From the Realm of a Dying Sun. Volume 2 by Douglas E. Nash

Author:Douglas E. Nash [Nash, Douglas E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Military / World War II
Publisher: Casemate
Published: 2020-10-30T00:00:00+00:00

After consulting with Balck, Wöhler also decided that it was time for Gen.d.Art. Maximilian de Angelis’s 2. Pz.Armee on his army group’s right flank to take action to assist Balck’s Armeegruppe, though heretofore this idea had only been discussed, not planned.

This action evidently would take the form of an attack by one of its corps “in a few days” to the east to tie up elements of the Soviet 57th Army in the Kaposvár area, that might conceivably tie up the 1st Bulgarian Army as well. Wöhler brought up this idea during his conversation with Guderian that night, calling it a “long-range objective.” Guderian was not enthusiastic, stating that he did not think the time was ripe for such an action; an understandable response, given that he was focused more on obtaining additional troops to shore up the collapsing H.Gr. Mitte and Nord. When Wöhler received no immediate response from Guderian, he directed von Grolman, his own chief of staff, to draw up plans for the 2. Pz.Armee to conduct the attack anyway, leaving the date open.

Wöhler also aired his proposal that the OKH chief of the general staff (i.e., Guderian) should contact his counterpart at the OKW. The OKW, which exercised command authority over H.Gr. F in northern Yugoslavia, could order that army group—commanded by G.F.M. Maximilian Freiherr von Weichs—to launch a limited attack to the north across the Drava River in the direction of Fünfkirchen (Pecs). By doing so, it would draw off or tie up Soviet reserves that might be employed against the southern flank of IV. SS-Pz.Korps, thus working in concert to increase the chances that Konrad III would succeed. When Wöhler received no immediate response from Guderian, he directed his chief of staff to copy von Weichs in on the same planning order issued to de Angelis’s 2. Pz.Armee. Von Grolman also inserted a paragraph requesting that H.Gr. F study the plan and draw up possible courses of action, should OKW approve Guderian’s request that the two army groups (F and Süd) be allowed to cooperate.88 Unfortunately, approval of the proposal would lie within Hitler’s purview, since he was acting as the head of both the OKH and OKW, yet it would still have to be staffed by each command separately, a process that could drag on for days if not weeks.

The official record also shows that about this same time, Wöhler began to consider the idea of detaching the corps fighting north of the Danube and assigning it to Gen.d.Geb.Tr. Hans Kreysing’s neighboring 8. Armee instead. This action would free Balck from the responsibility of having to fight two different battles simultaneously and would make a more appropriate geographical boundary between the 6. and 8. Armee, but no action was taken on this proposal yet.89 Left unstated is whether Wöhler himself might have begun to suspect that Balck was not quite up to the challenge of commanding such a diverse and geographically separated organization as his bespoke Armeegruppe.

All things considered, successfully commanding a relatively static infantry-centric command like H.

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