Army Group B

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Army Group B was not one fighting force but four, each bearing the same name at different moments of World War II, each shaped by a different theater, a different commander, and a different fate. One name, four separate stories, stretching from the Dutch border in 1939 to a forest in the Ruhr in 1945. How did a single army group designation become attached to campaigns as different as the blitzkrieg through Belgium, the disaster at Stalingrad, the sun-baked hills of northern Italy, and the frantic Allied push across France? The commanders who led these formations included some of the most famous names in German military history, among them Erwin Rommel and Walter Model. And the final chapter of this story ends not with a formal surrender on a battlefield, but with a commander taking his own life in a wood outside the Ruhr pocket on the 21st of April 1945.

• 2. Born from the North

  ›

  On the 12th of October 1939, the former Army Group North, which had just fought through the invasion of Poland, was redesignated Army Group B. Its first commander was Generalfeldmarschall Fedor von Bock, who had already led Army Group North during that Polish campaign. During the winter months of the Phoney War, the formation assembled in the Lower Rhine area along the German-Dutch and German-Belgian borders, waiting for orders to move west.

  In the original OKH planning for the assault on France, Army Group B held the prestigious Schwerpunkt role, meaning it would provide the main operational thrust. That changed after interventions from senior officers at Army Group A, most notably Erich von Manstein. By January to February 1940, the focus of the German plan had shifted decisively to Army Group A. Army Group B was left with a support and auxiliary role, assigned fewer armored and motorized divisions than its neighbor to the south.

  When the attack came, Army Group B drove into the Netherlands and Belgium on the northern flank. In the second phase of the Western campaign, known as Case Red, it swung toward the Somme river and the French Atlantic coast. After the fall of France, the formation sat on occupation duty before being redeployed to East Prussia and the General Government in German-occupied Poland starting on the 16th of August 1940. On the 22nd of June 1941, the day Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, Army Group B was renamed Army Group Center.

• 3. The Road to Stalingrad

  ›

  On the 9th of July 1942, the old Army Group South was split in two, producing a new Army Group A and a revived Army Group B. Army Group A moved south into the Battle of the Caucasus, targeting the oilfields. Army Group B turned northeast, advancing toward the Don and Volga rivers, with specific objectives at Stalingrad and Astrakhan.

  Maximilian von Weichs held command during this phase. The army group controlled a coalition of forces drawn from Germany's Axis partners, including the Hungarian 2nd Army, the Italian 8th Army, and Romanian formations. These allied armies would prove critical to the developing crisis. When Soviet forces launched Operation Uranus on the 21st of November 1942, their counterattacks pierced the army group's lines repeatedly, encircling the German 6th Army inside Stalingrad on the west bank of the Volga.

  The organizational fallout was swift. Several major formations, including the German 6th Army, the Romanian 4th Army, and the German 4th Panzer Army, were transferred away from Army Group B and attached to the newly-formed Army Group Don, inserted into the line between Army Groups A and B to try to manage the crisis. Another Soviet breakthrough on the Don river on the 14th of January 1943, part of the Voronezh-Kharkov offensive, put further pressure on what remained. The army group was pulled from the line on the 9th of February 1943, its subordinate formations distributed to Army Group Center and the newly-reestablished Army Group South.

• 4. Rommel in Italy

  ›

  On the 19th of July 1943, staff elements from the dissolved eastern formation were combined with another headquarters known as Task Force Rommel, or Arbeitsstab Rommel, named after Erwin Rommel, whose Army Group Afrika had just suffered a decisive defeat with the end of the Tunisian campaign. Rommel took command of the reconstituted Army Group B on that same day.

  The formation deployed to northern Italy, but its existence in that theater was brief. On the 26th of November 1943, most of the staff was restructured into Army Group C, also designated Supreme Commander South West, or OB Sudwest in German. The third Army Group B had served mainly as an organizational bridge, moving personnel and structures into a new command configuration in a theater far removed from either France or the Soviet Union.

• 5. The Western Front Command

  ›

  On the same day the Italian staff was dissolved, the 26th of November 1943, a fresh army group headquarters bearing the same name was established in German-occupied France along the English Channel coast. This fourth and final Army Group B would outlast all its predecessors.

  After the Allied Normandy landings on the 6th of June 1944, Army Group B commanded the northern wing of the new German Western Front. Gunther von Kluge assumed command on the 19th of July 1944, replacing Rommel who had held the role across both the Italian and French phases of the command's history. Kluge lasted less than a month before Walter Model took over on the 17th of August. Model set up his headquarters at Oosterbeek, near Arnhem, and was caught off guard on the 17th of September by the Allied airborne assault known as Operation Market Garden.

  After Army Group H was established in the German-occupied Netherlands in November 1944, Army Group B shifted to the center of the Western Front, positioned between Army Group H to the north and Army Group G to the south. It was this formation that oversaw the German Ardennes Offensive, the operation known in Allied histories as the Battle of the Bulge. By the spring of 1945, the army group was compressed into the Ruhr pocket in northern Germany. Broken into smaller and smaller fragments, the final section surrendered on the 21st of April 1945. Model, who had commanded the formation longer than any other officer, committed suicide that same day.

• 6. The Commanders

  ›

  Six men held command of Army Group B across its four deployments, and their careers mirror the arc of German fortunes in the war. Fedor von Bock led the formation from its creation on the 3rd of October 1939 through to the 1st of April 1941, bridging the transition from Poland to France and the opening of the Eastern Front. Maximilian von Weichs took charge on the 15th of July 1942 and presided over the catastrophic Stalingrad phase, departing on the 10th of July 1943.

  Erwin Rommel, whose name had become attached to Task Force Rommel before the third Army Group B was even formed, commanded from the 10th of July 1943 through to the 17th of July 1944, spanning the Italian and early French phases. After the brief tenure of Gunther von Kluge (the 17th of July to the 15th of August 1944) and an even shorter interlude under SS-Oberst-Gruppenfuhrer Paul Hausser spanning just two days, Walter Model assumed command on the 17th of August 1944 and held it until the 17th of April 1945.

  The chiefs of staff tell a parallel story. Hans Speidel served in that role from the 15th of April 1944 through to the 1st of September 1944, covering the critical Normandy period. His successor Hans Krebs held the position until the 17th of February 1945. The final chief of staff, Carl Wagener, stepped into the role on the 20th of February 1945 and was still in post when the last fragment of the army group gave up its arms two months later.