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17th Army (Wehrmacht)
The German Seventeenth Army () was a field army of Nazi Germany during World War II. Operation Barbarossa On 22 June 1941, the 17th Army was part of Army Group South when Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa and invaded the Soviet Union. From 1 July, the Hungarian "Mobile Corps" (''Gyorshadtest'') was subordinated to the 17th Army. Along with 1st Panzer Army, the 17th Army encircled Soviet forces in central Ukraine during the Battle of Uman. Approximately 100,000 Soviet troops were captured. The 17th Army participated in the Battle of Kiev. Army Group South was ordered to resume the offensive, with the objective of capturing Rostov-on-Don, the gateway to the Caucasus oil fields, and Kharkov, a major center of heavy industry for the Soviet Union. In October 1941, the army came under the command of Hermann Hoth, who was convicted post-war in the High Command Trial. Hoth was an active supporter of the war of annihilation (') against the Soviet Union. He called upon his men t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carl-Heinrich Von Stülpnagel
Carl-Heinrich Rudolf Wilhelm von Stülpnagel (2 January 1886 – 30 August 1944) was a German general in the Wehrmacht during World War II who was an army level commander. While serving as military commander of German-occupied France and as commander of the 17th Army in the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa, under the pressure of the government in Berlin, Stülpnagel became implicated in German war crimes, including authorising reprisal operations against civilian population and cooperating with the Einsatzgruppen in their mass murder of Jews. Increasingly unable to reconcile his military duties and his moral objections to the regime's ideology, he joined the resistance. He was a member of the 20 July Plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, being in charge of the conspirators' actions in France. After the failure of the plot, he was recalled to Berlin and attempted to commit suicide en route, but failed. Tried on 30 August 1944, he was convicted of treason and executed on the sa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Kiev (1941)
The First Battle of Kiev was the German name for the operation that resulted in a huge encirclement of Soviet troops in the vicinity of Kiev during World War II. This encirclement is considered the largest encirclement in the history of warfare (by number of troops). The operation ran from 7 July to 26 September 1941, as part of Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union. Much of the Southwestern Front of the Red Army (commanded by Mikhail Kirponos) was encircled, but small groups of Red Army troops managed to escape the pocket days after the German panzers met east of the city, including the headquarters of Marshal Semyon Budyonny, Marshal Semyon Timoshenko and Commissar Nikita Khrushchev. Kirponos was trapped behind German lines and was killed while trying to break out. The battle was an unprecedented defeat for the Red Army, exceeding even the Battle of Białystok–Minsk of June–July 1941. The encirclement trapped 452,700 soldiers, 2,642 guns and mort ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
4th Panzer Army
The 4th Panzer Army (german: 4. Panzerarmee) (operating as Panzer Group 4 (german: 4. Panzergruppe) from its formation on 15 February 1941 to 1 January 1942, when it was redesignated as a full army) was a German panzer formation during World War II. As a key armoured component of the Wehrmacht, the army took part in the crucial battles of the German-Soviet war of 1941–45, including Operation Barbarossa, the Battle of Moscow, the Battle of Stalingrad, the Battle of Kursk, and the 1943 Battle of Kiev. Formation and preparations for Operation Barbarossa As part of the German High Command's preparations for Operation Barbarossa, Generaloberst Erich Hoepner was appointed to command the 4th Panzer Group in February 1941. It was to drive toward Leningrad as part of Army Group North under Wilhelm von Leeb. On 30 March 1941, Hitler delivered a speech to about two hundred senior Wehrmacht officers where he laid out his plans for an ideological war of annihilation (''Vernichtungskrieg' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Army Group B
Army Group B (German: ') was the title of three German Army Groups that saw action during World War II. Operational history Army Group B first took part in the Battle of France in 1940 in Belgium and the Netherlands. The second formation of Army Group B was established when Army Group South was divided for the summer offensive of 1942 on the Eastern Front. Army Group B was given the task of protecting the northern flank of Army Group A, and included the 6th Army during the Battle of Stalingrad. In February 1943, Army Group B and Army Group Don were combined to create a new Army Group South. A new Army Group B was formed in northern Italy under Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in July 1943. Its task was to secure Northern Italy after the overthrow of Mussolini and to disarm the Italian Army there as part of Operation Achse. After the stabilisation of the front on the Winter Line south of Rome by Kesselring's Army Group C, and the creation of the Salo Republic in Northern It ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Army Group A
Army Group A (Heeresgruppe A) was the name of several German Army Groups during World War II. During the Battle of France, the army group named Army Group A was composed of 45½ divisions, including 7 armored panzer divisions. It was responsible for breaking through the heavily-forested Ardennes region. The operation, which was part of ''Fall Gelb'' (Case Yellow), was resoundingly successful for the Germans, as the army group outflanked the best troops of France and its allies, eventually leading to France's surrender. In 1942, Army Group South on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union was split into Army Group A and Army Group B, and Army Group A was responsible for the invasion into the Caucasus. In 1945, months before the fall of Nazi Germany, Army Group A was renamed Army Group Centre. Western Front, 1940 During the German invasion of the Low Countries and France Army Group A was under the command of Generaloberst Gerd von Rundstedt and was responsible for the break-out ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Third Army (Romania)
The 3rd Army (Armata a 3-a Română) was a field army of the Romanian Land Forces active from the 19th century to the 1990s. It fought as part of the Germany, German Army Group B during World War II, in Ukraine, the Crimea, and the Caucasus. General Petre Dumitrescu commanded the 3rd Army for a period. World War I After Kingdom of Romania, Romania entered World War I in August 1916 on the side of the Allies of World War I, Allies, the Third Army defended the border with Kingdom of Bulgaria, Bulgaria, while the rest of the Romanian Army engaged in the Battle of Transylvania. When a Bulgarian-German army under August von Mackensen invaded Romania in September 1916, the Third Army made attempts to withstand the enemy offensive at Silistra, Battle of Bazargic, Bazargic, First Battle of Cobadin, Amzacea and Topraisar, but had to withdraw under the pressure of superior enemy forces after the Second Battle of Cobadin. After the Flămânda Offensive, the Third Army was disbanded. The c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italian Expeditionary Corps In Russia
During World War II, the Italian Expeditionary Corps in Russia (''Corpo di Spedizione Italiano in Russia'', or CSIR) was a corps-sized expeditionary unit of the ''Regio Esercito'' (Italian Army) that fought on the Eastern Front. In July 1942 the CSIR entered the newly formed Italian Army in Russia as XXXV Army Corps. Formation The CSIR was formed in an attempt to provide a somewhat mobile unit to fight on a front where mobility was key. Two of the divisions were truck-moveable and one was a (fast) division, drawn from the reserve Army of the Po but this was more on paper than in reality. The CSIR was created by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini to show solidarity with Nazi Germany after German dictator Adolf Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa and attacked the Soviet Union. Mussolini created the CSIR, despite the lack of enthusiasm shown by Hitler, on 10 July 1941 and between July and August 1941, the units of the CSIR arrived in southern Russia. The CSIR included an Aviation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Don River (Russia)
The Don ( rus, Дон, p=don) is the fifth-longest river in Europe. Flowing from Central Russia to the Sea of Azov in Southern Russia, it is one of Russia's largest rivers and played an important role for traders from the Byzantine Empire. Its basin is between the Dnieper basin to the west, the lower Volga basin immediately to the east, and the Oka basin (tributary of the Volga) to the north. Native to much of the basin were Slavic nomads. The Don rises in the town of Novomoskovsk southeast of Tula (in turn south of Moscow), and flows 1,870 kilometres to the Sea of Azov. The river's upper half ribbles (meanders subtly) south; however, its lower half consists of a great eastern curve, including Voronezh, making its final stretch, an estuary, run west south-west. The main city on the river is Rostov-on-Don. Its main tributary is the Seversky Donets, centred on the mid-eastern end of Ukraine, thus the other country in the overall basin. To the east of a series of thr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Case Blue
Case Blue (German: ''Fall Blau'') was the German Armed Forces' plan for the 1942 strategic summer offensive in southern Russia between 28 June and 24 November 1942, during World War II. The objective was to capture the oil fields of the Caucasus for two purposes: to enable the Germans to re-supply their low fuel stock and also to deny their use to the Soviet Union, thereby bringing about the complete collapse of the Soviet war effort. After Operation Barbarossa failed to destroy the Soviet Union as a political and military threat the previous year, Adolf Hitler, the ''Führer'' of Nazi Germany, recognised that Germany was now locked in a war of attrition, and he was also aware that Germany was running low on fuel supply and would not be able to continue attacking deeper into enemy territory without more stock. With this in mind, Hitler ordered for the preparation of offensive plans for summer 1942 to secure the Soviet oil fields in the Caucasus. The operation involved a two-pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Von Reichenau
Walter Karl Ernst August von Reichenau (8 October 1884 – 17 January 1942) was a Generalfeldmarschall, field marshal in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany during World War II. Reichenau commanded the 6th Army (Wehrmacht), 6th Army, during the invasions of Battle of Belgium, Belgium and Battle of France, France. During Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, he continued to command the 6th Army as part of Army Group South as it captured Ukraine and advanced deep into Russia. While in command of the 6th Army during Operation Barbarossa in 1941, he issued the notorious Severity Order which encouraged German soldiers to murder Jewish civilians on the Eastern Front. Reichenau's troops cooperated with the Schutzstaffel, SS ''Einsatzgruppen'' in the commission of the massacre of over 33,000 Jews at Babi Yar, and assisted with other crimes against humanity that occurred in areas under his command during the Holocaust. Early life and service The son of Prussian Lieutenant gen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Severity Order
The Severity Order or Reichenau Order was the name given to an order promulgated within the German Sixth Army on the Eastern Front during World War II by ''Generalfeldmarschall'' Walter von Reichenau on 10 October 1941. Text of the order The order said, in part: Implications of the order The order paved the way for mass murder of Jews. All Jews were henceforth to be treated as partisans, and commanders were directed that they be either summarily shot or handed over to the ''Einsatzgruppen'' execution squads of the SS-Totenkopfverbände as the situation dictated. Other dispositions complain about feeding civilians and POWs, which is described as an "equally misunderstood humanitarian act"; indeed, the taking of partisans and women as POWs is criticised. Finally, the civilian population is to be disarmed and buildings which have been set on fire by Destruction battalions are to be saved only when useful to the army. History of the order Upon enactment Upon hearing o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front of World War II was a Theater (warfare), theatre of conflict between the European Axis powers against the Soviet Union (USSR), Polish Armed Forces in the East, Poland and other Allies of World War II, Allies, which encompassed Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Northern Europe, Northeast Europe (Baltic states, Baltics), and Southeast Europe (Balkans) from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945. It was known as the Great Patriotic War (term), Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union – and still is in some of its successor states, while almost everywhere else it has been called the ''Eastern Front''. In present-day German and Ukrainian historiography the name German-Soviet War is typically used. The battles on the Eastern Front of the Second World War constituted the largest military confrontation in history. They were characterised by unprecedented ferocity and brutality, wholesale destruction, mass deportations, and immense loss of life due to combat, starvation, expos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
