| 17th Army | |
|---|---|
| German: 17. Armee | |
 June 1943, German troops in Southern Russia | |
| Active | 20 December 1940 – 7 May 1945 |
| Country |  Germany |
| Branch |  German army (  Wehrmacht) |
| Size | Field army |
| Commanders | |
| Notable commanders | |
The German Seventeenth Army (German : 17. Armee) was a field army of Nazi Germany during World War II.
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. [1] Hoth was an active supporter of the war of annihilation ( Vernichtungskrieg ) against the Soviet Union. He called upon his men to understand the need for "harsh punishment of Jewry". In support of the Severity Order issued by Walter von Reichenau in October 1941, in November 1941 Hoth issued the following directive to troops under his command: [2]
Every sign of active or passive resistance or any sort of machinations on the part of Jewish-Bolshevik agitators are to be immediately and pitilessly exterminated ... These circles are the intellectual supports of Bolshevism, the bearers of its murderous organisation, the helpmates of the partisans. It is the same Jewish class of beings who have done so much damage to our own Fatherland by virtue of their activities against the nation and civilisation, and who promote anti-German tendencies throughout the world, and who will be the harbingers of revenge. Their extermination is a dictate of our own survival.
Under Hoth's command, units of the 17th Army took part in the hunt for and murder of Jews in its territory of control. [3]
In 1942, Army Group South was to spearhead the German summer offensive in Russia known as Case Blue. The 17th Army was to give flank protection to 1st Panzer Army as it struck towards the Don River. From June to July, the German 17th Army, the Italian Expeditionary Corps in Russia, and the Romanian 3rd Army were organized as "Army Group Ruoff". In August 1942, Hitler sub-divided Army Group South into two new army groups: Army Group A and Army Group B. Army Group A included the 17th Army, the 1st Panzer Army, and the 4th Panzer Army. Army Group B included the 2nd Army, the 6th Army, the Italian 8th Army, and the Hungarian 2nd Army. By October 1942, the Romanian 3rd Army and the Romanian 4th Army were added to further bolster Army Group B.
While Army Group B struck towards Stalingrad, Army Group A and the 17th Army attacked towards the Caucasus oilfields in what was to be known as the Battle of the Caucasus. However, by December with Soviet forces en-circled the 6th Army at Stalingrad, Army Group A withdrew from Southern Russia but 17th Army was ordered to hold the Kuban bridgehead. Hitler demanded a three-mile road and rail bridge across the Strait of Kerch in spring 1943 to support a push through the Caucasus to Persia, although the Cable Railway (Aerial tramway) which went into operation on 14 July with a daily capacity of one thousand tons was adequate for the defensive needs of the 17th Army in the Kuban bridgehead. Because of frequent earth tremors, vast quantities of extra-strength girders would be required, and their transport would curtail shipments of military material to the Crimea. [4]
By October 1943, the 17th Army was forced to retreat from the Kuban bridgehead across the Kerch Strait to Crimea. During the following months, the Red Army pushed back the German forces in the southern Ukraine. In November 1943, they eventually cut off the land-based connection of 17th Army through the Perekop Isthmus. Hitler forbade a sea evacuation of 17th Army because he thought the Red Army could use the Crimean Peninsula to launch air attacks against Romanian oil refineries. By the end of 1943, the Soviet command began landing troops in Kerch Strait.
On 2 February 1944, the 17th Army trapped on Crimea consisted of the V Army Corps with the 73rd German Infantry Division, 98th German Infantry Division, 3rd Romanian Mountain Division and 6th Romanian Cavalry Division, the "Group Conrad" constructed around the German XXXXIX Mountain Corps and the Romanian Cavalry Corps with the 10th Infantry Division and 19th Infantry Division under the Cavalry Corps and the 50th German Infantry Division, 336th German Infantry Division and 9th Romanian Cavalry Division under the XXXXIX Corps, and finally the 1st Romanian Mountain Corps with Fortress Commander Sevastopol and the Romanian 1st Mountain and 2nd Mountain Divisions. Additionally, the 17th Army had the 111th Infantry Division in reserves. [5] : 467
By 10 April 1944, moving troops near the Sivash and together with an attack at the Perekop Isthmus forced 17th Army to fall back to Sevastopol. The German Supreme Command of the Armed Forces ( Oberkommando der Wehrmacht , or OKW) intended to hold Sevastopol as a fortress, much as the Red Army had done during the first battle for the Crimea from 1941 to 1942. Inadequate repair to the defenses of Sevastopol made this impossible and, on 9 May 1944, Sevastopol fell in less than one month after the start of the battle.
The Army lost much of its heavy equipment in the Crimea. Considerable losses were suffered in terms of men lost in battle and losses associated with the sea evacuation. The Army was subsequently reorganized and continued to fight on the Eastern Front, including in the Battle of Bautzen.
On 1 January 1945, the 17th Army (then under Army Group A) contained the 78th, 320th, 544th and 545th Volksgrenadier Divisions as well as the 359th and 371st Infantry Divisions. These six divisions had a total strength of 57,088 men. [6] : 504
| No. | Portrait | Commander | Took office | Left office | Time in office |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | General der Infanterie Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel (1886–1944) | 20 December 1940 | 4 October 1941 | 288 days | |
| 2 | Generaloberst Hermann Hoth (1885–1971) | 5 October 1941 | 19 April 1942 | 196 days | |
| 3 | Generaloberst Hans von Salmuth (1888–1962) | 20 April 1942 | 31 May 1942 | 41 days | |
| 4 | Generaloberst Richard Ruoff (1883–1967) | 1 June 1942 | 24 June 1943 | 1 year, 23 days | |
| 5 | Generaloberst Erwin Jaenecke (1890–1960) | 25 June 1943 | 1 March 1944 | 250 days | |
| 6 | Generalfeldmarschall Ferdinand Schörner (1892–1973) | 2 March 1944 | 31 March 1944 | 29 days | |
| (5) | Generaloberst Erwin Jaenecke (1890–1960) | 1 April 1944 | 28 April 1944 | 27 days | |
| 7 | General der Infanterie Karl Allmendinger (1891–1965) | 1 May 1944 | 25 July 1944 | 85 days | |
| 8 | General der Infanterie Friedrich Schulz (1897–1976) | 26 July 1944 | 30 March 1945 | 247 days | |
| 9 | General der Infanterie Wilhelm Hasse (1894–1945) | 1 April 1945 | 7 May 1945 | 36 days |
Hermann Hoth was a German army commander, war criminal, and author. He served as a high-ranking panzer commander in the Wehrmacht during World War II, playing a prominent role in the Battle of France and on the Eastern Front. Contemporaries and later historians consider Hoth one of the most talented armoured warfare commanders of the war. He was a strong believer in Nazism, and units under his command committed several war crimes including the murder of prisoners of war and civilians.
Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist was a German Generalfeldmarschall of the Wehrmacht during World War II. Born into the Prussian noble family von Kleist, Kleist entered the Prussian Army in 1900 and commanded a cavalry squadron during World War I. Kleist joined the Reichswehr of inter-war Germany before being discharged in 1938.
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Case Blue was the Wehrmacht's 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 Baku, Grozny and Maikop 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.
The Battle of Rostov (1941) took place on the Eastern Front of World War II around Rostov-on-Don and was fought between Army Group South of Nazi Germany and the Southern Front of the Soviet Union.
The 1st Panzer Army was a German tank army that was a large armoured formation of the Wehrmacht during World War II.
The 4th Panzer Army, operating as Panzer Group 4 from its formation on 15 February 1941 to 1 January 1942, 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.
The Battle of the Caucasus was a series of Axis and Soviet operations in the Caucasus as part of the Eastern Front of World War II. On 25 July 1942, German troops captured Rostov-on-Don, opening the Caucasus region of the southern Soviet Union to the Germans and threatening the oil fields beyond at Maikop, Grozny, and ultimately Baku. Two days prior, Adolf Hitler had issued a directive to launch an operation into the Caucasus named Operation Edelweiß. German units would reach their high water mark in the Caucasus in early November 1942, getting as far as the town of Alagir and city of Ordzhonikidze, some 610 km from their starting positions. Axis forces were compelled to withdraw from the area later that winter as Operation Little Saturn threatened to cut them off.
The Crimean offensive, known in German sources as the Battle of the Crimea, was a series of offensives by the Red Army directed at the German-held Crimea. The Red Army's 4th Ukrainian Front engaged the German 17th Army of Army Group South Ukraine, which consisted of Wehrmacht and Romanian formations. The battles ended with the evacuation of the Crimea by the Germans. German and Romanian forces suffered considerable losses during the evacuation.
The 11th Army was a World War II field army.
The Dnieper–Carpathian offensive, also known in Soviet historical sources as the Liberation of Right-bank Ukraine, was a strategic offensive executed by the Soviet 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Ukrainian Fronts, along with the 2nd Belorussian Front, against the German Army Group South, Army Group A and elements of Army Group Center, and fought from late December 1943 to early May 1944. The battles in right-bank Ukraine and in the Crimea were the most important event of the 1944 winter-spring campaign on the Eastern Front.
The 101st Jäger Division was a light infantry Division of the German Army in World War II. It was formed in July 1942 by the redesignation of the 101st (Light) Infantry Division, which was itself formed in December 1940. The Walloon Legion was briefly attached to this division from December 1941 to January 1942. The Division took part in the Battle of Kharkov, the Battle of the Caucasus, and the retreat into the Kuban, where it suffered heavy losses fighting both the Red Army and partisans. The division was then involved in the battles in the Kuban bridgehead before being evacuated. The 101st was subsequently transferred to the lower Dnieper River in late 1943. It was part of the 1st Panzer Army that was surrounded in March 1944; it formed the rear guard for the XLVI Panzer Corps during the breakout of the Kamenets-Podolsky pocket. The division then retreated across Ukraine. In October 1944, it was moved to Slovakia and took part in the Battle of the Dukla Pass.
The Separate Coastal Army, also translated to English as Independent Coastal Army, was an army-level unit in the Red Army that fought in World War II. It was established on July 18, 1941, by the order of the Southern Front from the forces of 9th Army’s Coastal Group and was stood up on July 20, 1941.
The 125th Infantry Division was an infantry division of the Heer, the army of Nazi Germany, in World War II.
The Kuban Bridgehead, also known as the "Goth's head position", was a German military position on the Taman Peninsula, Russia, between the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea. Existing from January to October 1943, the bridgehead formed after the Germans were pushed out of the Caucasus. The heavily fortified position was intended as a staging area for the Wehrmacht which was to be used to renew attacks towards the oil wells of the Caucasus. Axis positions in the bridgehead were repeatedly subjected to large Soviet offensives, but none ever comprehensively broke the Axis defensive lines. The bridgehead was abandoned when the Red Army breached the Panther–Wotan line, forcing an evacuation of the German forces across the Kerch Strait to Crimea.
The 9th Flak Division was a Flak division of the German Luftwaffe in World War II which saw action on the Eastern Front. It is most notable for its role in the Battle of Stalingrad. Another formation with the same name was deployed to the Eastern Front and saw combat in the Kuban bridgehead.
The 339th Rifle Division was first formed in late August, 1941, as a standard Red Army rifle division, at Rostov-on-Don. As it was formed in part from reservists and cadre that included members of the Communist Party from that city, it carried the honorific title "Rostov" for the duration. In late November it was part of the force that counterattacked the German 1st Panzer Army in the Battle of Rostov and forced its retreat from the city, one of the first major setbacks for the invaders. During 1942 the division was forced to retreat into the Caucasus, where it fought to defend the passes leading to the Black Sea ports. In 1943 it fought to liberate the Taman Peninsula, and then in early 1944 to also liberate Crimea. In the following months the division was reassigned to the 1st Belorussian Front, with which it took part in the Battle of Berlin in 1945. Following a distinguished career, the division was disbanded in the summer of that year.
The 414th Rifle Division was twice formed as an infantry division of the Red Army; very briefly in the winter of 1941/42, then from the spring of 1942 until after May 1945. It was officially considered a Georgian National division, having nearly all its personnel of that nationality in its second formation. After its second formation it remained in service in the Caucasus near the borders of Turkey and Iran in the 44th Army until the summer of 1942, when it was redeployed to help counter the German drive toward Grozny. As German Army Group A retreated from the Caucasus in January 1943 the division was reassigned to the 37th Army in North Caucasus Front, and during the fighting in the Taman Peninsula during the summer it served in both the 58th and 18th Armies, earning a battle honor in the process. It entered the Crimea during the Kerch–Eltigen Operation in November, and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner following the offensive that liberated that region in April and May 1944, fighting in the 11th Guards Rifle Corps of the Separate Coastal Army. After the Crimea was cleared the Coastal Army remained as a garrison and the 414th stayed there for the duration of the war. Postwar, it was relocated to Tbilisi, being renumbered as the 74th Rifle Division in 1955 and disbanded the following year.
The LIV Army Corps was a Wehrmacht army corps during World War II. It was formed in June 1941. After February 1944, it was upgraded to a command equivalent in rank but not in name to an army, something that the Wehrmacht dubbed an army detachment. It operated under the following names:
The 176th Rifle Division was an infantry division of the Red Army, originally formed as part of the prewar buildup of forces, based on the shtat of September 13, 1939. The division completed its formation at Kryvyi Rih in the Odessa Military District and at the time of the German invasion of the Soviet Union was in the same area, assigned to the 35th Rifle Corps. Being relatively far from the frontier it escaped the early disasters and retreated mostly in good order through southern Ukraine into the autumn as part of 9th Army. It then took part in the counteroffensive against the overextended German Army Group South that liberated Rostov-na-Donu for the first time in December. When Army Group A began its summer offensive in 1942 the 176th fell back into the Caucasus region, losing much of its strength in the process, but finally helping to take up a firm defense along the Terek River and finally in front of Ordzhonikidze. As a result of this fighting the division, along with its artillery regiment, were awarded the Order of the Red Banner. After the German 6th Army was surrounded at Stalingrad the 176th advanced into the western Caucasus and entered the so-called Malaya Zemlya bridgehead south of Novorossiysk in the spring of 1943 where it helped to defeat the German Operation Neptun in April and in the autumn took part in the liberation of the city, for which it was redesignated as the 129th Guards Rifle Division.
