Panzer Commander Hermann Balck: Germany’s Master Tactician

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Because of the failure of the 48th Panzer Corps to halt the Soviet 5th Tank Army, Hitler personally dismissed the commanding general, Lieutenant General Ferdinand Heim and the chief of staff Colonel Friebe, leaving in place the operations officer (1a), Major von Ohlen. The German Army High Command appointed Colonel F.W. von Mellenthin as Chief of Staff on 27 November 1942, and, two days later after appropriate briefings, he arrived at the battle headquarters of the 48th Panzer Corps in Petrovka. Mellenthin came from 15 months of duty under Field Marshal Erwin Rommel as intelligence officer (Ic) and assistant operations officer (Ia, assistant) in Panzerarmee Afrika. On it the consent provided that one of the division commanders freed in the boiler will be appointed by my receiver has been given. Commanding army has agreed.

In the battle that followed, the Germans and Soviets engaged forces that were fairly closely matched in terms of their full strengths on their tables of organization (men) and equipment (weapons and other hardware). As such their strengths lay in the following key factors: Russian had a significant numerical superiority and the American commanders have become puzzled, as they are Americans - had no experience of struggle against the enemy in conditions when this enemy had such monstrous superiority in strength. After me to Schmidt there has arrived the commander army. Has rung out phone. From Osinovka reported the commander of XI Korp Shtreker. skill to filter through positions of the opponent, and as aspiration to grasp and keep bridgeheads as bases of the future approaches Is marked.- Yuri> Glantz, David M.; House, Jonathan (2009). To the Gates of Stalingrad: Soviet-German Combat Operations, April-August 1942. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-1630-5.manded the SS’s police division. His IX SS Mountain Corps was holding Budapest with the weak 8th and 22nd SS Cavalry divisions and elements of the 13th Panzer Division, the 60th Panzergrenadier Division, and the 271st Volksgrenadier Division. The Hungarian I Corps, under the command of a former instructor of German at Hungary’s Ludovika Military Academy, General Iván Hindy, 54, fought alongside them. Altogether, the Axis had some 79,000 troops defending the city. Before completing the description of battles on the river Chir, I should give due to general Balk, the born commander - tankman. <…> His remarkable successes were result of a full co-ordination of operations with two infantry divisions and an army headquarters of 48th Panzer Corps. <…> Flexible such tactics many times allowed to correct an emergency and to render huge losses to the opponent. For the specified period in a strip of 48th Panzer Corps it has been destroyed over 700 tanks of the opponent. I arrived at the command post of the XLVIII Panzer Corps in NIZHNYAYA CHIRSKAYA at approximately 1500 on 5 December 1942 having left the XXIV Panzer Corps. I immediately assumed command of the XLVIII Panzer Corps, taking over from Lieutenant General Kramer. The Corps Chief of Staff was a certain Lieutenant Colonel von Mellenthin, G.S.C., who himself had joined the Corps a few days before. THE SIEGE OF BUDAPEST lasted 108 days, with the city completely surrounded for 51 of them. The Soviets won the battle, but at a high cost, sustaining half of all casualties they suffered during the entire Hungarian Campaign. Casualty figures vary widely, but between November 3, 1944, and February 11, 1945, Soviet and Romanian casualties—including those fighting inside the city—most likely totaled about 280,000, with 70,000 killed. German and Hungarian casualties came to 137,000, with 47,000 of those killed. Approximately 105,000 Hungarian civilians also died in Budapest.

The 11th Panzer Division was approaching from the east. On favorable terrain, without being directed by the Russians, the division was standing by on the Russian tank brigade's flank, facing west. During this extraordinary period, paralyzed elements of the Soviet 5th Tank Army stood facing a line of static outpost manned largely by German rifle and machine gun squads filled by men, largely strangers to one another but held together by the formidable, mission- oriented discipline of the German Army.The staff officer has reported to me on arrival of the heavy weapon from Tormosin: two antiaircraft guns of calibre 8,8 cm, four howitzers of calibre 10,5 cm and four anti-tank guns of calibre 5,5 cm. Next day there should arrive tanks. The mood at me has risen: if we will be supported also with an army group, we shall stop the opponent. To pass five or six kilometers up to my army headquarters, it was required more than hour. The automobile hardly moved, making the way on the streets hammered by people and every possible transport. Nizhne-Chirskaja has turned to army camp. I conducted Pauljus and Schmidt up to air station which has been arranged at edge of city. We have silently said goodbye, and they have sat in the plane. To battles on the river Chir von Mellenthin has given the whole chapter, having named her with it is rather remarkable "And Quiet Flows the Don". In Operation Uranus, the Soviet high command exploited the untenable position of the German 6th Army by gripping it with several Soviet armies and simultaneously massing additional armies tailored to effect the first really successful Soviet operational advances of World War II -- the double envelopment of the Germans at Stalingrad.