Vienna operation

Vienna operation

Part of: Second World War

date	March 16 to April 15, 1945
place	Vienna , Vienna Woods
output	soviet victory

Parties to the conflict
Soviet Union Bulgaria	German Empire Hungary
Commander
Fyodor Tolbuchin Vladimir Stoychev	Rudolf von Bünau
Troop strength
3rd Ukrainian Front: 639,000 men, about 400,000 of them in the Vienna Basin, plus the 46th Army of the 2nd Ukrainian Front from April 6th 12,190 guns, 1,318 tanks and 984 aircraft	Army Group South: about 410,000 men, 80,000 of them in the Vienna area
losses
167,940 men, including 38,661 dead and 129,279 wounded, 603 tanks and self-propelled guns, 764 guns and grenade launchers, 614 aircraft	about 37,000 dead and 130,000? Prisoners (mostly Hungarian associations)

The fighting between the Red Army and the German Wehrmacht in Vienna and the Vienna Woods from March 16 to April 15, 1945 is referred to as the Vienna Operation 1945 or Battle of Vienna . The battle in the urban area lasted from April 6th to 13th.

prehistory

After the fall of Budapest and the unsuccessful German operations in Hungary , the counterattacks of the German 6th Army and the 6th Panzer Army failed with heavy losses during the Lake Balaton offensive.

On March 16, 1945, the Red Army started the decisive counter-offensive with the 4th and 9th Guards Army ahead: the armies of the 3rd Ukrainian Front were supported by the 17th Air Army, those of the 2nd Ukrainian Front by the 5th Air Army. 42 Soviet divisions, supported by eight rapid corps, quickly broke through the German positions. The 6th Panzer Army narrowly escaped encirclement and had to flee back to Sopron and Szombathely .

The Soviet 6th Guards Tank Army under General Andrei Kravchenko was only put at the head of the persecution on March 20 because of regrouping. The superordinate German Army Group South (General of the Infantry Wöhler , from April 7th Colonel General Rendulic ) had to cross the Austrian border to Eisenstadt , the 6th Army and the limited Hungarian 3rd Army (General Heszlényi ) via Szentgotthárd take back to Burgenland . While the II. SS Panzer Corps (General Bittrich ) retreated ahead via Wimpassing an der Leitha and was preparing the defense of Vienna, the I. SS Panzer Corps (General Prieß ) tried to hold off the Soviet troops between Sopron and Kőszeg and to retreat To fight towards Wiener Neustadt .

On March 28, the 46th Soviet Army reached the Raab sector and opened the attack on Győr , on the right bank of the Danube the German bridgehead at Komárom was completely removed by March 30 . The German defensive positions on the south-east wall on the border, lines A and B, were breached relatively quickly.

Soviet advance on Vienna

Course of the southeast wall and the Vienna area

The Soviet armies attacking in the direction of Vienna had around 400,000 men, 400 tanks and 7,000 assault guns , grenade launchers and rocket launchers . There are clear indications that Stalin preferred the Commander-in-Chief of the 3rd Ukrainian Front, Marshal Tolbuchin, as the foreseeable victor of Vienna over Malinowski , the more capable commander of the 2nd Ukrainian Front , because he seemed too powerful as a potential political competitor.

Soviet tank troops under General Kravchenko crossed the then German border at Klostermarienberg in the Oberpullendorf district at 11:05 a.m. on March 29 . The 9th Guards Mechanized Corps (Lieutenant General Wolkow ) and the 5th Guards Panzer Corps (Major General Saweljew ) swung north towards Wiener Neustadt and Mattersburg . At the same time, five rifle corps of the Soviet 4th and 9th Guard Army covered the flanks. The 4th Guard Army under Lieutenant General Sachwatajew pursued on the right wing via Eisenstadt and Gramatneusiedl to Schwechat . The 9th Guards Army under Colonel-General Glagolew advanced to the left via Aspang with three rifle corps (37th, 38th and 39th Guards Rifle Corps) through the Bucklige Welt towards Gloggnitz . Marshal Tolbuchin had given orders to advance north via Baden and encompass Vienna from the west.

Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS fought with the remnants of the 6th Panzer Army of Army Group South , which had withdrawn from Budapest and whose material equipment had shrunk to 52 intact tanks and assault guns, 28 of which were stationed in Vienna and the rest in the Vienna Woods . Despite the reinforcements arriving on April 6th by the particularly fanatical and powerful Führer Grenadier Division (General Mäder ), only around 20,000 German soldiers fought in Vienna and around 8,000 in the Vienna Woods.

Western enclosure of Vienna

Soviet soldiers at the Vienna city limits, recognizable by the provisional place name sign Wena (Russian: Vienna) in Cyrillic

On April 2, the 9th Guards Mechanized Corps and the 39th Guards Rifle Corps broke through the front of the 1st SS Panzer Division between Walpersbach and Frohsdorf and drove the German troops back west to Bad Fischau . At the same time the 5th Guards Panzer Corps reached the line Bad Sauerbrunn - Zillingdorf - Ebenfurth, crossed the Leitha and was able to occupy Wiener Neustadt by evening . On April 3, the 6th Guards Panzer Army pushed the 12th SS Panzer Division from Bad Vöslau to the west, swung north again and reached Baden near Vienna . There the troops divided - in order to encompass Vienna not only from the south and northeast, but also from the west. The 6th Armored Guard Army advanced north through the Helenental in the direction of Heiligenkreuz and Alland , while the other wedge, consisting of the 9th and 4th Guard Army, continued the direct attack on Vienna between Inzersdorf and Schwechat. Four Soviet attack wedges coming from the south reached the Vienna city limits on April 6th, while at the same time in the west of the city the 5th Guards Panzer Corps reached the Danube without opposing resistance at Tulln and with the 20th and 22nd Guards Panzer Brigade in Klosterneuburg penetrated. The 38th Guards Rifle Corps (General Utvenko) accompanying this advance formed a northern Danube bridgehead.

Fighting on the left bank of the Danube and in Marchfeld

Between April 6 and 11, the left wing of the 2nd Ukrainian Front (Marshal Malinovsky) and the 46th Army intervened in the fighting northeast of Vienna. In the course of the Bratislava-Brno operation advancing north to Brno , the 7th Guard Army (General Schumilow) crossed the March section between Dürnkrut and Groißenbrunn and advanced through the Marchfeld to the north. The German 96th Infantry Division and the 101st Jäger Division had to evacuate Gänserndorf and Angern on April 10th. The 25th Panzer Division deployed near Zistersdorf could not prevent the loss of the oil fields there.

Meanwhile, the 46th Army (Lieutenant General Petruschewski ) crossed the Danube on April 6 between Haslau-Maria Ellend and west of Hainburg . The Danube flotilla under Rear Admiral Cholostjakow transferred more than 70,000 soldiers, 567 artillery pieces and other military material to the northern bank of the Danube within five days. On April 8th, Soviet forces landed on the left bank of the Danube opposite Orth and near Mannsdorf . The 75th Rifle Corps (General Adrian Akimenko) advancing via Markgrafneusiedl on Süßenbrunn to Vienna-Donaustadt and the 2nd Guards Mechanized Corps (Lieutenant General Swiridow ) relocated the German troops flowing back north from Vienna. The Soviet 23rd Panzer Corps (Lieutenant General Achmanow ) occupied Deutsch-Wagram on April 11th . Only on April 13th did the 18th Guards Rifle Corps (Lieutenant General Afonin ) establish contact with the 9th Guards Army after the security of Groß-Enzersdorf east of Korneuburg . The Viennese districts to the left of the Danube ( Transdanubia ) “only” experienced the retreat of the SS troops from Vienna.

Battle for Vienna

Soviet troops in downtown Vienna (1945)

Letter of thanks from Stalin to one of the participants in the operation

A controversy arose between the German combat commandant of Vienna, General of the Infantry Rudolf von Bünau , and the commander of the 6th Panzer Army, SS-Colonel-Gruppenführer Sepp Dietrich , about the type and intensity of the fighting, although both due to the inadequate resources about the hopelessness of the upcoming battles were agreed. Several attempts by officers to declare Vienna an “ open city ” failed due to the resistance of the Reich Governor and Gauleiter of Vienna, Baldur von Schirach .

The real battle in Vienna's urban area began on April 6th from the south. The 39th Guards Rifle Corps (General Tichonow) of the 9th Guards Army pushed the 2nd SS Panzer Division "Das Reich" back via Mödling to Hetzendorf and Vösendorf . To the right of it the 4th Guards Army advanced against the 3rd SS Panzer Division "Totenkopf" : the 1st Guards Mechanized Corps (General Russijanow) had advanced via Laxenburg to Achau , the 21st Guards Rifle Corps (General Kozak) advanced Himberg and invaded the Simmering district . The 20th Guards Rifle Corps (General Birjukow ) occupied Schwechat in battle with the German 6th Panzer Division (General von Waldenfels ) and pushed through to the Danube on April 7th .

The western Soviet attack wedge (9th Guards Mechanized Corps) also reached the city limits on April 7th and advanced via Gersthof and north of the western railway line into the inner districts. On the same day, the 2nd SS Panzer Division, coming from the Mauer area, reinforced the defenders of the inner districts via Mariahilfer Strasse . It was not until April 9 that the northwestern wedge, held up by the hills and valleys of the Vienna Woods, reached the districts of Sievering , Grinzing and Nussdorf via Klosterneuburg . With a balance of power of 1:10 at best and a precarious supply situation, the position of the defenders was hopeless from the start. The tactical sense was probably to enable a re-formation of the troops in the west or the retreat to the imaginary alpine fortress through the gain of time or also in Hitler's last hope that the Cold War , which was already in the air, would get hot and the Germans would get through draw an arrangement with the Western powers on their side against the communists .

The will to fight of both the worn-out soldiers and officers as well as the population reached a low point. The stationary anti-aircraft batteries of the air war ( Vienna flak towers ) were converted into anti-tank guns , the Volkssturm and Hitler Youth were mobilized and barricades were erected. In the days from April 7th to April 9th, the Viennese arsenal , which was defended by parts of the 3rd SS Panzer Division, became the focus of the fighting, with the Red Army suffering heavy losses.

Battle in the city center

In some areas, especially in Simmering , on the Gürtel and on the Danube Canal , every house was fought for until April 13th. The capture of Leopoldstadt and Brigittenau by Soviet troops was completed in a short time. On April 8, the still strong Führer Grenadier Division was withdrawn from the city to the northern bank of the Danube and defended the new positions against the approach of the Soviet 46th Army from Essling via Groß-Enzersdorf to Raasdorf .

As early as April 9, 1945, the Northwest Railway Bridge and the North Railway Bridge had been blown up by the Germans to prevent the Soviet army from taking the city from the north and west. The Reichsbrücke was prepared to be blown up, but was retained as a retreat on the northern bank of the Danube until the decision was made. In order to keep the Reichsbrücke undamaged, the Soviet command decided on April 11th to use the Danube Flotilla. Both banks were dominated by German troops when 15 armored boats landed a company that were able to establish themselves on the southern exit of the bridge. The German units tried to take back the lost position at all costs, counterattacks were also launched during the night. On the left bank of the Danube, Donaustadt was already occupied by the 18th and 10th Guards Rifle Corps (Lieutenant General Rubanyuk ) of the 46th Army. After two days, an attack by the 80th Guards Rifle Division penetrated the Danube from the south; the German defense at the Reichsbrücke was split. On the right bank of the Danube, the 2nd SS Panzer Division only held a bridgehead around the Floridsdorf bridge to the north-west station. The bulk of the 6th Panzer Division had already receded northwards across the Reichsbrücke when, on the morning of April 13, units of the Soviet 7th Airborne Guard Division crossed the Danube from the Prater and stormed the Reichsbrücke together with the 217th Rifle Regiment and could receive. Colonel-General Rendulic had ruled out the demolition several times and only allowed it when the southern bridgehead had already been taken by the Red Army and the northern bridgehead was uncovered in the Soviet fire area.

The fighting south of the Danube lasted until April 18 after the fall of Vienna, after the Soviet 4th Guards Army, which had been regrouped there, supported by the 18th Panzer Corps (Major General Pyotr D. Goworunienko) had conquered the area as far as Sankt Pölten . The battle for Alland in the Vienna Woods raged much longer, until on April 23 the front had shifted to the Triestingtal to Altenmarkt and Hainfeld .

Cooperation with the Soviet armed forces

Even before the Red Army took Vienna underground, there had been intensive contacts between political groups from the interwar period , whose leaders had just escaped from prisons and concentration camps. The resistance groups of the communists, Christian-conservative groups and also some officers around Major Carl Szokoll in Wehrkreiskommando XVII (General der Infanterie Schubert ) tried to minimize damage to the city through contacts and cooperation with General Tolbuchin's headquarters in Hochwolkersdorf . As early as April 4, 1945, Karl Renner , the first State Chancellor of the First Republic , who had Red Army soldiers bring him to Hochwolkersdorf from his place of residence in Gloggnitz , via a political general Josef Stalin, offered his services to a possible new establishment Of Austria, whose “future unquestionably belongs to socialism” .

General of the Infantry Bünau was not released from the task of combat commander and remained fully responsible for all measures. If he failed, he would face a court martial ; in addition, family liability would be asserted. With these impressions, he appointed the head of the military resistance movement, Major Carl Szokoll, as liaison officer , without knowing anything about his work in the resistance . The intention of the resistance movement under the code name " Operation Radetzky " to achieve the surrender of the city to the Soviet troops without a fight and to prevent the destruction by Hitler's " Nero order " was ultimately betrayed. Three officers involved - First Lieutenant Rudolf Raschke , Captain Alfred Huth and Major Karl Biedermann - were publicly hung from street lamps on April 8 at Floridsdorfer Spitz .

On 14 April, in Vienna's City Hall , the SPÖ and on April 17 in Schottenstift the ÖVP founded. Communists returned from Tito's partisan army or exile in Moscow and on April 23, with those who had remained in the country, reactivated the KPÖ, which had been banned since 1933 . Three former trade union leaders, the Christian Social Weinberger , the Social Democrat Böhm and the Communist Fiala , founded the non-partisan trade union federation on April 15 .

Victim

The Soviet losses in the entire operation (since March 16) amounted to about 168,000 men, including the fighting in the Oberwart , Hartberg , Semmering , and southern Styria area, which are not dealt with in the article .

The actual battle for Vienna is believed to have claimed around 20,000 deaths on the German side, around 5,000 in the Vienna Woods, around 20% of whom were civilians. Other sources speak of a total of 37,000 dead soldiers in the Wehrmacht. Among the civilian victims were personalities such as the film architect of the Rosenhügel film studios , Emil Stepanek , and the actress Lizzi Waldmüller . The Vienna City Council published the number of only 5,000 official soldiers' graves in August 1945. Compared to the street fights around Budapest or Warsaw , where there were well over a hundred thousand victims in each case , Vienna got off relatively lightly.

Destruction of St. Stephen's Cathedral

On the night of April 12, 1945, the roof structure and the bell tower of St. Stephen's Cathedral burned out completely. While afterwards the story spread for decades that “the Russians” had set fire to the cathedral, as well as that it had been German shelling, eyewitness reports know that the fire spread from surrounding buildings to the cathedral, where looters had set fire . Due to the ongoing fighting in the city, no effective fire fighting work was possible. In this major fire, the Pummerin fell from the bell cage and smashed to the ground. The valuable Walcker organ from 1886 was destroyed by the collapse of the burning roof above the west gallery.

See also

• History of Vienna
• History of the Vienna Woods

literature

• Manfried Rauchsteiner: The war in Austria 1945. Writings of the Army History Museum in Vienna (Military Science Institute), Österr. Bundesverlag, Vienna 1984, ISBN 3-215-01672-9 .
• Wilhelm Weiß: The battle for Vienna: from Lake Balaton to the Danube. Helios Verlag, Aachen 2013, ISBN 978-3-86933-096-9 .

Web links

Commons : Wiener Operation  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• War in the Vienna Woods
• April 1945 - Semmering
• Сергей Липатов: Венская наступательная операция (Russian)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ [1]
2. ↑ “Spring Awakening” 1945: Hitler's last offensive on diepresse.com from March 8, 2015.
3. ↑ Manfried Rauchsteiner : Phoenix from the ashes. Destruction and reconstruction of the Army History Museum from 1944 to 1955 . Accompanying volume of the special exhibition of the Army History Museum June 21 to October 20, 2005, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-85028-411-5 , p. 23 f.
4. ^ Rauchsteiner: Der Krieg in Österreich , ÖBV 1985, p. 176.
5. ^ Karl Vocelka : History of Austria. Culture - society - politics. Heyne, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-453-21622-9 .
6. ^ Wien Museum / Magazin: Fire of St. Stephen's Cathedral in 1945, "It was the Russians" - not , April 10, 2020
7. ↑ Archdiocese of Vienna : 74 years ago, St. Stephen's Cathedral burned the heart of Vienna , April 16, 2019