republic
United KingdomUnited Kingdom

German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era) Gerd von Rundstedt Ewald von Kleist Heinz Guderian W. von Richthofen Bruno Loerzer Friedrich Kirchner Rudolf Veiel Ferdinand Schaal
German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era)
German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era)
German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era)
German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era)
German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era)
German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era)
German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era)

Troop strength
approx. 90,000 men (X Corps, XXI Corps + Reserve Divisions) 60,000 men
losses

Unknown

1170 wounded and dead

The Battle of Sedan (also "Panzerbruch bei Sedan"; French 'percée de Sedan' = breakthrough at Sedan) was a decisive battle during the western campaign in World War II , which took place from 13 to 15 May 1940 near Sedan . The battle was the most important part of the German battle plan for encircling the Allied armies in Belgium and northeastern France ( sickle section plan ). The German Army Group A crossed here with the XIX. Army Corps under General Heinz Guderian entered the Meuse with the intention of advancing deep to the northwest from a safe crossing of the Meuse towards the coast of the English Channel and thus in the rear of the Allied troops advanced to Belgium according to the Dyle Plan .

prehistory

The attack by Army Group A through the Ardennes , which began on May 10, disregarded the neutrality of the affected countries Luxembourg and Belgium, contrary to international law, had so far largely proceeded in accordance with the German campaign plan. The Kleist tank group had broken through the forested highlands against the resistance of two divisions of Belgian Ardennes fighters and had also forced the French cavalry units sent to reinforce them to abandon their defensive line on the Semois and retreat behind the Meuse on May 12th . That same evening, the first units of Guderian's corps reached the Meuse at Sedan, shortly after the last French units had crossed the river and the bridges had been blown up.

Earlier that day, the commander of the tank group Ewald von Kleist and Guderian had discussed the next day's attacks at a meeting. Since the bulk of Guderian's artillery was still stuck in the Ardennes, one had to rely on the support of the air force to prepare for the attack across the river . Together with the commanding general of the 2nd Fliegerkorps Bruno Loerzer , Guderian had worked out a plan of attack that provided for successive waves of air raids on the French positions. The storm across the river was not due to begin until the afternoon, as Guderian wanted to wait until his 2nd Panzer Division , which was hanging back , was in position.

course

The Luftwaffe attack in the area of ​​Panzergruppe Kleist on May 13, 1940 was carried out with the bulk of Luftflotte 3 and parts of Luftflotte 2 ; Of these, 300 twin-engine bombers and 200 Stukas were used at Sedan. The targeted, long-term bombing, which began in the morning and reached its peak shortly before the attack by the ground troops in the afternoon, broke the psychological resistance of the French defenders of the X Corps (55th and 71st Infantry Divisions, 3rd North African Division). The main target of the attacks was the 55th Infantry Division deployed on the Meuse loop and around Sedan, a category B division (reservists older than 30 years) that had hardly received any combat training in the months prior to the attack, as the French commander in chief Marshal Gamelin did not expect a German attack here ("The Ardennes are impassable for tanks!"). In the air raids, the openly laid cables of the French field telephones were mainly destroyed, so that the foremost units no longer had contact with their commanders and a coordinated defensive battle was no longer possible. Most of the bunkers in the Sedan section were still unfinished; many bunkers had neither doors nor lockable loopholes. The French had even refrained from creating minefields , although they had almost 1,000 mines available. These were later discovered by German troops in a depot.

The XIX began at 4 p.m. Army corps , covered by air raids by Stukas and bombers , with the attack over the Meuse. The 1st Panzer Division under Friedrich Kirchner with the subordinate infantry regiment "Greater Germany" ( Gerhard Graf von Schwerin ) attacked in the center, the 2nd Panzer Division under Rudolf Veiel further west near Donchery and the 10th Panzer commanded by Ferdinand Schaal -Division further southeast through the southern suburbs of Sedan. The focus of the attack was on the 1st Panzer Division in the center, where the French had evacuated a headland formed by a river bend due to its exposed location. Since the French had blown up all bridges over the Meuse, the attacking storm pioneers and infantrymen had to cross over with inflatable boats. After three relatively small raiding troops had made the first breaches in the defensive positions, the 1st Panzer Division's Rifle Regiment 1, led by Lieutenant Colonel Hermann Balck , pushed forward and ultimately broke through the other lines of defense of the French. The breakthrough was finally achieved with the capture of Höhe 301 (La Boulette) around 10 p.m. At around 7 p.m. the first 12-ton ferry was completed and immediately crossed some anti-tank guns, infantry guns and reconnaissance tanks before the construction of the pontoon bridge at Floing began. This war bridge was completed around 12:20 a.m. At around 7:30 a.m., the first tanks rolled over the Meuse. During the night the attack by the German infantry had come to a standstill due to the exhaustion of the soldiers.

German pontoon bridge over the Maas in Floing near Sedan

A counterattack by the reserve of the French X. Corps was not carried out because a mass panic ("Panic von Bulson") broke out among the French due to an incorrectly passed report by a French artillery officer. Under the false assumption that the German tanks were already attacking Bulson (around eight kilometers south of Sedan), the commander of the French corps artillery gave the premature withdrawal order at around 6 p.m. This led to the said panic, which quickly spread to other units and finally led to a wild flight of large parts of the 55th Division, which almost completely dissolved in the vortex of panic. The panic spread to the 71st Division on the right. The advance of the corps reserve was stopped by the fleeing soldiers and the counterattack was delayed by several hours.

At around 7 a.m. on May 14, the left attack group, consisting of the French infantry regiment 213 and the 7th tank battalion, began the counterattack north on Sedan on the Chémery and Maisoncelle axes . The right attack group, formed from the 205 infantry regiment and the 4th tank battalion, had not yet caught up due to the panic and was unable to attack. Warned by reconnaissance planes, the commander of the 1st Panzer Division Kirchner immediately set the first German tank company across the Maas to march towards Bulson, where it arrived around 8:45 a.m. after fighting with the remaining French forces and shortly before the French was able to occupy the decisive ridge ("Race to Bulson"). Here the single German tank company encountered an overwhelming force of two infantry battalions from Infantry Regiment 213, which attacked with PaK and two tank companies from Panzer Battalion 7 (equipped with light tanks FCM 36 ) in the direction of Bulson. Soon the German tank company was worn out; when a second tank company arrived, the French attack could be stopped. After another tank company and infantry of the "Greater Germany" regiment had arrived, the Germans counterattacked and pushed the French back. In the valley of the river Bar in the direction of Châtel-Chéhéry, the attack at the crossroads east of Connage was stopped by two anti-tank platoons ( 3.7 cm PaK 36 ) of the "Greater Germany" regiment. Here, too, the battle was only decided by the arrival of a tank company and 8.8 cm flak . After further reinforcements had arrived by infantry and assault engineers, the Germans were also counterattacked and drove the French back to the south, where they noon Chémery (about two kilometers south of Connage) and the important bridges over the Ardennes Canal and the bar at Malmy could conquer intact.

General Heinz Guderian in a medium armored radio vehicle ( Sd.Kfz. 251/3 ) during the Battle of Sedan, front radio operator at the " Enigma " encryption
device

This is where the western campaign was decided when General Guderian gave the order around 2 p.m. that the 1st and 2nd Panzer Divisions should attack with all their strength across the bridges in a westward direction (previously the 2nd Panzer Division had the bridges on the Conquer the mouth of the Maas at Pont-à-Bar ). In doing so, he not only disregarded the strict orders of his superiors, who first demanded that the unstable bridgehead be secured, but also an order from the Fuehrer who had placed all actions after a successful Maas crossing under his personal orders.

In doing so, Guderian took a great risk, as the French had strong reserve forces on the march for a counterattack from the south. As early as five in the morning on May 14th, the commander of the 2nd Army, General Charles Huntziger, had ordered his reserve divisions to counterattack. Two reinforced army corps (five divisions, including a tank division and remaining units of the X. Corps) under General Flavigny were to advance northwards from the northern edge of the Bois de Mont-Dieu via Chémery and Bulson to Sedan. After numerous delays, the attack troops were ready at around 5 p.m. and only waited for the order to attack, which Flavigny did not give. On the way to the front, Flavigny had seen the streets full of soldiers fleeing in panic. Just as he was about to give the order to attack, officers of the 213rd Infantry Regiment came to his command post and in panic described the failed attack by the corps reserve and spoke of hundreds, even thousands of attacking German tanks. Since his superior had ordered him to seal off the German breakthrough first and only then to counterattack, he decided to do the former first and ordered his divisions to go over to the defense.

Another attempt to counterattack was made on May 15, but here too, after several delays in the provision of his troops, Flavigny, exasperated, canceled the attack, especially since the 10th Panzer Division had advanced further south and the strategically important high-lying village of Stonne , the springboard for the counterattack. The battle for Sedan was actually decided here, as the French got bogged down in tactical skirmishes for this village (the village changed hands 17 times in three days; German soldiers later spoke of the "Hell of Stonne") and thus did not coordinate it with anyone Counterattack on Sedan came more. This enabled the advancing German tanks of Panzer Group Kleist to advance almost unhindered to the English Channel in order to encircle the Allied armies in the north, which practically decided the campaign.

Dogfights

Allied air forces attempted to destroy the Floing Bridge from the air on May 14th. Due to the very strong German anti-aircraft guns and the concentration of fighters, this failed with high losses. A hit on this war bridge, which was the only one at that time, would have had far-reaching consequences, as it had been assembled with literally the last meter of pontoon material. The bridges of the 2nd and 10th Panzer Divisions were only completed in the following days, so that ultimately all vehicles and tanks of the XIX. Corps had to cross this one bridge on May 14th and 15th. The high losses of bombers also meant that the Allied commanders no longer dared to use their bombers in a massed manner. Thus, on that day , the German Air Force gained air supremacy , another important factor in the German victory.

consequences

On May 15, German troops defeated the last of the French defenses, broke through the Allied front and advanced westwards at high speed. Five days later, on May 20th, tanks of the Wehrmacht reached the English Channel near Abbeville . The bulk of the Allied troops in Belgium and northern France were thereby enclosed ( Battle of Dunkirk , Operation Dynamo ). The Battle of Sedan thus contributed significantly to the rapid defeat of France ( Armistice of Compiègne on June 22, 1940 ).

literature

  • Joel Blatt: The French Defeat of 1940: Reassessments. Breghahn Books, 1998. ISBN 1-57181-109-5 .
  • Hermann Böhme: The Franco-German armistice in the Second World War: Origin and basis of the armistice of 1940. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart, 1966.
  • Brian Bond: France and Belgium, 1939-1940. Davis-Poynter, London 1975. ISBN 0-7067-0168-2 .
  • Brian Bond: Britain, France and Belgium, 1939-1940. Brassy's, London 1990. ISBN 0-08-037700-9 .
  • Brian Bond, Michael Taylor: The Battle of France and Flanders, 1940. Leo Cooper, 2001. ISBN 0-85052-811-9 .
  • Robert A. Doughty: The Breaking Point: Sedan and the Fall of France, 1940. Archon Books, 1990. ISBN 0-208-02281-3 .
  • John Ellis: The World War II Data Book. Aurum Press, 1993. ISBN 978-1-85410-254-6 .
  • LF Ellis: The War in France and Flanders 1939–1940. In: History of the Second World War United Kingdom Military Series. Naval & Military Press, 2004 (1st edition: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1954). ISBN 978-1-84574-056-6 .
  • Martin Marix Evens: The Fall of France. Osprey Publishing, Oxford 2000. ISBN 1-85532-969-7 .
  • Karl-Heinz Frieser : Blitzkrieg legend: The western campaign 1940th 3rd edition Oldenbourg, Munich 2005. ISBN 3-486-57824-3 .
  • Mark Healy: Panzerwaffe, Volume 2: The Campaigns in the West 1940. Ian Allan Publishing, London 2008. ISBN 978-0-7110-3240-8 .
  • ER Hooton: Luftwaffe at War: Blitzkrieg in the West. Chervron / Ian Allen, London 2007. ISBN 978-1-85780-272-6 .
  • John Keegan (Ed.): The Oxford Companion to World War II. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2005. ISBN 0-19-280666-1 .
  • Michael D. Krause, R. Cody Phillips: Historical Perspectives of the Operational Art . Center of Military History, United States Army, 2006. ISBN 978-0-16-072564-7 .
  • Peter Mansoor: Focus: The second battle of Sedan, 10–15 May 1940 . Command and Staff Dept., US Army Armor School 1986.
  • Fernand Salentiny: 46 days and the end of a world power. Simon, Düsseldorf, 1983. ISBN 3-923883-02-1 .

Individual evidence

  1. The AASF (Advanced Air Striking Force) of the BAFF (British Air Forces in France) lost 40 of 71 aircraft used (Denis Richards: The Royal Air Force 1939-1945 (Vol. 1), p. 120 ( online ))
  2. Keegan 2005, p. 326.
  3. Healy 2008, p. 62.