From the Realm of a Dying Sun

The IV. SS-Panzerkorps in the Budapest Relief Efforts, December 1944–February 1945

Douglas E. Nash

• Publisher: Casemate
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781612008738
• eBook ISBN:
  9781612008745
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: German History
• Index: History

"A veritable tour de force of Eastern Front armored combat replete with slashing counterattacks, defending to the last man, and overcoming odds." —Mark J. Reardon, author of Victory at Mortain
On Christmas Eve 1944, the men of the IV. SS-Panzerkorps and its two divisions—the 3rd SS Panzer Division "Totenkopf" and the 5th SS Panzer Division "Wiking"—were eagerly anticipating what the holiday would bring, including presents from home and perhaps sharing a bottle of schnapps or wine with their comrades.
This was not to be, for that very evening, the corps commander, SS-Obergruppenführer Herbert Otto Gille, received a telephone call notifying him that the 35,000 men of his corps would begin boarding express trains the following day that would take them from the relative quiet of the Vistula Front to the front lines in Hungary, hundreds of kilometers away. Their mission: Relieve Budapest! Thus would begin the final round in the saga of the IV. SS-Panzerkorps. In Hungary, it would play a key role in the three attempts to raise the siege of that fateful city. Threatened as much by their high command as by the forces of the Soviet Union, Gille and his troops overcame seemingly insurmountable obstacles in their attempts to rescue the city's garrison, only to have their final attack called off at the last minute. At that moment, they were only a few kilometers away from the objective towards which they had striven for nearly a month. After the relief attempt's failure sealed the fate of hundreds of thousands of Hungarians and Germans, the only course of action remaining was to dig in and protect the Hungarian oilfields as long as possible.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Table of contents
• Introduction
• List of Maps
• List of Figures
• 1 The Lost Month, 27 November–27 December 1944
• 2 The Hungarian Theater of Operations, September–25 December 1944
• 3 Arrival in Hungary, 25–28 December 1944
• 4 Preparations for the Relief of Budapest—Unternehmen Konrad, 28 December 1944–1 January 1945
• 5 The First Relief Attempt of Budapest—Konrad I, 1–8 January 1945
• 6 The Second Relief Attempt of Budapest—Konrad II, 9–13 January 1945
• 7 Change of Mission, 13–17 January 1945
• 8 The Third Relief Attempt of Budapest—Konrad III, Part I: The Initial Drive, 18–23 January 1945
• 9 The Third Relief Attempt of Budapest—Konrad III, Part II: The Final Push, 24–28 January 1945
• 10 Battling to a Stalemate, 29 January–4 February 1945
• 11 Transition to the Defense, 5–12 February 1945
• Appendix A: IV. SS-Pz.Korps Battle and Campaign Participation Credits
• Appendix B: Selected Orders of Battle
• Appendix C: German Army, Waffen-SS and U.S. Army Rank Equivalents
• Appendix D: Feldpost Numbers
• Appendix E: Glossary
• Endnotes
• Bibliography
• Plate section