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

by Aleksei Isaev

  The reader will not find on this list a single tank corps or even one tank brigade. One of the features of the battle for Budapest was the sparing use of armor in the storming of the city. Whereas in Berlin the tanks and self-propelled guns were almost the main shock force of the attackers (three full tank armies and the infantry support tank units of the combined-arms armies entered the city), in the storming of the Hungarian capital primarily infantry, combat engineers and artillery were involved. One tank battalion of the 3rd Tank Brigade and one tank company of the 39th Tank Brigade (both from the 23rd Tank Corps) took part in the assault on Pest. There were not more than 22 tanks in these units. The Soviet infantry of the 46th Army assaulted Buda, with the support of two self-propelled gun regiments, which had 30 SU-76 as of 1 January 1945. Later, when the assault on Buda was already underway, a company of tanks of the 5th Guards Tank Corps was committed into the city.

  The limited use of tanks was determined by both the need for tanks in the fighting around the outer ring of encirclement and the impossibility of deploying major armored forces in street fighting conditions. In connection with this, the claims found in foreign sources, in particular in Ungvári’s book, regarding the destruction of 200 Soviet tanks in Budapest looks in the best case like a bad joke. Soviet tanks in Budapest operated alone or in pairs that supported the infantry assault groups.

  In view of the very limited number of tanks used by the Soviet forces in the storming of Budapest, the strength of the defenders was fully comparable with the strength of the attackers in this regard. On 5 January 1945, the units of the German 13th Panzer Division in Pest had 7 Pz. IVs and 7 Pz. V Panthers, while the Feldherrnhalle Division had 9 Pz. V Panthers and 13 StuG assault guns. The Hungarian battalions of assault artillery had approximately 30 self-propelled guns, while the Hungarian armor division had 7 tanks. Thus, the 13th Panzer Division and Feldherrnhalle Division in Pest alone had more tanks than the attackers, even setting aside the Hungarian armored vehicles of the besieged garrison. At the same time, of course, the lack of fuel substantially constrained the use of heavy combat equipment by the defenders of Budapest. Primarily, the tanks and selfpropelled guns were used in Budapest for firing from fixed positions and for ambushes.

  The tanks, despite their leading role in many battles of the Second World War, were only one of the available combat means. There were also the infantry, artillery, combat engineers and chemical troops. The main “music” of the assault was not the squeaking of tracks and the howl of shells fired by the main guns of tanks, but the explosions of the demolition charges of the combat engineers and of artillery shells. As of 1 January 1945, the forces of the 2nd Ukrainian Front in Pest possessed 48 203mm howitzers, 172 152mm guns, 294 122mm guns, 191 76mm divisional guns, 174 76mm regimental guns, and 158 45mm and 57mm anti-tank guns.

  This ensured a more than three-fold superiority in the amount of artillery over the defenders. At the same time, the majority of the German and Hungarian artillery was compelled to remain silent in view of the lack of ammunition. As noted above, some of the heavy guns, lacking shells, were even used for building barricades across city streets and boulevards. The main tactic employed by the artillery was firing over open sights. Up to 80% of the guns involved in the battle were used this way.

  However, the primary motif in the concert of the storming of Budapest became the hissing sound of the streams of flames emanating from flamethrowers. In contrast to the insignificant number of tanks storming the Hungarian capital, the divisions of the 2nd Ukrainian Front possessed a very impressive number of flamethrowers. On 6 January 1945, the 30th Rifle Corps was being supported by an army-level battalion of LPO-50 flamethrowers and the 173rd Separate Company of ROKS flamethrowers, which numbered a total of approximately 150 flamethrowers. Correspondingly, the 39th Separate Battalion of ROKS flamethrowers was attached to the 18th Guards Rifle Corps.

  Interestingly, in one of the street battles, a flamethrower was employed against an enemy tank. A tank that was cruising down one of Budapest’s streets became the victim of the flamethrower Filatov, who made his way to the street the tank was using through a shattered building. There, Filatov took up an ambush position, and when the tank passed by him, he set it afire with a long squirt. Such an incident, of course, wasn’t typical for the battles for Budapest. Much more commonly, the flamethrowers would cooperate with the assault groups when taking buildings. The engineers would blow holes in walls with a demolition charge, and the flamethrowers would immediately dash up to the opening that had just been created and release a stream of fire inside the building. The same tactic was employed to dig the enemy out of cellars. Explosive charges would be detonated on the floor of the ground level, and then the flamethrowers would squirt fire down through the openings.

  In fact, the artillery tactics radically changed with the onset of the assault on the city blocks. Whereas on the approaches to the city, the artillery was deployed according to the principle of breaking through a regular sector of fortifications and used mostly in the indirect fire role, with the start of street fighting up to 80% of the artillery fired over open sights. In order to protect the guns and crews from being struck by enemy fire, a sheltering wall of stone rubble would be built up in front of the gun. Since in the initial phase of the assault the German and Hungarian artillery remained silent in order not to reveal themselves, the guns and crews tended to be sheltered behind the walls of buildings to prevent them from being subjected to enemy fire.

  During the assault, initially the tanks too often forged ahead and lost contact with the supporting infantry. As a result, over 2 and 3 January 1945, the small detachments of tanks of the assault force lost 7 armored vehicles burned out and 5 more disabled. In the future, close cooperation with the infantry and artillery was organized, which allowed a more effective use of tanks in the city.

  One of the variants of tank employment in the city, we’ll say directly, was unusual. By the end of 3 January, the attacking troops reached the Rákosszentmihály train station on the northeastern edge of Pest. In order to continue the offensive, on the night of 3/4 January, the railroad cars of the trains that were standing at the station were unhitched, and with the help of tanks of the 3rd Tank Brigade, the cars were pulled apart, thereby creating passages for the infantry attacks. In the course of fighting on 4 January, the tank battalion of the 3rd Tank Brigade lost one tank disabled. Subsequently, the tanks operated as part of assault groups, and targeted enemy firing points in the buildings.

  The tanks that took part in the assault were split into detachments of 1-2 vehicles and were subordinated to the rifle battalions. The assault groups ground slowly forward against fierce resistance. By 8 January, the tank company of the 39th Tank Brigade didn’t have a single serviceable tank; the two remaining T-34s were under repair. The tank battalion of the 3rd Tank Brigade continued to attack.

  Up until 5 January, the Soviet forces in Pest, battling their way through enemy fortifications, made slow headway across the entire front. Soon, the strategy had to be changed. On 7 January, the commander of the 2nd Ukrainian Front R.Ia. Malinovsky decided to reallocate his forces around the perimeter of defense in order to concentrate them for key points of attack. Equal pressure along the front was suitable only against light enemy resistance. The stubborn and organized defense of Pest required breaking up the defenders into isolated groups and destroying them in turn through a concentration of force. Asserting in the introductory section of his Order No. 0020/op, “… forces are distributed evenly, which doesn’t allow a powerful attack with the aim splitting the [enemy] front into separate pieces,” the Front commander went on to order:

  1. To the commander of the 7th Guards Army: Launch a main attack with the strength of three divisions in the general direction of Hajtsár Street and Liszt Ferenc Square, and reach the Danube River no later than 11.1.45.

  2. To the commander of the 18th Guards Rifle Corps: Launch a main attack with the strength of not less than one and a half divisions in the gener
al direction of Valéria and further on toward the railroad bridge, and reach the Danube River no later than end of day 11.1.45.

  Thus, according to Malinvosky’s plan, the entire Pest group would be split in two. Since at this time the battle between the forces of the 3rd Ukrainian Front and the IV SS Panzer Corps that was advancing to link up with the city’s garrison was raging to the west of Budapest, the situation in Buda was relatively calm. Theoretically, this allowed the defenders to maneuver reserves and to strengthen the defense of Pest by shifting units from Buda. In connection with this, Malinovsky ordered the destruction of the remaining bridges across the Danube, which linked Buda and Pest. Aviation, 203mm howitzers and 152mm howitzer-cannons were committed to this mission in order to fulfill this order. Because the primary type of strike aircraft of the 5th Air Army was the Il-2, the destruction of the bridges ran into serious difficulties. The bombs that the Il-2 could carry weighed only up to 250 kilograms, and thus were unable to cause serious damage to the stronglybuilt stone and iron bridges across the Danube. The first air attacks proved ineffective. The longrange artillery fire also at first didn’t yield the desired result.

  In order to improve the organization of the assault on the city, on 11 January 1945 the so-called Budapest Group of Forces was created under the leadership of the commander of the 18th Guards Rifle Corps Major General I.M. Afonin. It included the 18th Guards Corps, the 30th Rifle Corps, and the Romanian 7th Army Corps with attached units. The formation of the Budapest Group could be considered as the start of the serious storming of Budapest according to all the principles of urban warfare and with application of all the previously acquired experience.

  The Romanian corps advanced more slowly than its neighbors, and on 15 January their flanks linked up, leaving the Romanians in their rear. At the order of the commander of the 2nd Ukrainian Front, the Romanian 7th Army Corps was withdrawn from the city and was subsequently sent to north Hungary. The casualties suffered by the Romanians in the fighting for Budapest can be considered insignificant – 2,548 men killed, wounded or sick.

  Commander of the 2nd Ukrainian Front Marshal R.Ia. Malinovsky.

  Commander of the 3rd Ukrainian Front F.I. Tolbukhin at work in his headquarters.

  A Wespe self-propelled artillery vehicle abandoned by its crew. The machine presumably belonged to the 13th Panzer Division.

  A knocked-out Panther. The blotches on the turret are most likely the results of the fire.

  A flame-throwing Flammpanzer III tank, abandoned by its crew during the fighting in Budapest.

  A knocked-out and burned-out Panther Ausf.G; Budapest area, January 1945.

  A view of a Budapest street after the storming of the city – burned-out vehicles and building walls riddled by shells and bullets. (TsAMO)

  The wreckage of a German 88mm anti-aircraft gun on a Budapest street.

  An armored wagon on a Budapest street. The recognition symbol of the Hungarian Army is clearly visible on the side of the wagon. (TsAMO)

  An SdKfz.250 of one of the German motorized units abandoned on a Budapest street. (TsAMO)

  Hummel self-propelled howitzers, left abandoned on a Budapest street. (TsAMO)

  An 88mm gun mounted on the chassis of a Bussing Nag on a Budapest Street. Note the white rings around the barrel of the gun, denoting the number of knocked-out tanks.

  Soviet tankers examining the abandoned Hummels shown in the photograph on the previous page. (TsAMO)

  The same self-propelled howitzers pictured from above. (TsAMO)

  A Hungarian Nimrod self-propelled anti-aircraft gun on a Budapest street, February 1945. (TsAMO)

  The wreckage of a German self-propelled anti-aircraft gun in front of the Calvinist Church in Budapest. (TsAMO)

  A German Flakpanzer IV abandoned on a Budapest street. In the background, a German glider that has crashed into the wall of a building is visible. These gliders were used to bring in supplies to the city’s garrison.

  A graveyard of German equipment in Budapest. In the foreground are two disassembled RSO (Raupenschlepper Ost) fully tracked prime movers. (TsAMO)

  A Hungarian-manufactured Turan I tank abandoned in a Budapest suburb.

  A snow-covered 88mm anti-aircraft gun in one of Budapest’s parks. (TsAMO)

  Obergruppenführer der Waffen-SS Karl von Pfeffer-Wildenbruch, commander of the Budapest garrison. (Bundesarchiv, Bild 101III-Ege-237-06A, photo: Hermann Ege)

  Generalmajor Gerhard Schmidhuber, commander of 13th Panzer Division. (Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-088-3743-15A, photo: Fischer)

  The casualties of the Soviet forces involved in the assault were also on the level of several thousand men. For example, between 1 and 10 January 1945 the 18th Guards Rifle Corps had 791 men killed, 2,567 wounded, 50 missing in action, 72 sick, and 1 non-combat injury (an officer was wounded by the careless handling of a weapon), for a total of 3,841 men. These losses were distributed across four rifle divisions. The tank battalion of the 3rd Tank Brigade, and the tank company of the 39th Tank Brigade lost 20 tanks destroyed by 18 January, virtually their entire complement.

  The two attacking Soviet corps kept stubbornly advancing, splitting the defense of the German and Hungarian units. On 16 January the Franz Joseph Bridge collapsed under constant attacks. According to German records it was destroyed by a bomb dropped from the air, but Hungarian records state that it was simply blown up. On the evening of 17 January, the overall commander of the Budapest garrison, SS Obergruppenführer Pfeffer-Wildenbruch received authorization to evacuate Pest. The withdrawal to the bridges across the Danube turned into a genuine judgment day. At that moment, two bridges remained intact: a suspension bridge and the Elizabeth Bridge. They both had been serious damaged by artillery and bombs, but they were still standing.

  When the bridges were finally blown up at 7 o’clock in the morning on 18 January, people were still crossing it. Later that same day, the 18th Guards Rifle Corps and 30th Rifle Corps finally linked up in the center of the city on the Danube riverbank. A large enemy grouping wound up isolated from the river crossings. Employing part of their force in order to defend along the eastern bank of the Danube, the two rifle corps began methodically reducing the encircled enemy. Over the course of the afternoon, this German and Hungarian grouping in Pest was wiped out – the enemy troops were either killed or taken prisoner. Altogether over the day, 18,519 prisoners were taken, including 320 officers and one general. It should be noted that many of the Hungarian troops deliberately chose to remain in Pest; they even refused to fuel up their vehicles, in order to avoid being evacuated to Buda. They believed that the war for them was already over.

  The storming of Buda by the forces of the 3rd Ukrainian Front’s 46th Army began back at the end of December 1944. By the start of January, the Front was involved in heavy fighting on the outer ring of encirclement against the IV SS Panzer Corps’ efforts to relieve the defenders of Budapest. As a result, the attacks against the western part of the city were sporadic in nature and were unable to crack the defenses. By the decision of the Stavka of the Supreme High Command, on 18 January the leadership of the operations to destroy the enemy grouping in Buda was handed over to the 2nd Ukrainian Front. Accordingly, its headquarters took control of the 3rd Ukrainian Front’s 75th Guards Rifle Corps (113th and 180th Rifle Divisions, and two regiments of the 109th Rifle Division), the 37th Guards Rifle Corps (the 108th, 316th and 320th Rifle Divisions), and the 83rd Naval Infantry Brigade, which were besieging this part of the city. The transferred rifle corps and brigade were made subordinate to Major General I.M. Afonin’s Budapest Group of Forces. Simultaneously, there was a shift of forces in the opposite direction – the 30th Rifle Corps, which had been assaulting Pest, was taken from Malinovsky’s command and given to Tolbukhin. Later, the 337th Rifle Division was transferred to the Budapest Group of Forces, but it was placed in the second echelon of the forces’ guarding against a possible breakout from Budapest.

  As a result of all this reshuffling, on 21 January 1945 the B
udapest Group of Forces had the 18th, 37th and 75th Guards Rifle Corps. They numbered respectively 13,140, 16,645, and 14,179 men. The three rifle corps were reinforced by the 5th, 7th and 16th Artillery Divisions, the 462nd Mortar Regiment, and the 12th and 14th Assault Engineer-Sapper Brigades. Two tank companies were committed to the assault on Buda: one from the 23rd Tank Corps (8 T-34 tanks) and one from the 5th Guards Tank Corps (11 T-34 tanks). The initiation of the assault on the western half of Budapest was delayed by the start of Konrad III. The IV SS Panzer Corps broke through to the Danube south of Budapest and arrived in force near the temporary bridge at Ercsi, across which all of the Budapest Group of Forces’ supplies was flowing. The final and decisive assault on Buda had to be postponed until the situation on the 3rd Ukrainian Front became stabilized.

  However, Ivan Mikhailovich Afonin wasn’t in command of that assault when it began. On the night of 21 January, while crossing the bridge at Ercsi, his vehicle was strafed by a German aircraft, and the general was severely wounded. He managed to return to service before the war ended, commanded a corps in Czechoslovakia, and later in the brief Manchurian campaign against Japan. The commander of the 53rd Army Lieutenant General I.M. Managarov assumed command of the Budapest Group of Forces.

  A report by the German IX SS Gebirgs [Mountain] Corps to Armeegruppe Balck gives a notion of the Budapest defenders’ numbers by the second phase of the assault on the city:

  In order to give an impression of the personnel’s condition on 20.1, the Corps command after thorough checking reports:

  Ration strength of 43,500 (including Hungarian units)