| 4.Panzer-Armee 4th Panzer Army |
|
|---|---|
| Active | |
| Country | Nazi Germany |
| Engagements | World War II |
The 4th Panzer Army (German: 4.Panzer-Armee) was, before being designated a full army, the Panzer Group 4 (Panzergruppe 4), a German panzer army that saw action during World War II. Its units played a part in the invasion of France, and then on the Eastern Front.
Contents |
The 4th Panzer Group's predecessor was the XVI Corps formed in Berlin in February 1938. It fought in Poland and in the campaign in the West. In February 1941, Panzer Group 4 was created, taking over activities of XVI Corps and placed under Army Group North.[1]
The Group was composed of:
On commencement of Operation Barbarossa, the group was a part of Army Group North, and consisted of the XLI and LVI Army Corps (motorized) with three panzer and two motorized infantry divisions equipped with 631 tanks.
Acting as the armored spearhead for Army Group North in the opening phase of Operation Barbarossa, it crossed the River Neman, where the XXXXI Panzer Corps was counter-attacked by 300 Soviet Tanks near Raseiniai. In a 4 day battle, the Germans encircled and destroyed the Soviet Armor. The LVI Panzer Corps seized the Dvina bridges and began their advance towards Leningrad.
The Soviets formed a bitter defense around Leningrad and Hitler reinforced 4th Panzer Army with the 3rd Panzer Army and it crept up to 7 miles of the city. However, Hitler re-called both Panzer Armies and transferred them to Army Group Center for an all-out offensive around Moscow.
The operation called for the 3rd and 4th Panzer Army to attack Moscow from the North. The 4th Army would attack through the center and 2nd Panzer Army to attack from the south. But due to the cold weather, deteriorating supply situation and bitter Soviet resistance, only the 4th Panzer Army made any headway against the Soviets and reached to about to about 15 miles of Moscow. Exhausted, it was halted at the gates of Moscow and then pushed back 200 miles by the Soviet counteroffensive launched in December 1941.
On 1 January 1942, the 4th Panzer Group was redesignated 4th Panzer Army.[2] The 4th Panzer Army held defensive positions in the spring of 1942 and then was heavily re-enforced and re-fit and was transferred to Army Group South for its offensive in Southern Russia. As Operation Blue progressed, Hitler divided the Army Group South into two Army groups. Army Group A which was composed of the German 17th Army and 1st Panzer Army and Army Group B which was composed 6th Army and the 4th Panzer Army.
Army Group B's objective was to capture the city of Stalingrad while Army Group A drove into the oil fields of the Caucasus. The 4th Panzer Army approached Stalingrad from the South while the 6th Army approached it from the west. Their aim was to meet up at Stalingrad and encircle the Soviet 62nd amd 64th Armies outside the city. However, the 6th Army was faced by a strong counterattack by the Soviet forces and failed to meet up with the 4th Panzer Army for 3 crucial days, allowing the two armies to withdraw into Stalingrad.
The 4th Panzer Army guarded the outside perimeter of Stalingrad and the 6th Army was engaged in the battle to capture the city. For over two months, the 6th Army was embroiled in vicious fighting in the city; though it was able to take over 90% of the city, it was unable to destroy the last pockets of resistance in time. The Soviets launched their counter-offensive on 19 November 1942 which resulted in the encircling of the entire 6th Army and the 24th Panzer Division of the 4th Panzer Army. Under General Hermann Hoth, the 4th Panzer Army tried and failed to break the encirclement of Stalingrad in Operation Wintergewitter, and withdrew, forcing the surrender of the encircled troops.
The Army was then given much needed reinforcements and in particular 160 new tanks. It then was able to halt the Soviet Winter offensive in Southern Russia and then counterattacked and re-took the city of Kharkov in March 1943. The army saw little or no action over the next three months as both sides built up their strength for the upcoming battle.
The army throughout the spring of 1943 was massively reinforced and grew to all time strength of 1,100 Tanks and 250,000 men by July 1943. It was to form the southern spearhead in the Battle of Kursk. The Army tried but failed to break through the Soviet defenses around Kursk. It then fought a series of defensive battles throughout the remainder of 1943 to hold back the Red Army's Lower Dnieper Strategic Offensive Operation. By November 1943, the Soviets had reached Kiev and the 4th Panzer Army was tasked to defend the city. The Soviet aim was to take the city and break the rail link with Army Group Center or envelop Army Group South. But even though the Soviets had liberated Kiev, broken the Dnieper line, and inflicted massive casualties, the 4th Panzer Army held on and the Soviets failed to break the rail link.
By early 1944, the Fourth Panzer Army had been pushed back to the pre-war 1939 Polish border. The Soviets in 1944 now concentrated their operations in the north and center of the front. They would not launch another sizable offensive in Southern Poland until January 1945.
By January 1945, the Fourth Panzer Army was holding static defensive positions on Hitler's direct orders and during the lull in the fighting they had created a defensive zone in southern Poland.
Unknown to the Germans the Soviets planned to saturate the entire defensive zone with artillery bombardment. The Soviets began their Vistula–Oder Offensive on January 17 and struck with such force and speed that they managed to encircle and destroy the LVI Panzer Corps; destroying half of all armored forces concentrated with the 4th Panzer Army. The remnants of the Army retreated along the entire front before re-grouping on the western bank of the Oder River in February 1945.
The Soviets halted their offensive in February 1945. The 3rd Panzer Army was tasked to halt the Soviets in the north, while the 9th Army was guarding against the Soviets in the center. The 4th Panzer Army was deployed in the South.
On April 16 1945, the Soviets renewed their offensive by crossing the Oder River. While the 9th Army held the Soviets at the Battle of Seelow Heights, the 4th Panzer Army was being pushed back. The retreating 4th Panzer Army ran into the German 9th Army, forming a gigantic pocket of 250,000 men and 600 tanks. The Soviets then encircled the armies in a pocket in the Spree Forest south of the Seelow Heights and west of Frankfurt.[3]
Hitler ordered the 12th Army to breakthrough the Soviet encirclement and link up with the trapped 4th Panzer and 9th Army and relieve Berlin. Ignoring Hitler's orders, they chose to breakout towards the west, known as the Battle of Halbe proved to be a very costly resulting in the destruction of the 4th Panzer Army and Ninth Army as a coherent force. The survivors that were not killed, and did not surrender to the Soviets during the breakout, crossed the Elbe and surrendered to the US Army.
|
|||||||||||