This video is brought to you by Squarespace In March 1945, just weeks from the end of
World War 2 in Europe, Germany launched a desperate attack on the Eastern Front,
with its last remaining reserve of tanks. The result was a battle involving more than
600,000 troops that has been almost totally forgotten in the histories of the war. This
was Operation Spring Awakening, Germany’s last offensive of the second world war.
In early 1945 , the great German offensive in the Ardennes forest was shattered , and the
armoured units disengaged. As a result, the Wehrmacht suddenly found itself with a spare
panzer reserve - General Sepp Dietrich’s 6th SS Panzer Army. General Heinz Guderian, Chief
of the General staff at the Army High Command, was keen to redeploy this force to the front along the
river Oder, to use in flanking attacks against the imminent Soviet offensive towards Berlin.
Adolf Hitler though had other ideas. Foremost in his mind was not the Polish front,
but Hungary, where the last attempt to relieve the encircled garrison at Budapest had just failed.
Hitler’s concern was with the oilfields in the west of the country, were threatened by
the Soviet advance and which by this stage were producing 80% of Germany’s oil supply.
Without Hungary’s oil he argued it would be impossible to carry on the war,
so an offensive was planned to drive the Soviets back to the Danube and establish a more secure
frontline well to the east of the oilfields . At the end of February , the German leader ordered
Army Group South’s commander, General Otto Wohler, to prepare a thrust between the lakes Balaton
and Vel-en-ce with 6th SS Panzer Army, aiming to seize the main crossings of the Danube, isolating
Soviet troops west of the river. As well as this, troops from 2nd Panzer Army and Army Group E would
push north and east from the south. The date for the offensive was set as March 5th 1945.
To achieve these objectives the Germans had assembled a force of 19 divisions, of which 8 were
panzer or panzergrenadier formations. It was a force of 220,000 men and 877 tanks and other
armored vehicles. On paper this was a powerful force- but the reality as spring 1945 began was
rather different. Compared to the German Army that had invaded the Soviet Union almost four
years before, this was a rag-tag force, exhausted by months of continuous fighting.
Facing the German attack would be the forces of the 3rd Ukrainian Front,
under Marshal Fyodor Tolbukhin. After the fall of Budapest, Tolbukhin had begun plans for a
renewed offensive towards Vienna, but was forced to delay these when intelligence of a large German
build up in the area arrived. After consultation with Moscow, Tolbukhin decided to hold position,
absorb the oncoming attack and then launch a devastating counter offensive with the 9th Guards
and 6th Guards Tank Army’s , which would be ready on March 15th. Altogether , the Soviet’s numbered
407,000 troops with 407 armored fighting vehicles. At the start of March the German assault units
began to move forwards to their assigned jumping-off points. For a panzer division
this was no easy feat – the roads were quickly turned into a quagmire by the spring thaw.
Progress wa s slow, and it took until late on March 5th for Army Group South to be told all
of its units were in position. There was no going back now.
At 1am on March 6th 1945 the final German offensive of the Second World War began.
On the Drava river in modern-day Croatia the 91st Army Corps launched forced a crossing and drove
the Bulgarian defenders back. Three hours later the 2nd Panzer Army joined in, attacking north
and south of the town of Nagybajom. There was initial success south of the town, but Soviet
reinforcements prevented a breakthrough, managing to hold the Germans even after the 16th SS Panzer
Grenadier Division was committed on March 7th. It was the same story on the Drava, where two
Soviet divisions reinforced and stablished the front, preventing any further advance.
With the smaller w estern attacks already underway, the main german offensive began
at first light. The 1st SS Panzer Corps rolled forwards west of the Saar-veez canal,
and made steady if slow progress, pushing the tanks of the 12th SS Panzer Division up to
Kislang by the end of the day . But to the east, General Wilhelm Bittrich’s 2nd SS Panzer Corps
failed to start its attack on time despite assuring higher command that it was ready,
and didn’t get going until 6pm. As a result little progress was made,
with the 1st Panzer Division’s seizure of most of Sere-gee-yesz the only notable bit of progress.
It was not a good start to the offensive. At the end of day 1, most German units were
still mired in the first line of Soviet defences, with progress only coming after
protracted battles against the red army and the mud. The panzer divisions particularly
struggled to deploy their armored vehicles off road as the ground began to thaw. It was,
as General Wohler said, a “tough infantry fight.” Nevertheless, the attacks continued.
Once the 2nd SS Panzer corps managed to properly begin its attack on March 7th,
it drove a wedge between the Soviet 155th Rifle and 36th Guards divisions , while the southern
shore of Lake Velence was almost entirely in German hands by the evening of March
10th. These advances forced Marshal Tolbukhin to reinforce the front with the 18th Tank and 1st
Guards Mechanised Corps to prevent a breakthrough. There was an even more striking success west of
the Sarviz, when the 236th rifle division buckled on March 9th, allowing german armour to sweep
south . The 1st SS Panzer division reached Simontornya on the Sio canal by the evening,
joined by 12th SS Panzer at Ozora the following day . This was a sizeable breakthrough,
but left General Dietrich with a long exposed flank along the sarviz canal.
Determined to exploit this, part of the 2nd SS Panzer Division, which had become bogged down east
of Sarkeresztur, was shifted onto the west bank of the Sarviz. Designated as Kampfgruppe Krag,
this force would join Major General Joseph von Radowitz’s 23rd Panzer Division in trying to
cross the canal, and hit the soviets in the flank. At the same time, the Soviets scrambled to respond
to the German breakthrough. The 33rd Rifle and 1st Guards Cavalry corps were brought up to seal
off the developing salient and hold the Germans at the sio canal. There was intense street fighting
in Simontornya , and small bridgeheads across the canal established to its west.
To the north, by March 12th Kampfgruppe Krag had crossed the Sarviz and alongside the 2nd SS Panzer
division threatened to encircle the 36th guards rifle division west of Oba. An intense battle
followed, as the Germans slowly pushed forwards in the face of strong resistance force from Soviet
troops that were being steadily reinforced in a way that the German troops were not.
By March 13th, 6th SS Panzer Army’s main divisions had all taken heavy losses, particularly its
panzer units. 2nd SS Panzer Corps had seen its combat strength cut almost in half in just a
week of fighting. Sarkeresztur was finally taken on March 14th , but daily progress was now being
counted in yards, not miles. The northern shoulder of the offensive, the third panzer corps, stalled
completely on March 14th. South of the Sio, small amounts of ground were taken at Simontornya and
Adand, but otherwise it was a similar story, with the spearheads bogging down with a worryingly
exposed left flank along the sarviz canal. In fact, the biggest german advances at this
time were far to the west by the 2nd Panzer Army, which on March 14th began a renewed offensive east
of Mart-ali, aiming to link up with the units on the Sio. With only two battered divisions
available though this was what could be called an ambitious goal, and progress was very slow.
Across the battle area, the picture was now of exhausted, depleted German divisions mindlessly
continuing their attacks, seemingly unwilling to the recognise the enormous build up of So viet
troops taking place. There were repeated warnings from 6th Army, holding the territory to the north,
of a large soviet buildup opposite the thinly held positions of the 4th SS Panzer Corps and
Hungarian 8th Corps, which were in no state to resist an offensive. It was suggested by Army
Group South that it might be a good idea to pull a panzer corps back to prepare for this,
but Hitler refused to consider any abatement of the attack or reorganisation of the front,
demanding that the offensive continued. The panzers pushed on, driving themselves further
into a potential pocket of their own making. On the morning of March 16th, everything started
to go badly wrong for the German army. A massive soviet offensive from three armies tore into the
exposed axis northern flank in the Vertes mountains. The Hungarian 1st Hussar and 2nd
Armored Divisions were simply blown away , opening up a huge gap in the German lines. As a result,
Generals Wohler and Dietrich were finally able to secure approval for the 1st SS Panzer Corps to be
withdrawn north, to try and plug the gaps and prevent the encirclement of the entire 6th SS
Panzer Army. They rushed north, but could not stem the tide. On March 18th the 3rd SS Panzer Division
was driven back and the 4th Guards army drove southwest towards Lake Balato n. By the end of
the following day, Dietrich’s army was in full on crisis mode, giving up almost all the territory it
had gained in order to shorten its frontline and send some divisions north. In Berlin there was
seemingly utter denial about the reality on the ground. As nearly 200,000 troops teetered
on the brink of encirclement, on March 19th the offensive of the 2nd Panzer Army was still
ongoing , as Hitler refused attempts to transfer the 16th SS Panzergrenadier division away.
By May 23rd , Soviet troops had smashed their way through Szekeresfehrvar
and were poised to inflict a disaster the size of Stalingrad on the axis troops.
After an agonisingly long delay, Hitler at the very last minute allowed a retreat,
leading to an incredible every-unit-for-itself dash through the narrowing gap between
Lake Balaton and the Soviet forces. This process was so utterly chaotic that German high command
ended up with no idea where the entire 4th SS Panzer Corps was for more than 24 hours. The
divisions mostly e scaped encirclement, but with heavy losses and the result that the Axis line
in Hungary had been almost completely carved open. After less than three weeks, Germany’s last panzer
offensive had ended with a maximum advance of less than 40km, followed by devastating counterattack
and the collapse of the line in Hungary. Barely two weeks later Soviet troops would be in Vienna.
It was a catastrophic reverse; the futile last gasp of a dying regime on the brink of defeat.
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