Operation Frühlingserwachen

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Operation Frühlingserwachen
Part of World War II
Units of Sepp Dietrich's 6.SS-Panzerarmee during the Lake Balaton Offensive, March 1945.
Date March 6, 1945 – March 16, 1945 Location Lake Balaton, Hungary Result Soviet victory
Combatants
Germany	Soviet Union
Commanders
Josef Dietrich (6.SS-Panzerarmee)	Fyodor Tolbukhin (3rd Ukrainian Front)
Strength
140,000 900 AFVs	465,000
Casualties
14,818	32,899

Eastern Front
Barbarossa – Finland – Leningrad and Baltics – Crimea and Caucasus – Moscow – 1st Rzhev-Vyazma – 2nd Kharkov – Stalingrad – Velikiye Luki – 2nd Rzhev-Sychevka – Kursk – 2nd Smolensk – Dnieper – 2nd Kiev – Korsun – Hube's Pocket – Belorussia – Lvov-Sandomierz – Balkans – Hungary – Vistula-Oder – Königsberg – Berlin – Prague

Hungary 1944-1945
Debrecen – Budapest – Balaton – Vienna Offensive

The Lake Balaton Offensive (codenamed Operation Frühlingserwachen, "Spring Awakening"), was the last major planned offensive action by the Germans during World War II. Launched in great secrecy on March 6, 1945, the attack took place in Hungary around the Lake Balaton area, and involved mostly units withdrawn from the failed Ardennes Offensive.

Despite the extremely muddy terrain conditions, the offensive, spearheaded by Sepp Dietrich's 6th SS Panzer Army, took the Soviets by surprise and made an impressive advance for such a late stage in the war. However, once the Soviets became aware of the presence of elite SS units (Adolf Hitler's personal unit, the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler took part in the operation) they counterattacked in strength on March 16. But the operation had already been in serious trouble since March 14, with Joseph Goebbels admitting in his diary that failure was likely; three days later, the Germans were back at their original positions. Hopelessly outnumbered and with few armored vehicles remaining the surviving German forces withdrew into Austria in order to defend Vienna.

The operation was a failure, despite early gains, and was a perfect example of Hitler's increasingly erroneous military decisions toward the end of the war. It was aimed at raising the siege of Budapest and defending the Nagykanizsa oilfields, Germany's last source of oil. Hitler's senior commanders had felt that these elite troops and sizeable amounts of equipment and supplies could have been put to better use elsewhere, particularly on German territory on the Eastern front, and they pleaded with him to "throw everything into the East". However, Hitler insisted on his grand plan to somehow destroy the whole of the Russian Southern/Ukrainian Front, and for the weeks preceding the attack, trainloads of men and tanks rolled out of the Rhineland and into Hungary.

Strategically, Operation Frühlingserwachen had little impact upon the eventual outcome of the war. On a tactical level, it highlighted that the fighting qualities of the German army still existed. The initial success was impressive, especially considering Hitler's order forbidding any reconnaissance before the attack (to maintain secrecy), the poor spring weather, and the severe fuel shortages facing the German army at that time.

This debacle is famous for the notorious "armband order" issued by Hitler when it was evident that the Leibstandarte had failed. They were ordered to remove their treasured "Adolf Hitler" cuff titles (German: armband) as a mark of their disgrace. In the field, the commander of German 6th SS Panzer Army, Josef Dietrich, was disgusted by this order, and did not relay it to his troops.