Halbe cauldron-destruction of 9th Army

The last hope of Hitler:

12th Army by Wenck

9th Army by Busse

The latter was destroyed in Halbe

Some excerpts:

http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Quarters/8662/ktiger3.html

One of the bloodiest episodes at the end of WWII was the cauldron of Halbe, April 1945. Early April 1945 sSSPzAbt. 502 was translocated to the area Diedersdorf-Litzen in preparation for the expected Russian main offensive against Berlin, which started on April 16th, 1945. Although the 9th German Army could hold the Oder-front near Frankfurt am Oder, they were bypassed and encircled by the spearheads of the 1st Ukrain and 1st White-Russian front. Being under attack from three sides, the last five Tiger IIs of sSSPzAbt. 502 were used to spearhead a desperate breakout at Halbe on April 27th. Followed by tens of thousands of soldiers and refugees, the column moved through woods and villages, being sitting ducks for the waiting Russians on both flanks. The Tigers were able to establish a breakthrough despite heavy fire from Russian artillery, T-34s and anti-tank guns. The last two Tigers of were lost on the first of May, when the decimated Kampfgruppe reached the 12th Army. By that time up to 60.000 Germans were killed, both soldiers and refugees.

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Waldfriedhof Halbe, the largest World War 2 German cemetery in existence with over 20,000 buried. The cemetery has no name index and over half of the graves are marked simply "Unbekannt" (Unknown). Many of the markers reflect mass burials of 30, 50, 100 or 150 unknown soldiers.

http://www.feldgrau.com/halbesearch.html

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If anyone has more details on the battles and movements of the 9th and 12th German armies in the end phase of the war I hope you put it here.Thanx!

 

12th Army by Wenck

9th Army by Busse

Any info on the movements by these forces April 1945?

 

The Battle of Halbe (German: Kesselschlacht von Halbe, Russian: Хальбский котёл, Halbe pocket) from April 24 – May 1, 1945[2] was a battle in which the German Ninth Army, under the command of General Theodor Busse, was destroyed as a fighting force by the Red Army during the Battle of Berlin.

The Ninth Army, encircled in a large pocket in the Spree Forest region south-east of Berlin, attempted to break out westwards through the village of Halbe and the pine forests south of Berlin to link up with the German Twelfth Army commanded by General Walther Wenck with the intention of heading west and surrendering to the Western Allies. To do this, the Ninth Army had to fight its way through three lines of Soviet troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front under the command of Marshal Ivan Konev, while at the same time units of the 1st Belorussian Front, under the command of Marshal Georgy Zhukov, attacked the German rearguard from the northeast.

Battle of Halbe

The casualties on both sides were high. There are about 15,000 Germans buried in the Halbe Forest Cemetery (German: Waldfriedhof Halbe), making it the largest war cemetery in Germany from World War II. About 10,000 are unidentified soldiers killed during the first half of 1945.[14] The Red Army claimed to have killed 60,000 German soldiers and taken 120,000 as prisoners. The number of prisoners is supported by some sources,[15] while other sources consider it to be exaggerated.[14] Thousands of Red Army soldiers died trying to stop the breakout, most being buried at the Sowjetische Ehrenfriedhof Baruth/Mark cemetery (de) next to the Baruth–Zossen road (Bundesstraße 96)



Halba "cauldron". How did the 9th German Army die