6th Army (Wehrmacht)
The 6th Army (German: 6. Armee) was a field army of the German Army during World War II. It is widely known for its defeat by and subsequent surrender to the Red Army at the Battle of Stalingrad on 2 February 1943. It committed war crimes at Babi Yar while under the command of Field Marshal Walther von Reichenau during Operation Barbarossa.
6th Army
10 October 1939 – 2 February 1943
5 March 1943 – 9 May 1945
Battle of Stalingrad 1942/43:
360,000[1]
–124,000 (18 December 1942–February 1943 March 11,000 soldiers )[2]
9 October 1943 (Battle of the Dnieper):
217,857[3]
1 February 1944 (Nikopol-Krivoy Rog offensive)
260,000[4]
1 March 1944 (Dnieper-Carpathian offensive):
286,297[5]
1 April 1944 (Odessa Offensive):
188,551[6]
The 6th Army was reformed in March 1943, and participated in fighting in Ukraine and later Romania, before being almost completely destroyed in the Second Jassy-Kishinev Offensive in August 1944. Following this it would fight in Hungary, attempting to relieve Budapest, and subsequently retreating into Austria in the Spring of 1945. 6th Army surrendered to US Army forces on 9 May 1945.
Western campaigns[edit]
The 6th Army was formed on 10 October 1939 with General Walther von Reichenau in command through the redesignation of the 10th Army that had fought during the Invasion of Poland.
During the invasion of the Low Countries the 6th Army saw active service linking up with paratroopers and destroying fortifications at Eben Emael, Liège, and Namur during the Battle of Belgium. The 6th Army was then involved in the breakthrough of the Paris defences on 12 June 1940, before acting as a northern flank for German forces along the Normandy coast during the closing stages of the Battle of France.
Redeployment[edit]
A new 6th Army was deployed by renaming Armee-Abteilung Hollidt on 5 March 1943 under the command of General Karl-Adolf Hollidt.[22]
This new 6th Army later fought in Ukraine and Romania as part of Army Group South until transferred to Army Group A (later renamed to Army Group South Ukraine).[23] In May 1944, the 6th Army became part of Army Group Dumitrescu, commanded by the Romanian general Petre Dumitrescu. The Army Group also included the Romanian 3rd Army. This instance marked the first time in the war when German commanders came under the actual (instead of nominal) command of their foreign allies.[24] This came one month after Dumitrescu became the 5th non-German recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves (4 April 1944).[25] The 6th army was encircled and almost entirely destroyed during the Second Jassy–Kishinev Offensive carried out by the Soviets.[26]
In October 1944, under the command of General Maximilian Fretter-Pico, the 6th Army encircled and destroyed three Soviet corps of Mobile Group Pliyev under the command of Issa Pliyev in the Battle of Debrecen.[27] During this time, the 6th Army had the Hungarian Second Army placed under its command, and it was known as "Army Group Fretter-Pico" (Armeegruppe Fretter-Pico).[28]
Command passed to General Hermann Balck on 23 December 1944.[29] In December 1944, one of the 6th Army's subordinate units, the IX SS Mountain Corps, was encircled in Budapest.[30] IV SS Panzer Corps was transferred to the 6th Army's command[31] and a series of relief attempts, codenamed Operation Konrad, was launched during the 46-day-long Siege of Budapest.[32]
After the failure of Konrad III, the 6th Army was made part of "Army Group Balck" (Armeegruppe Balck). This army group fell back to the area near Lake Balaton. Several units, including the III Panzer Corps, took part in Operation Spring Awakening, while the rest of the Sixth Army provided defence for the left flank of the offensive, in the region west of Székesfehérvár. After the failure of the offensive, the army held the line until the Soviet Vienna Offensive on 16 March 1945.[33] This offensive tore a gap in the 6th Army between the IV SS Panzer Corps and the 3rd Hungarian Army (subordinated to Balck's command), shattering the formation.[34] By the end of March 1945, the 6th Army was retreating towards Vienna.[35] It surrendered to the U.S. Army on 9 May 1945.