Military unit of Nazi Germany
Military unit
Mecklenburg: Situation 2 May 1945
Red ? Soviet forces, Orange ? British forces, Green ? U.S. forces, Grey ? German forces
Sources: Tieke ? p. 447,
Allied Situation Map
, Ustinow ? Map 158
(1) ? U.S. 84th Infantry Division,
Bold
units are 3rd Panzer Army
The
3rd Panzer Army
(
German
:
3. Panzerarmee
) was a German
armoured
formation during
World War II
, formed from the 3rd Panzer Group on 1 January 1942.
3rd Panzer Group
[
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]
The
3rd Panzer Group
(
German
:
Panzergruppe 3
) was formed on 16 November 1940. It was a constituent part of
Army Group Centre
and participated in
Operation Barbarossa
and fought in the
Battle of Moscow
in late 1941 and early 1942. Later it served in
Operation Typhoon
, where it was placed under operational control of the
Ninth Army
.
Panzergruppe 3
was retitled the 3rd Panzer Army on 1 January 1942.
Orders of battle
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]
At the start of
Operation Barbarossa
the Group consisted of the XXXIX and LVII Army Corps (mot.).
2 October 1941
[
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]
Part of Army Group Centre.
3rd Panzer Army
was formed by redesignating 3rd Panzer Group on 1 January 1942.
In March 1944, the 3rd Panzer Army took part in the forced assembly and deportation of Russian civilians in the
Borisov
area. The civilians were deported to Germany for use as forced labor.
[1]
During
Operation Bagration
in July 1944, 3rd Panzer Army became part of the encirclement at Tekino, the Duna and Vitebsk, where it was largely destroyed. Surviving units retreated through
Lithuania
before reforming a line near
Courland
, fighting and being defeated during the
Battle of Memel
in late 1944.
In February 1945 the 3rd Panzer Army was one of the armies that made up the new
Army Group Vistula
. On 10 March 1945, General
Hasso-Eccard von Manteuffel
was made the commander of the 3rd Panzer Army, which was assigned to defend the banks of the
Oder River
, north of the
Seelow Heights
, thus hampering Soviet access to
Western Pomerania
and
Berlin
. They then faced an overwhelming Soviet attack launched by General
Rokossovsky
's
2nd Belorussian Front
during the
Battle of Berlin
. On 25 April the Soviets broke through 3rd Panzer Army's line around the bridgehead south of Stettin
[2]
and crossed the
Randow
Swamp.
Following the defeat at Stettin, 3rd Panzer Army was forced to retreat into the region of
Mecklenburg
? the headquarters of 3rd Panzer Army. Manteuffel made negotiations with British generals including Field Marshall
Bernard Montgomery
at
Hagenow
on 3 May 1945 so that he with 300,000 German soldiers would surrender to the British rather than Soviet forces.
[3]
Commanders
[
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]
No.
|
Portrait
|
Commander
|
Took office
|
Left office
|
Time in office
|
1
| | Hoth, Hermann
Generaloberst
Hermann Hoth
(1885?1971)
| 16 November 1940
| 5 October 1941
| 324 days
|
2
| | Reinhardt, Georg
Generaloberst
Georg-Hans Reinhardt
(1887?1963)
| 5 October 1941
| 15 August 1944
| 2 years, 315 days
|
3
| | Raus, Erhard
Generaloberst
Erhard Raus
(1889?1956)
[4]
| 16 August 1944
| 10 March 1945
| 206 days
|
4
| | Manteuffel, Hasso
General der Panzertruppe
Hasso von Manteuffel
(1897?1978)
| 11 March 1945
| 3 May 1945
| 53 days
|
Notes
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]
- ^
"Hamburger Institut fur Sozial Forschung,
Verbrechen der Wehrmacht
, p. 18"
(PDF)
. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 28 September 2011
. Retrieved
15 January
2012
.
- ^
Richard Lakowski,
Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg
, Vol. 10/1, pp. 653-654, Munchen: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2008
- ^
Mitcham Jr/Mueller, Samuel W./Gene (2012).
Hitler's Commanders: Officers of the Wehrmacht, the Luftwaffe, the Kriegsmarine, and the Waffen-SS
. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 137.
ISBN
978-1-4422-1154-4
.
- ^
Raus, Erhard.
Panzer Operations
p. 353
References
[
edit
]
- Wilhelm Tieke,
Das Ende zwischen Oder und Elbe
, Stuttgart: Motorbuch Verlag, 1995
- D. F. Ustinow et al.
Geschichte des Zweiten Welt Krieges 1939?1945
, Berlin: Militarverlag der DDR, 1982
External links
[
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]