A German Sturmgeschütz III assault gun on the streets of Athens in late April 1941; Greece found itself under triple occupation by the German, Italian and Bulgarian Axis powers. The Bulgarian Army followed up Hitler’s invasion by occupying the eastern Greek provinces adjacent to its border. The Bulgarian Army was later supplied StuG IIIs such as this, which they then turned on their former allies.
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by PEN & SWORD MILITARY an imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire S70 2AS Text copyright © Anthony Tucker-Jones, 2013 Photographs copyright © as credited, 2013 9781783468997 The right of Anthony Tucker-Jones to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing. Typeset in Gill Sans Light by CHIC GRAPHICS Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the imprints of Pen & Sword Aviation, Pen & Sword Family History, Pen & Sword Maritime, Pen & Sword Military, Pen & Sword Discovery, Wharncliffe Local History, Wharncliffe True Crime, Wharncliffe Transport, Pen & Sword Select, Pen & Sword Military Classics, Leo Cooper, The Praetorian Press, Remember When, Seaforth Publishing and Frontline Publishing.
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Table of Contents
Title Page Copyright Page Introduction - Hitler ’s Dogs of War Photograph Sources Chapter One - King Boris’s Bulgarian Panzers Chapter Two - Hitler ’s Czech Mates Chapter Three - Mannerheim’s Recycled Finnish Tanks Chapter Four - Horthy’s Hungarian Horrors Chapter Five - Mussolini’s Italian L6 Goes to Russia Chapter Six - Antonescu’s Romanian Armour Chapter Seven - Fast Slovaks on the Steppes Chapter Eight - Franco’s Fighting Spaniards Chapter Nine - Hitler ’s Ukrainian Nazis
Introduction
Hitler’s Dogs of War The strongmen of Eastern Europe rallied to Adolf Hitler ’s Nazi cause in the late 1930s intent on sharing the spoils and settling old scores. In total the Finnish, Hungarian, Italian, Romanian and Slovak satellite armies provided in excess of 1 million men, including the Hungarian 1st and 2nd, Italian 3rd Mobile, Romanian 1st and Slovak Fast armoured divisions. This marriage made in hell was crumbling by the summer of 1944 when one by one these dogs of war began to turn and bite the hand that had fed them. The battle of Arad fought in September 1944 was the last independent action of the war by the battered Hungarian Army and one of the very few successes achieved by its limited armoured forces. The Hungarian 4th Corps spearheaded by its 1st Armoured Division supporting a German offensive had attacked the Romanian town. Ironically, this fighting took place against one of Hitler ’s other former Axis allies. Although Arad fell on 13 September, the Hungarians soon found themselves caught up in a violent six-day battle with the Romanian Army, which with significant air support succeeded in destroying twenty-three Hungarian tanks. After the arrival of Joseph Stalin’s Red Army a joint Soviet-Romanian counter-attack was launched, throwing the invaders out. The outclassed Hungarians lacking air cover were forced to evacuate Arad just a week after capturing it. They claimed to have destroyed sixty-seven Soviet tanks, at the cost of eight Germansupplied assault guns and a further twenty-two damaged. By the end of 1944 the Hungarian 1st Army had withdrawn into Slovakia and the 2nd Army had been disbanded. German-supplied panzers of the Romanian 2nd Armoured Regiment fought alongside the Red Army in Hungary and ended up in Czechoslovakia. At the same time Hitler ’s forces in Yugoslavia found themselves attacked by panzers manned by German-trained Bulgarian tank crews. Supporting the Red Army the 1st, 2nd and 4th Bulgarian Armies were launched into Yugoslavia on 28 September 1944. The Bulgarian 1st Armoured Brigade went into action against its former allies on 8 October when sixty tanks were thrown against Hitler ’s occupation forces.Twenty-one Bulgarian tanks recaptured Vlasotince, driving the German defenders out. At Bela Palanka the Germans found themselves under attack by panzers on 12 October, but the Bulgarians ran into well-prepared defences including 88mm anti-aircraft guns and lost five of their tanks. It was clear that Hitler ’s East European allies were abandoning him like rats from a sinking ship. Indeed Hitler ’s Axis allies ultimately proved to be his Achilles heel on the Eastern Front. In the late 1930s Hitler, in order to secure his southern flank prior to striking Stalin’s Soviet Union through guile and trading on festering post-First World War border disputes, sought to recruit King Boris III
of Bulgaria, Hungarian Regent Admiral Miklós Horthy, Romanian dictator General Ion Antonescu and Slovakian Premier Dr Joseph Tiso to his war effort. After the Munich Agreement President Hacha’s Czechoslovakian government granted autonomy to Slovakia, but received intelligence on 9 March 1939 that Slovak separatists were plotting to overthrow the republic.The Slovak Prime Minister Dr Tiso was dismissed and promptly flew to Berlin to see Hitler. He returned to Slovakia and declared independence, thereby rupturing Czechoslovakia. The annexed Czech lands became the German ‘Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia’ and Hitler also placed Slovakia under his protection. Tiso found German troops entering his country, and under the Treaty of Protection Hitler gained exclusive rights to exploit the Slovak economy. LieutenantGeneral Ferdinand Catlos, the Slovak Defence Minister, was allowed to raise three just infantry divisions from the ruins of the Czechoslovakian Army. Hostility between Horthy and Antonescu also drove them into their pact with Hitler. Under Admiral Horthy Hungary acceded to the Tripartite Pact on 20 November 1940, having been promised territory in Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in return for taking part in the war against Stalin. Antonescu followed suit on 23 November, as he wanted Soviet Moldavia and the southern part of the Ukraine. Under the 1938 Munich Agreement Horthy regained southern Slovakia and the following year he occupied the Czech region of Ruthenia and in August 1940 Hitler pressured Antonescu to hand back northern Transylvania to Horthy. The Hungarian Regent could have not been more fawning if he tried:
‘Your Excellency: Heartfelt thanks!’ he wrote to Hitler. ‘I cannot express how happy I am, for this headwater region [Ruthenia] is for Hungary–I dislike using big words–… We are tackling the matter with enthusiasm. The plans are already laid. On Thursday 16th, a frontier incident will take place, to be followed on Saturday by the big thrust.’ In the event there was no incident and Horthy’s troops simply rolled over the border. Romania lost two western border regions to Stalin in 1940, followed by half of Transylvania to Horthy and the southern Dobrudja to King Boris. Although the Romanian king abdicated in favour of his son King Mihai (Michael), Antonescu held the reins of power and invited in two German divisions to deter Horthy from further aggression. With Antonescu’s permission, by the end of February 1941 Hitler was massing his troops in Romania for Operation Barbarossa, his attack on the Red Army, but was distracted by the prospect of British forces landing at Salonika to support the Greek Army in fending off Italian leader Benito Mussolini’s forces operating out of Albania. Hitler decided he must first secure southern Thrace, which he would then hand over to King Boris of Bulgaria to police. Boris acceded to the Tripartite Pact on 1 March 1941 and German troops in Romania crossed the Danube and took up position in Bulgaria ready to invade Greece.The opportunist King Boris provided the Bulgarian 5th Army equipped with less than sixty wholly inadequate light tanks to support the invasions of Greece and Yugoslavia. Antonescu provided by far the largest number of the satellite troops and his best units including his
fledgling armoured forces for the assault on the Soviet Union. He was to remain loyal to Hitler to the last:
‘Whatever verdict posterity may pass on him as a politician, Antonescu was a real patriot,’ said Field Marshal Erich von Manstein in his memoirs,‘a good soldier and certainly our most loyal ally. He was a soldier who, having once bound up his country’s destiny with that of the Reich, did everything possible until his overthrow to put Romania’s military power and war potential to effective use on our side.’ In June 1941 Antonescu provided his 3rd and 4th Armies numbering about 150,000 men and his 1st Armoured Regiment was the first Romanian unit to cross into the Soviet Union. Although King Boris took part in the brutal dismemberment of Yugoslavia and Greece (and eventually declared war on Britain and America in December 1941), he was not keen to entangle himself with Stalin. Arguing that his army lacked mechanisation, and they were the least mechanised of all the satellite armies that fought for Hitler, Boris prudently avoided taking part in Operation Barbarossa. Even so King Boris and his high command, in awe of the panzers’ blitzkrieg in France and the Balkans, sought with meagre resources to emulate them.The Bulgarians formed their 1st Armoured Regiment in June 1941 under the watchful eye of German instructors. Hitler hoped that Boris’s armour would eventually be committed to the crusade against Bolshevism and Stalin. By June 1941 Horthy had about 200 armoured vehicles and committed these and large numbers of troops to Barbarossa, including the Hungarian Carpathian Group and the Mobile Corps. Fighting alongside the Germans, the Mobile Corps performed well in the Ukraine, but after reaching the Donets was withdrawn home in November. Premier Tiso’s rump Slovak State also provided Army Group South with a Slovak Army Corps of two infantry divisions. German troops developed an affinity with the Hungarians, as many of the officers were Germanspeaking veterans of the Austro-Hungarian Army or ethnic Volksdeutsche. Hitler once described the Hungarians as ‘a nation of daring cavalrymen’; however, he had no great affection for Horthy and despaired of the bad blood between the Hungarians and Romanians. ‘Our Romanian and Hungarian allies were known to view each other with such mistrust,’ recalled von Manstein, ‘that they were holding crack troops ready in their respective countries to use against one another if the need arose.’ Hitler ’s invasion of the Soviet Union was already under way before Mussolini’s first contribution arrived. Initially he sent 62,000 men to join Hitler ’s other Axis forces in July 1941: they made up the Italian Expeditionary Corps in Russia or CSIR, comprising three divisions which were placed under the command of the German 11th Army. Lacking tanks, the Italians mainly comprised lightly-armed infantry, cavalry and bersaglieri (sharpshooters or riflemen). At this stage the Italian 3rd Mobile Division was equipped with just sixty-one tankettes.The following month the CSIR was bloodied fighting the retreating Russians between the Bug and Dniestr Rivers. Afterwards the Italians were subordinated to General Paul von Kleist and were involved in the attack on Stalino and occupying the neighbouring towns of Gorlowka and Rikovo. Through promises, flattery and bullying Hitler managed to get the commitment of the equivalent of fifty-two ‘Allied’ divisions for the 1942 summer campaign, consisting of twenty-seven Romanian, thirteen Hungarian, nine Italian, two Slovak and one Spanish division. Worryingly, this was a quarter
of the combined Axis force and the bulk of the units were to be sent to the southern part of the front where Hitler ’s main blow was to fall. Of the forty-one fresh divisions half were ‘foreign’ and many German generals were uneasy about this, but what could they do in the face of their manpower shortage? American war correspondent and historian William Shirer noted,‘these “allied” armies were all Hitler had’. Although King Boris successfully resisted calls to join the war in Russia, he provided reinforcements to alleviate pressure on Hitler ’s security forces in the Balkans. In January 1942 the Bulgarian 1st Army moved into Serbia and from mid-1943 fought Yugoslav partisans in Western Serbia. These reinforcements came at a price: in the summer of 1942 Hitler had to intervene in Italian-occupied West Macedonia after clashes between Boris and Mussolini’s troops. By the summer of 1942 Mussolini as promised had greatly expanded his commitment on the Eastern Front, sending four infantry divisions and three mountain divisions that were incorporated into the Italian 8th Army, which also included two German infantry divisions. By November Mussolini’s contribution amounted to over a quarter of a million men in twelve divisions equipped with 988 guns, 420 mortars, 17,000 vehicles, 25,000 horses and sixty-four aircraft but crucially very few tanks. With Hitler so desperate for reinforcements, Hor thy provided the Hungarian 2nd Army bringing his contribution up to 200,000 troops. Supported by a single Hungarian armoured division it deployed along the Don south of Voronezh. During the summer of 1942 Antonescu’s Romanian forces were involved in the attack on Sevastopol and fought across the Kerch Straits, while others were in the Caucasus with the 3rd Panzer Army. The Romanian 3rd Army under Colonel-General Dumitrescu came back into the line in October 1942 to the north-west of Stalingrad. William Shirer observed: ‘Even the rankest amateur strategist could see the growing danger to the German armies in southern Russia as Soviet resistance stiffened in the Caucasus and at Stalingrad and the season of the autumn rains approached.’ Subsequently Hitler was furious at the collapse of his inadequate allies and lost all confidence in their fighting capabilities. ‘I never want to see another soldier of our eastern Allies on the Eastern Front,’ he raged after Stalingrad. Horthy presided over the worst military disaster ever inflicted upon the Hungarian Army and was swift to accuse Hitler of abandoning his men to their fate.The Admiral ordered the remains of 2nd Army home in March; both Romanian armies were also taken out of the line. After the Italians, Slovaks and Spanish were sent home, the Hungarian and Romanian forces remained a liability until 1944 when Romania swapped sides and the Red Army overran Hungary.
Photograph Sources The photographs in this book have been sourced from the author ’s own extensive collection as well as various archives including Russian Army, Finnish Army, US Army, US Signal Corps and Canadian Army collections. In addition, the author would like to thank Igor Bondarets, Rene Chavez, Nik Cornish and Scott Pict who kindly assisted with the picture research for this title by providing images from their Eastern Front photo libraries. Inevitably the quality of the images varies greatly, and some poorer quality ones have been included for their novelty and uniqueness, particularly when it comes to the rarer indigenous East European equipment. Readers will note a marked paucity of armour in the later chapters: this, of course, is because these units were primarily infantry formations but have been included for the sake of completeness in assessing how they coped with armoured warfare on the Eastern Front.
Chapter One
King Boris’s Bulgarian Panzers To this day the role played by Bulgaria’s panzers during the Second World War is little understood. While it is widely known that the Hungarians and Romanians fought on the Eastern Front, it is not generally appreciated that the Bulgarian Army first fought with and then against the Germans in the Balkans. Despite being allies, Hitler was able to profit from the regional squabbling of the East Europeans. In the case of King Boris of Bulgaria, he gained southern Dobrudja from Romania in 1940 thanks to Hitler ’s regional strong-arm tactics. Bulgaria provided a microcosm of all that was wrong with French-designed armour in comparison to German and Czech tanks. Hitler happily supplied King Boris with captured French tanks that were too slow and lacked spare parts, greatly hampering the development of Bulgaria’s fledgling armoured forces.To their dismay German forces in Yugoslavia ended up under attack by Panzer Mk IVs in September 1944 manned by German-trained Bulgarian tank crews. At least ten shipments of panzers arrived in the Bulgarian capital Sofia from 1940–44 courtesy of Adolf Hitler. As already stated, the Bulgarian armed forces were the least mechanised of all the satellite armies that fought for Hitler. Also, like Romania, Bulgaria had no indigenous tank capability whatsoever and by the late 1930s had just over a dozen Italian-supplied L.3 tankettes and eight British Vickers 6-ton tanks, supplemented by thirty-six Czech LT-35s. The first batch of twenty-six LT-35s was supplied by Germany in February 1940, with the rest coming directly from the Skoda factory in Germanoccupied Czechoslovakia. Bulgaria’s automobile industry was at best rudimentary and not really up to supporting the maintenance requirements of tanks.This meant the Bulgarians were largely reliant on foreign manufacturers for spare parts. Bulgaria had to buy its first armoured vehicles, the L.3s from Italy, on credit and these were used to equip the 2nd Automobile Battalion stationed in the Bulgarian capital.This became the 1st Tank Company and the subsequent purchase of the British Vickers 6-tonners saw the formation of the 2nd Tank Company. Both companies conducted manoeuvres in 1939 and were combined to form the 1st Tank Battalion. During 1940 elements of the battalion were involved in seizing Dobrudja from Romania and were then sent to guard the Turkish border. By the end of February 1941 Hitler was massing his troops in neighbouring Romania ready for his attack on the Soviet Union; however, he was distracted by the prospect of British forces landing at Salonika to support the Greek Army in fending off the Italians operating out of Albania. Hitler decided he must first secure southern Thrace between Salonika and Dedeagach, which he would then hand over to the Bulgarians to police. King Boris acceded to the Tripartite Pact on 1 March 1941 and German troops stationed in Romania crossed the Danube and took up station in Bulgaria ready to attack Greece. Boris provided the Bulgarian 5th Army (with fewer than sixty totally inadequate tankettes and light tanks) to support the invasions of Greece and Yugoslavia.
The Yugoslav capital of Belgrade was occupied by German and Hungarian troops on 13 April 1941. The Bulgarian 5th Army followed the panzers across the frontier, occupying most of Yugoslav Macedonia and moved to administer the Greek regions of Eastern Macedonia and Western Thrace, much to the irritation of Italian leader Benito Mussolini.The Bulgarians’ greatest concern was their traditional foe Turkey and they had no intention of tying up their army in Greece and Yugoslavia. Up until 1944 the regular army’s field divisions remained deployed on the Turkish border, leaving reservist formations to act as occupation forces. Such was their brutality in Macedonia that no significant partisan activity emerged until 1944. King Boris and his high command were in awe of the panzers’ blitzkrieg into the Balkans and sought to create their own armoured forces, albeit with paltry means. In June 1941 the Bulgarians formed their 1st Armoured Regiment under the vigilance of German instructors. This consisted of the 1st Tank Regiment equipped with the Italian L.3s, Czech LT-35s and captured French R-35s, and the 1st Mechanised Infantry Regiment. The Bulgarians were pleased with the Czech armour but not the French tanks.The initial shipment of R-35s was found to have parts missing, suspected to be the result of sabotage.They were soon discovered to be mechanically unreliable and slower than the Skodas. While both the R-35 and LT-35 had the same principal armament in the shape of a 37mm gun, that was largely where the similarities ended.At almost 10 tons in weight the R-35’s engine could muster 82 horsepower, generating just over 12mph and a range of 87 miles. In contrast the Czech LT-35 with a similar weight and 120hp was capable of double the speed and had a 120-mile range. The only advantage the Renault had over the Skoda was its thicker armour, which stood at 45mm compared to 35mm. Armoured exercises conducted in October 1941 showed just how useless the French R-35s were, when much of the 2nd Tank Battalion failed to reach the training grounds due to breakdowns. The lack of radios and armoured cars also proved a problem and it was not until the following year that the situation showed any signs of improvement. Toward the end of 1942, the Bulgarians became alarmed by German weapons deliveries to neutral Turkey, so as a counter-weight Hitler agreed to equip ten Bulgarian infantry divisions, one cavalry division and two armoured brigades. The Germans provided the Bulgarians with the Panzer III and IV as well as StuG III assault guns in July 1943. The slow Renaults were assigned an infantry support role. The following month King Boris died and successive prime ministers tried to extricate Bulgaria from its corrosive relationship with Hitler. Bulgaria’s 1st Assault Gun Battalion was formed in June 1943 and the 2nd Battalion three months later. In total Hitler supplied King Boris with over 260 panzers, which on the face of it seems quite a generous gesture, particularly in comparison with the Finns who only received seventy-seven tanks and Italy just 177. The Hungarians did slightly better with 385 panzers and Romania 350. Hitler, though, was not in the business of giving away precious armour that would be better deployed with the Wehrmacht. On closer inspection Hitler ’s shipments to his Balkan ally consisted of thirty-six Skodas and sixty-five Renault tanks, ten Panzer Mk IIIs and eighty-eight Mk IVs as well as fifty-five StuG III assault guns. After the Bulgarian experiences with the Renaults, in early 1944 when twenty-five French Hotchkiss-built H-39s and Somua-manufactured S-35s were supplied by Hitler, they were assigned to border units and the police. Like the Renaults these tanks, weighing in at 11 and 19 tons respectively, were slow, managing only 17.5mph. They knew that the Germans had offloaded junk onto them. Hitler probably hoped that the Bulgarian armour would eventually be committed to his crusade
against Bolshevism in the east. In the event it was to end up fighting Bulgarian and Yugoslav partisans and the German Army.While Bulgaria had taken part in the destruction of Yugoslavia and Greece, King Boris was less keen to entangle himself with his Russian Slavic cousins. Arguing that his army lacked mechanisation, Boris prudently avoided taking part in Operation Barbarossa. Although Bulgaria resisted calls to join the war in Russia it provided reinforcements to alleviate pressure on German security forces in the Balkans. In January 1942 the Bulgarian 1st Army occupied most of Serbia and from mid-1943 was fighting Yugoslav partisans in Western Serbia. In the summer of 1942 Hitler had to intervene in Italian-occupied West Macedonia after clashes between the Bulgarians and Italians. The Bulgarians officially designated the 1st Armoured Regiment the 1st Armoured Brigade in October 1943. The Renaults were despatched to support the army in central Bulgaria, fighting the growing Bulgarian partisan movement. Later ten Renaults were assigned to the Bulgarian 29th Infantry Division in Serbia to help fight Tito’s Yugoslav partisans. The United States Army Air Force bombed Bulgarian factories around Sofia on 10 January 1944 and the 1st Armoured Brigade and 1st Assault Gun Battalion were moved away from the city. The 1st Armoured Brigade did not become operational until August 1944, while the two assaultgun battalions were not operational until the following month. By this stage Hitler ’s relationship with the Bulgarians was waning. In addition to its commitments in Greece and Yugoslavia, the Bulgarian Army found itself countering some 18,000 Bulgarian partisans. Further shipments of panzers were switched en route to German troops in Yugoslavia. Bulgarian loyalty was suspect and the Germans secretly planned to disable the Panzer IVs and StuGs. When Romania swapped sides in August 1944 Bulgaria was secretly negotiating with the Allies. On 5 September 1944 the Soviet Union declared war on Bulgaria and three days later commenced hostilities.The Bulgarians sought to save themselves by declaring war on Germany. The factory workers downed tools in Sofia on 6 September and three days later an armed uprising took place. Although the Bulgarian Army consisted of twenty-three divisions and seven brigades supported by several hundred tanks and 400 aircraft, only four divisions and two brigades were facing the Soviets. Pushing through Romania, the Red Army thrust into Bulgaria north of Varna and veered west. The Soviet motorised columns soon outstripped the infantry but met no resistance. Arriving in Sofia on 15 September 1944 the columns of Soviet troops trundling through the city included British-supplied Valentine tanks. In the meantime, the Germans moved swiftly to deal with their former allies in Serbia and Macedonia disarming the Bulgarian 1st Army; only the 5th Army offered any short-lived resistance.The Germans confiscated all the Bulgarian weapons stocks, re-issuing them to local security forces. Panzertruppen instructors from the combat school at Nis in Serbia were put on alert to move to the German training camp at Plovdiv in Bulgaria from where they would act against the Bulgarian panzers. Instead a column from the 1st Armoured, consisting of sixty-two Panzer IVs and other armoured fighting vehicles, 835 trucks and cars, 160 motorcycles and four fuel tankers moved to block the Sofia-Nis road outside the Bulgarian capital and local German forces were disarmed. Bulgarian troops were withdrawn from Greece ready for an attack into Yugoslavia. Supporting the Soviets the 1st, 2nd and 4th Bulgarian Armies were launched into Yugoslavia on 28 September 1944. The 1st Armoured went into action against its former allies on 8 October when sixty tanks were thrown into the attack.Twenty-one Bulgarian tanks recaptured Vlasotince, driving out the German defenders. At Bela Palanka the Germans found themselves under attack by twelve Panzer IVs
on 12 October, but the Bulgarians ran into well-prepared defences including 88mm anti-aircraft guns and lost five tanks.The Brigade then went on to attack the 7th SS Division with some success. Notably during September–October 1944 most of the Brigade’s tank losses were due to breakdowns rather than combat. By the end of November 1944 the Bulgarian panzers were in Pristina and Kosovska Mitrovica, marking the end of operations in Yugoslavia. Elements of the Bulgarian Army equipped with Skoda tanks subsequently fought with the Bulgarian 1st Army and the Soviets in Hungary, seeing action in the closing months of the war. Ironically Bulgaria’s automobile industry, which had so singularly failed to serve the Bulgarian Army during the Second World War, was enlisted to serve the Warsaw Pact in the Cold War, producing various tracked vehicles for domestic use and export. Bulgaria’s first real tanks arrived in 1940 in the shape of thirty-six German-supplied Panzerkampfwagen 35(t)s, which were captured Czech-built LT-35s. These were found to be much more reliable than the forty French R-35s and were issued to the 1st Tank Regiment.
In April 1941 King Boris of Bulgaria sided with Adolf Hitler and supported the Nazi invasion of Greece and Yugoslavia by occupying Eastern Macedonia and Western Trace. Like most East European armies of the time, the Bulgarians were woefully ill-equipped to conduct mechanised warfare.
This Bulgarian border guard typifies the antiquated nature of the Bulgarian armed forces. King Boris was able to muster in excess of twenty infantry divisions. However, he only used his reservist units in the Balkans for occupation duties; as well as terrorising the Macedonians they soon came to blows with Hitler’s other allies in the region such as the Italians.
Like all the other East European armies in 1941 the Bulgarian Army relied on infantry divisions supported by horse-drawn transport–mechanisation was at its most rudimentary stages. The reality was that little had changed since the First World War.
Again like their neighbours the Bulgarians’ first experience with tanks was with the Italian-supplied Carro Veloce L3 tankette. This, though, was not a true tank at all but simply a lightly armoured machine-gun carrier. This massed column of at least a dozen tankettes might look impressive but up against heavier tanks and anti-tank guns would not last long. More Bulgarian tank crews with their camouflaged Italian L3. These along with Czech LT-35s and French R-35s were used to form the Bulgarian 1st Tank Regiment.
A Bulgarian mortar crew; note their M1938 helmets (similar to the earlier M1936 with the same semicircular crown, but lacking the slight frontal crest). The design was clearly influenced by those worn by the German Army. German instructors were sent to train Bulgarian tank crews at Plovdiv as Hitler hoped that King Boris would join the war on the Eastern Front. These trainees are posing by a dummy tank that bears a striking resemblance to the Soviet T-34.
Hitler initially supplied the Bulgarian Army with around ninety captured Czech and French tanks, the first German-built armour consisting of just ten Panzer Mk IIIs being received in 1943. The Bulgarians were also first supplied with the newer German Panzer Mk IV in 1943 when an initial batch of forty-six arrived in Sofia; these were followed by a similar number the following year. They were used to equip the Bulgarian 1st Armoured Brigade formed in October 1943. In total Bulgaria received 264 tanks and assault guns from Hitler during 1940–44.
The Bulgarians received three batches of StuG IIIs totalling fifty-five assault guns used to form two Assault-Gun Battalions that became operational in late summer 1944. When Bulgaria defected, the Germans disarmed the two Bulgarian Armies stationed in Yugoslavia but were unable to seize the equipment at Plovdiv after the 1st Armoured Brigade put on a show of force. The Bulgarians detested their French-built tanks; in particular the Renault R-35s proved to be unreliable and were issued to Bulgarian border units and police. In 1944 Hitler supplied captured French Hotchkiss H-39s (seen here) and Somua S-35s and these went the same way.
Inevitably with the panzers came instructors and mechanics to train the crews; this also ensured that the Germans retained an element of control over the equipment supplied to their not altogether reliable allies.
British-supplied Valentine tanks serving with the Red Army roll into Sofia on 15 September 1944. The Bulgarians did not resist and had little choice but to side with the Russians; they launched their panzers against the German Army in Yugoslavia. Soviet T-34/85 tanks on the streets. Turkey was Bulgaria’s traditional foe and the Bulgarian Army only had four line divisions facing the Soviet Union and nothing that could really stop such powerful tanks as these.
Soviet infantry plod past a knocked-out Panzer Mk IV. Hitler’s plans of setting up a Bulgarian tank force were swiftly dashed and the equipment he supplied ended up being turned on the German Army. By 1944 his Axis allies were proving to be a house of cards that fell swiftly in the face of Stalin’s onslaught. The Bulgarian 1st Armoured Brigade went into action against its former allies on 8 October 1944. Although it gave a good account of itself four days later at Bela Palanka, it ran into well dug-in German 88mm anti-tank guns and lost five Panzer Mk IVs.
By late November 1944 the Bulgarian panzers were in Pristina; notably most of the brigade’s losses were due to breakdowns rather than combat. With most of the Panzer IVs and StuG IIIs gone, Bulgarian LT-35s saw some action with the Red Army in Hungary in the closing months of the war. Thus ended King Boris’s Bulgarian panzers.
Chapter Tw o
Hitler ’s Czech Mates Following the First World War Germany was expressly forbidden from possessing tanks, but Adolf Hitler found a way round this and in 1934 produced a dozen turretless ‘agricultural tractors’ for training purposes. He then created three Panzer Divisions and during the next four years ordered the manufacture of over 2,600 Panzer Mk I/IIs. However, these forces were outclassed by France’s tank fleet and outnumbered by Russia’s. If Hitler was to accelerate his timetable for European confrontation, he desperately needed to supplement his meagre tank force. Hitler, General Heinz Guderian and his other panzer leaders looking at the map of Europe in the late 1930s knew that the Czechoslovak arms industry was one of the best on the continent. The Czechs were first-class tank builders and German intelligence indicated they had up to 500. Seizing them could be easy, but first there was the matter of Germany’s union with Austria. General Guderian rolled into Austria at the head of the 2nd Panzer Division in March 1938 meeting no resistance; 1st Panzer then marched into Czechoslovakia’s German-populated Sudetenland, again with no opposition. Emboldened, the following year Hitler annexed Czechoslovakia, setting him on the road to war with the rest of Europe.The Czechoslovak armed forces did not resist. What happened next went largely unnoticed but was vital to the subsequent invasions of France and Russia. General Guderian was despatched to Prague to see how Germany’s panzer units had fared in the cold weather, but more importantly to assess the condition of the Czechoslovaks’ armour. After a briefing on the German panzers, Guderian travelled on to the city of Brno to examine the Czechoslovakian tanks. He was disappointed to discover the haul was not as large as had been hoped. Skoda had built 424 LT-35s, but many had been exported and only half of those taken from the Czech Army were operational. Similarly none of the 150 follow-on LT-38s ordered by the Czechs had been built. Nonetheless, Hitler quietly confiscated 219 tanks and more importantly two entire tank production plants. When Hitler steamrollered into Poland just six months later, his six Panzer Divisions were still much weaker than intended. His force of 3,000 tanks included just ninety-eight medium Panzerkampfwagen (PzKpfw) Mk IIIs and 211 of the more powerful PzKpfw Mk IVs. Significantly though, included in the invasion force were over 100 LT-35s re-designated the PzKpfw 35(t) serving with the 1st Light Division.These were armed with a 37mm gun comparable to the Mk III’s, but they were half the weight and faster. While the LT-35 provided a useful stop-gap it was not kept in production, although it remained in front-line service until about 1942 when those few remaining were converted into artillery tractors. The Czech CKD-built LT-38, re-designated the PzKpfw 38(t), was an altogether different proposition.An order for 150 had been placed at the time of annexation and Hitler ordered it
completed: fifty-nine subsequently served with the 3rd Light Division in Poland in 1939 and fifteen in the invasion of Norway in 1940. Hitler and Guderian were impressed by its performance and ordered another 1,400 LT-38s.This, though, was the tip of the iceberg as Hitler demanded a further 5,000 be built as self-propelled and assault-gun chassis. Principal of these was the Panzerjager 38(t) and Jagdpanzer 38(t). During the conquest of Poland, Guderian called on Hitler to hasten delivery of the Panzer Mk III and IV; this, though, was held up by limited production capacity and the Army High Command’s habit of hanging on to them. By the spring of 1940, of 2,800 German armoured vehicles 627 were Mk IIIs and IVs, and 381 were Czech-built PzKpfw 38(t), while the remainder were the light Mk I, II and armoured cars. General Guderian, commanding the German 19th Panzer Corps, records only 2,200 tanks being available for the attack on France, while the Anglo-French forces were in excess of 4,000. According to Guderian’s figures 228 Czech LT-38s saw service, mainly with the 7th and 8th Panzer Divisions, during the invasion in May 1940. After the Polish campaign the 1st Light Division became the 6th Panzer Division and while stationed at Paderborn in April 1939 was issued with 128 LT-35s (along with sixty-five PzKpfw Mk IIs and forty-two Mk IIIs). Despite their mechanical shortcomings, 6th Panzer Division’s LT-35s gave a good account of themselves when they came up against the formidable French heavy tank, the Char B1 bis of the 2eme Division Cuirasse on 17 May 1940. By the spring of 1941 Czech-built armour accounted for 25 per cent of the total German tank force and were instrumental in the invasion of Russia that June. Guderian subsequently became very concerned about Hitler ’s over-reliance on the Czechoslovak tanks. By 1942 the preoccupation was the production of self-propelled guns for defensive purposes rather than offensive tanks, and to make matters worse the self-propelled guns were being armoured with unhardened steel. Guderian recalled:‘the troops were already beginning to complain that a selfpropelled gun on a Panzer II or Czech LT-38 chassis was not a sufficiently effective weapon.’ Hitler would not be swayed and the following year instructed that the production of the LT-38 and Panzer II be devoted solely to making chassis for self-propelled guns. In total the Czech factories supplied Hitler with almost 7,000 tracked armoured fighting vehicles, no small contribution to the German war effort. The impact of the acquisition of Czechoslovakia’s tanks facilities went beyond the German Army. The Hungarian, Romanian and Slovakian armies were equipped with the PzKpfw 38(t), while the Hungarians also produced their own version of the LT-35 known as the Turan. Romania started the war with the Skoda LT-35, but most of these were lost at Stalingrad in 1942 and were replaced by exGerman 38(t)s. In 1940 Germany also provided the Bulgarian Army with 35(t)s. Hitler remained shortsighted, for although the Czech armour was good in its day it was clearly obsolete in comparison with the Russian T-34. When the Hungarians requested to build the German Panzer MkV Panther tank in 1944, the deal fell through because of the exorbitant cost for the production licence, despite the fact that Germany was losing the war by this stage. Czechoslovakia’s tanks proved crucial, providing an important element of Germany’s tank force invading Poland, France and Russia.These tanks had a significant impact on the initial German war effort, as did the subsequent Czech self-propelled gun production which helped Germany’s defensive war, particularly on the Eastern Front. Hitler ’s early Panzer Mk I and II were simply not up to the job and the two successor models were not available in sufficient numbers.Without Czechoslovakia’s LT35 and LT-38 it seems highly unlikely that Hitler could have mounted his highly successful attacks on France in 1940 and Russia the following year.
While the Czechoslovak Army was far from fully mechanised it did have a lot of tanks. Czechoslovakia had a highly-developed weapons industry that produced small arms, artillery and tanks, all of which were widely exported. Hitler annexed the Czech lands to form the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia while Slovakia was given nominal independence. The Czech-designed and built LT-35, re-dubbed the PzKpfw 35(t) by the German Army, was deployed by the panzer divisions during the invasions of Poland, France and Russia. The Czechs produced 424 LT-35s between 1935 and 1938 and the Germans confiscated 219 from the Czech Army in March 1939. It was not kept in production and those that survived were converted to artillery tractors.
Head-on and side view of the much more successful LT-38/Pzkpfw 38(t). Hitler inherited a Czechoslovak order for 150 of these tanks and subsequently built 1,400 for the German Army.These ones were probably photographed somewhere in France in May 1940. Collectively the Germans tended to refer to the L-35 and LT-38 simply as ‘Skodas’.
These two shots show the Czech-built 38(t) operating on the Eastern Front with the panzer divisions. The Ausf A served with the 67th Panzer Battalion, 3rd Light Division in Poland and all models served in Russia from July 1941. The Ausf D, E and F were issued to the newer 12th, 19th and 20th Panzer Divisions.
The panzers take a breather on the open steppe. A PzKpfw 38(t) is just visible in the middle of this shot. The tank on the right is a German-built Panzer Mk II. Skodas pushing past a Russian church during Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Hitler’s Czech tanks served him well during the opening stages of his attack.
While the Czech-built tanks could cope with the Soviet T-26 light tank (seen here) and the BT-7 fast tank, they were no match for the newer T-34 that first went into battle during the German invasion.
A 38(t) hoisted over a StuG III; this particular example was captured by the Russians on the Eastern Front. It appears that its right-hand side lead road wheel has been shattered.
Hitler soon found an alternative use for his Skodas. Utilising the 38(t) chassis, almost 250 of these 7.5cm Pak40/3 auf PzKpfw 38(t) Ausf H self-propelled guns were built between November 1942 and April 1943. A column of the highly successful Marder IIIs. This Czech-based self-propelled gun went into production in April 1943 and almost 1,000 were built. It saw action on all the fronts.
Another equally successful use of the 38(t) chassis was with the Jagdpanzer 38(t) Hetzer or ‘Baiter’ tank destroyer. The first shot shows one somewhere on the Eastern Front in 1944. The second one shows a Hetzer knocked out in Germany and in the third a burnt-out Hetzer lies on the streets of Prague in May 1945.
These shots show Russian tanks and infantry on the streets of Prague. By this stage the Czech tank plants had long ceased production and the Czechs had risen up against their Nazi occupiers.
Chapter Three
Mannerheim’s Recycled Finnish Tanks Joseph Stalin’s Red Army received a sharp wake-up call during the 1939–40 Russo-Finnish Winter War. Although the Soviets prevailed, it took 1.5 million troops to defeat 200,000 Finns. While the Finnish Army under Field Marshal Mannerheim had practically no tanks, Russian armour struggled to make an impression against its defences. Mannerheim’s rudimentary armoured force consisted of just five independent tank companies equipped with fifty-nine obsolete Vickers E and Renault light tanks. Only the 4th Company saw any combat against the Soviets during the Winter War. Initially Finnish ski troops triumphed, appearing like ghosts from the forests at night to attack enemy columns using Molotov cocktail petrol bombs to destroy the stranded Soviet tanks. At Suomussalmi Stalin lost two entire divisions. However, in February 1940 the Soviets broke through the defences of the Mannerheim Line and the following month the Finns had little choice but to sue for peace. Whilst the Red Army defeated the small Finnish Army, the Winter War showed up numerous glaring inadequacies.The Red Army lost 2,300 tanks and armoured cars in the snows of Finland. The Finns captured around seventy largely intact T-26 light tanks and many were repaired at the Varkaus Tank Workshop ready for the war in June 1941. The Finns also rearmed their Vickers tanks with captured Soviet 45mm anti-tank guns and dubbed them the T-26E. Perhaps not surprisingly when Hitler invaded Russia the Finns threw their lot in with him. At the time of Operation Barbarossa the Finnish Army could muster just three battalions of captured Soviet tanks which included T-26s,T-37s and T-38s. In the confined forests of Finland the tiny T-37/38 amphibious light tank was a death-trap. The Finns called their participation in the Russo-German war the ‘Continuation War ’. Their South-Eastern Army, which consisted of two Corps, got to within 30 miles of Leningrad having recaptured all their lost territory. Their Karelian Army supported by a German division struck north of Lake Lagoda, advancing east of the lake into Soviet territory. Hitler ’s failure to capture Moscow in December 1941 raised doubts in Mannerheim’s mind that Hitler could ultimately win the war. The Finnish Army in order to conserve manpower went over to the defensive, much to the annoyance of Hitler who also failed to take Leningrad. The Finnish front remained largely static until the summer of 1944. The Finns invited German troops for training in winter warfare and forest-fighting, despite their students’ over-reliance on mechanisation. Despite this, Mannerheim expanded his armoured forces by creating an armoured division in August 1943 totalling 150 tanks. Finland had no indigenous tank manufacturing capabilities, which made it almost impossible to upgrade its tank forces as the war progressed. In light of the Finnish Army capturing large quantities of obsolete Soviet light tanks, its only option was to try to up-gun some of these once more.
The Finns’ armoured division was organised into two ‘brigades’ equipped with outdated Soviet T26 light tanks and an assault-gun brigade with BT-42s and German-supplied StuG IIIs. The BT-42 was a home-made Finnish assault gun consisting of a Soviet BT-7 light tank armed with a British 4.5-inch howitzer, which had been donated during the Winter War. This hybrid first saw action at the Svir River in 1943 against Soviet pillboxes. While this vehicle proved a useful support weapon it was useless in an anti-tank role. One BT-42 reportedly hit a Soviet T-34 eighteen times and failed to even immobilise it. Efforts to create an armoured personnel carrier known as the BT-43 in May 1943 employing a turretless Soviet BT-7 light tank came to nothing. Intended to carry twenty men, the high profile made it vulnerable and the wooden platform used to replace the turret offered little protection. It could have been used as an armoured supply carrier to support artillery units but was considered unsuitable for front-line use. The Finns also modernised their captured T-26s in 1942–43 and by the summer of 1944 had 126 of them in the field. Modifications largely consisted of installing single turrets on the earlier models which included using turrets from the BT tank. Even though Finland opened peace negotiations with the Soviet Union in February 1944, Stalin launched half a million men, 800 tanks, 10,000 artillery pieces and 2,000 combat aircraft at the Finnish Army that summer. Mannerheim commanded 268,000 troops supported by just 110 tanks, 1,900 guns and 248 combat aircraft. His armoured division was outnumbered and the T-26s were no match for the battle-hardened T-34/85s. All Mannerheim’s tanks could do was play for time. While Soviet casualties were not an inhibiting factor, Stalin did have more pressing matters elsewhere. The Soviet offensive was preceded by a bombardment of over 80,000 shells. On the second day they broke through the Finnish lines and made gains that threatened Finland’s security. Soviet troops liberated Petrozavodsk on the 28th. Mannerheim requested six German divisions and although Hitler sent the 122nd Infantry Division, an assault-gun brigade and anti-tank weapons the Finns were driven back with the loss of 36,000 casualties. For Finland it was a disaster that could only get worse. The Finns deployed eighteen BT-42s in the defence of Vyborg, but their crews hated them.The armour was too thin, the weight of the new gun made the vehicle mechanically unreliable and its new turret raised its profile making it even more vulnerable to the T-34. The extra fire-power was little compensation for such shortcomings. It was little more than a bodge job that had produced a deathtrap. Hitler despatched reinforcements and a Luftwaffe fighter-bomber unit to temporarily stabilise the situation on the condition that the beleaguered Finns did not sue for peace. With this aid the Finns were able to handle the crisis, and halted the Soviets in early July 1944. By this point, the Finnish forces had been driven back about 62 miles bringing them to approximately the same line of defence they had held at the end of the Winter War. Mannerheim knew he had little choice but to extricate his country from the war with Stalin. He made peace with Moscow on 25 August 1944 and monitored by his Finnish armour the Germans withdrew into northern Norway to continue the war. Ironically the Germans were involved in some local skirmishes with the Finns’ tanks as they retreated.
Field Marshal Mannerheim’s Finnish Army largely comprised infantry who were also highly-skilled ski troops. In 1939 as part of his forward defence doctrine Soviet leader Joseph Stalin made territorial demands on the Finns that resulted in the Winter War. The Winter War initially proved a disaster for the Red Army which lost half a million men and 2,300 tanks and armoured cars in the snows of Finland. The Finns captured seventy Soviet T-26 light tanks and refurbished them at the Varkaus Tank Workshop ready to take part in Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union.
The ruins of a Red Army convoy ambushed in the forests of Finland; the vehicles in the middle are STZ Komsomolets tracked infantry carriers. The mechanised Russian forces were slow to adapt to the requirements of winter warfare in the Finnish forests and for a while the Finns ran circles round them. Finnish ski troops taking up well-concealed defensive positions during the Winter War ; they were ultimately defeated by superior Soviet numbers, not tactics. The Finns soon became contemptuous of their German allies’ over-reliance on mechanisation in the winter wastes of Norway, Finland and Russia.
Part of the Mannerheim Line concealed by the winter–under the snow lay concrete dragon’s teeth and mines. A strongpoint is visible on the ridge line on the left. A well-camouflaged Finnish howitzer, which would have been capable of taking on most Soviet armour.
Victorious Finns pose during the Winter War with what looks to be a Soviet T-28 medium tank. The Finns’ small numbers of anti-tank guns were able to easily deal with this clumsy tank, which they dubbed ‘The Mail Train’. At the time the Red Army had two units equipped with the T-28, the 10th and 20th Heavy Tank Brigades, both of which suffered heavy losses in Finland. Captured Soviet T-26s in Finland. This tank’s thin 15mm armour made it vulnerable to anti-tank gun and direct artillery fire. Also the lack of artillery and infantry support in Finland led to heavy Russian casualties. In 1933 the single-turret T-26B light tank appeared (the earlier T-26 had twin turrets) and was armed with a 45mm or 37mm. The T-26’s low speed and poor mobility compared to the BT-5 resulted in production being abandoned in the mid-1930s.
Finnish ski troops hitch a rather uncomfortable-looking ride behind a captured T-26.
The Finns like the Bulgarians purchased the British Vickers 6-ton light tank. Although the British Army did not adopt this design it proved to be a best-seller and was exported to almost a dozen countries. The Vickers 6-tonner first saw combat in 1933 in Bolivia, followed by the Spanish Civil War. The first Finnish order was for sixteen that were delivered in 1938, followed by a further sixteen in 1939. They were of the single-turret variation known by the manufacturers as the‘Alternative B’ or Type B. The standard armament was a 47mm gun, but a proportion of these only had machine guns and others were fitted in 1939 with a special mounting for the French Puteaux 37mm gun. The Finns rearmed theirs with captured Soviet 45mm anti-tank guns and dubbed them the T-26E. Note the distinctive vertical Finnish swastika identification symbol.
The Finns made great use of the T-26 during the ‘Continuation War’ which is what they called their part of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941. By August 1943 the Finns had expanded their armoured force to 150 tanks.
Captured Soviet T-26 tanks and BA-10 armoured cars. The T-26 was a licence-built copy of the British Vickers 6-ton tank after being selected by the Directorate of the Mechanisation of the Red Army. It was produced with a variety of different weapons, the Model 1933 being the most numerous; 5,000 of these had been built by 1937.
While the Finns easily dealt with the Soviet light tanks they struggled to counter heavy tanks such as the KV-1, early prototypes of which were tested during the Winter War with the 91st Tank Battalion serving with the 20th Heavy Tank Brigade. One such prototype, the SMK (Sergius Moronovitch Kirov), was disabled by a Finnish mine and was only recovered after the Red Army broke through the Mannerheim Line in February 1940.
During the first winter of the Continuation War the new T-34 deployed on the Leningrad Front did not fare well against the Finns. The lack of room to manoeuvre in the dense forests cost the crews dearly. By necessity the Finns became the master of the armoured ambush.
Like the T-26 and BT-7 before it the Finnish Army was not averse to press-ganging the T-34 into service. In these two photographs the Finns seem to be putting this particular T-34 through its paces. It has an odd mix of rubber and steel-rimmed road wheels. Such tests would have gauged the T-34’s bridging capabilities and measured whether Finnish defences could withstand armoured attack.
Another captured T-34 in Finnish service; the tank in the background appears to be another elderly T28.
The Finns’ single armoured division consisted of two brigades equipped with T-26 light tanks and an assault-gun brigade equipped with German-supplied StuG IIIs (seen here) and the Finnish BT-42 hybrid (which married a Soviet BT-7 chassis to a British howitzer). The Finns only received seventyseven tanks and assault guns from Hitler during the course of the Continuation War. Such numbers
made little impact against the massed might of the Red Army.
In 1944 the Red Army launched a massive offensive against the Finns which pushed them back to the positions they held at the end of the Winter War. Field Marshal Mannerheim had little choice but to sue for peace and abandon Hitler.
Chapter Four
Horthy’s Hungarian Horrors The Hungarian Army’s 4th Corps supporting a German offensive attacked the Romanian town of Arad in September 1944. Spearheaded by the Hungarian 1st Armoured Division, the 1st Field Cavalry Replacement Brigade and the 7th Assault Gun Battalion, this was the last independent action by the battered Hungarian Army during the war and one of the very few successes achieved by its limited armoured forces.The latter were equipped with a confection of home-grown armoured vehicles. Although Arad fell on 13 September, the Hungarians soon found themselves engaged in a fierce six-day battle with the Romanian Army, which with the benefit of significant Soviet air support succeeded in destroying twenty-three Hungarian light and medium tanks. After the arrival of the Red Army a joint Soviet-Romanian counter-attack was launched to drive out the invaders. The Hungarian 7th Assault Gun battalion claimed to have destroyed sixty-seven Soviet T-34 tanks, at the cost of eight German-supplied StuG III assault guns destroyed and a further twenty-two damaged. The Hungarians, lacking air support and completely outclassed by the Soviets, were forced to evacuate Arad just a week after capturing it. Hungary was the only Eastern European country with an indigenous tank capability. Hungarian ruler Admiral Horthy’s total contribution to Hitler ’s armoured forces was modest, amounting to about 1,500 tanks, assault guns and armoured cars in 1941–44. This included armour supplied by Germany. These were used to equip two Hungarian armoured divisions and eight assault artillery battalions. The leading Hungarian manufacturers were Ganz and Manfred Weiss at Csepel and MAVAG and MVG at Raba. Horthy’s armoured vehicle production was painfully slow and amounted to just under 900 vehicles for the whole of the war. The Hungarians constructed 120 indigenous 38M Toldi light tanks, some 500 40M Turan medium tanks (a version of the Czech LT-35), sixty 43M Zrinyi assault howitzers, an unknown number of 40M Nimrod self-propelled guns and 171 39M Csaba armoured cars in 1939–44. The Hungarian Army was also equipped with a few hundred German-supplied LT-35/38s, PzKpfw IVs and StuG IIIs as the Hungarian Turan was horribly late going into production. Horthy provided two motorised brigades and a cavalry brigade equipped with about 150 Toldi light tanks, Italian-supplied L.35 tankettes and Csaba armoured cars for Hitler ’s invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941. However, Horthy’s armoured forces proved an embarrassment: his troops reached Novi Sad on the Danube, but one armoured unit after driving 30 miles south of the border ran out of petrol. By June 1941 the Hungarians had just 189 tankettes, light tanks and armoured cars. Nonetheless, Hor thy committed large numbers of troops to Hitler ’s Operation Barbarossa including the Carpathian Group of two brigades and the Mobile Corps of three brigades.The latter had to seize civilian transport to supplement their obsolete Toldis, Csabas and L.3s. Forming part of the German 17th Army the Mobile Corps fought well in the Ukraine, but after reaching the Donets was withdrawn
home in November 1941. In the summer of 1942 with Hitler desperate for reinforcements, Horthy despatched the 2nd Army consisting of the 3rd, 4th and 7th Corps bringing his contribution up to 200,000 men.This was supported by a single Hungarian armoured division equipped with PzKpfw 38(t)s, Panzer Mk III/IVs, Toldi light tanks, Csaba armoured cars and Nimrod self-propelled guns. In June the 2nd Army under General Jany reached the front at Kursk and moved to hold the line along the Don south of Voronezh. In the face of the Russian winter and T-34 tanks Hungarian morale soon fell. After smashing the Romanian and Italian armies round Stalingrad the Russians moved to destroy the 2nd Hungarian Army on 15 January 1943. The Hungarian 1st Armoured Division, under German tactical control, was held back and not permitted to counter-attack in time to help restore the situation.The Hungarians lost 30,000 casualties, 50,000 PoWs and all their tanks and heavy equipment. It was the worst military disaster ever experienced by the Hungarian Army, who were quick to blame the Germans for abandoning them to their fate. Hor thy ordered the remains of 2nd Army home in March, leaving behind two weak Corps for security duties. In mid-1943 the Hungarians reconstituted their battered 1st Armoured Division and created a second. Both were organised along German lines, but equipped with a mixture of Hungarian Turan and Turan II medium tanks. In addition eight assault artillery battalions were created, which were to have been equipped with the Hungarian Zrinyi assault gun. However, there were only enough of these to arm two battalions, so the others used German-supplied StuG IIIs. The Hungarians also raised the 1st Cavalry Division, which was later renamed the 1st Hussar Division. During 1942–44 Hitler was obliged to supply Hungary with almost 400 German-built panzers to try to prop up their army. Disastrously Romania’s defection in mid- 1944 exposed Hungary’s southern frontier. Desperately trying to stem the Soviet and Romanian forces pushing from the east, the Hungarian 7th Assault Artillery Battalion succeeded in briefly giving the Soviets a bloody nose at Arad on the river Lipova. However, Horthy’s government began to wobble and by the end of 1944 the Hungarian 1st Army had withdrawn into Slovakia and the 2nd Army had been disbanded. Units were transferred to the battered Hungarian 3rd Army south of Lake Balaton or to the German 6th and 8th Armies in northern Hungary. Budapest, the Hungarian capital, came under the protection of General Otto Wöhler ’s Army Group South. By October 1944 it was apparent that Horthy was intent on joining Romania and Bulgaria in defecting to the Soviet camp. The Germans temporarily stabilised the situation by installing a puppet government with Operation Panzerfaust, but the Soviets were soon hammering at the gates of Budapest. The mixed German-Hungarian garrison included the Hungarian 1st Armoured, 10th Mixed and 12th Reserve Divisions, as well as a number of armoured car and assault artillery battalions. The Red Army having stretched its supply lines to the very limit was unable to pierce the German positions, so switched its attentions east of Budapest. The 6th Guards Tank Army attacked from the north-east and the 46th Army from the south, encircling the city. Efforts to relieve the Hungarian capital in January 1945 got to within 12 miles of the city. The garrison on 11 February desperately attempted to break out: this ended in bloody disaster and Budapest capitulated the following day. Elements of the Hungarian Army continued to fight alongside the Germans, but their armour was long gone.
All smiles for the camera: senior Hungarian Army officers pose with their German liaison officer. While the Germans thought highly of Hungarian fighting qualities, ultimately Admiral Horthy felt let down by Adolf Hitler.
A column of Hungarian Toldi 38M light tanks and the ubiquitous Italian-supplied L3 tankette. The former was patterned on the Swedish Landsverk L-60. Although Sweden was better known for its artillery, the Landsverk 10 was the first in the series of light and medium tanks. The latest in 1939 was the L-60D, a 9-ton tank armed with a 37mm gun which was adopted by the Swedish Army as the Stridsvagn m/39.
The Hungarian firms Granz and MAVAG produced around 120 Toldi I, II/IIa and III during 1943–44. There was little to differentiate it from the Swedish m/39 and it had the same torsion-bar suspension used for the four medium-sized road wheels, same-sized idler at the rear and two return rollers. In 1941 the Swedish m/39 was succeeded by the m/40 which had an improved gearbox, though the only external difference was the addition on the turret of a cupola with armoured periscopes.
Another Hungarian Toldi. The vehicle behind it appears to be the Hungarian Nimrod 40M antiaircraft/anti-tank self-propelled gun. This was built from 1940 using a Landsverk LVKV40 chassis with a turret made by Manfred Weiss armed with a 40mm L/70 Bofors gun. The torsion bar suspension has five road wheels and two return rollers.
Although the Swedish produced the m/42 medium tank armed with a 75mm gun, the Hungarians adopted the Czech T-21. Initially they wanted to buy Czechoslovakian Skoda tanks, but after the German occupation production was diverted to the German Army. Instead they got the licence for the T-21, essentially the Skoda LT-35 that resulted in the Hungarian Turan medium tank seen here.
The Turan I replaced the original two-man turret with a three-man version and replaced the 37mm gun with a 40mm. The Hungarian Csaba 39M 4x4 armoured car with a 20mm gun went into production in 1939, but only 171 were produced.
Abandoned Turans somewhere on the Eastern Front. The Turan featured a complicated leaf-spring suspension with eight road wheels in two sets of four with rockers. It had a similar pneumaticallycontrolled gearbox that proved unreliable in the LT-35 on the Eastern Front in the winter of 1941. Overall it was not a terribly successful tank.
A rather blurred shot of the Hungarian Nimrod. Like most self-propelled anti-aircraft guns this could also be deployed in a ground-support role. While the Germans greatly admired Hungarian soldiers such as these, Hungary’s tank force left a lot to be desired. Hungarian troops wore the M1938 helmet (seen here) that was almost identical to the German M1935. They were also issued with the much older M1917 helmet.
These two shots show Hungarian troops hitching a lift on the Turan II.This was up-gunned with a 75mm gun mounted in a modified turret. Although having a much better gun, the running gear suffered exactly the same problems.
A column of Toldi light tanks. These along with the Turan equipped the Hungarian 1st Armoured Division on the Eastern Front.
Two shots of the Zrinyi II 43M self-propelled howitzer. This mounted a 105mm assault howitzer on a widened Turan tank chassis. About sixty were built during 1943–44. It was a belated effort to emulate the success of Germany’s assault guns.
This shows the Zrinyi I prototype which was armed with a 75mm gun; behind it is the Zrinyi II. As well as producing their own tanks, Hitler supplied Hungary with 385 tanks and assault guns including ninety-four Panzer Mk IVs between 1942–44. Panzer deliveries to Hitler’s Eastern Front allies dried up and were diverted in the summer of 1944 once they had become front-line states and started defecting to Stalin.
Hungary was the only Axis ally to receive the highly successful Hetzer 38(t) tank destroyer ; about 100 were delivered from the Czech tank factories in 1944. This example being examined by Hitler has just come off the production line, hence the sand base colour of the vehicle. This shot shows a German Tiger II on the streets of Budapest following Operation Panzerfaust. This ensured that Admiral Horthy and his army remained loyal to the Nazi cause to the very end.The net result was that Hungary became a bitter battleground and the scene of the Nazis’ last major offensive of the war.
Hungarian officers remonstrate with the German Special Forces sent to seize Admiral Horthy. The element of surprise was such that the Hungarians were not given the chance to resist. A Turan II negotiates a makeshift wooden bridge. The Hungarians built over 500 Turan I/IIs which ended up scattered across the Eastern Front.
Chapter Five
Mussolini’s Italian L6 Goes to Russia Although Benito Mussolini provided an entire Italian Army to aid Adolf Hitler on the Eastern Front, he sent pitifully small numbers of tanks and self-propelled guns to support it.Those he did send were woefully inadequate.The only formation with noteworthy armoured units was the 3rd Celere (Mobile) Division ‘Principe Amedeo Duca d’Aosta’, which included the 67th Battaglione Bersaglieri Corazzato armed with the L.6/40 light tank and the 13th Gruppo ‘Cavalleggeri di Alessandria’ equipped with the Semovente L/40 da 47/32 self-propelled gun. Mussolini kept back all his medium tanks, such as the M11/39 and M13/40, to support his ill-fated operations in North Africa and the Balkans. Following his defeats there, his remaining medium armour was kept back for the defence of Sicily and the Italian mainland. In July 1941 Mussolini despatched 62,000 men, with 5,500 motor vehicles and 4,000 pack animals. This force made up the CSIR (Italian Expeditionary Corps in Russia), comprising three divisions (3rd Celere, 9th Pasubio and 52nd Torino, the latter two being semi-motorised infantry divisions), which were placed under the command of the German 11th Army. Lacking tanks, the Italians mainly comprised lightly-armed infantry, cavalry and bersaglieri (elite riflemen). At this stage the 3rd Celere (Mobile) Division ‘Principe Amedeo Duca d’Aosta’ only had the 3rd Gruppo Carri Veloci ‘San Giorgio’ equipped with sixty-one L.3 tankettes organised into four squadrons. During 1940–41 the lightly-armoured L.3 saw extensive service with the Italian Army in North Africa fighting the British and in the Balkans fighting the Greeks. It was wholly inadequate for armoured warfare on the Eastern Front. In 1929 the Italians purchased a number of British CardenLoyd Mk IV tankettes and subsequently manufactured under licence the two-man Carro Veloce (fast tank) CV 28/29 derivative.These were superseded by the CV 33 (armed with a 6.5mm machine gun and a maximum armour thickness of 13.5mm) and the CV 35 (armed with a 13.2mm). Although supposedly fast they could only manage 26mph on the road and the Veloce designation was quietly dropped! In 1938 they were re-designated the L.3/33 and L.3/35 respectively and in total about 2,500 were built for domestic use and export. The CSIR was bloodied fighting the retreating Russians between the Bug and Dniestr Rivers in August 1941. Afterwards the Italians were subordinated to General Von Kleist’s Panzer Corps and were involved in the attack on Stalino and occupying the neighbouring towns of Gorlowka and Rikovo. Reorganised as a light mechanised division in March 1942, the 3rd Celere’s new armoured formations consisted of the 67th Battaglione Bersaglieri Corazzato equipped with two companies of L.6/40 light tanks and the 13th Gruppo ‘Cavalleggeri di Alessandria’ comprising two squadrons of Semovente L/40 da 47/32 self-propelled guns.The division also received the 6th Bersaglieri Regiment from the 2nd Celere Division ‘Emanuele Filiber to Testa di Ferro’ (for a total of two Bersaglieri
regiments of three battalions each), the 120th Motorised Artillery Regiment, the 67th Battaglione Bersaglieri motociclisti (three companies), and an expanded complement of mortars and anti-tank weapons.The division was subordinate to the German 29th Corps. The 3rd Gruppo Carri Veloci ‘San Giorgio’ and its remaining L.3s were sent back to Italy. The 3rd Celere Division’s two cavalry regiments, the 3rd ‘Savoia Cavalleria’ and the 5th ‘Lancieri di Novara’ along with the 3rd Horse Artillery Regiment were detached to form the independent Raggruppamento truppe a cavallo under the command of Colonel (later Brigadier-General) Guglielmo Barbò di Casel Morano. The Carro Armato L.6/40 light tank in reality was little more than a scaled-up L.3. While marginally better than its predecessor, it was obsolete before it even entered service.This first appeared in 1936 with two prototype variants, one armed with a 37mm gun and co-axial 8mm machine gun, the other with twin 8mm Breda machine guns. In the event it went into production armed with a Breda Model 35 20mm gun and a co-axial 8mm. During 1941–42 283 were manufactured; this number is thought to have included the Semovente L/40 da 47/32 armed with a 47mm anti-tank gun and a command variant. A flame-thrower version was also developed but did not go into production. In Russia the L.6/40 could act in little more than a reconnaissance role; furthermore it was no faster than the L.3, which meant neither could outrun Russian armour. By the summer of 1942 Mussolini had greatly expanded his involvement on the Eastern Front, sending the Sforzesca, Cosseria, Ravenna and Vicenza Infantry Divisions along with the Tridentina, Cuneense and Julia Mountain Divisions. They were incorporated into the 8th Italian Army in Russia (ARMIR).The ARMIR also integrated the 298th and 62nd German divisions (the latter being sent to Stalingrad). By November they totalled 235,000 men in twelve divisions, including a Croatian volunteer Legion and three Legions of Camicie nere (Black Shirt fascist volunteers). This force was equipped with 988 guns, 420 mortars, 17,000 vehicles, 25,000 horses and sixty-four aircraft but very few tanks. By the end of August General Italo Gariboldi’s Italian 8th Army had become a cause for concern to the Germans, convincing them that the Italians were not suitable for warfare on the Eastern Front. The German Deputy Chief of Staff, General Blumentritt, was appalled by what he found:
General Halder had sent me on a flying visit to the Italian sector, as an alarming report had come in that the Russians had penetrated it. However, I found the attack had been made by only one Russian battalion, but an entire Italian division had bolted. Having smashed the Romanian Army so effectively the Soviets set about crushing the other satellite armies that winter. Operation Saturn, which followed the encirclement of Stalingrad, was to smash the Italian 8th Army to create a larger pocket of trapped German forces. The Italian L.6 crews as well as freezing to death must have felt a sense of dread at the prospect of being confronted by a Russian T34/76 armed with a 76.2mm anti-tank gun and sporting 45mm of frontal armour.The L.6’s 20mm was little more than a peashooter against such monsters and its frontal armour of just 13.5mm could not hope to protect the two-man crew from a messy fate. Major D. Tolloi serving on 8th Army’s HQ staff recalled:
‘On December 16 the Soviet troops crashed into the Italian Army line. On December 17 the front fell to pieces, and on December 18 the ring closed south of Boguchar, securely tightened by the forces operating from the west and east.’ He adds:‘Many of the staffs lost all contact with their troops. Units attacked by tanks tried to save themselves by scattering… Artillery and vehicles were abandoned.’ Gariboldi’s 8th Army rapidly collapsed into a state of chaos. The 2nd and 35th Corps disintegrated almost immediately, leaving the Alpine Corps on its own and a massive hole in the front line. All the 3rd Celere Division’s tanks were quickly lost as blazing hulks around Stalingrad. The Italian-Croat Legion fighting alongside the division was also destroyed during the bloody retreat from the Don. The Red Army penetrated 40 miles and the 3rd Guards Army captured 15,000 dispirited Italian prisoners at Verchnyakovski by 19 December. During the Battle of Stalingrad (August 1942–Februar y 1943), the Italian 8th Army lost a total of 20,000 dead and 64,000 captured. Newly-promoted Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus and the German 6th Army surrendered at Stalingrad on 31 Januar y 1943. The dazed survivors of the Italian 8th Army were regrouped in the Ukraine, but Hitler had lost faith in their fighting abilities and did not want them. By the summer of 1943 a thoroughly miserable Mussolini had withdrawn the remnants of his troops back to Italy. Many of those captured in Russia perished in captivity due to the appalling conditions in the prison camps. In 1943 the L.6/40 was issued to the Italian cavalry divisions’ armoured groups. Following the German occupation of Italy in September 1943, the Germans took an unknown number of L.6/40s into service and confiscated seventy-eight L/40 da 47/32s which were used to resist the British and American armies fighting their way up Italy. Ironically these vehicles probably served the Germans in Italy far better than they ever did the Italian Army on the Eastern Front. Hitler was not trusting enough to allow Mussolini’s puppet Repubblica Sociale Italiana (RSI) armed forces to have any significant numbers of tanks. The ‘San Giusto’ group and Reparto Anti Partigiani unit of the RSI Army and the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana (GNR) Combattente armoured battalion ‘Leonessa’s’ small armoured forces included just a handful of L.6/40s and L/40 da 47/32s, all of which were largely used to fight fellow Italians. Italian leader Benito Mussolini’s relationship with Hitler was such that he initially provided an expeditionary corps and then an entire army to fight on the Eastern Front.They were so inadequately equipped that they had to be eventually withdrawn.
The Italian forces sent to Russia consisted of infantry divisions and completely lacked vital tank support.
Italian infantry moving up on the River Don with the Italian 8th Army that totalled 235,000 men. Note the complete absence of heavy equipment such as tanks, motor vehicles or artillery. They would find no glory on the Eastern Front and ended up being overrun by Russian armour in the winter of 1942.
Initially the Italian 3rd Mobile Division went to war in Russia in the summer of 1941 equipped with
about sixty L.3 tankettes; those remaining were sent home in the spring of 1942. The Carro Armato L.6/40 seen here in North Africa was issued to the Italian Army in 1940–41 to replace the L.3 tankette series. It was essentially a scaled-up L.3 with a more powerful engine, torsionbar suspension and a turret armed with a 20mm gun. While an improvement on its predecessor, it was still too lightly armoured and armed and was not a great success either in North Africa or Russia. The Soviet T-34 made easy work of it.
With a maximum of just 30mm of armour even Russian infantry could knock out the L.6/40 with their anti-tank rifles. It was the heaviest Italian tank sent to Russia: the Italian high command chose to hold back the M13/40 medium tank, which was instead deployed to Libya, Greece and Yugoslavia. A graphic testimony to the fate of the L.6/40 during the Battle of Stalingrad in December 1942. The Italian 8th Army deployed only fifty-five of these tanks from a total of 283 built between 1941 and 1942.
Another abandoned L.6/40. They proved to be more of a liability for their crews than a threat to the enemy.
The L.3 and the L.6/40 were not capable of withstanding the T-34/76, seen here knocked out by
admiring Germans in the summer of 1941. All the Axis armies on the Eastern Front struggled to counter the T-34, thanks to their inadequate tanks, anti-tank guns and artillery.
Having lost all their heavy equipment and 64,000 troops captured and another 20,000 killed, the Italian Army was withdrawn from the Eastern Front by the summer of 1943. This was the very point at which Mussolini fell from power following the Allied invasion of Sicily. This was the fate of many Italians in Russia–captivity followed by a cold and hungry death.
Following the German occupation of Italy in September 1943 the Germans took an unknown number of
L.6/40s into service for anti-partisan and police duties.
Chapter Six
Antonescu’s Romanian Armour It is not generally appreciated that a Romanian armoured division fought vainly alongside the Germans in the winter of 1942 at Stalingrad in an effort to stem the Soviet counter-attack that trapped the German 6th Army. At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 Romania created its very first tank regiment; this was combined with a motorised rifle regiment two years later to form an armoured brigade.The 1st and 2nd Armoured Regiments were combined in April 1941 and were mainly equipped with Czech LT-35 and some CKD light tanks. The Romanian Army also had six cavalry brigades (1st, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th), some of which were issued with light tanks. Bad blood between the Romanians and Hungarians forced them into Hitler ’s evil embrace. In 1940 Romania lost Bessarabia and Bukovina to the Soviet Union, followed by half of Transylvania to Hungary and the southern Dobrudja to Bulgaria.That same year the Romanian king abdicated in favour of his son, but pro-Nazi Marshal Ion Antonescu became the power behind the throne. In October 1940 the German 13th Motorised Infantry Division crossed Hungary into Romania, followed by the 16th Panzer Division two months later, to ensure Romanian ‘security’. Six months before Operation Barbarossa Hitler secretly allocated Romania a key role. He directed:
It will be the task of Romania to support the attack of the German southern flank, at least at the outset, with its best troops; to hold down the enemy where German forces are not engaged; and to provide auxiliary services in the rear areas. ‘Of course I’ll be there from the start,’ exclaimed Antonescu when told of Adolf Hitler ’s invasion of the Soviet Union, just ten days before it was due to commence on 22 June 1941. ‘When it’s a question of action against the Slavs, you can always count on Romania,’ he added, little realising the bloody consequences. Antonescu willingly provided the largest number of the satellite troops and his finest forces including his fledgling armour units. General von Rundstedt’s Army Group South included the equivalent of fourteen Romanian divisions. The Romanians had almost 300 tanks in June 1941, comprising thirty-five Czech CKD/Praga R-1 light tanks, 126 Czech LT-35s (known as the R-2 in Romanian service), seventy-three French R-35s and sixty French FT-17s. Few of these were suitable for front-line service. While the LT-35 was capable of taking on the various Russian light tanks such as the T-26,T-37,T-40 and T-60, up against anything heavier it was in trouble. Although reasonably armoured at the front to a thickness of 35mm, the LT-35’s 37mm anti-tank gun was simply not capable of taking on the Russian T-34/76 armed with a 76.2mm or the similarly armed KV-1.
The 1st Armoured Regiment with the LT-35s was the first Romanian unit to take part in the invasion of the USSR, though the 2nd Armoured Regiment was held back because of the condition of its R-35s. Many of these French tanks had been appropriated from the fleeing Polish Army, in particular the Polish 21st Armoured Battalion, and lacking spares were not committed to the invasion of Russia. Similarly the wholly inadequate R-1s were held back with the Royal Cavalry. In 1941 Romania fielded its 3rd Army, consisting of the Mountain Corps and Cavalry Corps totalling six brigades, as well as the 4th Army consisting of four divisions. Altogether these forces totalled about 150,000 men, but later with reinforcements were to swell to over 300,000. Under pressure to supply more manpower, Romania also drafted 2,000 rapists, looters and murderers–never the best basis for an army. Romanian troops wore a khaki uniform with very distinctive Dutch-style helmets, so were clearly distinguishable from their German allies. On 22 June 1941 the Romanians pushed into southern Russia. The 3rd Army’s Mountain Corps fought with the German 11th Army in the Crimea and the Cavalry Corps with the 1st Panzer Army. The 4th Army with a 5:1 numerical superiority attempted to capture Odessa on 10 August, but made little headway against determined Red Army resistance. The attack petered out five days later, but was resumed on the 20th and for a month the Romanians struggled to get within 9 miles of the city. Headway was finally made when the Germans swung down into the Crimea. After suffering an appalling 98,000 casualties, the exhausted 4th Army was withdrawn in October 1941 for refit. Hitler ’s tank deliveries to Romania, as in the case of Hungary and Bulgaria, were modest, totalling less than 350 throughout the war. During 1942 Romania received twenty-six replacement LT-35s, eleven Panzer IIIs and eleven Panzer IVs courtesy of Berlin.To address their need for a mobile antitank weapon the Brasov factory was instructed to convert some LT-35s into self-propelled mounts by installing captured Russian 76mm guns. A number of Russian T-60 light tanks were also supplied by the Germans fitted with a 76mm and these were designated TACM (Tun autopropulsat cu afet mobile 76.2mm), R-2 or T-60 respectively. The cavalry brigades also became divisions in 1942. During the summer of 1942 Romanian forces were involved in the attack on Sevastopol and fought across the Kerch Straits, while others were in the Caucasus with the 3rd Panzer Army. Crucially by the autumn the fate of Hitler ’s stalled ambitions for conquering the USSR rested firmly on the shoulders of two ill-equipped Romanian armies bereft of tanks and anti-tank guns. Fatefully the Romanian 3rd Army, consisting of nine divisions under Colonel-General Dumitrescu, came back into the line in October 1942 to the north-west of Stalingrad. To their left was the Italian 8th Army, which served as a buffer between them and the Hungarians, such was the national enmity between the two. Another Romanian Corps, part of the 4th Army, moved into place on the southern flank followed by a second in November providing six divisions to the German 4th Panzer Army. Perhaps as window-dressing Hitler suggested that General Constantinescu’s 4th Army should take charge of the 4th Panzer Army, despite the fact that the Romanians were incapable of commanding such forces. He also proposed that the 3rd and 4th Romanian armies along with the German 6th Army should form Army Group Don under Marshal Antonescu.The forthcoming Russian offensive prevented such plans being implemented. At 6.30am on 19 November 1942 3,500 Russian guns opened up on the Romanian 3rd Army’s positions.Then came the Soviets’ dreaded T-34 tanks and most of the Romanian defenders took fright and fled.The Russians broke through in two places. This was achieved by Lieutenant-General Romanenko’s 5th Tank Army launching itself from the bridgehead south-west of Serafimovich and Major-General I.M. Chistyakov’s 21 st Army attacking from the Kletskaya bridgehead.
The Romanian generals called on their tanks to try to save the day.The Romanian 1st Tank Division and 7th Romanian Cavalry Division were thrown into the fight to halt the 5th Tank Army. However, the Romanians’ inadequate Czech tanks were easily brushed aside and the 5th Romanian Corps HQ overrun. While some of the Romanian troops fled, most simply threw away their weapons and surrendered. Romanian troops made little effort to disable or wreck their abandoned vehicles and equipment. German dive-bomber pilot Hans Rudel, flying above the battlefield witnessed the disintegration of the 3rd Romanian Army:
What troops are those coming towards us? Masses of brown uniforms–are they Russians? No, Romanians. Some of them are even throwing away their rifles in order to be able to run faster… we have now reached our allies’ artillery emplacements. The guns are abandoned, not destroyed. The ammunition lies besides them. General von Weichs, commander of Army Group B on which 6th Army, 4th Panzer and the Romanian, Hungarian and Italian forces relied, issued the following orders:‘The situation developing on the front of the 3rd Romanian Army dictates radical measures in order to disengage forces quickly to screen the flank of 6th Army and to assure the protection of supplies …’ He went on to order units to bolster the Romanians, not realising the Russians were planning to attack his right flank the very next day. In reality the Germans were too busy fending off Russian attacks to worry about the fate of the trapped Romanians. General Mazarini, 5th Division commander assumed overall command of the 3rd Army pocket and after conferring with his fellow officers accepted the Russian offer of surrender on 23 November.The Soviet 21st and 5th armies captured 30,000 officers and men, including several generals as well as much of their equipment. General Mihail Lascar with the remains of four divisions found himself trapped between Chir and Kletskaya. The Russians called on him to surrender, but he directed 4,000 men to try to reach the 48th Panzer Corps before handing himself over. The Soviet 26th Tank Corps’ advance guard seized a bridge over the Don on 26 November. The German guards mistook the attack for an exercise using captured Russian tanks and the armour rumbled over the bridge. Kalach lay just 2 kilometres away, but the German defenders were not overwhelmed until Russian reinforcements arrived. By the end of November the remnants of the Romanian 3rd Army had been driven back between Chernyshevskaya to the north and Oblivskaya to the south. Far to the south-east the Romanian 4th Army suffered a similar fate. Just twenty-four hours after the Soviet South-Western and Don Fronts had opened the offensive, the 51st, 57th and 64th armies of the Stalingrad Front joined the attack. At 10.00am on 20 November Soviet artillery opened up. Soldiers of the 20th Romanian Infantry Division fought bravely against the advancing 64th Army but with completely inadequate anti-tank guns that did little to hinder the Soviets. Major-General Tolbukin’s 57th Army swung toward Kalach, while on his left flank the 64th under LieutenantGeneral Shumilov drove on Gavrilovka and Varvarovka. In the path of Major-General Trufanov’s 51st Army lay the Romanian 4th Army. His objective was Abganerovo, well behind the Romanian lines. Within a few hours 10,000 Romanian troops had been taken prisoner.
Following the Romanian Army’s mauling at Stalingrad the remnants of the Romanian 1st Tank Division and Cavalry Divisions were regrouped for refitting. To make good Antonescu’s losses Hitler sent fifty 38(t)s, thirty-one Panzer IVs and just four StuG III assault guns. First to arrive were the 38(t)s, which were delivered in March 1943 and used to re-equip the 1st Tank Regiment. The 1st Tank Division spent 1943–44 re-equipping and training. Only in 1944 did Hitler despatch any significant numbers of tanks to the Romanians, consisting of 100 Panzer IV and 114 StuG assault guns.The 1st Tank was re-established along German panzer division lines in April 1944 and given the title Romania Mare (Great Romania). Equipped with German tanks it returned to the Eastern Front and continued to resist the Red Army until Romania defected in August 1944. Panzer IVs of the 2nd Armoured Regiment then fought alongside the Red Army in Hungary and ended up in Czechoslovakia the following year, where Romanian R-35s were deployed armed with Russian 45mm anti-tank guns. Similarly the 1st, 5th, 7th and 8th Cavalry Divisions all suffered heavy losses during the fighting around Stalingrad. The 7th was beyond repair and disbanded, while the others were reformed during 1943. In particular the 5th was supposed to become a motorised division but its tanks and other vehicles were never supplied. It had been intended that the 8th Cavalry Division become a motorised division in late 1942, but these plans were halted by Stalingrad. In July 1944 it was decided to use it to create Romania’s 2nd Armoured Division, but this was not completed before the Romanians defected to the Russian camp.The German instructors manning the 4th Armoured Regiment seized the panzers supplied by Hitler and used them to help cover the German withdrawal from Romania. The Romanians lost 350,000 men fighting the Soviets and another 170,000 fighting the Germans and the Hungarians. Overall Antonescu’s armour made little difference to the Romanian Army’s brave but ultimately futile efforts on the Eastern Front.
General (later Marshal) Antonescu watching Romanian troops in action. He sought to protect Romania’s security in the face of territorial encroachments from Bulgaria, Hungary and the Soviet Union by siding with Hitler.
Antonescu with Hitler. He willingly provided the largest number of satellite troops and his finest forces including his fledgling tank units.The 1st Armoured Regiment was the first Romanian unit to take part in the invasion of the Soviet Union, while the Romanian 1st Tank Division was all but destroyed at Stalingrad.
In 1941 the Romanian 3rd Army included a cavalry corps.The Army had barely started the process of mechanisation when the Second World War broke out and this was to cost it dearly.
Romanian or Hungarian cavalrymen enjoy a cigarette. While the Romanian Army had numerous cavalry divisions, it had only two armoured regiments.
The Romanian Army also had about sixty French FT-17 light tanks; they were not suitable for frontline service or the Russian winter. Romania had just seventy-three Renault R-35s, some of which were acquired from the defeated Polish Army. Due to the tanks’ condition the Romanian 2nd Armoured Regiment was not committed to the invasion of Russia.
Romanian Army vehicles struggling through the mud. Just visible in the background is what appears to be a German-supplied Sd Kfz 7 half-track and a Kfz 12 medium car in the foreground.
Like all the other East European satellite armies the Romanians were largely dependent on horsedrawn transport, which greatly slowed them down and they struggled to keep up with the advancing Germans. Romanian infantry clambering over Soviet defences in the Crimea; initially they were supported by a single regiment of Czech LT-35s which had been supplied prior to 1939. The 2nd Armoured Regiment was held back because of the condition of its French-built tanks.
Romanian infantry during the Battle for Sebastopol in June 1942. While the three furthest from the camera are wearing the M1939 ‘Dutch’ helmet, the man nearest on the left wears the older French ‘Adrian’ model.
This Romanian machine-gun crew manning a stretch of the Don, lacking adequate tank and anti-tank support, faced a grim future during the winter of 1942. When the crushing Soviet offensive fell on the Romanian 3rd Army in November 1942 the Romanian 1st Tank Division was unable to save it from destruction.
The Romanian air force also played a significant role in supporting the Romanian Army on the Eastern Front, deploying indigenously-built fighters and bombers.
Initially the Romanian armoured forces received twenty-six former Czech LT-35s in 1942. The first German-built tanks consisting of just eleven Panzer Mk IIIs followed later the same year. Romanian anti-tank gunners engaging Soviet tanks.
Romanian officers and men examine a German Sd Kfz 251/19 heavy support half-track armed with a 75mm gun. This was unofficially known as the Stummel or ‘stump’. Hitler supplied the Romanians with 142 Panzer Mk IVs during 1942–44, some of which were subsequently turned on the German Army. Romania had no indigenous tank capability and received 350 tanks and assault guns from Hitler during the war.These were used to create two tank divisions, the second not being completed by the time the Romanians defected.
The mud caused by the Russian winter and spring effectively paralysed most of the armies fighting on the Eastern Front.
This was the reality of the Romanian Army on the Eastern Front: ill-equipped, ill-trained and illmotivated conscripts who would rather be at home than relegated to security duties guarding rail yards.
Russian peasants look on impassively at Romanian corpses.The collapse of the Axis armies around Stalingrad heralded the beginning of the end for Hitler’s dream of defeating the Soviet Union. His reliance on the East European satellite armies proved to be his undoing.
T-34/85 tanks of the Red Army’s 4th Guards Corps after defeating the Germans in the Ploesti area rolled into Bucharest on 31 August 1944. By this point the Romanians had swapped sides and Panzer Mk IVs belonging to the Romanian 2nd Armoured Regiment fought alongside the Russians in Hungary and Czechoslovakia against their former allies.
Chapter Seven
Fast Slovaks on the Steppes Prior to his seizure of the Czech lands Hitler ’s plans centred on fracturing the Czechoslovakian state. After the Munich Agreement the Czechoslovak government under President Hacha granted autonomy to Slovakia, but it received intelligence on 9 March 1939 that Slovak separatists were plotting to overthrow the republic. The Slovak Prime Minister Dr Tiso was dismissed but promptly flew to Berlin to see Hitler on 13 March.The following day, having reached an agreement with Hitler he returned to Slovakia and declared independence, rupturing the union between the two peoples. Hitler ’s troops occupied Moravska-Ostrava, one of the Czechs’ key industrial towns and were poised along the border of Bohemia and Moravia.The beleaguered Hacha turned to Hitler who announced he would take the Czech people under the protection of the German Reich. Hacha informed his Cabinet they must surrender and the German Army rolled in. Unlike the Czechs, the Slovaks were permitted to retain a standing army; however, most of the equipment held by the Czechoslovakian Army was seized by Hitler and passed on to the German Army and his other Eastern Front allies. Although Czechoslovakia was a major tank manufacturer and Bohemia and Moravia would continue to churn out tanks for Hitler, the Slovak Army received very few LT-35s and LT-38s as a result of the carve-up. This almost complete lack of tanks and indeed motor transport was to greatly hamper the Slovaks’ contribution to Hitler ’s war effort. Although they may have been willing, like many of the other allies they simply lacked the tools of mechanised warfare. Premier Tiso’s rump Slovak State provided Army Group South with a Slovak Army Group of two infantry divisions. Initially the Slovaks launched 45,000 men into the Soviet Union just four days after the German invasion. However, their lack of transport soon meant that they were lagging behind the sweeping advance so it was decided to create a mobile unit for deployment in the Ukraine. This was done by cobbling together all the motorised units into the grandly-sounding Slovak Mobile Command–this was better known as Brigade Pilfousek after its commander General Rudolf Pilfousek. It consisted of the 1st Tank Battalion with just two tank companies, two companies of antitank guns and two supporting companies of motorised infantry. The remaining forces were assigned to security duties way behind German lines. The brigade was sent through Lvov and on toward Vinnitsa. Lacking the ability to control it in the field, the unit fell under the tactical command of the German 17th Army. Fighting against the Red Army the brigade drove through Berdichev, Zhitomir and towards the Ukrainian capital Kiev. In August 1941 the largely ineffectual Slovak Army Group was withdrawn and the best units reorganised into the 10,000-strong 1st Slovak (Mobile) Infantry Division and the 6,000-strong 2nd Slovak (Security) Infantry Division. An offer to send a third division in order to create a full Slovak Corps was rejected by the Germans in 1942.
The Mobile Division under General Gustav Malar was also known as the Slovak Fast Division. This was somewhat optimistic in light of the quality of its motor transport and paucity of tanks. In effect it was little better than a rudimentary motorised infantry division. By September this unit was back at the front fighting the Soviets near Kiev. It was then sent as a reserve to Army Group South and fought along the Dnieper. By early October the Fast Division was fighting as part of the 1st Panzer Army on the far bank of the Dnieper. It then spent the winter holding positions along the Mius River. The following year the Slovaks advanced into the Caucasus and took part in the attack on and capture of Rostov. In the summer of 1942 JozefTuranec took command of the division and led it across the Kuban. Later in the year it was reinforced by the 31st Artillery Regiment redeployed from the 2nd Slovak (Security) Infantry Division. In the New Year Turanec was replaced as commander by Lieutenant-General Jurech. Following the Axis forces’ shattering defeat at Stalingrad in the winter of 1942/43 the German position in the Caucasus became untenable and they withdrew to avoid entrapment. The Fast Division was almost caught near Saratowskaya but managed to get away. While the survivors were airlifted out of the Kuban to the Crimea, they had little choice but to abandon all their heavy equipment and remaining vehicles. The Slovaks then fought to cover the withdrawal over the Sivash and Perkop land bridges. General Elmir Lendvay was then appointed to command and the division was pulled out of the line for a refit before going back into battle near Melitopol. When the Red Army broke through German lines the Slovaks were scattered and 2,000 men captured. This pretty much ended Slovakia’s support for Hitler on the Eastern Front. In 1944 the Fast Division was reconstituted with some infantry companies, flak companies, 150mm howitzers and 37mm anti-tank guns. Barely 800-strong this was called the Tartarko Combat Group and was sent to the Crimea. That summer with trouble brewing in Slovakia itself the division was pulled from the line and disarmed and used as a construction brigade in Romania. The 2nd Slovak Division was sent on rear-area anti-partisan and security operations until desertion rates resulted in it being converted into a construction brigade in late 1943 and sent to Italy. Although the Slovaks had shown great courage on the Eastern Front, ultimately there was only so much they could achieve in light of their limited resources. In the wake of the partition of Czechoslovakia, Slovak Prime Minister Dr Tiso seen here on the right with Hitler declared Slovakia independent and committed 45,000 men to Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union.
In the late 1930s Czechoslovakia had a modern army numbering 800,000 men backed by defence industries that were the envy of Europe. Crucially, the lack of political will to stand up to Hitler over the Sudetenland meant the loss of its industries, the occupation of Prague and the destruction of the entire country. The Slovaks were able to provide the German Army Group South with a Slovak Army Corps of two infantry divisions. Their lack of motor transport led to the creation of Brigade Pilfousek, which comprised motorised infantry, anti-tank guns and the 1st Tank Battalion.
Slovakia lost out in the tank stakes as the factories for the LT-35 seen here and the LT-38 were in the Czech lands. The Slovaks were reliant on ex-Czech LT-38 light tanks supplied by the Germans. About forty served with the 1st Slovak (Mobile) Division in Russia.
The Slovak Army also ended up with a number of LT-35s as it inherited Czechoslovakian equipment stored within its borders.These were also deployed with the mobile brigade and the mobile division, though the latter was little more than a rudimentary motorised infantry division.
Slovak soldiers examine Russian fortifications following the invasion of Russia.
Slovak infantry on parade. The Slovak armed forces were predominantly an infantry army and this greatly limited the contribution they could make to the German war effort.
These Slovak LT-38s were soon overwhelmed by the Russian winter and most of them were lost in the Kuban when the Mobile Division was airlifted out. Unlike his other allies, Hitler supplied the Slovaks with very few tanks.
The Slovak Army could just about cope with the Soviet T-26 light tanks but anything else greatly strained their meagre anti-tank resources. After the Axis defeat at Stalingrad the Slovak Fast Division had to abandon all its heavy equipment in the Kuban, which included any remaining LT-38s.
Infantry from the Slovak Fast Division posing for the camera. Slovak troops receiving gallantry awards. Though brave fighters their lack of tanks, motor vehicles and adequate anti-tank guns cost them dearly. When the Fast Division collapsed 2,000 men were captured by the Red Army. These men are probably government loyalists following the Slovak rising.
Members of the Czechoslovak Army during the Slovak national rising against the Nazis in 1944. This was swiftly crushed and Slovakia remained under German control until the very end. Slovak gunners laying down fire on the advancing Red Army.
Chapter Eight
Franco’s Fighting Spaniards One of Hitler ’s stranger allies on the Eastern Front was Spain. It was during the Spanish Civil War of 1936–39 that both Germany and the Soviet Union experimented extensively with armoured warfare, testing the German Panzer Mk I and the Soviet BT-5 and T-26 light tanks. In contrast, while General Franco provided Hitler with volunteers, he chose not to send any tanks to Russia. Spain under General Franco resisted open alliance with Hitler. Franco, though, was indebted to him for considerable military aid during the civil war, so he had agreed to form a volunteer force to help fight Communist Russia–the very country that had prolonged Spain’s agony by aiding the Republicans against him. Only a unit of divisional size was called for, but forty times the number of Spaniards volunteered, such was their anti-Communist fervour. General Agustín Muñoz Grandes and his staff flew to Berlin on 14 July 1941; the rest of the division headed for Germany via train. Understandably, passing through occupied France they were met with some hostility.Within three days they had begun to arrive at a training camp at Grafenwohr, near Bayreuth in Bavaria. The division mustered some 18,693 officers and men, consisting of the 262nd, 263rd and 269th infantry regiments supported by the 250th Artillery Regiment. Once they joined the Wehrmacht they were issued with German uniforms and equipment and designated the 250th Infantry Division. However, because of their original Falangist blue shirts, the nickname ‘Blue Division’ stuck. They were issued with German anti-tank guns but no tanks or assault guns. The 269th Infantry Regiment was bloodied for the first time on the night of 12 October 1941. Advance positions of the 2nd Battalion at Kapella Nova caught a Soviet battalion trying to cross the river under cover of darkness. The Russians lost fifty dead and eighty PoWs in an hour ’s fighting. Eight days later the 2/269th crossed the river and occupied three Russian hamlets. After throwing back determined Russian counter-attacks the 3/263rd who occupied two more hamlets reinforced the battalion.The 250th Reserve Battalion did not fare so well trying to subdue a Soviet position ominously dubbed ‘the barracks’. When Field Marshal Von Leeb’s offensive commenced on 16 October his Panzers were trapped in a sea of mud. The Blue Division was called upon to support the southern wing of the Tikhvin drive. Kalinin had already fallen to Army Group Centre. On 8 November the Division was ordered to occupy positions 12 km east of its existing line. The 1/269th moved forward to occupy Otenski, Possad and Posselok. Four days later the Russians hurled themselves at the latter two villages. The Spanish defenders of Posselok were driven back to Possad, which in turn was surrounded. By 14 November half the defenders were dead or wounded and those still alive had to be relieved.The Russians then surrounded the monastery at Otenski on 4 December.The battle raged for four hours until the Russians were finally beaten off. To their dismay the 1/269th found themselves re-deployed to Possad which was still under attack.
That first winter the Division had to improvise snow-camouflage clothing from white sheets.While this provided a good level of camouflage against the white landscape, it provided no protection against the dropping temperature. It fell to forty below, freezing everything. When called upon to surrender, the frostbitten 1/269th at Possad defiantly yelled their civil war battle-cry ‘Arriba Espana’. In the meantime Grandes got German permission to abandon Possad and Otenski. His men withdrew after a month of fighting to Schevelevo having suffered 120 dead, 440 wounded and twenty missing. By 10 December they had been pulled back across the Volkhov. Two days earlier Von Leeb’s Army Group North began to withdraw across the frozen Volkhov. To the north their comrades came under attack at Udarnik and Gorka. On 27 December the village of Udarnik and the neighbouring position called the ‘Intermediate’, built between Udarnik and Lubkovo, were overrun. The Spanish defenders of Udarnik repulsed the attack, but at the ‘Intermediate’ relieving forces found their naked, mutilated compatriots strewn over the position. Every Christmas for the next two years Franco despatched a trainload of seasonal fare, including brandy and wine (guarded by the men of the elite Infantry battalion of the Ministry of the Army in Madrid) to the battered Blue Division. It was little comfort on the Eastern Front; artillery and tanks would have been a much better present. General von Chappuis, commander of the 38th Corps decorated General Grandes with the German Iron Cross 1st Class on 6 January 1942 (he was to gain the Knight’s Cross in March 1942).The Russians on 13 January 1942 attacked across the Volkhov with the intention of linking up with the Leningrad Front.The 2nd Soviet Assault Army poured over the river, creating a pocket. Units of the Blue Division were assigned to the German 18th Army to deal with the pocket.The 3/262nd and 250th Reconnaissance Group found themselves fighting alongside Flemish and Norwegian battalions. By the end of June the pocket had been liquidated. Colonel-General Lindemann commanding 18th Army congratulated those Spanish who had taken part having captured 5,097 PoWs and forty-six pieces of artillery.They suffered 274 casualties. The Blue Division was then re-deployed to take part in Operation Northern Light under Field Marshal von Manstein who had just triumphed at Sevastopol. At home a plot was afoot. Grandes’ intention was to return triumphant to Spain after victory over Leningrad, and with Minister of War Carlos Asensio Cabanillas and Moroccan Juan de Yagüe Blanco force Franco to enter the war on the side of the Axis. Franco, however, replaced Foreign Minister Suner and reshuffled his Cabinet. He was beginning to worry about Grandes’ growing reputation and despatched General Emilio Esteban Infantes in June 1942 to replace him. However, Grandes now had the Führer ’s ear, and Hitler agreed to designate Infantes Deputy Commander. General Esteban Infantes arrived at Grigorovo on 8 August 1942 to take up his revised appointment. At the end of the month the Blue Division handed its sector over to the German 20th Motorised Division and headed for Vyriza south of Leningrad. It then relieved the German 121st Division in the Pushkin-Slutz zone.There were twenty Russian Divisions trapped in Leningrad by the German and Finnish Armies.The Spanish found themselves facing the 109th, 56th and 73rd Soviet infantry divisions. However, with the German disaster at Stalingrad the offensive against Leningrad was postponed. Franco, apprehensive that either side should win, sought to extricate himself from his commitment to Hitler by seeking to mediate between the two sides.The Spanish Ambassador made Spain’s offer on 12 October 1942; Winston Churchill refused Spanish mediation and told Moscow of the move.This would have reassured Stalin that Spain intended to send no further troops to the Eastern Front.
At Krasny Bor four battalions plus supporting arms, 5,600 men of the Blue Division found themselves under attack from four Soviet infantry divisions, two armoured regiments and 187 batteries of artillery. Sources vary but this force amounted to some 44,000 men and up to 100 T-34 and KV tanks. On 10 February 1943, 800 supporting Soviet guns opened up; the bombardment accounted for half the Spanish losses that day. Infantes nearly did not make it to the battle as he was attacked on the road by four Soviet fighter-bombers. After a four-hour bombardment, ninety Soviet tanks and supporting infantry attacked the Spanish at Krasny Bor, overrunning the 2/262nd defensive positions. Elements of the 1/262nd defending the October Railway were led by Captain Ruiz de Huidobro. Only eight days earlier he had torn up a pass to visit his newborn son in Spain. After three attacks by Soviet T-34 tanks he and his men were surrounded and overwhelmed. Only a few managed to escape toward Krasny Bor. By midday the situation was critical. Upon entering Krasny Bor the Russians showed no mercy, firing on the hospital and escaping ambulances. Using just hand grenades and Molotov cocktails the Spanish beat off the T-34s. They were, though, forced to withdraw to the River Ishora. Then on 11 February the Soviets commenced a series of attacks on the Ishora positions. The Division had lost almost 75 per cent of its strength: of the 5,608 combatants 3,645 were casualties and another 300 had been captured. Soviet losses were estimated at 11,000. The Spaniards spent the summer preparing for another anticipated Soviet offensive. On 5 October the Division repulsed a Russian attack, killing over 200 in what turned out to be its last major action.The Division was taken out of line leaving 2,000 comrades on the ground.They were to return to Spain and be replaced by a Spanish Volunteer Legion.They trained from Volosovo to Hof in Bavaria where they changed back into Spanish uniforms.The first draft crossed the Spanish frontier on 29 October 1943, two years after they had left. Although the Volunteer Legion was to number only 1,000–1,500 there was no shortage of recruits.They gathered at Yamberg barracks on the Latvian frontier, under Colonel Antonio Garcia Navarro. They were pitched against the partisans operating around Narva and then sent to join the German 121st Division at Kostovo. On 24 and 25 December 1943 they beat off two Soviet attacks in the freezing cold. By the spring all German attempts on Leningrad had been thwarted and on 19 January the Legion began to withdraw under pressure from Soviet partisans into Estonia.There they were re-equipped to resist Soviet attempts on the Narva coastline. This unit was enmeshed in Army Group North’s collapse in January/February 1944. For the Spanish the war was over, the Germans having already agreed to their repatriation. By March the legionnaires were returning home, though some chose to remain. By 17 April 1944 the majority had returned to Spain and the frontier with France was closed to would-be volunteers. Even so, 150 brave souls reached a training camp near Konigsberg, where they were joined by another 100 men who had stayed behind.These volunteers were incorporated into the Waffen-SS. In April 1945 SS Colonel Miguel Ezquerra (a former Blue Division Captain) commanded three Spanish companies as well as some Belgian and French SS survivors. The ‘Ezquerra Unit’ fought to the last against the Russians in the devastation of Berlin, though Ezquerra himself managed to escape. When the war ended in May 1945 there were about 350 Spaniards missing or taken PoW on the Eastern Front. In total, approximately 45,000 Spaniards served on the Eastern Front, suffering some 22,000 casualties.
The birth of modern armoured warfare was heralded by the Blitzkrieg (Lightning War) in Poland in 1939. Just a few years earlier the European powers had cut their teeth on the art of tank warfare during the Spanish Civil War of 1936–39. Neither of the protagonists had any indigenous tank capability, forcing them to rely heavily on external supplies. This enabled Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union to cynically use the conflict as a valuable testing-ground for all manner of military hardware, but in particular artillery, aircraft and tanks. What is generally regarded as the first armoured clash of modern times took place in February 1937 during the battle at Guadalajara. General Franco’s debt to Adolf Hitler for his support during the Spanish Civil was considerable. He repaid it by sending a volunteer infantry division to the Eastern Front. Despite being versed in armoured warfare, Franco did not send Hitler any tanks.
Spanish General Muñoz Grandes, commander of the Blue Division was described as a magnificent soldier and a man of great charm. He had previously served as the garrison commandant opposite Gibraltar and during the Spanish Moroccan campaigns.
Following the Spanish Civil War Franco’s Nationalist Army was quite well-equipped with tanks, which included the German-supplied Panzer Mk I, seen here in the first shot with Soviet T-26 light tanks and on the streets of Bilbao in the second. In the early 1930s Germany designed a ‘training’ tank (after the First World War it had been banned from possessing tanks), which became the PanzerKampfwagen (PzKpfw) IA followed by the IB; in total nearly 2,500 were built.The much more numerous IB had a more powerful engine and weighed 5.7 tons, with a turret mounting two machine guns. About 200 of both types were sent to Spain, where the shortcomings of the two-man crew and lack of anti-aircraft gun soon became apparent.
Franco also had numbers of captured Soviet T-26s (seen here) and BT-5s–1,000 had been supplied to the defeated Republican Army by Stalin. In the 1930s the BT light fast tank was one of the principal Soviet armour types. The main model was the BT-5 (seen here, in fact a copy of the US Christie M-1931), which was equipped with a larger cylindrical turret, a 45mm gun, a co-axial MG and a larger engine than its predecessors. With a crew of three and a weight of 11.5 tons it could manage almost 70mph on the road. By the late 1930s Franco had at least 300 tanks; however, the Panzer Mk I was obsolete by 1941 and deploying the Sovietsupplied tanks to the Eastern Front would have caused no end of confusion. In addition the Spanish Army had no way of maintaining them in Russia at such an enormous distance.
The Italians supplied Franco with several hundred L.3/33 and L.3/35 tankettes, seen here with Franco’s forces, but again this was not suitable for modern mechanised warfare in anything other than a reconnaissance or police role.
Spanish Civil War veterans show off their medals to a bemused German soldier. Still in their Carlist berets, Spanish volunteers head off to war. Although the Spanish had hundreds of German- and Russian-built tanks, while the 250th Infantry Division included an anti-tank group it had no tank support.
Men of the Spanish 250th Infantry Division: once they arrived at Grafenwöhr in Bavaria they were issued with German uniforms. Only the shield on their helmets and shoulder patches distinguished them as Spaniards.
Spanish General Emilio Esteban Infantes in conference with his German counterparts in early 1943. Despite its lack of armour, his command performed well in the face of Soviet tank attacks.
The Spanish Blue Division was equipped along the same lines as a German infantry division and was reliant on infantry support weapons such as this mortar and the 37mm anti-tank gun. A member of the 250th Infantry Division: his España arm shield is clearly visible.
Like all the other nationalities fighting on the Eastern Front, the 250th Infantry Division relied on carts to transport much of their equipment. Although they initially deployed with 300 trucks and 400 motorcycles, these vehicles soon broke down in the face of the extreme conditions on the Russian steppe. While the Spaniards’ artillery and anti-tank guns could cope with the Soviet T-26 light tank they struggled against the newer T-34.
The realities of war on the Eastern Front: Blue Division members wrapped up against the cold chatting to a German military policeman. The German infantry divisions who fought alongside the Spanish on the Leningrad Front had a high regard for their professionalism and courage.
Spanish Blue Squadron pilots stand by their Messerschmitt. The squadron clocked up a total of 136 Russian aircraft kills.
Members of the supporting Blue Squadron were issued with the standard Luftwaffe grey-blue flying uniform.
The Spanish proved quite proficient skiers. During the fighting at Krasny Bor in February 1943 the Blue Division suffered 75 per cent casualties.The Spaniards resorted to using Molotov cocktails to beat off the Soviet T-34s. Although the 250th Infantry Division was withdrawn back to Spain in late 1943, a small volunteer unit remained in Russia and fought against Soviet partisans and the Red Army around Narva during the winter of 1943–44.
Survivors of the Blue Division come home to a warm welcome; note the man’s Iron Cross. Time for a well-earned break and re-stock. Despite the appalling winter conditions and in the face of enemy tanks, the Blue Division fought well at such places as Possad, Udarnik and Krasny Bor.
Chapter Nine
Hitler ’s Ukrainian Nazis Following the utter destruction of Hitler ’s Army Group Centre in Byelorussia in June 1944, Stalin instructed Marshal Georgi Zhukov to coordinate his next massive counteroffensive to be conducted by Marshal I.S. Konev’s 1st Ukrainian Front. Sitting in Konev’s path ready to counter-attack were some 20,000 crack Ukrainian SS troops who had thrown in their lot with Hitler. Many Ukrainians hoped they would gain independence from Moscow by helping Hitler ’s war machine.The Ukrainian Liberation Army (Ukrainske Vyzvolne Viysko–UVV) was little more than a Nazi propaganda tool, and two Ukrainian divisions numbering 40,000 men designated the Ukrainian National Army (UNA) in 1945 was never really effective as such. Significantly, Ukrainians proved eager recruits for a Waffen-SS division.These were largely Galician Ukrainians, as Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler stipulated they must come from the western Ukraine (formerly Polish Galicia) and be Greek Catholic rather than Russian Orthodox, thereby barring Soviet Ukrainians. The idea was that anti-communist volunteers would be drawn from the area of Poland that had once been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and therefore loyal servants of the Habsburg Emperor. When recruitment commenced in April 1943 there were a staggering 100,000 applicants for 30,000 places (typically a Waffen-SS division numbered about 15,000 fighting men and 5,000 support troops). Many of the others were not turned away and were recruited to form five Galician police regiments. Himmler placed an Austrian Major-General, the elderly and professorial-looking Fritz Freitag in charge. About 350 Galician volunteer officers and 2,000 NCOs were despatched to Germany. After their training was completed in May 1944, the 14th Waffen-SS Grenadier Division Galizien was shipped to the Eastern Front just in time to face Konev’s Lvov-Sandomierz offensive. North of Lvov the 3rd Guards Army and 13th Army, 1st Guards Tank Army and General V.K. Baranov’s mechanised cavalry corps were to strike in the direction of Rava-Russkaya and the 4th Panzer Army. In the south the 60th and 38th armies, plus the 3rd Guards and 4th Tank armies and General S.V. Sokolov’s mechanised cavalry group were to push on Lvov, cutting their way through the 1st Panzer Army. Even further south the 1st Guards and 18th armies, with the 5th Guards Army following up were to attack the weak Hungarian 1st Army guarding the approaches to Stanislav. Resistance by the 1st and 4th Panzer armies was much better than that conducted by Army Group Centre’s shattered armies. Konev threw his tanks in a two-pronged attack: the right forced its way across the Bug and headed north for Rokossovsky’s planned push on Lublin and the Vistula; but panzer and SS divisions initially held up his left as it fought its way south towards Lvov. The northern attack ran into the prepared positions of the weak 291st and 340th Infantry Divisions, but these were easily penetrated. To the north-west into the gap either side of Radekhov Konev poured CavalryMechanised Group Baranov and the 1st Guards Tank Army. It took the 13th Army two days of tough
fighting to surround Brody. With his defences east of Lvov just about holding, General Harpe decided to commit his tactical reserves, the 1st and 8th Panzer Divisions, in an attempt to stifle the Soviet offensive on 14 and 15 July. Although Konev had been ordered by Stalin to hold back the 3rd Guards and 4th Guards Tank armies until a deep penetration had been made, he knew he must act quickly to exploit the situation. Konev had trouble bringing his tank armies to bear in the Lvov attack because the 15th Infantry Corps from 60th Army had only managed to hack a 2.5- to 4-mile-wide corridor to a depth of 11 miles. General P.S. Rybalko, commander of the 3rd Guards Tank Army took the decision to shove his men down this corridor on the 16th and was followed up by General D.D. Lelyushenko’s 4th Tank Army. This was the only time during the war that two entire tank armies were committed to combat on such a narrow front, and while the flanks were being counter-attacked. With German artillery bombarding this ‘Koltiv Corridor ’, the 1st and 8th Panzer Divisions prepared to counter-attack supported by Freitag’s Ukrainian 14th SS. Once Rybalko’s men were in the corridor, General Arthur Hauffe’s German 13th Corps knew it must withdraw and fell back to the Prinz Eugen Stellung defensive position. By the 17th the Soviets had captured parts of this strongpoint, which Freitag’s Galician Ukrainians attempted to recapture until the appearance of powerful Soviet IS-2 tanks. On the evening of 18 July the 1st Ukrainian Front cut through Harpe’s defences to a width of 125 miles, advanced 30 to 50 miles and surrounded 45,000 men near Brody. Despite pleas to General Hauffe by his subordinates, there was little he could do to help the four divisions in the Brody salient escape. The 48th and 24th Panzer Corps attempted to reach 13th Corps but to no avail. On the 18th Von Mellenthin, taking command of 8th Panzer, tried to cut his way through to the trapped men of the 13th Corps at Brody. The Soviets were waiting for him with minefields and concentrated artillery and tank fire. Mellenthin remembers:
Two days later the bulk of 13th Corps, led by Generals Lasch and Lange, succeeded in fighting their way through to our lines. Thousands of men formed up in the night in a solid mass and to the accompaniment of thunderous ‘hurrahs’ threw themselves at the enemy. The impact of a great block of desperate men, determined to do or die, smashed through the Russian line, and thus a great many of the troops were saved. But all guns and heavy weapons had to be abandoned, and a huge gap was opened in the front. Marshal Konev’s tanks poured through and the whole German position in southern Galicia became untenable. Those forces remaining in the Brody pocket resisted for four miserable days until it was cut in half and they were finally wiped out on the 22nd. The Germans suffered 30,000 killed and 15,000 captured as well as losing sixty-eight panzers, 500 guns and 3,500 lorries. Unable to resist the Soviet tanks, 14,000 men of Freitag’s 14th SS Division were caught in the Brody area and just 2,000–3,000 managed to escape. Those caught could expect little leniency from their captors. Despite the severe mauling of his untested division there was no doubting Freitag’s courage and he was decorated with the Knight’s Cross. His exhausted survivors were sent to Slovakia
to refit and the division was rebuilt using Soviet Ukrainians, which was reflected in its re-designation to 14th SS Grenadier Division (ukrainische Nr.1 ). They were not redeployed until 1945 and then fought in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. The Soviet summer 1944 offensive saw the Red Army cut through the Ukraine and into Poland to the very gates of Warsaw: this spelled the end of Bulgaria, Finland, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia’s alliance with Hitler. Once they had become frontline states they were swift to swap sides; by this stage, though, most of their tank forces had been destroyed.
When Hitler’s forces rolled into the Ukraine in June 1941, in many instances they were greeted as liberators by the locals. However, he had no intention of granting the Ukrainians independence and threw away a golden opportunity to unravel the Soviet Union. This propaganda shot shows German troops fraternising with smiling Soviet civilians. The 4x4 staff car is a universal light cross-country vehicle built by Stoewer, BMW and Hanomag, and known as the Kfz.1. SS divisions were equipped with the standard 50mm and 75mm anti-tank guns of the day. These Waffen-SS gunners appear to be operating a Pak 40 75mm.
Ukrainian volunteers parade past Nazi officials. Moscow swiftly branded them as traitors who were to be shot on sight. When recruitment started for a Ukrainian Waffen-SS Grenadier Division 100,000 volunteers came forward.
On the Eastern Front the Waffen-SS panzergrenadier and infantry divisions were reliant on the assault gun battalions for armoured support. The Sturmgeschütz III was a highly versatile weapon and was deployed throughout the Waffen-SS and not only in the panzer divisions. It tended to be deployed with the artillery regiments due to its role as mobile assault artillery. The two shots show Waffen-SS in their very distinctive camouflage smocks hitching a ride to the front on StuG IIIs. While some of the much better-known mixed-nationality foreign volunteer Waffen-SS divisions such as the Danish and Dutch 5th SS Panzer Division Viking, the Austrian and Romanian 7th SS Freiwilligen Gebirgs Division Prinz Eugen, Austrian and Slovenian 16th SS Panzergrenadier Division Reichsführer-SS and the Belgian 28th SS Panzergrenadier Division Wallonien were equipped with considerable numbers of armoured fighting vehicles, the Ukrainian 14th SS Grenadier Division Galizien was not and suffered as a consequence. In addition, these other units were fleshed out with ethnic German officers, NCOs and recruits.
The 14th Waffen-SS Grenadier Division Galizien shipped to the front in May 1944 just in time to meet the Red Army’s Lvov-Sandomierz offensive.The Ukrainians found themselves deployed right in the path of a major Soviet tank attack. A Waffen-SS anti-tank gunner. To fend off Soviet tanks the Ukrainian infantry would have been issued with the Panzerfaust or ‘armoured fist’ hand-held single-shot anti-tank weapon seen here. While it could penetrate up to 140mm of plate armour, its effective range was only 30 metres. It took strong nerves to face down a tank at such ranges.
While the Waffen-SS were permitted to flesh out rather poorly-performing panzer divisions using Austrian, Belgian, Hungarian, Romanian, Slovenian and Scandinavian recruits, it was probably felt unwise to equip a Ukrainian SS division with tanks.The unit’s sole armoured formation was the Waffen-SS Panzerjager Company 14 equipped with self-propelled anti-tank guns such as the Marder. They stood little chance in the face of hordes of Soviet T-34s.
Soviet troops behind the lines during a lull in the fighting. Collaborators were either shot on the spot or shipped to the Gulag.
German officers conferring in freshly-dug trenches. Around 40,000 troops including the 14th SS were trapped in the Brody pocket–only about 3,000 Ukrainians escaped.
General Harpe’s Army Group created three main defensive belts in western Ukraine 19 miles deep. It was hoped that this would be enough to stop Stalin’s tanks.
The first photo shows Soviet SU-76 self-propelled guns moving up for the Red Army’s summer offensive in 1944. The second image shows the harsh realities faced by the Ukrainians in trying to overcome even lightly-armoured vehicles such as the SU-76. The Ukrainian troops trying to resist their Russian cousins ended up trapped in the Brody pocket. Two members of the Waffen-SS look on at a burning T-34/85–the Ukrainians had no real ability to fight off large numbers of this highly effective tank. In reality the 14th SS Grenadier Division was just a sop to Ukrainian national aspirations, which Hitler had no intention of helping them fulfil. The result was that the division lost up to 10,000 men killed or captured by the vengeful Red Army. Unlike
Hitler’s other Eastern Front allies in the closing months of the war, Ukrainian nationalists had nowhere to run to–the survivors could not retreat home, because home was part of the Soviet Union. Many sought sanctuary in the Ukraine’s forests but were eventually hunted down and shot. Ultimately all of Hitler’s allies suffered because of their inability to conduct effective armoured warfare on the Eastern Front. Stalin’s armoured blitzkrieg swept all before it.