Germany’s Last WW2 Offensive – Every Division, Every Day

this video is brought to you by squarespace in march 1945 just weeks from the end of world war ii in europe germany launched a desperate attack on the eastern front with its last remaining reserve of tanks the result was a battle involving more than six hundred thousand troops that has almost been totally forgotten in the histories of the war in this video we'll be giving a division by division account of operation spring awakening germany's last offensive of the second world war [Music] in early 1945 the great german offensive at the battle of the bulge was shattered and the armored units disengaged as a result the v mark suddenly found itself with a spare panzer reserve general sepp dietrich's sixth ss panzer army general heinz gadarian chief of the general staff at the army high command was keen to redeploy this force to the front along the river oda to use in flanking attacks against the imminent soviet offensive towards berlin adolf hitler though had other ideas foremost in his mind was not the polish front but hungary where the last attempt to relieve the encircled garrison at budapest had just failed hitler's concern was with the oil fields in the west of the country which were threatened by the soviet advance and which by this stage were producing 80 percent of germany's oil supply without hungary's oil he argued it would be impossible to carry on the wall so an offensive was planned to drive the soviets back to the danube and establish a more secure front line well to the east of the oil fields at the end of february 1945 the german leader ordered army group south commander general otto verla to prepare a thrust between the lake's balaton and valencia with six ss panzer army aiming to seize the main crossings of the danube and isolate soviet troops west of the river as well as this troops from the second panzer army and army group e would push north and east from the south the date for the offensive was set as march 5th 1945. to achieve these objectives the germans had assembled a force of 19 divisions of which eight were panzer or panzer grenadier formations it was a force of 220 000 men and 877 tanks and other armored vehicles on paper this was a powerful force but the reality as spring 1945 began was rather different compared to the german army that had invaded the soviet union almost four years before this was a ragtag force exhausted by months of continuous fighting facing the german attack would be the forces of the third ukrainian front under marshal fired or tolbukhin after the fall of budapest tolbuchen had begun plans for a renewed defensive towards vienna but was fought to delay these when intelligence of a large german buildup in the area arrived after consultation with moscow tolbukin decided to hold position absorb the oncoming attack and then launch a devastating counter-offensive with the 9th guards and 6th guards tank armies which would be ready on march 15th altogether the soviets numbered 407 000 troops with 407 armored fighting vehicles at the start of march the german assault units began to move forward to their assigned jumping off points for a panzer division this was no easy feat the roads were quickly turned into a quagmire by the spring thaw progress was slow and it took until late on march 5th for army group south to be told all of its units were in position there was no going back now at 1am on march 6th 1945 the final german offensive of the second world war began on the drava river in modern day croatia the 91st army court forced a crossing and drove the bulgarian defenders back three hours later the second panzer army joined in attacking north and south of the town of nashbayom there was initial success south of the town but soviet reinforcements prevented a breakthrough and managed to hold the germans even after the 16th ss panzer grenadier division was committed on march 7th it was the same story on the drava where two soviet divisions reinforced and stabilized the front preventing any further advance with the smaller western attacks already underway the main german offensive began at first light the first ss panzer cool rolled forward west of the savi's canal and made steady if slow progress pushing the tanks of the 12th ss panzer division up to kishlang by the end of the day but to the east general wilhelm beatrice's second ss panzer court failed to start its attack on time despite assuring higher command that it was ready and didn't get going until 6pm as a result little progress was made with the first panzer division seizure of most of sergey the only notable bit of progress it was not a good start to the offensive at the end of day one most german units were still mired in the first line of soviet defenses with progress only coming after protracted battles against the red army and the mud the panzer divisions particularly struggled to deploy their armored vehicles off-road as the ground began to thaw it was as general verla said a tough infantry fight nevertheless the attacks continued once the second ss panzer chord did manage to properly begin its attack on march 7th it drove a wedge between the soviet 155th rifle and 36th guards divisions while the southern shore of lake valencia was almost entirely in german hands by the evening of march 10th these advances forced marshall tolbuchan to reinforce the front with the 18th tank and first guard's mechanized call to prevent a breakthrough toward the danube there was an even more striking success west of the sarves when the 236th rifle division buckled on march 9th allowing german armor to sweep south the first ss panzer division reached simontonia on the ceo canal by the evening joined by 12th ss panzer at azura the following day this was a sizable breakthrough but left general dietrich with a long exposed flank along the service canal determined to exploit this part of the second ss panzer division which had become bolt down east of sarkares tour was shifted onto the west bank of the service designated as camp grouper craig this force would join nato general joseph von ratheritz's 23rd panzer division in trying to crush the canal and hit the soviets in the flank at the same time the soviets were scrambling to respond to the german breakthrough the 33rd rifle and first guard's cavalry corps were brought up to seal off the developing salient and hold the germans at the seo canal there was intense street fighting in simontonia and small bridge heads across the canal established to its west to the north by march 12th camp through craig had crossed the savior's canal and alongside the rest of the second ss panzer division threatened to encircle the 36th guard rifle division west of uber an intense battle followed as the germans slowly pushed forward in the face of strong resistance from soviet troops that were being steadily reinforced in a way that the german troops were not by march 13th sixth ss panzer army's main divisions had all taken heavy losses particularly its panzer units second ss panzer corps had seen its combat strength cut almost in half in just a week of fighting sarkaris to it was finally taken on march 14th but daily progress was now being counted in yards not miles the northern shoulder of the offensive the third panzer corps stalled completely on march 14th south of the seo small amounts of ground were taken at simontonia and adand but otherwise it was a similar story with the spearheads bogging down with a worryingly exposed left flank along the savi's canal in fact the biggest german advances at this time were coming far to the west by the second panzer army which on march 14th began a renewed defensive east of matali aiming to link up with the units on the seo with only two battered divisions available though this was what could be called an ambitious goal and progress was very slow across the battle area the picture was now of exhausted depleted german divisions mindlessly continuing their attacks seemingly unwilling to recognize the enormous buildup of soviet troops that was taking place to their north there were repeated warnings from sixth army holding the territory to the north of a large soviet build up opposite the thinly held positions at the fourth ss panzer corps and hungarian eighth call which were in no state to resist a major offensive it was suggested by army group's south that it might be a good idea to pull a panzer call back from the offensive to prepare for this but hitler refused to consider any abatement of the attack or reorganization of the front demanding that the offensive continued the panzers pushed on driving themselves further into a potential pocket of their own making on the morning of march 16th everything started to go badly wrong for the german army a massive soviet offensive from three armies tore into the exposed axis northern flank in the vertez mountains the hungarian first hassan and second armored divisions were simply blown away opening up a huge gap in the german lines as a result general zverla and dietrich were finally able to secure approval for the first ss panzer court to be withdrawn north to try and plug the gaps and prevent the encirclement of the entire 6th ss panzer army they rushed north but could not stand the tide on march 18th the 3rd ss panzer division were driven back and the fourth guard's army drove southwest towards lake balaton by the end of the following day dietrich's army was in full-on crisis mode giving up almost all the territory he had gained in order to shorten its front line and send some divisions north in berlin there was seemingly utter denial about the reality on the ground as nearly 200 000 troops teetered on the brink of encirclement on march 19th the offensive of the second panzer army was still ongoing as hitler refused to attempt to transfer the 16th ss pentagon division eastwards by may 23rd soviet troops had smashed their way through zakale's vehicle and were poised to inflict disaster the size of stalingrad on the axis troops after an agonizingly long delay hitler at the very last minute allowed a retreat leading to an incredible every unit for itself dashed through the narrowing gap between lake balaton and the soviet forces this process was so utterly chaotic that the german high command ended up with no idea where the entire fourth ss panzer call was for more than 24 hours the divisions mostly escaped encirclement but with heavy losses and the result of the axis line in hungary had been almost completely carved open after less than three weeks germany's last panzer offensive had ended with a maximum advance of less than 40 kilometers followed by devastating counter-attack and the collapse of the line in hungary barely two weeks later soviet troops would be in vienna it was a catastrophic reverse the futile last gasp of a dying regime on the brink of defeat this video is sponsored by squarespace which i've been using to create a histograph website as well as a really 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Channel: Historigraph

Views: 792,123

Keywords: historigraph, ww2 documentary, germany's last offensive, historiography, histograph

Id: PBzsYDwftoo

Length: 13min 1sec (781 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 02 2022