Prague Offensive

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Prague Offensive
Part of World War II

The Eastern Front at the time of the Prague Offensive.
Date 05 May - 11 May 1945
Location South-Eastern Germany, Czech Republic
Result Soviet victory
Combatants
Germany Soviet Union
Czech Resistance
Romania

Poland
Commanders
Ferdinand Schörner

Lothar Rendulic

 Ivan Konev
Strength
900,000 2,000,000
Casualties
Unknown 11,997 killed or missing,
40,501 wounded or sick (52,498 casualties[1])
Eastern Front
Barbarossa – Baltic Sea – 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

The Prague Offensive (Russian:Пражская наступательная операция, Prazhskaya nastupatelnaya operacia, Prague Offensive Operation) was the last major battle of World War II in Europe. The battle for Prague was fought on the Eastern Front from May 6 to May 11, 1945. This battle is particularly noteworthy in that it ended after Third Reich capitulated on May 8, 1945. This battle is also noteworthy in that it was fought concurrent with the Prague Uprising.

The city of Prague was ultimately liberated by the Soviets during the Prague Offensive. All of the German troops of Army Group Centre (Heeresgruppe Mitte) were killed, captured, or fell into the hands of the enemy after the capitulation.[2] The capitulation of Army Group Centre was nine days after the fall of Berlin and three days after Victory in Europe Day.


Contents

[edit] The Battle

From 30 April to 1 May 1945, SS Senior Group Leader (Obergruppenführer) and General of Police Karl Hermann Frank announced over the radio in Prague that he would drown any uprising in a "sea of blood." Frank was also General of the Waffen SS. The situation in Prague was unstable. Frank knew that several Soviet Army Fronts were advancing towards Prague. More immediately, he was faced with a city population ready to be liberated.

The Soviet assault on Prague crushed the last sizeable pocket of German military resistance in Europe. The Soviet assault on Prague was carried out by 1st (Ivan Konev), 2nd (Rodion Malinovsky), 4th Ukrainian Fronts (Andrei Yeremenko). As well as Soviet formations these Fronts included the Polish Second Army, the First and Fourth Romanian armies and the I Corps of the Czechoslovakian Army. The Soviet Fronts totaled more than two-million troops. In order to participate in the Prague Offensive, the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front did a forced march from south of Berlin just after they completed participating in the Battle of Berlin.

The imposing Soviet force was opposed by at most 900,000 German troops of the First Panzer Army, the Fourth Panzer Army, the Seventh Army and the Seventeenth Army. The battered remnants of these German armies were all part of the German Army Group Centre (Ferdinand Schörner). In addition to Army Group Centre, the Germans opposing the Soviets around Prague included some corps-sized units of Army Group Ostmark (Lothar Rendulic).

When it came, the Soviet assault on Prague crushed any remaining Germans and relieved the Czech partisans fighting in the Prague Uprising. The uprising started on 5 May 1945. By 8 May, the Germans fighting the Czech partisans in Prague agreed to withdraw.

The Czech partisans were aided briefly by the 1st Infantry Division (600th German Infantry Division) of the Russian Liberation Army (ROA). The 1st ROA Infantry Division was commanded by General Sergei Bunichenko (or Bunyachenko). The 1st ROA Infantry Division was near Prague at the outbreak of the uprising and supported the Czech partisans against the Germans. The ROA was created by former Soviet General Andrey Vlasov as an anti-communist Russian force. The ROA forces were attempting to get to pre-arranged positions where they could avoid the Soviets and surrender to the Americans.

By 8 May, General Bunichenko and his 1st ROA Infantry Division sought refuge with the Americans. Bunichenko, Vlasov, and the ROA forces in general were handed back to the Soviets.

On 9 May 1945, Soviet troops entered Prague. Some remnants of Army Group Centre continued resistance until May 11, (some sources say May 12). [3] The left flank of the 2nd Ukrainian Front met with troops of the US Third Army (George Patton) in the regions of České Budějovice and Písek, thus completing the encirclement. Later, 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts met with Americans in the regions of Karlovy Vary and Klatovy. German soldiers and civilians fleeing Prague were surprised by the advancing Soviets and completely routed. Soviet attacks on Germans and the expulsion of Germans from Czechoslokia continued into Autumn.

Later on 9 May, German Field Marshal Ferdinand Schörner fled Prague towards the southwest. He was captured by the Americans and later handed over to the Soviets.

[edit] Aftermath

On 5 May, Emanuel Moravec committed suicide. Moravec was infamous among the Czechs as a traitor and as a collaborator with Nazi Germany. He was known as the "Czech Quisling."

On 14 May, Dr. Emil Hácha was arrested in Prague and transferred immediately to a prison hospital. Hácha was the State President of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, a German puppet state. He died in prison on 26 June.

In mid-May, the acting Mayor of Prague, Professor Josef Pfitzner, was hanged in public. Konrad Henlein, the leader of the Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia, committed suicide at about the same time.

On 22 May 1946, Karl Hermann Frank was hung after being convicted of war crimes.

Dr. Wilhelm Frick, a prominent Nazi official, was convicted of war crimes by the Czechs and executed on 16 October 1946. Frick also held the ceremonial post of Protector of Bohemia and Moravia.

SS-Fuehrer (Oberstgruppenführer) Kurt Daluege was captured by American troops and extradited to Czechoslovakia. He was convicted of war crimes by the Czechs and hung on 24 October 1946). Among other titles, Daluege was an officer of the Central Reich Security Office (RSHA) and the Governor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

appointed to the ceremonial post of Protector of Bohemia and Moravia.

To honor the participants of the operation, the Soviet Union instituted the Medal for the Liberation of Prague.

[edit] Formations Involved

[edit] Soviet

[edit] German

[edit] Losses

[edit] Soviet

  • Personnel
    • 11,997 irrecoverable
    • 40,501 Wounded & Sick
    • Total 52,498[1]
  • Materiél[1]
    • 373 Tanks and self-propelled guns
    • 1,006 Artillery
    • 80 Aircraft

[edit] German

Army Group Centre surrendered, all either killed in action, wounded in action, or captured (~850,000).

[edit] See also

[edit] References

This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. (help, get involved!)
Any material not supported by sources may be challenged and removed at any time. This article has been tagged since March 2007.
  • Советская военная энциклопедия (Soviet Military Encyclopedia), vol. 6 (In Russian).
  • Ziemke, E.F. Stalingrad to Berlin
  • Glantz, D. & House, J. When Titan's Clashed
  • Konev, I. Year of Victory

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ a b c Glantz, David M., and Jonathan House. When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler. (Lawrence, Kansas: UP of Kansas, 1995)
  2. ^ Under the laws of war there is a distinction between those captured and those who "fall into the power" of the enemy after a mass capitulation. The 1929 Geneva Convention only covered thoses who were captured during the fighting not those who fell into the power of an enemy following a mass capitulation (See Disarmed Enemy Forces). Something explicitly change in the 1949 Geneva Convention
  3. ^ AJP Taylor (1975), Second Word War: An illustrated history p. 223. Taylor claim that Soviet troops enterd Prague on the May 12
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