Advancing cautiously on foot, Bachmann saw a number of enemy Sherman tanks, one of which he knocked out with a Panzerfaust he was carrying. On the way into Herrlisheim he had passed two Panther tanks, which, on their own initiative, had followed him. Bachmann then set his trap, sending the Panthers along different streets to knock out the lead and rear vehicles of what turned out to be a substantial armored column. Both Panthers succeeded in their mission, leaving the remaining Shermans unable to move. At this point, the American commander, believing he was heavily outnumbered, came forward to surrender.
Along with sixty U.S. prisoners came twenty previously captured Germans. Seizing the moment, Bachmann ordered the drivers of the twelve undamaged Shermans back into their tanks, and with each guarded by a rearmed German soldier they were ordered back to German lines (where the tanks were incorporated into the panzer regiment). Bachmann then led the two Panthers through Herrlisheim and knocked out several more U.S. tanks on the edge of town.21
This daring action could not, however, disguise the fact that the German offensive was petering out. On 19 January, with SS casualties mounting for little gain, Harmel was given permission to halt his division’s assault. The SS units were then redeployed to capture the nearby strongpoint of Hagenau on the twenty-fourth. But with the momentum firmly on the Americans’ side, the attack was held, this failure signaling the abandonment of Operation Nordwind. The Germans began a fighting retreat back to their original lines. Frundsberg was then detached and sent eastward with several other SS formations in an attempt to hold the Soviet offensive in Pomerania.
While the Germans had achieved a number of minor tactical successes during Nordwind, the operation was another defeat for Hitler, adding to the larger failure to overcome the Americans in the Ardennes. The Waffen-SS had not emerged from the Battle of the Bulge with flying colors, and senior German Army officers were quick to blame the Sixth Panzer Army’s contribution to the offensive, focusing on poor staff work at all levels.22 While there may have been some truth in these criticisms, any such failings were only a minor factor in the German reverse. The whole plan—where victory was predicated on continuing bad weather and the acquisition of mass fuel stocks from the Allies—had little chance of success from the outset. And when combined with the exceptional bravery of small groups of American defenders in key positions, a German defeat was inevitable.
Hitler still kept faith with Dietrich and the Waffen-SS, with Sixth Panzer Army ordered to prepare for new offensive operations. Dietrich did not reciprocate these feelings, however, and in a conversation with armaments minister Albert Speer on the night of 30–31 December, he complained bitterly of the demands made on his overstretched forces and said that it “was impossible to convince Hitler that these [Americans] were tough opponents, soldiers as good as our own men.” Speer concluded that, “in his own plain fashion, he too had parted ways psychologically with Hitler.”23
Himmler, who had played little part in the Nordwind operation, was instructed on 15 January to prepare for a new role, command of Army Group Vistula. This formation was tasked with the defense of Pomerania against the Red Army’s Vistula-Oder offensive. Himmler’s lack of military experience made him totally unsuited to this vital and difficult task, but Hitler overruled all objections from OKH in the belief that his trusted lieutenant would somehow produce better results than those of his generals.
Part Five
FIGHT TO THE LAST
“Enjoy the war while you can, because the peace will be terrible.”
—GERMAN SOLDIERS’ QUIP
Chapter 29
DISASTER IN HUNGARY
HUNGARY HAD PROVED a useful ally to Nazi Germany, and under the leadership of Admiral Miklós Horthy it had sent many of its soldiers to fight on the Eastern Front. But heavy casualties had produced a tide of war weariness within the country. By early 1944 Horthy was looking for ways to disengage Hungary from its alliance with Germany, but in March Hitler forestalled any potential move by sending in German troops to occupy the country. This did not stop Horthy from continuing secret negotiations with the Soviet Union, and on 15 October—with the Red Army breaking through the Carpathian Mountains—he declared an armistice.
German intelligence had monitored these negotiations and covertly sent military detachments to Budapest with orders to replace the Hungarian government if necessary. Under SS commando leader Otto Skorzeny—a Hitler favorite after his rescue of Mussolini—this force included the rebuilt Waffen-SS parachute battalion and units from the army’s Brandenburg special forces, now assigned to the SS. Skorzeny could also draw upon any German troops in Budapest, which included a panzer battalion equipped with the latest highly imposing King Tiger tanks.
On hearing news of the armistice, the Germans sprang into action. Horthy’s son was kidnapped and flown out to Germany as a hostage, while Skorzeny seized the Budapest Citadel and other government buildings. After Horthy was confronted by the Germans, he was made to repudiate the armistice and appoint a new pro-German government led by the extreme nationalist Arrow-Cross Party. Horthy resigned and was imprisoned in Germany. The coup had been a great success for Germany: casualties on both sides had been minimal, and Hungary continued to fight as part of the Axis alliance.
One other favorable consequence of the takeover for the SS was the opening up of recruitment to include all ethnic Germans in Hungary, many of whom had formerly been inducted into the Hungarian armed forces. During 1944 Berger’s recruitment officers assiduously tracked down anyone with the vaguest Volksdeutsche connections, so that by the end of the war around 120,000 Hungarian Volksdeutsche had served in the Waffen-SS—by far the largest single national group of non-Reich Germans.1 This influx of recruits helped fill in gaps within existing Waffen-SS formations and also enabled the raising of new units.
The 8th SS Cavalry Division Florian Geyer, with its large Hungarian contingent, had been transferred from the Pripet Marshes to Hungary during 1944. Once there, it supplied one of its cavalry regiments to form the nucleus of a new division, the 22nd SS Volunteer Cavalry Division Maria Theresia (its honor title provided by the redoubtable eighteenth-century Austrian empress). The division was formed on 1 May 1944 and was declared combat ready in August, despite training being incomplete and heavy weapons in short supply.
The recruiters from the SS Main Office now extended their search to include Magyar or ethnic Hungarians and in an arrangement with the new Arrow-Cross government took men from the Hungarian Army (Honved) as well as new Hungarian recruits. According to the agreement, these SS organized and trained divisions would form the basis for a new fascist Hungarian Army. Four divisions had been planned, but only two were commissioned: 25th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Hunyadi (Hungarian No. 1) and 26th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Hungaria (Hungarian No. 2). Once the men had been assembled, they were sent to Germany at the end of 1944 to begin training, a move that ironically prevented them from taking any further part in the battle to defend their homeland from the Red Army.
THE COLLAPSE OF Romania and Bulgaria in August–September 1944 was immediately followed by their change of sides to join the Soviet Union. This transformation of the strategic situation in the Balkans caught the Germans off guard. Not only were Hungary and Yugoslavia vulnerable to direct assault by the Red Army, but German forces in Greece and the Aegean also faced the strong possibility of being cut off by a Soviet drive into Yugoslavia. German units in Yugoslavia were ordered to hold open all escape routes from Greece, to allow the retreating Germans a safe passage to the north. The German high command made plans for new defensive positions that would keep the Red Army at bay. Hitler was also determined to defend Hungary at all costs, as it contained most of the Reich’s still functioning oil wells.
The 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen was immediately diverted from antipartisan operations to help defend Yugoslavia from an October advance by Soviet and Bulgarian armies, the latter co-opted by the Soviet Union to join their “antifascist cru
sade.” For the men of Prinz Eugen, this dramatic change from acting as hunters against Tito’s partisans to being the underdogs in a battle against superior conventional forces was bewildering in the extreme. They would come under heavy artillery fire and massed armor attacks for the first time. To prepare them for this onslaught, the soldiers were issued with Panzerfausts and given a rapid course in antitank tactics.
The Prinz Eugen Division, under the command of Oberführer Otto Kumm, was ordered to defend the line around Nish (Niz) from a combined Soviet-Bulgarian advance. While Prinz Eugen held its positions, units on both flanks fell back, leaving the SS division isolated. Kumm then ordered a retreat, a fifty-mile march over steep mountains and through dense forests. At times it seemed that the division might fall apart, but by the end of October the various units re-formed to take up new positions at the Kraljevo bridgehead. It was here that Prinz Eugen fought off further Soviet and Bulgarian attacks to allow free passage for the German troops marching back from Greece. The retreating columns totaled 350,000 men and 10,000 vehicles, some of which passed by the SS defenders who, at one point, observed the bizarre sight of “a submarine anti-aircraft gun transported on a wagon drawn by oxen.”2
That the Germans were able to escape the Soviet trap owed much to the efforts of a small number of German formations, including Prinz Eugen. This was arguably their finest hour in a war otherwise characterized by atrocity and counteratrocity. Toward the end of November, the SS division—reduced to a strength of just under 3,500 men and with almost no heavy weapons—withdrew from the Kraljevo bridgehead to begin a slow, fighting retreat through Yugoslavia.
In the aftermath of the Romanian collapse, Waffen-SS recruiters conducted a final trawl through the Batschka region between Serbia and Hungary, rooting out the last eligible Volksdeutsche to form the 31st SS Volunteer Division. German officers and NCOs from the disbanded Kama Division provided the training cadre for the new formation, which was formally established in September 1944. The poorly trained and underequipped division—led by former SS cavalry commander Brigadeführer Gustav Lombard—was ordered north into Hungary in November, where it suffered heavy casualties before withdrawal to Germany.
IN OCTOBER 1944 the Red Army crossed into Hungary, with the aim of cutting off the capital from the rest of the country. Soviet forces began to march on Budapest in early November, although, in the face of stiff German and Hungarian resistance, it was not until 26 December that the city was encircled. The headquarters of the IX SS Mountain Corps had been moved north from Yugoslavia, and under the leadership of Karl Pfeffer-Wildenbruch it was assigned responsibility for the defense of Budapest. Pfeffer-Wildenbruch—the original commander of the SS Polizei Division—had been given four understrength army and Waffen-SS formations that included the SS cavalry divisions Florian Geyer and Maria Theresia. With paramilitary and other Wehrmacht units, the German garrison totaled around 41,000 men. They were joined by 38,100 soldiers from the Hungarian Army who remained loyal to the German cause.3
Hitler, true to form, declared Budapest a fortress city, and forbidding any breakout attempt he insisted it must be held to the last man. He did, however, sanction a relief attempt, which was to be spearheaded by Obergruppenführer Herbert Gille’s IV SS Panzer Corps, comprising the veteran Totenkopf and Wiking Divisions. Gille’s troops were, however, deployed in the defense of Warsaw, more than 400 miles distant from Budapest. The corps’ removal would, of course, seriously weaken the German defenses in central Poland, especially now that a Soviet offensive was imminent.
The order for the transfer was issued late on 24 December, and by using priority rail transport the advance units of the corps began to arrive at their assembly points as early as 1 January, with the remainder following over the next few days. The Waffen-SS troops were joined by two infantry and two panzer divisions and a battalion of King Tiger tanks from the army, plus other corps units. As ever, in the conditions typical of the latter stages of the war, the German units were chronically short of fuel and ammunition and were understrength in armored vehicles.
The relief attempts were code-named Konrad, and Konrad I got under way as soon as the first SS soldiers arrived to support Hungarian units already in place. The plan had been hurried, however, with little attention paid to preliminary reconnaissance, thereby failing to realize that the hilly, wooded terrain made progress by armor against a well-dug-in enemy extremely difficult. The corps did at least inflict heavy losses on the enemy during Konrad I, claiming 79 tanks, 160 artillery pieces, and 107 antitank guns destroyed.4
On 8 January the offensive was abandoned and the German units redeployed on a better line of attack from Esztergom. Two days later Konrad II was launched against an unsuspecting Red Army. The Soviet forward defenses were breached on 11 January, and on the following day they could see the towers and spires of Budapest no more than thirteen miles away. Both Totenkopf and Wiking sensed victory, but at 8:00 P.M. on the twelfth an order was issued from army group headquarters that the assault was to be called off. The forward units were shocked by the order, but despite repeated requests from Gille to continue the advance, the attack came to a halt and the troops were withdrawn.
While the relief attempts were ongoing, the Red Army squeezed the ring tight around Budapest. The garrison and civil population of around 800,000 people were increasingly short of food and subject to sustained, heavy artillery bombardments. During January Soviet forces pressed toward Pest—on the eastern bank of the Danube—forcing the defenders back toward the hilly Buda on the western bank. On 18 January Pfeffer-Wildenbruch’s forces established a new defensive line around the Citadel area of Buda, having destroyed the remaining bridges over the Danube.
Also on 18 January, Konrad III was initiated, an assault on Budapest from the south, once more led by Gille’s IV SS Panzer Corps. In wretched conditions of alternating snow and driving rain, the SS troops drove into the Soviet lines. With Wiking in the lead, the Germans forged ahead, reaching the Danube on the twentieth. A few days later the other spearhead divisions—the army’s 3rd Panzer and Totenkopf—arrived alongside Wiking, in preparation for the push north to relieve Budapest.
On 24 January the Germans opened their assault. Once again Totenkopf and Wiking made good ground, despite being forced to regularly halt and fend off attacks against their unsupported flanks. By the twenty-eighth, German units had managed to fight their way to within touching distance of Budapest, no more than ten miles from the Soviet encircling ring. For the men trapped inside the city, the German relief column’s advance was enthusiastically monitored, as this account makes clear: “The news of General Gille seeped through to the last foxhole. At any minute he must open the pocket. His name was mentioned everywhere, everywhere he was the anchor of our morale. For hours everyone forgot the terrible privation, resigned themselves to the sickening conditions in the cellars. Our rescue was getting nearer!”5
The final push onto Budapest was planned for 29 January. The Wiking soldiers were told that they faced no more than a battered cavalry division, but they suddenly found themselves under attack from a freshly arrived Soviet armored corps, complete with 180 tanks. The Wiking Division was nearly overwhelmed, and only prompt action by the predominantly Norwegian “Norge” Battalion prevented disaster. The battalion’s commander, Sturmbannführer Vogt, personally knocked out six enemy tanks with Panzerfausts. The strength of the Soviet attack halted the German advance, and on 1 February a fighting retreat was instigated, the SS panzer corps falling back to its start line. When news of the German defeat reached the defenders, that they had been abandoned to their fate, morale understandably plummeted.
By early February the Red Army was closing in on the Budapest garrison, now clinging on to just two square kilometers around Castle Hill and the Citadel. Running out of ammunition, with his men suffering from starvation and disease, Pfeffer-Wildenbruch decided on his own initiative to attempt a mass breakout through Soviet lines on the evening of 11 February. The combined German-Hungarian garr
ison had been reduced to around 32,000 men (excluding seriously wounded), and it would seem most took part in the breakout.6 Complicating matters were the thousands of civilians also desperate to escape the city. The sheer size of the attempt initially overwhelmed the Soviets, but shells from their guns tore into the retreating masses, causing heavy casualties. Over the next few days the vast majority of escapers were either killed or rounded up by the Red Army. The two SS cavalry divisions, along with Wehrmacht units, were destroyed in the attempt. Only 624 German soldiers reached safety, around 170 of those from the Waffen-SS.7
Hitler, meanwhile, was absorbed in the planning for the new offensive in Hungary, intended to recapture the oil fields southwest of the Plattensee (Lake Balaton). Dietrich’s reequipped Sixth Panzer Army (only officially designated as an SS Army in April 1945) had been transferred from the Western Front to its assembly area in Hungary in early February. The German high command had made elaborate attempts to disguise the move of the panzer army, ordering the removal of SS troops’ special cuff titles and renaming all formations and units with innocuous-sounding designations, so that, for example, Das Reich was disguised as Training Group North. Dietrich’s force comprised Priess’s I SS Panzer Corps (Leibstandarte and the Hitlerjugend) and Bittrich’s II SS Panzer Corps (Das Reich and Hohenstaufen), plus two mounted divisions of the army’s I Cavalry Corps.
Before the main offensive could get under way, orders were issued for the elimination of a Soviet bridgehead over the River Gran to the north of Budapest. The I SS Panzer Corps was diverted to take part in this action on 13 February. In Leibstandarte, Mohnke—wounded in an air raid—was replaced as divisional commander by Otto Kumm, transferred from long service in the Prinz Eugen Division. Kumm ordered the advance to be led by a Kampfgruppe of mechanized infantry in APCs and panzers—including sixteen King Tigers—under Jochen Peiper.
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