11. SS-Panzer-Armee

[dnl-panzerschreck]

Probably a newbie question, but was the Steiner army ever called "11. SS-Panzerarmee" or is this just a post-war "invention"?

Thanks in advance

/Henrik

[Jan-Hendrik]

Simply :

NO

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... ht=steiner

Jan-Hendrik

[Igorn]

Simply :

NO

But reality was a bit different. My witness is Erhard Raus, Commanding General of the Third German Panzer Army:

”… A short time after my first discussion with RF Himmler, the Eleventh SS Panzer Army launched the offensive as ordered by the Fuehrer. After achieving insignificant initial success, the operation came to a standstill on the second day with the loss of many panzers… I received orders from Army Group Vistula to relieve Obergruppenfuehrer Steiner’s Eleventh SS Panzer Army headquarters… On 22 February 1945 –24 hours after I had assumed command-the 2nd Belorussian Front, in overpowering strength, launched its expected counteroffensive. From the orientation given me by Obergruppenfuehrer Steiner about the enemy when I assumed command, and from observations during the last 24 hours, I had beeb certain that the Russian attack was imminent. For that reason I had no opportunity to make any kind of decisive changes in OGF Steiner’s inadequate defensive scheme… At the time Third Panzer Army assumed control of the troops formerly belonging to 11th SS Panzer Army, the units in my sector consisted of III SS Panzer Corps (23rd SS Nederland Panzergrenadier Division, 27th SS Langemarck Panzergrenadier Division, 28th SS Wallonien Panzergrenadier Division), X SS Corps (163rd Infantry Division, 402nd Infantry Division), Provisional Corps Hoernlein (9th Parashute Division), Provisional Corps von Tettau, Reserve Division Baerwalde, Division Pomerania, 5th Jaeger Division and Panzer Division Holstein… Even befor I took command, I had issued orders for the construction of a dense network of tank obstacles in the army rear area, which abounded in wooded areas and bodies of water, thus lending itself well to such a purpose. In a few days, with the energetic cooperation of party members and local inhabitants, these obstacles sprang up on all bridges, village entrances, and bypasses, as well as highway and road entrances leading into woods or swampy terrain. Stout-hearted members of Volkssturm, who had been trained in the use of the Panzerfaust, guarded these barriers. Moreover, men equipped with antitank weapons were held in readiness with bicycles and motorcycles for mobile employment and the rapid establishment of strongpoints…Never before had an area been transformed into such a tightly meshed antitank obstacle within so short a period of time as we had accomplished in Pomerania. The aim of this measure was to prevent Russian tanks that had broken through the front from carrying out a surprise advance, or at least to delay such an advance….By noon on 22 February 1945, however, I suddenly received a message from Provisional Corps von Tettau that the Russians had broken through in the area of adjoining division of Second Army, 33rd SS Charlemagne Grenadier Division, and that enemy tanks were driving towards the northwest by way of Stregers. During the afternoon, approximately fifteen Russian tanks coming out of the Second Army area actually appeared at the outskirts of Baldenburg, 35 kilometers in the rear of Third Panzer Army’s left wing…In the meantime, powerful reinforcements had been moved up in support of the Russian spearhead and had forced the remnants of Second Army’s crumpled left wing (15th SS Latvian Grenadier Division and 33rd SS Charlemagne Grenadier Division) into Third Panzer Army’s sector. There they caused unrest among my improvised units, especially in Reserves Division Pomerania, which already suffered from low morale…Since Second Army, together with the forces that Army Group Vistula had moved up via Rummelsburg (VII Panzer Corps, consisting of the 7th Panzer Division, 4th SS Polizei Panzergrenadier Division, and the remnants of 32nd Infantry Division), had failed to block off the Soviet penetration at Stegers, more and more Russian units poured through the gap, deep into the flanks of Third Panzer Army. My own flank thus became enveloped and was pushed back toward Neustettin. Russian pressure constantly increased in the area between Neusttetin and Bublitz. The Soviet tank spearheads pushing from Bublitz toward the heights east of Koeslin completely cut off our contact with Second Army… On 2 March 1945 Soviet tanks attacked in such great strength that they penetrated 5th Jaeger Division’s front between Falkenburg and Drammburg, causing the left flank of the III SS Panzer Corps and the right flank of XX SS Corps (adjoing General Sixt’s division on ether side) to be rolled back, cracking the front wide open. Russian tanks almost immediately gained freedom of movement and pushed ahead, By 3 March 1945 enemy tank spearheads had already appeared at Regenswalde, 8 kilometers east of my command post, which nonetheless remained in position. Strong rifle units followed the Russian armor and widened the gap, while the enemy also gained ground daily in the direction of Bad Polzin and captured Neustettin…The 2-nd Belorussian Front’s attack had sealed the fate of Pomerania. After the crumbled line had been established on the Oder River, despite very heavy losses and thanks to the unequal courage of the troops, I was again summoned to a conference with Himmler on 7 March. This meeting took place in the Hohenlychen Sanatirium, where the RF lay ill with angina… Himmler began by congratulating me, saying, ‘ You have passed through some very difficult days, but inspite of all obstacles you have again stabilized the front!’…. I told the Reichsfuehrer, ‘during the enemy offensive you repeatedly issued orders that prevented me from acting along lines demanded by the tactical situation. For example, you forbade the withdrawal of protruding sectors to favorably located and well-prepared positions along shorter lines at the lakes. Had I been allowed to do so, unnessary losses would have been avoided, and forces could have been released for the creation of reserves. Thiese forces would have been adequate to seal off the initial Russian penetrations. Instead, the Soviets achieved deep penetrations at Neustettin and in the area east of Stargard where we found oueselves short of troops to contain the pressre. The single reserve division-Panzer Division Holstein-which I made available by weakening enen front-line sectors under direct attack, had to be commited in accordance with your orders toward Rummelsburg via Bulitz with the hopeless task of reestablishing contact with Second Army. In so doing, this division was needlessly exhausted and unavailable at the point of main effort east of Stargard, where 5th Jaeger Division was overpowered and split into pieces after waging an extremely courageous defensive battle against Soviet tanks… The balk of the X SS Corps and Provisional Corps Tettau, which were fighting in the area between the two points of penetration, thus came in danger of being encircled and eliminated. With respect to the increasing probability of loosing those two Corps, I requested permission over a period of 5 days, each day more urgently-finally imploring you-to allow me to pull the forces out of the threatened area during the night to prevent their encirclement, since they would otherwise be sacrificed to no purpose. Even then you did not agreeto the withdrawalbut instead added special emphasis to your disapproval by threatening a court-martial action against all key officers. As a result, both corps (with the exception of a few elements of Provisional Corps Tettau that still be able to fight their way back) were captured on the fifth day. These staggering events led to the rapid loss of Pomerania …Even after the two corps had been encircled, impossible orders from your headquarters did not stop. The 10th SS Frundsberg Panzer Division, ordered back to us from Silesia, abruptly received orders to reestablish contact with Second Army by attacking across Pomerania through the territory already occupied by several Russian Armies. This altogether impossible mission served to demonstrate the extent to which you and the Supreme Command had misjudged the existing situation… Himmler listened to these remarks in a serious and attentive manner, then replied, ‘ I know that you understood the actual danger on the Pomeranian Front and pedicted these events in advance…Calm down. There will be a turning point soon. We shall win this war’….”

Erhard Raus, Panzer Operations. The Eastern Front Memoir of General Raus, 1941-1945, PP-324-332



Best Regards from Russia,

[Jan-Hendrik]

Your "witness" is diswitnessed by primary sources ...

Jan-Hendrik

[dnl-panzerschreck]

Thanks, both of you!

/Henrik

[Igorn]

Your "witness" is diswitnessed by primary sources ...

Jan-Hendrik

Comared to jokers like you, Erhard Raus, Commanding General of the Third German Panzer Army in February 1945 was in Pomerania where he had some discussions in this regard with RF SS Himmler:

"Shortly after arriving in Rummelsburg I requested to be presented to Reichsfuehrer Himmler and be permited to make my formal report to him. My appointment was scheduled for 13 February 1945. Late that afternoon, several staff officers and I arrived at Himmler's headquarters in a camp in the woods southwest of Prenzlau...Himmler began by saying 'As you have been informed by my operations officer, the Eleventh SS Panzer Army, together with other SS panzer divisions and SS panzergrenadierdivisions that have been brought up, will break through to the south from the area southwest of Stargard the day after tomorrow. They will attack the Soviet armies flanking Kuestrin from the rear and annihilate them. The Fuhrer expects decisive results for the outcome of the war from this attack...Then, apparently to arouse my enthusiam, the Reichsfuehrer told me confidentially that approximately the same time AG South employing Sixth SS Panzer Army and other forces flanking Lake Balaton would launch a large scale attack against the Russian armies in Hungary that were currently poised for an assault on Vienna. This attack was intended to recapture Budapest."



Erhard Raus, Panzer Operations. The Eastern Front Memoir of General Raus, 1941-1945, PP. 319-321

Best Regards from Russia,

[Jan-Hendrik]

Indeed you are still unable to distinguish between primary and secondary sources ...



Jan-Hendrik

[Reb]

The answer is probably simple. 11th Army was never "formally" called 11 Pz Army but was referred to as such on numerous occassions by various officers in their memoirs. Sort of like "6 SS Pz Army."

I'd note that the Raus book is hardly a secondary source.

cheers
Reb

[Igorn]

Indeed you are still unable to distinguish between primary and secondary sources ...

If you don’t believe German General Erhard Raus, Commanding General of the Third Panzer Army and Reichfuehrer SS Himmler, here is some information about 11th SS Panzer Army from the excellent book of Earl Ziemke, which supported by German primary sources, namely:

Primary Sources:

SS Pz. AOK 11, Abendorientierung, 14.2.45, H. Gr. Weichsel 75122/2 file
AOK, Ia, Lageorientierung, 17.2.1945. H Gr. Weichsel 75122/3 file
AOK 9, Ia, Lageorientierung am 19.2.1945. H Gr. Weichsel 75122/3 file
OKH, GenStdH, Op. Abt., Ia Nr. 450 134/45, an H. Gr. Weichsel, 21.2.45, H. Gr. Weichsel, Ia Vermerk ueber Ferngespraech Gruppenfuehrer Lammerdinger mit Oberst i G. Eisman am 21.2.45. Both in H.G. Weichsel 75122/3 file

Opeartion Sonnenwende

"The Srargard offensive ranks as one of the war’s closest approaches to a planned fiasco. The idea of a two-pronged counter-attack east of the Oder to pinch off the tip of the Soviet spearhead aimed at Berlin was Guderian’s. It was an attractive variant of Hitler’s pet formula for stopping breakthroughs-hold the corner posts and counterattack on the flanks…In what , for the time, was itself a remarkable feat , the OKH scraped together two corps headquarters and ten divisions, seven of them panzer divisions, for the Stargard offensive… Headquarters, Third Panzer Army, was ordered out of Samland to take command, but because it arrived late the command stayed in the hands of the newly created Headquarters, Eleventh SS Panzer Army. Under a strict injunction not to commit any of the forces allocated for the offensive prematurely, the army group was hard put to hold the assembly area and finally had to put several of the new divisions into the front anyway…Talking to Himmler on 9 February 1945 Guderian, in an offhand manner he sometimes affected, remarked, by way of soliciting the actual decision, that he expected the offensive would be in progress by the 16th. ..On 13th February Guderian arranged a showdown and, in Hitler’s presence, demanded that his deputy, General Walter Wenk, be given a special mandate to command the Army Group Vistula offensive… Wenk, on his arrival at Army Group Vistula, and after paying his respects to Himmler, went across the Order to Eleventh SS Army to inspect the preparations in person- a worthwhile undertaking since Himmler had thus far not taken the trouble to do it and the Eleventh SS Panzer Army staff, an upgraded corps staff under SS-Oberstgruppenfuehrer Felix Steiner, fell short of being ideal instrument for conducting a major offensive. After satisfying himself that the units for the offensive were in fact not fully assembled and equipped, Wenk resorted to the unpromising alternative of starting piecemeal, mostly, it would appear, to satisfy Guderian. On the night of 14 February Eleventh SS Panzer Army reported that on the basis of the total Eastern Front situation, as Wenk described it, the army realized that even a small attack was urgently needed; it intended, therefore, to make a thrust toward Arnswalde (seven miles off the front with a small encircled German garrison) the next morning. The one-division Arnswalde attack caught the Russians unawares; the division’s point reached the town in the early afternoon… The Army Group Vistula ordered the whole operation, hopefully code-named Sonnenwende, to begin next day. Unready and inexperienced, Eleventh SS Panzer Army wasted the 16th trying to feel out the enemy. It was not until the afternoon on the 16th that the army command was prepared to decide tentatively where to concentrate its effort; by then even though Steiner insisted he could get rolling within another two days, the offensive was stuck. That night, on the way back from a conference with Hitler, Wenk was severely injured in an automobile accident. That he could have salvaged Sonnenwende, as Guderian later claimed, is doubtful. Rain and mud confined the tanks to the roads. Himmler ordered the attack to continue through the night of the 17th February 1945, but that did not help. The next day mine fields and strong anti-tank defenses brought Sonnenwende to its inglorious conclusion. Eleventh SS Panzer Army had gained at most two to three miles by the night of the 18th February, when by a ‘directive for regroupment’ Himmler stopped the offensive. As far as the Germans could tell, the offensive had hardly evoked a ripple behind the Soviet front. Ninth army reported on the 19th that the Oder sector was ‘conspicuously’ quiet; all the signs indicated that First Belorussian Front would attack toward Berlin within the next few days. Ninth Army predicted that, off its right flank, First Ukrainian Front would be crossing the Neisse in a day. On the 21st February in conjunction with the directive issued to Army Group Vistula and Center on that day, Hitler officially ended Sonnenwende and ordered Himmler to transfer a corps headquarters and three of the divisions to Army Group Center…"

Earl Zimke, Stalingrad to Berlin. The German Defeat in the East, PP.445-448



Best Regards from Russia,

[Igorn]

The answer is probably simple. 11th Army was never "formally" called 11 Pz Army but was referred to as such on numerous occassions by various officers in their memoirs. Sort of like "6 SS Pz Army."

Reb,

It is not so important what was the formal designation of these formations 11th SS Panzer Armee or 11th (Panzer) Armee & 6th SS Panzer Armee or 6.SS Panzer Armee. What is important that Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler considered them as SS Armies.

How one can call an army led by Obergruppenfuhrer SS (Felix Steiner), where two out of three Corps are SS Corps? (III (germ.) SS Pz Korps and X SS Korps), subordinated to HG Weichsel –Commanding General –Reichsfuehrer SS Heinrich Himmler, Chief of Staff, Gruppenfuehrer Heinz Lammerding, where (HG Weichsel)majority of divisions were SS divisions, namely,

11. SS Freiwilligen PanzerGrenadier Division “Nordland“
23. SS-Freiwilligen PanzerGrenadier Division “Nederland“
27.SS-Freiwilligen Grenadier Division “Langermarck“
28. SS Freiwilligen PanzerGrenadier Division “Wallonien“
33. SS Grenadier-Division “Charlemagne“
4.SS PanzerGrenadier Division “Polizei“
10. SS PanzerGrenadier Division “Frundsberg“
15. SS Grenadier Division (lettische 1)

How one can call another army led by Obergruppenfuhrer Diettrich, where two out of three Corps were SS Corps? (I. SS Panzer-Korps - Commanding General -Generalleutnant der Waffen-SS Priess & II. SS Panzer-Korps - Commanding General -der Waffen-SS Bittrich and from March 21st 1945 IV. SS Panzer-Korps-Obergruppenfuehrer Gille) including elite SS divisions, namely,

1. SS Panzer Division LAH
12. SS Panzer Division HJ
2. SS Panzer Division DR
9.SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen

and from March 21st 1945
3. SS-Panzer Division Totenkopf
5. SS-Panzer Division Wiking

What is common for these two formations that Adolf Hitler entrusted them conduct of two last decisive German offensive operations in WW2 (“Sonnenwende” and “Fruhlingserwachen”), which was supposed to defeat the Soviet armies of Marshal Zhukov and Marshals Tolbukhin & Marshal Malinovsky. Both operations disgracefully failed and ended up by decisive defeat of Waffen SS formations. And the attempts of some individuals to shift the blame for these failures from Waffen SS to Wehrmacht by saying that 11. SS Panzer Armee and 6. SS Panzer Armee did not belong to Waffen SS and were Wehrmacht formations are ridiculous. The same goes for shifting the blame from Himmler & Steiner to Huderian & Wenk for failure of "Sonnenwende" or shifting the blame from Dietrich and Kumm to Balck and Woehler for the failure of Awakening of Spring. One can recall that after disgraceful end of the “Fruhlingserwachen Adolf Hitler ordered Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler to go to Hungary to punish elite W-SS divisions by removing their arm bands.

Best Regards from Russia,

[cpa95]

SS Pz. AOK 11, Abendorientierung, 14.2.45, H. Gr. Weichsel 75122/2 file
AOK, Ia, Lageorientierung, 17.2.1945. H Gr. Weichsel 75122/3 file
AOK 9, Ia, Lageorientierung am 19.2.1945. H Gr. Weichsel 75122/3 file
OKH, GenStdH, Op. Abt., Ia Nr. 450 134/45, an H. Gr. Weichsel, 21.2.45, H. Gr. Weichsel, Ia Vermerk ueber Ferngespraech Gruppenfuehrer Lammerdinger mit Oberst i G. Eisman am 21.2.45. Both in H.G. Weichsel 75122/3 file

Igorn,

origin situation map, 15.2.1945 of OKH shows definitely the 11th Army (Steiner), not the 11th SS-Army. Elements were III. SS, X. SS, XXXIX. Korps etc.

see: http://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Gli ... 1Armee.htm

Greetings
Thomas

EDIT:
The same on 18.3.1945, headquarter Neustrelitz.
11th Army is not shown on 18.4.1945.

[Jan-Hendrik]

Forget it , Thomas , Igorn lives in a world of his own ...

Jan-Hendrik

[cpa95]

Hi again,

"Neu aufgestellt am 26. Januar 1945 in Pommern aus Teilen des Stabes Oberkommando Oberrhein durch die Waffen-SS. Daher auch als SS-Panzer-Armeeoberkommando 11 bezeichnet."

"Anew put up on the 26th January, 1945 in Pomerania from parts of the staff of supreme command the Upper Rhine by the Waffen-SS. Therefore also called SS tank-army supreme command 11."

11th SS tank army is an inofficial name, not used by the OKH.

Greetings
Thomas

[Igorn]

11th SS tank army is an inofficial name, not used by the OKH.

But used by Adolf Hitler, Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler, General Raus and many others...

Best Regards from Russia,

[Igorn]

Igorn,

origin situation map, 15.2.1945 of OKH shows definitely the 11th Army (Steiner), not the 11th SS-Army. Elements were III. SS, X. SS, XXXIX. Korps etc.

Thomas,

Pls. check my response to Reb. It answers your questions.

Best Regards from Russia,