Guys,
Some interesting stuff from
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... sc&start=0
August 20th marks the anniversary of the beginning of the Soviet Jassy-Kishinev Operation. This Soviet Offensive, coupled with Rumania’s betrayal of the Third Reich Resulted in the near total destruction of the German Army Group South Ukraine.
Few Soviet victories were as complete as this. Destroyed were some 18 German Divisions, including famous Divisions like the 320th and 336th Infanterie Divisions that had fought so bravely in the aftermath of Stalingrad in 1943. The German 6th Army, reconstructed after its loss at Stalingrad was simply and brutally obliterated. German formations escaping the Soviet offensive faced the hostility of Rumanian civilian and military attacks. The remnants of a once great army was ruthlessly hunted down by its former ally in forest paths and mountain passes as it sought to regain German lines.
The best book about the Romania Compain I read is Col David Glantz's "Jassy-Kishinev Operation" , If you read the day-by-day operation map in this book, you would find the reason of the collaspe of German Army Group South Ukraine was Gen Freissner, commander of Army Group South Ukraine, totally misjudged the main attack point of Soviet army, he predicted the major blow would come from Tolbukhin ‘s 3rd Ukrainian Front , but actually the Soviet major offensive would come from north, from Malinovskii’s 2nd Ukrainian Front , and because Gen Freissner only had one panzer division (13rd) and one panzer Greneder division(10th), he simply could not corret his error after combat began
The Romanian troop faced 3rd Ukrainian Front fought quietly bravely, and Tolbukhin was furious about Romanian's bitter resistance, so even after the armistice, he ordered sending these disarmed Romanian to POW camp, lot of Romanian died there.
However most of Romanian units faced 2nd Ukrainian collapsed in 1-2 days, but there was a reason, German did not consider this part of front would be Red army's main attack direction, so German heavy weapon and armor assigned to this direction was relative few, and Malinovskii concentrated so many tank an artelly here that his offensive was impossible to be stopped, German units at this direction collapsed in matter of days too.
After breakthrough, Malinovskii's tank units almost advanced at will, 23 Aug, the 4th day of Soviet offensive, German 6th army, part of 8th army and 2 Romanian army was ALREADY cut off. Then, at 2000, Aug 23 evening, Romanian Govement asked for armistice, so at least to me, it is quiet clear that, German Army Group south Ukrainian was not collasp because of Romania's "change-side", Romanian's "change-side was because of the COLLAPSE OF THE GERMAN ARMY GROUP UKRAINIAN.
By the way Roberto, I had some information of German loss in this battle:
German loss: 150,000 KIA, up to 100,000 POW
Romanian loss: 8305 KIA, 24989 WIA, 153883MIA and POW
Soviet loss in this battle was surprised low, they only lost 13197KIA or MIA, and 53933WIA
OK, maybe not one of the two "greatest" catastrophes; how about one of the three "greatest"?
Certainly up there with Stalingrad and Army Group Center.
• Loss of the 6th Army (again),
• Loss of much of the 8th Amy,
• Loss of 5th and 15th Luftwaffe Flak divisions, Air units decimated (aircraft, material, ground personnel),
• Loss of the Black Sea naval vessels, equipment, and personnel,
• Loss of Rumanian oil,
• Opened up all of the Balkans to the Soviet advance,
• Rumania changed sides,
• Bulgaria changed sides,
• Pressure on Yugoslav partisans relieved,
• Carpathian mountain passes captured,
I cud go on an on ...
Best Regards from Russia,