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

by Aleksei Isaev

  5

  The Front is Restored

  The concluding phase of battles of many operations often remains in the shadow of the turning points. The turning point of defensive battles, a decisive counterstroke or the enemy’s adoption of a defensive posture is similar to the final scenes of a melodrama – the hero and heroine come together in a kiss, and the closing credits begin to roll across the screen. The further lives of the heroes, their time together and their trips to the supermarket are of no interest to anyone. War is more similar to a film production than to a love novel. In the given case, the restoration of the front is not only emblematic in itself; it is also a necessary prelude to the next clash – the March 1945 fighting to repel the attack by the Sixth SS Panzer Army. In addition, successfully pushing the Germans back from Budapest sealed the unenviable fate of the remnants of the city’s garrison.

  Sometimes, the battles in the area of Lake Balaton are called a “second Kursk”. However, according to the rules of the genre, a “Prokhorovka” must be present, that is to say, a counterattack against a tough enemy grouping, which results in heavy losses. As in the case of Prokhorovka, the Soviet counterattack here was launched by a fresh formation that had just arrived to join Tolbukhin’s Front. A.O. Akhmanov’s 23rd Tank Corps, which had passed to Tolbukhin’s control from the 2nd Ukrainian Front, received an order to cross to the western bank of the Danube River by the end of 24 January. However, in connection with the moving chunks of ice in the river, the majority of the corps had assembled on the western bank only by the morning of 25 January. In comparison with the badly battered mechanized formations of the 3rd Ukrainian Front by the end of January, the newly arrived corps appeared more than impressive – 153 T-34s and 21 ISU-122s.

  It was decided to employ the 23rd Tank Corps and the 104th Rifle Corps for a major counterattack by the Front. According to Tolbukhin’s plan, two converging attacks would be launched from the north and south. The northern assault grouping would consist of the two newly arrived corps, which were assembled in the area to the northeast of Lake Velence. The reinforced 18th Tank Corps was to attack from the south together with two rifle corps. The road hub of Sárosd, lying between the northern tip of Lake Balaton and the Danube River, was chosen as the point where the pincers would close. Thereby, the German units in the area to the east of the Sárviz Canal that had reached the Danube would be cut-off from the main forces of the Sixth Army. The attacking forces would move into their jumping-off positions on the night of 27/28 January and launch the attack on the morning of 28 January. It should be noted that Tolbukhin opted not to deploy the northern assault grouping of two fresh corps further westward to the Székesfehérvár area in order to try to cut off the entire enemy penetration, although Gille, when giving his troops their assignments as part of Operation Konrad III, was anticipating counterattacks precisely from the Székesfehérvár area. However, Tolbukhin believed the shifting of the armored fist to Székesfehérvár contained the risk of losing control over the situation between Lake Velence and the Danube. The Soviet command chose not to take such a risk. The arriving reserves were concentrated against the enemy’s offensive spearhead – just in case.

  Such a case soon showed itself in view of the German breakthrough to the town of Vál, where the 4th Guards Army’s command post had recently been located. The prerequisites for either a turn toward Budapest or the encirclement of the 4th Guards Army’ units that were defending in the Zámoly area were now in place. Zakharov requested authorization from the Front commander to use the brigades of the 23rd Tank Corps in order to parry the emerging crisis. Already at 10.30 26 January, an order was issued for a counterattack by the 3rd and 135th Tank Brigades of Akhmanov’s 23rd Tank Corps. They were to move against the tanks and self-propelled guns of the German assault wedge’s spearhead. The 3rd Tank Brigade (42 T-34s) already at 14.00 was attacking the forward German units in Vál. They had been estimated as being 3 tanks and 8 armored halftracks with infantry. After a two-hour battle, the brigade drove this enemy group out of Vál, and by 23.00 26 January, it had taken full control of the town. This success cost the brigade 3 T-34 tanks burned out. That same evening, the 135th Tank Brigade attacked the bridgehead that had been seized by the SS troops at Kajászó-Szentpéter. The counterattack by the two tank brigades had no decisive result, but they halted the enemy’s further advance into the depth of the 4th Guards Army’s defenses. In these combats, the 23rd Tank Corps suffered its first losses – at the end of 26 January, it now numbered 126 T-34s and 19 ISU-122s, which was 27 T-34s and 2 ISU-122s less than it had on the morning of 25 January.

  The next step was to be a powerful counterstroke with forces of the 23rd Tank Corps and 104th Rifle Corps into the flank of the German grouping that had broken out of the “gap” between Lake Velence and the Danube River. The Soviet command recognized the weakness of the tank corps’ own artillery component, and thus the attack of the 23rd Tank Corps was to be supported by the 9th Artillery Breakthrough Division (54 152mm howitzer cannons). In order to strengthen the infantry component of Akhmanov’s corps, the 151st Rifle Division was operationally attached to it. There would be no air support in view of the bad weather that was keeping the aircraft grounded.

  The 23rd Tank Corps’ attack against the SS Panzer Division Totenkopf began at 10.00 27 January. Initially the 135th Tank Brigade, which at 11.00 broke through to the Pettend farmsteads, achieved the greatest success. However, the Germans couldn’t tolerate the loss of this key strongpoint at the base of the salient they had driven into the Soviet defenses and they fiercely counterattacked. The King Tigers of the 509th Heavy Panzer Battalion became the greatest inconvenience to the Soviet tankers. As it happened, prior to Tolbukhin’s counterstroke, the 509th Heavy Panzer Battalion had been withdrawn to Seregélyes for rest and refitting. News of the Soviet counteroffensive prompted it to conduct an immediate counterattack against the Pettend farmsteads with 3 of its heavy panzers, which were later joined by the battalion commander in his own heavy panzer. Norwegians of the SS Norge Battalion provided them with infantry support. The ponderous King Tigers didn’t often rush to the battlefield in the first hours of repelling counterattacks, but they nevertheless could be found close to the spearhead of an attacking armored wedge. In contrast, the 151st Rifle Division, which was supposed to attack toward Pettend together with the 135th Tank Brigade, didn’t come up in time and remained back in the vicinity of Kajászó-Szentpéter. In the course of two hours of hard fighting, the 135th Tank Brigade lost a significant number of its tanks and was forced to fall back to its jumping-off positions. This is one of the few confirmed episodes of the effective use of King Tigers in battle. The crews of the four German heavy tanks claimed the destruction of 41 T-34/85 tanks. According to the records of irrecoverable losses, the 135th Tank Brigade left 27 T-34 tanks burned out on the battlefield at Pettend on 27 January 1945.

  The other brigades of Akhmanov’s tank corps were greeted with heavy fire, but after several repeat attacks, the 3rd Tank Brigade nevertheless broke into Vereb by 21.00 and became tied up in street fighting for the possession of it. All of the 39th Tank Brigade’s attacks toward Pázmánd were unsuccessful.

  The results of the counterattack against the main forces of the IV SS Panzer Corps were disappointing, but predictable. Over the course of 27 January 1945, the 23rd Tank Corps lost a total of 61 tanks and self-propelled guns, including 45 T-34s burned out, 13 T-34s knocked out, 1 ISU-122 burned out and 2 ISU-122 knocked out, which is equivalent to 42% of its available armor before entering battle. Human losses amounted to 160 men killed and 220 wounded. This, of course, was substantially less than the losses suffered by the tank corps of P.A. Rotmistrov’s 5th Guards Tank Army at Prokhorovka. I’ll remind you that on 12 July 1943, the 29th Tank Corps lost 153 tanks and 17 SU-76 and SU-122, which amounted to 77% of the armored vehicles that took part in the attacks. The 18th Tank Corps on that same day lost 84 tanks, which was 56% of its complement before the start of the counterattack.

 
; In addition to the lower level of losses, there was an additional substantial difference. Justified doubts have been put forward regarding the decisive influence of the fighting on the Prokhorovka tank field on 12 July 1943 on the outcome of the entire Kursk battle. On the contrary, the effects of the attack of Akhmanov’s tank corps on the enemy have been precisely noted in German documents. In his order to the IV SS Panzer Corps on 27 January, Gille stated:

  The enemy today attacks our forward panzer detachments in the Vereb area and south of Vál with major forces of tanks and infantry. The 23rd Tank Corps went on the offensive out of the enemy bridgehead in the Baracska area to the southwest and south, having the assignment to block the defile between the Vali River and Lake Velence in the rear of our attacking forward detachments. In the course of bitter fighting, a total of 122 enemy tanks were destroyed today.

  Having finished his description of the situation with the stirring phrase regarding the number of destroyed tanks, the commander of the IV SS Panzer Corps then issued assignments that didn’t inspire optimism. Gille ordered:

  Following orders, the panzer corps is to withdraw its units that are located in the area west of the defile between the Vali River and Lake Velence, and on the night 27/28 January will temporarily take up a defense on the line Baracska – Pettend – Kápolnásnyék, positioning the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking between the Danube River and the line of the Vali River, the 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf on both sides of Lake Velence and Gruppe Holst (which is subordinate to the corps from 7.00 28.01.45) between Székesfehérvár and the southern extremity of the Vérteshegység mountain massif.

  Thus, already after the first attack by the fresh Soviet tank corps, Gille ordered a withdrawal of the units that had broken out beyond the defile, and went over to a defense. The assault capabilities of the SS corps had already reached its limits, and the change in the correlation of forces compelled the cancellation of the offensive. Simultaneously with the assumption of a defensive posture, there was a force regrouping. The 1st Panzer Division was removed from subordination to the IV SS Panzer Corps and became directly subordinate to the Sixth Army command. Thereby the German command dismantled the assault grouping and created reserves for repelling the pending Soviet counteroffensive. Simultaneously, the battalion of King Tigers, a battalion of Panthers, and the 303rd Assault Gun Brigade of StuG and StuH self-propelled guns were withdrawn from subordination to Totenkopf’s commander – they became the IV SS Panzer Corps reserve.

  The 3rd Ukrainian Front’s counterattacks weren’t limited to those conducted against the German salient near Lake Velence. An offensive into the rear of the German assault grouping from the south was a simple and obvious decision, the realization of which the Soviet command embarked upon immediately after the accumulation of forces for it. The forces that had fallen back from the Sió Canal were used for the counterattack. Here, a group was organized under the overall leadership of Colonel General A.S. Zheltov, a member of the 3rd Ukrainian Front’s Military Council. Zheltov’s group included the 18th Tank Corps and the newly arrived 30th and 133rd Rifle Corps. Later, with the arrival of the 26th Army headquarters under the 3rd Ukrainian Front’s command, these formations together with the 57th Army’s 135th Rifle Corps (the 233rd and 236th Rifle Divisions) were made subordinate to the new army headquarters.

  The general offensive on the southern sector of the front was timed to begin simultaneously with the counterattack of the 23rd Tank Corps and 104th Rifle Corps – at 10.00 on 27 January 1945. The 18th Tank Corps, after receiving replenishments from trains, had been brought back up to a fully satisfactory condition – at the start of the offensive, it numbered 88 T-34, 8 ISU-152, 28 ISU-122, 1 SU-85 and 34 SU-76, for a total of 159 armored vehicles. The 1202nd Self-propelled Artillery Regiment, which had received another 20 SU-76 from the factory, was also supposed to support the infantry.

  The offensive began with great promise. After an 8-hour battle, Herczegfalva was taken, and by the end of the day the attackers were closing on the road hub of N. Perkáta. With its capture, the German units along the Danube riverbank would become virtually encircled. Indeed, with the arrival of Soviet forces outside of N. Perkáta, the road to Dunapentele [Dunaúváros] was cut, and the German garrison holding N. Perkáta became isolated. Thus, this village was defended with particular stubbornness. Units of the 18th Tank Corps together with infantry attacked it from several directions, and in response the Germans launched desperate counterattacks. In this area, the Soviet forces were opposed by the 3rd Panzer Division, and west of it, the 23rd Panzer Division. The main forces of the 1st Panzer Division were also operating in the Dunapentele [Dunaúváros] area. These divisions were organized under the command of the III Panzer Corps. Thus, the Germans had committed rather major forces on the southern flank of the corridor that had been driven to the Danube River, which were fully capable of checking the 26th Army’s offensive. On 28 January, the Soviet 30th Rifle Corps numbered 16,832 officers and soldiers, the 133rd Rifle Corps -- 15,139 men. Meanwhile, the German 3rd Panzer Division had 14,000 men on its roster for 1 February 1945, while the 23rd Panzer Division had approximately 14,500 men (though not all of these were combatants). In addition, whereas the Soviet side had one mobile formation, the German grouping opposing the 26th Army consisted entirely of mobile divisions. Nevertheless, the Front leadership was dissatisfied with the actions of the 26th Army commander Lieutenant General L.S. Skvirsky, who had led the army since May 1943. On 30 January 1945, Lieutenant General N.A. Gagen assumed command of the 26th Army.

  As is known, at Kursk the process of shoving the Germans back to their jumping-off positions had cost the Voronezh Front quite dearly. This pattern of “Kursk II” was retained at Balaton. The combat against the German panzer divisions primarily led to rather heavy armor losses in the 3rd Ukrainian Front’s southern assault grouping. From 27 January to 30 January 1945, the 18th Tank Corps lost 95 armored vehicles (73 T-34, 6 ISU-122, 5 ISU-152, and 15 SU-76) burned out or knocked out. In this fighting, the commander of the 1438th Self-propelled Artillery Regiment Colonel F.A. Zatylkin was killed; he had commanded this regiment without interruption since 1943 and had traveled the long path from the Ukraine to Hungary together with the 18th Tank Corps. In addition, here a rather unusual episode took place, which demonstrates the features of maneuver warfare rather well. Two tank brigades of the 18th Tank Corps that were advancing to the north in bypass of N. Perkáta wound up cut-off by an enemy counterattack. Showing no panic and continuing their attack, on 1 February they continued on to Adony and seized that town. On the morning of 2 February, the formally encircled brigades were “freed” – they linked up with the 4th Guards Army’s 3rd Guards Airborne Division, which had been attacking from the north to meet them.

  The measured successes of the 26th Army in its offensive from the south, of course, were disappointing, but the other axis created greater anxiety. Pushing the enemy relief grouping, which had gone over to the defense, away from the approaches to Budapest remained the most important task for the 3rd Ukrainian Front in the last days of January and first days of February 1945. After pulling back the panzers that had broken out of the defile between Lake Velence and the Danube River, the positions of the IV SS Panzer Corps on this axis no longer had any vulnerable locations. The assault grouping of the 4th Guards Army operating against it was unable to make any rapid progress. The danger of a German breakthrough to Budapest was eliminated, but the counteroffensive by the 23rd Tank Corps and 104th Rifle Corps progressed slowly. This wasn’t surprising – the German assault grouping, which was quite strong even after the order about redistributing the forces, was being attacked head-on. The shifting of the axis of attack on 29-30 January to the sector between Baracska and the Danube, where the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking was defending on a relatively broad front, brought no success. Some sort of solution, which would jolt the battle out of its situation of a tottering balance that didn’t give either side a decisive advantage, was necessary. Such a solution was
soon found. The successful actions of detachments of the 20th and 21st Guards Rifle Corps near Székesfehérvár, as well as intelligence that the Germans had shifted the 23rd Panzer Division to the southern flank to counter the 26th Army, caused the Soviet command to begin to ponder changing the axis of attack to that location.

  Without giving the idea a long thought, on 30 January Tolbukhin made the decision to switch the 1st Guards Mechanized Corps and 5th Guards Cavalry Corps to the area north of Székesfehérvár. The Front commander issued the order for an enveloping attack around Székesfehérvár with the forces of these two mobile corps, together with three rifle divisions of the 20th and 21st Guards Rifle Corps, with the aim of cutting the lines of communication leading from that city to Mór. The attackers would then screen Székesfehérvár from the north and attack the city itself. This was the plan that Gille had expressed specific concerns about in his orders for Operation Konrad III. However, the attackers still had a chance to shake the enemy’s defenses – the 1st Guards Mechanized Corps on the evening of 30 January still had 71 Shermans and 17 SU-100 tank destroyers operational.

  The 1st Guards Mechanized Corps and 5th Guards Cavalry Corps faced a march of 45 kilometers to reach their jumping-off positions. The night was dark, and snow was falling, driven by a strong wind. The cavalrymen and motorized infantry were moving along the same road. Because of traffic jams and snow drifts, there were frequent halts and gaps appeared in the column. There could no longer be any talk about completing the assembly of units for the offensive by the early morning of 31 January. The two corps completed arriving in the designated area only by mid-day. The attack began at 14.00. The Soviet troops were opposed by Gruppe Holst, which was composed of dismounted cavalrymen and the 356th Infantry Division, which had recently arrived at the front. Previously it had been located in Italy, and only in January 1945 was it shifted to Hungary.