Tomb of the Panzerwaffe: The Defeat of the Sixth SS Panzer Army in Hungary 1945

by Aleksei Isaev

  Korpsgruppe Breith’s offensive began on the morning of 7 January. The shock grouping was unified under the command of the I Cavalry Corps, and consisted of the 3rd and 23rd Panzer Divisions and the 4th Cavalry Brigade. By 13.00, enemy tanks had managed to break through the combat positions of the infantry of the first echelon. The 23rd Panzer Division reached Hill 225 in the area of Borbály, where it encountered the 251st Destroyer Anti-tank Artillery Battalion in its firing positions; the Soviet anti-tank gunners repulsed this attack. The Germans responded by bringing artillery fire down on the battalion’s positions, and knocked out 11 of the guns. After this, the enemy tanks with a renewed attack managed to take Hill 225.

  After the direction of the enemy attack had become apparent, the 20th Guards Rifle Corps began to regroup its artillery reserve. At 18.00 7 January, it was reinforced with the 262nd and 438th Destroyer Anti-tank Regiments, the 212th, 221st and 230th Howitzer Artillery Regiments, the 1232nd Cannon Artillery Regiment and the 200th Mortar Regiment from the 68th and 135th Rifle Corps and the army reserve. Altogether on the first day of the enemy offensive, 43 76mm anti-tank guns, 63 122mm howitzers, 10 152mm howitzer cannons and 16 120mm mortars arrived to help repel the Germans.

  In addition, the 7th Mechanized Corps, which was backstopping the 20th Guards Rifle Corps, entered the fighting in the very first hours of the enemy offensive and operated jointly with the rifle units. On the evening of 6 January, it had numbered 63 T-34 and 15 IS-2 tanks, as well as 10 SU-85 and 10 SU-76 self-propelled guns, and thus represented a serious counter to German panzer attacks.

  If previously Tolbukhin had preferred to use tank units and formations in order to gird his defenses, with the start of the German offensive toward Zámoly, he decided to launch a counterattack. This change in strategy didn’t happen right away. With his first order to the 1st Guards Mechanized Corps, the 3rd Ukrainian Front commander foresaw moving up the 1st Guards Mechanized Brigade into the second echelon of the defending rifle units on the axis of the German offensive. This order was issued at 20.00 on 7 January. The next morning, though, at 10.00 8 January, Tolbukhin changed his mind and re-directed the 1st Guards Mechanized Brigade and the 9th Guards Tank Brigade to counterattack the enemy’s shock grouping in the flank. Already by 16.00 8 January, the brigades were nearly poised to go on the attack. However, the counterattack force still hadn’t fully assembled by the designated time, and Russianov appealed to the Front commander with a request to postpone the start of the counterattack to the following day. Tolbukhin had no opposition to this, so the counterattack was set for the morning of 9 January. If the counterattack had been designated for this later time from the very outset, the units of Russianov’s corps might have been able to reach the jumping-off area at night. However, the enemy detected the movement during the day of 8 January, so the counterattack lost the element of surprise.

  The weather became the next blow to Tolbukhin’s attempt to use the mechanized units for a counterattack. The commander of the 1st Guards Mechanized Corps recalled:

  That night, as the Guardsmen were moving into their jumping-off lines, snow began to fall, and by morning it was snowing so heavily that nothing was visible beyond 50 meters. The heavy, wet flakes covered up the tanks’ vision slits and gun sights, obscuring all vision. However, at 9.30 our artillery struck the fascists’ positions, and the tanks and motorized infantry moved out. Extreme attentiveness, care and precise teamwork were required in order not to drift off course and jumble the combat formations, and not to mistake our own units for enemy troops.1

  The heavy snowfall continued until the middle of the day on 9 January.

  Like many other counterattacks staged during defensive operations throughout the war, the counterstroke by the two brigades of the 1st Guards Mechanized Corps near Zámoly was prepared in great haste. The artillery of the 20th Guards Rifle Corps, which was supposed to support them, was located in positions that were suitable for defense, 3 to 5 kilometers behind the front line. At the same time, the cannon brigade had just 225 shells for 20 guns, while the howitzer regiment had 1,000 shells. Thus the artillery preparation was extremely brief, just 3 minutes long. The enemy’s anti-tank defenses could not be suppressed by such light activity, and the Sherman tanks were met by heavy anti-tank artillery fire.

  The crew of an SU-76 self-propelled gun receives an order; Hungary, 1945.

  An 88mm anti-aircraft gun abandoned in its firing position on the approaches to Budapest. (TsAMO)

  A knocked-out Tiger tank of the SS Panzer Division Totenkopf. (TsAMO)

  A close-up view of Totenkopf ’s knocked-out Tiger tank. The shell hole in the front armor plate is clearly visible. (TsAMO)

  An abandoned Bergepanzer III repair-recovery tank. The number “25” was applied by the Soviet inspection team.

  A StuG 40 self-propelled gun abandoned on the battlefield. The machine is fitted with a Saukopf gun mantlet and bears the tactical number “712”.

  Russianov recalled:

  The combat on 9 January was hard and prolonged. The discharges of heavy guns, the explosions of shells, mines and grenades, and the chatter of long machine-gun bursts continued until nightfall on the snow-covered rolling plains south and west of the Hungarian villages of Zámoly, Csala and Pátka. Around noon, the enemy launched strong tank counterattacks out of the area of Gyula. The fascist and Soviet armor vehicles became intermingled at almost pointblank range. The victor was the one who managed to get off the first shot.2

  By 16.00 9 January both brigades, having suffered heavy losses, were forced to fall back to their jumping-off positions. The 1st Guards Mechanized Brigade lost 19 tanks and had 123 men killed, 210 wounded and 303 missing in action. The 9th Guards Tank Brigade lost 27 tanks, and had 33 men killed, 48 wounded and 4 missing in action. With such results of the day, at 22.00 Russianov received a verbal instruction from Tolbukhin to halt the attacks. It was confirmed by a written order the following morning at 5.00, which gave the two brigades a new assignment to take up lines of defense on the approaches to Zámoly. The 382nd Regiment of SU-100 tank destroyers was moved up to the same place. The firmness of the 1st Guards Mechanized Corps’ positions was tested on 11 January, when as a result of 13 attacks, the Germans managed to seize Zámoly. However, they were unable to advance further.

  On the night of 8 January 1945, the reinforced SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment Westland of the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking was relieved by units of the 6th Panzer Division. The concealment of the relief was facilitated by the mist and heavy snowfall. After a march along the snow-covered roads to the north, the SS troops had re-assembled in the area south of Esztergom [Gran] by the evening of 9 January. Their new assignment was to attack together with units of the 96th and 711th Infantry Divisions in the direction of Budapest. In view of the fact that the march had required almost the entire day, the situation was relatively quiet in the sector of the pending offensive. The divisions of the 46th Army spent the day improving both their front that faced the east on the approaches to Budapest, as well as their front that faced the west.

  Soon, Wiking’s second panzer grenadier regiment Germania was also relieved and the entire division assembled on the new axis of attack. In addition to the regrouping of his IV SS Panzer Corps’ units, Gille at the initiative of Balck organized the so-called Gruppe Phillip, which was to launch a “cavalry charge” along the south riverbank road to Budapest. It was composed, to be sure, not of dashing cavalrymen, but of a reinforced battalion of the Feldherrnhalle Division, the bulk of which was encircled in Budapest; for its armored component, Major Phillip’s kampfgruppe had 5 tanks and 6 armored halftracks. In view of the fact that Soviet troops were holding the opposite bank of the Danube, the very idea of such a breakthrough attempt reeked of adventurism. However, Balck placed great hopes upon it. Approximately 200 tons of various supplies had even been stockpiled in Esztergom [Gran], which were supposed to be delivered to the besieged Hungarian capital in the wake of Gruppe Phillip’s advance.

  Gille�
�s plan was more realistic. He intended to breakthrough to Budapest along the road through the Pilis Mountains, which lie northeast of the Vértes Hills in the bend of the Danube River. However, having barely gotten underway, Konrad II was thrown into doubt. On the evening of 9 January, Guderian informed the command of Army Group South about the latest Führer order. It was intended to regroup the IV SS Panzer Group further to the south for an outflanking maneuver. However, such a regrouping would have required no less than five days. Army Group South commander General Wöhler persuaded Guderian to give him one more chance to break through to Budapest over the shortest route. At 1.00 10 January, the Chief of the Command Group for the Army General Staff General Wenck reported to Wöhler that his request had been granted, and the operation could continue. Meanwhile, on the night of 9/10 January, the advancing Germans took Szomor.

  However, due to some still unknown reasons, the offensive was temporarily suspended. The order to resume the attack followed only close to the evening of 10 January, and the resumption achieved no noticeable successes. As was to be expected, the “cavalry charge” by Gruppe Phillip also went nowhere – it was stopped by fire from the northern bank of the Danube. In the conditions when the German high command had already made a choice in favor of regrouping and attacking in the south, bypassing Lake Velence, modest successes meant the cancellation of the operation. Guderian and Wenck gave Wöhler several hours to achieve any sort of notable success. If he failed to achieve it, Konrad II would be cancelled and the regrouping would begin.

  The use of the entire 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking on the left flank of the IV SS Panzer Corps somewhat invigorated its offensive. Pilisszentkereszt, just 20 kilometers from Budapest, was taken by the assault group of SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment Westland, and the units of the 46th Army’s 99th Rifle Division that were defending it were pushed back to the southeast of the village. It seemed that Budapest was now only a stone’s throw away. However, the German high command didn’t think so. Guderian informed Wöhler that the Führer considered an offensive in the Pilis Mountains to have no prospects. The SS troops were to be immediately pulled out of the fighting on this axis and sent to the new assembly area.

  Corps commander Gille attempted to save the situation and made a direct appeal to Himmler. He believed that Himmler had more influence over the Führer than Guderian. However, independent of the degree of influence over Hitler, the weightiest argument would be success on the battlefield. Yet the IV SS Panzer Corps still couldn’t boast of any. Attempts by Gille’s men to seize the village of Dorog on the night of 11/12 January failed. The 86th Guards Rifle Division, reinforced by the 37th Guards Mechanized Brigade of the 2nd Guards Mechanized Corps, withstood the German attacks.

  Still, forward elements of the IV SS Panzer Corps were now just 17 kilometers away from Budapest. The attackers could even see the glow above the city and hear the rumble of the cannonade in support of the Soviet assault within the city. However, the question was whether it was possible to cover these remaining kilometers. The German Supreme Command didn’t think so.

  It is interesting that Wiking’s attack wasn’t assessed by the Soviet side as a serious threat. The measures taken by the Soviet command speaks most eloquently of the threat it perceived Wiking’s attack presented. In view of the sharpening situation in the sector of the 99th Rifle Division in the area of Pilisszentkereszt on 12 January, the commander of the 2nd Guards Mechanized Corps directed just 3 T-34 tanks to that place. At that moment, the 2nd Guards Mechanized Corps had 36 T-34 tanks, and 10 SU-85 and 19 SU-76 self-propelled guns. Thus the departure of the aforementioned T-34s isn’t even worth mentioning. The 17th Air Army was inactive due to the poor weather conditions. Therefore the conclusion can be drawn that only minimal efforts were made in order to halt Gille’s offensive. The offensive of the IV SS Panzer Corps’ left flank was stopped by the forces of Soviet rifle divisions, only insignificantly reinforced with tanks. One can only guess what might have been achieved by the left flank divisions of Gille’s IV SS Panzer Corps, had they been reinforced. However, at that moment the decision of the German high command regarding the withdrawal of the SS divisions to a new assembly area was at the very least well-founded.

  4

  Operation Paula Becomes Konrad III

  By the middle of January 1945, it began to seem that the threat that had unexpectedly taken shape over the 3rd Ukrainian Front was receding. At 2.35 on 17 January, the commander of the 4th Guards Army issued a combat order to the corps commanders:

  1. According to information from prisoners and deserters, the enemy is withdrawing SS units from the Budapest axis to the west.

  The possible withdrawal of tank units, which had been operating in the area of Zámoly and Sárkeresztúr is being noted by observers as well.

  Army commanders have been ordered: 1. Strengthen reconnaissance and observation, particularly by officers. Ensure the taking of prisoners in every sector.

  2. By the active operations of reconnaissance troops and pursuit detachments, prevent possible enemy attempts in separate sectors to break contact with the aim of taking up more advantageous lines.

  As we see, an enemy retreat was seen as a possible scenario. This view virtually discounted the possibility of a new offensive. In fact, at this same time in Poland, three Soviet fronts had gone into motion as part of an offensive that went down in history as the Vistula-Oder operation. The German front on the axis leading to Berlin began quickly to fall apart. It was logical to assume that the German panzer divisions, which had been concentrated in Hungary in a period of relative calm on other directions, would return once again to Poland and East Prussia. Hungary, of course, was of definite economic significance for Germany, but defense of the German capital plainly outweighed it.

  Intelligence, it seemed, was confirming these logical conclusions. At first, several alarm bells were ringing on the left flank of the 4th Guards Army. Prisoners and deserters from the Hungarian 20th Infantry Division, who had been captured or had crossed the frontline on 13-14 January, were reporting about rumors that were circulating among the soldiers regarding a joint offensive with the Germans. However, there was little trust in the Hungarians. Not long before this, on 10 January, deserters from the Hungarian 8th Infantry Division gave news of the approach of German battalions with the aim of going on the offensive on 11 January. However, no German attacks took place on that date. Other Hungarian deserters on 16 January, on the contrary, gave information on the movement of vehicles belonging to the Totenkopf and Wiking Divisions from Tata to Komárno, that is, away from the front. Aerial reconnaissance observed German road traffic in various directions, but without any clearly intensified movement in any single direction.

  However, all this information proved to be pieces of a picture that was completely different from the one the intelligence officers of the 3rd Ukrainian Front were drawing. Despite problems with fuel supplies, the German command had no intention to use the shortest path in order to switch the IV SS Panzer Corps from the left flank to the right. The divisions of the IV SS Panzer Corps were in fact withdrawn through Komárno to the city of Györ not only for the purpose of returning to their previous sector of the front. Having suffered failure in the offensive over the shortest distance to Budapest, the Germans had decided to change their strategy radically. Now the attack was to come across the favorable tank terrain to the north of Lake Balaton. In documents of the IV SS Panzer Corps, the operation unfolded under the code name Kräutergarten (“Herb Garden”), but at the headquarters of Armeegruppe Balck, it was called “Konrad III”. The attacking divisions moved into their jumping-off positions for the offensive literally just several hours before the start of the operation. In these circumstances, there was little hope for the opportune seizure of prisoners by Red Army scouts. The possibilities of aerial reconnaissance were also limited. The Germans conducted the march to the front during the nights with careful concealment from aerial observation during the daylight hours. As a result, Soviet aerial recon
naissance didn’t detect the enemy’s concentration of forces on the new German offensive axis.

  To be just, it must also be said that German intelligence committed a similar miscalculation. In the section “Assessment of the enemy” in the order for the new offensive, signed by the commander of the IV SS Panzer Corps General Gille, it is stated: “The enemy is defending in front of the Corps with the forces of one Guards fortified district, two Guards rifle divisions, and one regular rifle division.” This assessment didn’t correspond to the real situation on 18 January 1945. The two Guards rifle divisions had already been removed from this front and sent to repel the preceding German offensive in the north. On the axis chosen by the German command only S.I. Nikitin’s 1st Guards Fortified District and the 252nd Rifle Division were positioned. To be more precise, the main German attack fell upon the left-flank regiment of the 252nd Division (a front of 5 kilometers) and the entire sector of the 1st Guards Fortified District (a front of 13 kilometers). After Konrad I and Konrad II, Zakharov’s 4th Guards Army had practically exhausted its own reserves. Reserves in the form of the 63rd Mechanized Brigade and a self-propelled artillery regiment, which had been designated at the order of the commander of the 135th Rifle Corps P.V. Gnedin, were distributed equally behind the 135th Rifle Corps’ front.

  The SS Panzer Divisions Totenkopf and Wiking were to be the main assault group for Konrad III. They were respectively given as attachments the 509th Heavy Panzer Battalion of King Tigers, and the 303rd Assault Gun Brigade. The inadequate amount of forces given the large area for the proposed operation forced the Germans to look for unusual solutions. The assault group of the German 3rd Panzer Division that was operating on the southern flank received the reconnaissance battalions of the 1st and 23rd Panzer Divisions as reinforcements. Its assignment was to make a rapid crossing of the Sió Canal and to hold the line of that canal in order to guard the flank of the main grouping as it was advancing toward Budapest. This canal exits Lake Balaton and flows southeast to the Danube, and thus was a suitable line for repelling Soviet attacks from the south. The 1st Panzer Division was to cover the northern flank – the Germans were anticipating counterattacks from the direction of Székesfehérvár. See Table 2 for the types and amounts of armor of the divisions involved in the operation.