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4th Panzer Group
The 4th Panzer Army (), operating as Panzer Group 4 () from its formation on 15 February 1941 to 1 January 1942, was a German panzer formation during World War II. As a key armoured component of the Wehrmacht, the army took part in the crucial battles of the German-Soviet war of 1941–45, including Operation Barbarossa, the Battle of Moscow, the Battle of Stalingrad, the Battle of Kursk, and the 1943 Battle of Kiev. The army was destroyed during the Battle of Stalingrad, but later reconstituted. Formation and preparations for Operation Barbarossa As part of the German High Command's preparations for Operation Barbarossa, Generaloberst Erich Hoepner was appointed to command the 4th Panzer Group in February 1941. It was to drive toward Leningrad as part of Army Group North under Wilhelm von Leeb. On 30 March 1941, Hitler delivered a speech to about two hundred senior Wehrmacht officers where he laid out his plans for an ideological war of annihilation (''Vernichtungskrie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Erich Von Manstein
Fritz Erich Georg Eduard von Manstein (born Fritz Erich Georg Eduard von Lewinski; 24 November 1887 – 9 June 1973) was a Germans, German Officer (armed forces), military officer of Poles (people), Polish descent who served as a ''Generalfeldmarschall'' (Field marshal, Field Marshal) in the ''German Army (1935–1945), Heer'' (Army) of Nazi Germany during World War II. He was subsequently convicted of war crimes and sentenced to 18 years imprisonment. Born into an aristocratic Prussian family with a long history of military service, Manstein joined the army at a young age and saw service on both the Western Front (World War I), Western and Eastern Front (World War I), Eastern Front during the First World War (1914–18). He rose to the rank of captain by the end of the war and was active in the inter-war period helping Germany rebuild its armed forces. In September 1939, during the invasion of Poland at the beginning of the Second World War, he served as Chief of Staff to Gerd ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
LVI Panzer Corps (Germany)
LVI Panzer Corps was a panzer corps in the German Army during World War II. This corps was activated in February 1941 as the LVI Army Corps (mot.), for the German invasion of the Soviet Union, which commenced on 22 June 1941. Erich von Manstein led the corps in its advance from East Prussia to Demyansk, where, in September 1941, he was informed of his appointment as commander of the German Eleventh Army. On 1 March 1942, the Corps was renamed LVI Panzer Corps. In 1942, as part of Army Group Center's 3rd Panzer Army, the LVI Panzer Corps was used to fight Soviet partisans on the Eastern Front. The corps was active in the Spas-Demensk and Kirov area before withdrawing to Krichev and across the Dnieper. In the spring of 1944, the LVI Panzer Corps fought at Zhlobin and Kalinkovichi in Belarus. In May 1944, the LVI Panzer Corps was transferred to Army Group North Ukraine.Ziemke, E., F. Stalingrad to Berlin: The German Defeat in the East. Center of Military History, United St ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jürgen Förster
Jürgen Förster (born 1940) is a German historian who specialises in the history of Nazi Germany and World War II. He is a professor of history at the University of Freiburg, the position he has held since 2005. Förster is a contributor to the seminal work '' Germany and the Second World War'' from the Military History Research Office (MGFA). Education and career After military service in the Bundeswehr, he studied history and English Studies at the University of Cologne and the University of Nottingham. He earned his PhD in history in 1974 under Andreas Hillgruber at Cologne. From 1970 to 2000, Förster worked as a researcher at the Military History Research Office (MGFA). In his academic career, Förster had teaching assignments at the University of Freiburg and University of Berlin and had several guest professorships, including at the Arizona State University, the Ohio State University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the University of Glasgow, the Universi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Commissar Order
The Commissar Order () was an order issued by the German High Command ( OKW) on 6 June 1941 before Operation Barbarossa. Its official name was Guidelines for the Treatment of Political Commissars (''Richtlinien für die Behandlung politischer Kommissare''). It instructed the ''Wehrmacht'' that any Soviet political commissar identified among captured troops be summarily executed as a purported enforcer of the so-called Judeo-Bolshevism ideology in military forces. It is one of a series of criminal orders issued by the Nazi leadership. According to the order, all those prisoners who could be identified as "thoroughly bolshevised or as active representatives of the Bolshevist ideology" should also be killed. History Planning for Operation Barbarossa began in June 1940. In December 1940, Adolf Hitler began vague allusions to the operation to senior generals on how the war was to be conducted, giving him the opportunity to gauge their reaction to such matters as collaboration wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barbarossa Decree
The Military Justice Decree (), commonly known as the Barbarossa decree, was one of the criminal orders of the ''Wehrmacht'' issued by ''Generalfeldmarschall'' Wilhelm Keitel on 13 May 1941. The decree declared that the upcoming Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, would be a war of extermination and endorsed war crimes against Soviet civilians. The Barbarossa decree was laid out by Adolf Hitler during a high-level meeting with military officials on 30 March 1941, where he declared the political and intellectual elites of the Soviet Union would be eradicated by German forces, in order to ensure a long-lasting German victory. Hitler underlined that executions would not be a matter for military courts, but for the organised action of the military. The decree was issued by Keitel a few weeks before Operation Barbarossa, exempting punishable offences committed by enemy civilians from the jurisdiction of military justice. Suspects were to be brought before a ''Wehr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
War Of Annihilation
A war of annihilation () or war of extermination is a type of war in which the goal is the complete annihilation of a state, a people or an ethnic minority through genocide or through the destruction of their livelihood. The goal can be outward-directed or inward, against elements of one's own population. The goal is not like other types of warfare, the recognition of limited political goals, such as recognition of a legal status (such as in a war of independence), control of disputed territory (as in war of aggression or defensive war), or the total military defeat of an enemy state. Features War of annihilation is defined as a radicalized form of warfare in which "all psycho-physical limits" are abolished. The Hamburg Institute for Social Research social scientist Jan Philipp Reemtsma sees a war, "which is led, in the worst case, to destroy or even decimate a population", as the heart of the war of annihilation. The state organization of the enemy will be smashed. Anot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wilhelm Von Leeb
Wilhelm Josef Franz Ritter von Leeb (5 September 1876 – 29 April 1956) was a German ''Generalfeldmarschall'' (Field Marshal) of the ''Wehrmacht'' during the Second World War, who was subsequently convicted of war crimes. Leeb was a highly decorated officer in World War I and was awarded the Military Order of Max Joseph which granted him the title of nobility. During the Battle of France, he commanded Army Group C, responsible for the breakthrough of the Maginot Line. During Operation Barbarossa—the invasion of the Soviet Union—Leeb commanded Army Group North, which advanced through the Baltic States towards Leningrad (present day St. Petersburg), eventually laying siege to the city. Units under Leeb’s command committed war crimes against the civilian population and closely cooperated with the SS ''Einsatzgruppen'', death squads primarily tasked with the murder of the Jewish population as part of the Holocaust. Leeb was a beneficiary of Adolf Hitler's bribery scheme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Army Group North
Army Group North () was the name of three separate army groups of the Wehrmacht during World War II. Its rear area operations were organized by the Army Group North Rear Area. The first Army Group North was deployed during the invasion of Poland and subsequently renamed Army Group B. The second Army Group North was created on 22 June 1941 from the former Army Group C and used in the northern sector of the Eastern Front from 1941 to January 1945. By then, this second Army Group North had gotten trapped in the Courland Pocket and was accordingly redesignated Army Group Courland. On the same day, the former Army Group Center, which was now defending the northernmost sector of the contiguous Eastern Front, was renamed Army Group North, assuming the status of the third and final iteration of the army group. First deployment of Army Group North: September – October 1939 The staff of Army Group North was formally assembled on 2 September 1939 from the headquarters of 2nd ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leningrad
Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601,911 residents as of 2021, with more than 6.4 million people living in the Saint Petersburg metropolitan area, metropolitan area. Saint Petersburg is the List of European cities by population within city limits, fourth-most populous city in Europe, the List of cities and towns around the Baltic Sea, most populous city on the Baltic Sea, and the world's List of northernmost items#Cities and settlements, northernmost city of more than 1 million residents. As the former capital of the Russian Empire, and a Ports of the Baltic Sea, historically strategic port, it is governed as a Federal cities of Russia, federal city. The city was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on 27 May 1703 on the s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Erich Hoepner
Erich Kurt Richard Hoepner (14 September 1886 – 8 August 1944) was a German general during World War II. An early proponent of mechanisation and armoured warfare, he was a Wehrmacht Heer army corps commander at the beginning of the war, leading his troops during the invasion of Poland and the Battle of France. Hoepner commanded the 4th Panzer Group on the Eastern Front during Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. During the invasion of Poland, he resisted mistreatment and murder of prisoners of war, but in Russia, Hoepner called for a war of extermination. Units under his authority closely cooperated with the ''Einsatzgruppen'' and he implemented the Commissar Order that directed Wehrmacht troops to summarily execute Red Army political commissars immediately upon capture. Hoepner's Panzer group, along with the 3rd Panzer Group, spearheaded the advance on Moscow in Operation Typhoon, the failed attempt to seize the Soviet capital. Dismissed fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
