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| Vienna Offensive |
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| The Vienna Offensive was launched by the Soviet 3rd
Ukrainian Front in order to capture Vienna, Austria. The offensive
lasted from April 2 to April 13, 1945. The city of Vienna was
surrounded and under siege for most of the offensive. |
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| Background |
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Previous agreements that Stalin reached with the
Western Allies prior to April 1945 concerned the relative postwar
political influence of each party in much of Eastern and Central
Europe; however, these agreements said virtually nothing about the
fate of Austria. Stalin thus decided to postpone his offensive
towards Berlin - for which the Soviets were ready as early as
February - and secure both the flanks for that offensive, and the
Austrian territory, a valuable bargaining chips for subsequent
postwar negotiations with his Allies.
After the failure of Operation Frühlingserwachen, Sepp Dietrich's
6th SS Panzer Army retreated in stages to the Vienna area. The
Germans desperately prepared defensive positions in an attempt to
guard the city against the fast arriving Soviets.
During the spring of 1945, the advance of Soviet General Fyodor
Tolbukhin's 3rd Ukrainian Front through western Hungary gathered
momentum on both sides of the Danube.
On March 30, the advancing Soviets forced the Hron River, forced the
Nitra River, and, after they took Sopron and Nagykanizsa, crossed
the border between Hungary and Austria. Tolbukhin was now ready to
advance into Austria and take Vienna. |
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| The battle |
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| On April 2, 1945, Vienna Radio denied that the
Austrian capital has been declared an open city. On the same day,
Soviet troops approached Vienna from the south after they over-ran
Wiener Neustadt, Eisenstadt, Neunkirchen, and Gloggnitz. Baden and
Bratislava were overrun on April 4. |
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| Soviet troops
(Image: Votava) |
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After arriving in the Vienna area, the armies of the Soviet 3rd
Ukrainian Front surrounded, besieged, and attacked the city.
Involved in this action were the Soviet 4th Guards Army, the Soviet
6th Guards Tank Army, the Soviet 9th Guards Army, and the Soviet
46th Army. The O-5, a group of Austrians led by Carl Szokoll and
wanting to spare Vienna destruction, actively attempted to sabotage
the German defense and aid the entry of the Red Army. |
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| The only major German force facing the Soviet attackers was the
German II SS Panzer Corps of the 6th SS Panzer Army, along with
ad-hoc forces made up of garrison and anti-aircraft units. Declared
a defensive region, Vienna's defense was commanded by General Rudolf
von Bünau, with the II SS Panzer Corps units under the command of SS
General Wilhelm |
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Russian soldiers and Viennese
citizen (Image: Votava) |
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Bittrich.
The battle for the Austrian capital was characterized in some cases
by fierce urban combat, but there were also parts of the city the
Soviets advanced into with little opposition. Defending in the
Prater Park was the 6th Panzer Division, along the south side of the
city were the 2nd and 3rd SS Panzer Divisions, and in the north was
the Führer-Grenadier Division. The Soviets assaulted into Vienna's
eastern and southern suburbs with the 4th Guards Army and part of
the 9th Guards Army. The German defenders |
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| kept the Soviets out of
the city’s southern suburbs until April 7. However, after
successfully achieving several footholds in the southern suburbs,
the Soviets then moved into the western suburbs of the city on April
8 with the |
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Austrian refugees (Image: Votava) |
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6th Guards Tank Army and the bulk of the 9th Guards Army.
The western suburbs were especially important to the Soviets because
they included Vienna's main railway station. The Soviet success in
the western suburbs was followed quickly by infiltration of the
eastern and northern suburbs later the same day. North of the Danube
River, the 46th Army pushed westward through Vienna's northern
suburbs. Central Vienna was now cut off from the rest of Austria. |
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| By April 9, the Soviet troops began to infiltrate the center of the
city, but the senseless street fighting continued for several days
more. On the night of April 11, the 4th Guards Army stormed the
Danube canals, with the 20th Guards Rifle Corps and 1st Mechanized
Corps moving on the |
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The
cathedral burns
(Image: Votava) |
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Reichsbrücke Bridge. In a coup de main on April
13, the Danube Flotilla landed troops of the 80th Guards Rifle
Division and 7th Guards Airborne Division on both sides of the
bridge, cutting demolition cables and securing the bridge. However,
other important bridges were destroyed. Vienna finally fell when the
last defenders in the city surrendered on the same day. Bittrich's
II SS Panzer Corps, however, pulled out to the west on the evening
of April 13 to avoid encirclement. The same day, the 46th Army took
Essling and the Danube Flotilla landed naval infantry up the river
by Klosterneuburg.
While the street fighting was still intensifying in the southern and
western suburbs of Vienna on April 8, other troops of the 3rd
Ukrainian Front by-passed Vienna altogether and advanced on Linz and
Graz. |
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| Aftermath |
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| By April 15, 1945, armies of the Soviet 3rd
Ukrainian Front pushed even further into Austria. The completely
exhausted remnants of what had been |
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Floridsdorfer Brücke, Vienna |
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the 6th SS Panzer Army were
forced to flee to the area between Vienna and Linz. Just behind the
retreating Germans were elements of the Soviet 9th Guards Army and
the Soviet 46th Army. The Soviet 26th Army and the Soviet 27th Army
advanced towards the area north of Graz just behind the retreating
German 6th Army. The Soviet 57th Army and the Bulgarian 1st Army
advanced towards the area south of Graz (near Maribor) just behind
the retreating German 2nd Panzer Army. None of these German armies
was in any shape to do more than temporarily stall the advancing
Soviet forces.
Some of Vienna's finest buildings lay in ruins after the battle.
There was no water, electricity, or gas - and bands of people, |
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foreigners and Austrians, plundered and assaulted the hapless
residents in the absence of a police force. While the Soviet assault |
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forces generally behaved well, the second wave of Soviet troops to
arrive in the city were badly disciplined, looting and raping in a
several-week orgy of violence that has been compared to the worst
aspects of the Thirty Years War.
Like Bittrich, General von Bünau left Vienna before it fell to avoid
capture by the Soviets. From April 16, 1945 until the war's end he
led Generalkommando von Bünau, surrendering to the Americans on VE
Day. Von Bünau was held as a |
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| POW until April 1947. Bittrich also
surrendered to U.S. forces and was held as a prisoner by the Allies
until 1954. Fyodor Tolbukhin went on to |
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command the Soviet Southern
Group of Forces and the Transcaucasian Military District prior to
his untimely death in 1949, reportedly from heart problems. |
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Text source in extracts: |
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| WIKIPEDIA - the free
encyclopedia |
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| de.wikipedia.org |
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| Vienna Offensive |
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