Slovak Expeditionary Army Group: Difference between revisions
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==Further reading== |
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*{{cite book |last1=Müller |first1=Rolf-Dieter |title=The Unknown Eastern Front |
*{{cite book |last1=Müller |first1=Rolf-Dieter |title=The Unknown Eastern Front: The Wehrmacht and Hitler's Foreign Soldiers |date=2012 |publisher=I.B.Tauris |location=London |isbn=9781780768908}} |
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Revision as of 20:29, 11 April 2020
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (June 2018) |
The Slovak Expeditionary Army Group was an element of the military forces of the Slovak Republic that fought under Nazi German command on the Eastern Front during World War II.
Background
The Slovak Republic was a puppet state created after the German invasion of Czechoslovakia. It possessed a small army of its own, largely made up of parts inherited from the old Czechoslovak Army. As a result of German pressure, the 1st Slovak Infantry Division took part in the German invasion of Poland in September 1939. In the aftermath of the German invasion of France, the German government consolidated its control of the Slovak regime.[1] On 21 June 1941, the Slovak government was informed that it was expected to provide a contingent to participate in the German invasion of the Soviet Union. It accepted the following day, being the first day of the German offensive.[2] The Slovak Army was called up, as the regime sought to demonstrate its indispensability to Nazi Germany and its greater loyalty than Hungary.
History
The Slovak Expeditionary Army Group of about 45,000 men entered the Soviet Union shortly after the German attack. This army lacked logistic and transportation support, so a much smaller unit, the Slovak Mobile Command (Pilfousek Brigade), was formed from units selected from this force; the rest of the Slovak army was relegated to rear-area security duty. The Slovak Mobile Command was attached to the German 17th Army (as was the Hungarian Carpathian Group also) and shortly thereafter given over to direct German command, the Slovaks lacking the command infrastructure to exercise effective operational control. This unit fought with the 17th Army through July 1941, including at the Battle of Uman.
At the beginning of August 1941, the Slovak Mobile Command was dissolved and instead two infantry divisions were formed from the Slovak Expeditionary Army Group. The Slovak 2nd Division was a security division, but the Slovak 1st Division was a front-line unit which fought in the campaigns of 1941 and 1942, reaching the Caucasus area with Army Group B. The Slovak 1st Division then shared the fate of the German southern forces, losing their heavy equipment in the Kuban bridgehead, then being badly mangled near Melitopol in the southern Ukraine. In June 1944, the remnant of the division, no longer considered fit for combat due to low morale, was disarmed and the personnel assigned to construction and logistical work, a fate which had already befallen the Slovak 2nd Division earlier for the same reason.
Slovak troops took part in Operation Bamberg, an anti-partisan action in which 5,000 alleged partisans, including 200 Jews, were shot.[3]
References
- ^ Rychlík 2018, pp. 121–2.
- ^ Rychlík 2018, p. 122.
- ^ Hutzelmann, Barbara (2018). "Einführung: Slowakei" [Introduction: Slovakia]. In Hutzelmann, Barbara; Hausleitner, Mariana; Hazan, Souzana (eds.). Slowakei, Rumänien und Bulgarien [Slovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria]. Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933-1945 [The Persecution and Murder of European Jews by Nazi Germany 1933-1945] (in German). Vol. 13. Munich: Institut für Zeitgeschichte. p. 39. ISBN 978-3-11-036500-9.
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Bibliography
- Rychlík, Jan (2018). "Slovakia". In Stahel, David (ed.). Joining Hitler's Crusade: European Nations and the Invasion of the Soviet Union, 1941. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 107–33. ISBN 978-1-316-51034-6.
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Further reading
- Müller, Rolf-Dieter (2012). The Unknown Eastern Front: The Wehrmacht and Hitler's Foreign Soldiers. London: I.B.Tauris. ISBN 9781780768908.