German 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend: Encyclopedia II - German 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend - Hungary - Austria

German 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend - Hungary - Austria

On 20 January 1945, Dietrich's 6.SS-Panzer-Armee was ordered east to Hungary where it was to take part in an offensive to recapture the Hungarian oilfields and open the way to Budapest, where 45,000 men of the IX.SS-Gebirgskorps had been encircled.

While the division was in transit, the IV.SS-Panzerkorps launched several ill-fated relief operations. The HJ, alongside the LSSAH as a part of I.SS-Panzerkorps arrived in Hungary in early February 1945, only a few days before the city fell. The division was thrown into action against the Gran Bridgehead, a strong salient formed by the Soviets over the Danube near the town of Gran. The HJ and the LSSAH both fought well, and by the end of February the bridghead had been destroyed.

The division was next to take part in Operation Frühlingserwachen (Spring Awakening), the operation to retake the Hungarian oilfields. Hitler, desperate to keep the operation a secret, had ordered that no reconnaissance of the battlefield was allowed before the attack began. The attack got underway on 6 March 1945 in atrocious conditions. The spring thaw meant that the German attack was confined to a few narrow roads, and after initial successes, the offensive was aborted after a Soviet counterattack threatened to encircle the German forces. After the failure of "Frühlingserwachen", Hitler lost faith in the Waffen-SS and ordered that the honorary cuffbands issued to the divisions involved in the attack be returned. Outraged at the order, Dietrich refused to pass it on to his men.

In mid-March, a heavy Soviet counterattack near Stuhlweissenberg split Armeegruppe Balck in half and resulted in a general withdrawal towards Vienna. The HJ was involved in many desperate rearguard actions, and on 13 April fell back from Vienna. Withdrawing through Odenburg and Hirtenburg, the division reached Linz, Austria near the American lines. On 8 May 1945, 10,000 survivors of the division surrendered to the Americans near Enns. In a final act of defiance, the division refused to drape their vehicles with white flags, as the Americans had ordered.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Hungary - Austria", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki