Army Group Ostmark () was an army group of Nazi Germany. It was formed near the end of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
and active for just over a month, between 2 April and 8 May 1945. Its sole commander was
Lothar Rendulic
Lothar Rendulic (; 23 October 1887 – 17 January 1971)Rudolf Neck, Adam Wandruszka, Isabella Ackerl (ed.) (1980): ''Protokolle des Ministerrates der Ersten Republik, 1918–1938, Abteilung VIII, 20. Mai 1932 bis 25. Juli 1934''. Vienna: Verlag ...
The word ''Ostmark'' ("Eastern March"/"Eastern Marches") indicates an eastern frontier region. The term was introduced soon after the ''
Anschluss
The (, or , ), also known as the (, ), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938.
The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a "German Question, Greater Germany") arose after t ...
'' (the 1938 annexation of Austria by Germany), and designated the former territories of Austria within the new greater German structure.
Foundation
Army Group Ostmark was formed from the remnants of Army Group South, which had been driven back from the
Hungarian plain
The Great Hungarian Plain (also known as Alföld or Great Alföld, or ) is a plain occupying the majority of the modern territory of Hungary. It is the largest part of the wider Pannonian Plain (however, the Great Hungarian Plain was not part ...
into
Austria
Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
. By 7 April 1945,
Lothar Rendulic
Lothar Rendulic (; 23 October 1887 – 17 January 1971)Rudolf Neck, Adam Wandruszka, Isabella Ackerl (ed.) (1980): ''Protokolle des Ministerrates der Ersten Republik, 1918–1938, Abteilung VIII, 20. Mai 1932 bis 25. Juli 1934''. Vienna: Verlag ...
had assumed command of the formation. Its subordinate field armies were the 8th Army,
6th Panzer Army
The 6th Panzer Army () was a formation of the German Army, formed in the autumn of 1944. The 6th Panzer Army was first used as an offensive force during the Battle of the Bulge, in which it operated as the northernmost element of the German offens ...
and 6th Army. It was additionally provided with the services of Army Group Signals Regiment 530.
The exact creation/redesignation date of the army group is inconsistent. While Kesselring at the latest redesignated the army group on 24 April, it was still referred to as Army Group South in the final Wehrmacht order of battle on 30 April 1945.
Operational history
The withdrawing German forces were under continuous pressure by Red Army forces; on 3 April 1945, 4th Ukrainian Front's offensive tasks were expanded to prevent the disentanglement of German forces from advancing Soviet formations, and particularly to deny the German troops the opportunity to escape westwards and surrender to the Western Allies rather than to Soviet troops. On 20 April, the Allied advances into central Germany necessitated the permanent split of German overall army command into a northern sector (led by
Dönitz
Dönitz is a village and a former municipality in the district Altmarkkreis Salzwedel, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Since 1 January 2010, it is part of the town Klötze.Kesselring).
By late April, 8th Army ( Kreysing), with headquarters in Gaubitsch, was in combat north of Vienna and assigned to hold the sector between the Ernstbrunn Forest (in the
Waldviertel
The ''Waldviertel'' (; ; Central Bavarian: ; ) is the northwestern region of the Austrian state of Lower Austria. It is bounded to the south by the river Danube, to the southwest by Upper Austria, to the northwest and to the north by the Czech ...
Tabor
Tabor may refer to:
Places
Czech Republic
* Tábor, a town in the South Bohemian Region
** Tábor District, the surrounding district
* Tábor, a village and part of Velké Heraltice in the Moravian-Silesian Region
Israel
* Mount Tabor, Galilee, ...
sector in southern
Bohemia
Bohemia ( ; ; ) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. In a narrow, geographic sense, it roughly encompasses the territories of present-day Czechia that fall within the Elbe River's drainage basin, but historic ...
. To its south, remnant elements of 6th Panzer Army were distributed along the
Danube
The Danube ( ; see also #Names and etymology, other names) is the List of rivers of Europe#Longest rivers, second-longest river in Europe, after the Volga in Russia. It flows through Central and Southeastern Europe, from the Black Forest sou ...
. On the southern flank, 6th Army was driven out of
Graz
Graz () is the capital of the Austrian Federal states of Austria, federal state of Styria and the List of cities and towns in Austria, second-largest city in Austria, after Vienna. On 1 January 2025, Graz had a population of 306,068 (343,461 inc ...
. Thought experiments on the German side about an ''
Alpine Fortress
The Alpine Fortress () or Alpine Redoubt was the World War II German national redoubt planned by Heinrich Himmler in November and December 1943."Himmler started laying the plans for underground warfare in the last two months of 1943.... The pl ...
'' would have been carried to significant parts by Ostmark forces, but Hitler's refusal to leave Berlin made these ideas superfluous. Western Allied forces were on the advance into southern Austria; 7th US Army captured Innsbruck on 3 May and linked up with elements advancing from the Italian theater at the
Brenner Pass
The Brenner Pass ( , shortly ; ) is a mountain pass over the Alps which forms the Austria-Italy border, border between Italy and Austria. It is one of the principal passes of the Alps, major passes of the Eastern Alpine range and has the lowes ...
on 5 May. Around the turn of April and May 1945, Army Group Ostmark comprised roughly 450,000 military personnel.
On 5 May 1945, Kesselring, already in complicated surrender negotiations with
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionar ...
, offered the surrender of army groups Ostmark, E, and Center to the Americans. This was rejected by the American side; the Americans instead inssisted that all these forces should simultaneously surrender to opposing Red Army troops as well, which Kesselring at this point was not yet willing to concede.
On 6 May, in the course of the Dönitz government's (
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
had committed suicide on 30 April) desperate scramble to secure a regional armistices with the Western Allies,
Albert Kesselring
Albert Kesselring (30 November 1885 – 16 July 1960) was a German military officer and convicted war crime, war criminal who served in the ''Luftwaffe'' during World War II. In a career which spanned both world wars, Kesselring reached the ra ...
received instructions to oversee the regulated surrenders of the Ostmark, South East and Center army group commands to the Western Allies by disentangling them from Soviet forces. This command proved unfulfillable due to the rapid advances of the Red Army. The chaotic circumstances of surrender had cut off various German formations from their lines of communication;
OKW
The (; abbreviated OKW ː kaːˈveArmed Forces High Command) was the supreme military command and control staff of Nazi Germany during World War II, that was directly subordinated to Adolf Hitler. Created in 1938, the OKW replaced the Re ...
was unable to precisely locate Army Group Ostmark and the forces of '' Oberbefehlshaber Südost''. This chaos was furthered by the complicated interactions between Allied interests and the nascent
Austrian resistance
The Austrian resistance was launched in response to the rise of the fascists across Europe and, more specifically, to the Anschluss in 1938 and resulting occupation of Austria by Germany.
An estimated 100,000 people were reported to have parti ...
, as well as the role of Austrian-born Wehrmacht commanders. Southeastern supreme commander
Alexander Löhr
Alexander Löhr (20 May 1885 – 26 February 1947) was an Austrian Air Force (1927–1938), Austrian Air Force commander during the 1930s and, after the Anschluss, annexation of Austria, he was a Luftwaffe commander. Löhr served in the Luftwaff ...
attempted to win favor (and the support of his troops) for a defensive holding action by his remnant troops against Soviet and Yugoslav forces on the Austrian frontier, to secure postwar Austria's government as non-communist.
After the Dönitz government agreed at
Reims
Reims ( ; ; also spelled Rheims in English) is the most populous city in the French Departments of France, department of Marne (department), Marne, and the List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, 12th most populous city in Fran ...
to an overall German surrender on 7 May 1945 (to be effective midnight 8/9 May), the army groups still engaged with Soviet forces were instructed to fight their way westwards as far as possible to reach American lines in order to avoid Soviet captivity. Leaderless forces from Army Group Ostmark fled westwards in small groups, attempting to cover the remaining distance to Western Allied lines, which was in all cases more than 100 kilometers. Unfounded rumors that the Western Allies were preparing an immediate rearmament and reorganization of the Wehrmacht for a Western Allied attack against Soviet forces spurred on refugees and raised morale.