Vienna offensive

• 1. Introduction

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  The Vienna offensive of 1945 reached a city that had already endured continuous bombardment for a full year. Many of its buildings and facilities were damaged or destroyed before a single Soviet soldier arrived. The assault was carried out by the Soviet 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts. It ran from the 16th of March to the 15th of April 1945, and its aim was to capture the Austrian capital during the Second World War. Several questions run through the story. Why did Joseph Stalin want Austria at all? Who inside the city hoped the attackers would succeed? And what became of the bridges across the Danube?

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• 2. A Gap in the Agreements

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  Joseph Stalin had reached an agreement with the Western Allies before April 1945. It covered the relative postwar political influence of each party across much of Eastern and Central Europe. Austria barely appeared in it. The agreements said virtually nothing about its fate.

  Officially, Austria no longer existed as a separate country. Since the Anschluss it had been treated as the Ostmark, simply an area of Greater Germany. That silence created an opening. If the Red Army captured the capital and occupied a large part of the country, Stalin would hold a strong hand in later negotiations with the Western Allies. Vienna was therefore a military objective and a bargaining position at once. The Germans assigned to guard it were already reeling from a failed operation.

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• 3. Road to Austria

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  Operation Spring Awakening, known in German as Unternehmen Frühlingserwachen, had failed. In its wake, Sepp Dietrich's 6th SS Panzer Army retreated in stages toward the Vienna area. The Germans desperately prepared defensive positions to shield the city from the rapidly arriving Soviets.

  Their pursuers were gathering speed. In the spring of 1945, Marshal Fyodor Tolbukhin's 3rd Ukrainian Front advanced through western Hungary on both sides of the Danube. After taking Sopron and Nagykanizsa, it crossed the border from Hungary into Austria.

  To the north, the 2nd Ukrainian Front joined the push. On the 25th of March it launched the Bratislava-Brno offensive by crossing the Hron river. On the 30th of March it crossed the Nitra as well, then rushed across the Danubian Lowland toward Bratislava. With his right wing secured, Tolbukhin was ready to advance into Austria and take Vienna.

  Among the soldiers taking part were Romanians, who had fought on the Allied side since King Michael's Coup.

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• 4. The Ring Closes

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  On the 2nd of April, Vienna Radio denied that the Austrian capital had been declared an open city. The same day, Soviet troops approached from the south after overrunning Wiener Neustadt, Eisenstadt, Neunkirchen and Gloggnitz. Baden and Bratislava were overrun on the 4th of April.

  Once in the Vienna area, the 3rd Ukrainian Front surrounded, besieged and attacked the city. Four Soviet armies took part: the 4th Guards Army, the 6th Guards Tank Army, the 9th Guards Army and the 46th Army.

  Against them stood only one major German force, the II SS Panzer Corps of the 6th SS Panzer Army. It was backed by ad hoc units drawn from garrison and anti-aircraft troops. Vienna had been declared a defensive region, and General Rudolf von Bünau commanded its defense. SS General Wilhelm Bittrich led the II SS Panzer Corps units.

  Inside the city, some Austrians were working against their own defenders. The O-5 Resistance Group, led by Carl Szokoll, wanted to spare Vienna from destruction. It actively tried to sabotage the German defenses and to help the Red Army enter.

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• 5. Suburbs to Center

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  In the Prater Park, the 6th Panzer Division held the line. Along the southern side of the city stood the 2nd and 3rd SS Panzer Divisions, and in the north the Führer-Grenadier Division. The fighting that followed was uneven. In some districts the combat was fierce and conducted street by street, while in others the Soviets advanced with little opposition.

  The Soviets struck the eastern and southern suburbs with the 4th Guards Army and part of the 9th Guards Army. The German defenders kept them out of the southern suburbs until the 7th of April. After winning several footholds there, the attackers shifted on the 8th of April. They entered the western suburbs with the 6th Guards Tank Army and the bulk of the 9th Guards Army.

  These western suburbs mattered because they contained Vienna's main railway station. Later the same day, Soviet troops infiltrated the eastern and northern suburbs. North of the Danube, the 46th Army pushed westward through the northern suburbs. Central Vienna was now cut off from the rest of Austria. Meanwhile, other troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front bypassed the city altogether and advanced on Linz and Graz.

  By the 9th of April, Soviet soldiers began infiltrating the center, and street fighting continued for several more days. The river and its bridges came next.

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• 6. Race for the Bridges

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  By the 10th of April, all but two of Vienna's bridges had been destroyed. One survivor was the Floridsdorf bridge, which a Führer Order said must be held at all costs. To guard it, the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich left behind a dozen artillery pieces, including 37mm anti-aircraft guns. That night the division pulled out of the city for the last time, taking its last three dozen armored vehicles. The Germans moved northwest to establish their next defensive line.

  The Soviets turned to the Danube canals. On the night of the 11th of April, the 4th Guards Army stormed them, with the 20th Guards Rifle Corps and the 1st Mechanized Corps moving on the Reichsbrücke Bridge.

  The boldest stroke came on the 13th of April. In a coup de main, the Danube Flotilla landed troops of the 80th Guards Rifle Division and the 7th Guards Airborne Division on both sides of the bridge. They cut the demolition cables and secured the crossing. Other important bridges were destroyed. The last defenders in the city surrendered the same day, and Soviet troops had captured Vienna.

  That evening, Bittrich's II SS Panzer Corps pulled out to the west to avoid encirclement. Elsewhere, the 46th Army took Essling, and the Danube Flotilla landed naval infantry upriver near Klosterneuburg.

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• 7. Ruins and Pursuit

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  By the 15th of April, the armies of the 3rd Ukrainian Front were pushing even farther into Austria. The completely exhausted remnants of the 6th SS Panzer Army fled to the area between Vienna and Linz. Elements of the 9th Guards Army and the 46th Army chased them. Farther south, the 26th and 27th Armies advanced toward the area north of Graz, just behind the retreating German 6th Army. The 57th Army and the Bulgarian 1st Army moved toward the area south of Graz, near Maribor, behind the 2nd Panzer Army. None of these German armies could do more than briefly stall the Soviet advance.

  In the days after the battle, Vienna had no water, electricity or gas. Some of its finest buildings lay in ruins. With no police force, bands of foreigners and Austrians plundered and assaulted the helpless residents. The first Soviet assault troops generally behaved well, but the second wave to arrive was reportedly badly undisciplined. Many lootings and rapes took place over several weeks of violence. It has been compared to the worst aspects of the Thirty Years War.

  Austrian politician Karl Renner set up a Provisional Government in Vienna sometime in April, with the tacit approval of the victorious Soviet forces. He declared Austria's secession from the Third Reich.

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• 8. Commanders and Paper Armies

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  General von Bünau had left Vienna before it fell, to avoid capture by the Soviets. From the 16th of April until the end of the war, he led Generalkommando von Bünau, and he surrendered to the Americans on VE Day. He was held as a prisoner of war until April 1947. Bittrich also surrendered to American forces, but the Allies held him prisoner until 1954. On the Soviet side, Fyodor Tolbukhin went on to command the Soviet Southern Group of Forces and then the Transcaucasian Military District. He held that post until his death in 1949.

  A record from the 30th of April shows what remained of the German armies that had fought in Hungary and Austria. The German Army High Command, the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, compiled it. It lists the 6th Panzer Army east of Linz, the 6th Army north of Graz, and the 2nd Panzer Army south of Graz near Maribor. The record shows only what remained "on paper."

  The Soviet list for the same period is longer. It runs from the 4th Guards Army and the 6th Guards Tank Army through the 57th Army and the 1st Bulgarian Army, with the 17th Air Army alongside. The command that kept the German tally was itself on the move. Between the 20th of April and the 2nd of May, it relocated from Zossen, near Berlin, to Mürwik, part of Flensburg in northern Germany near Denmark.

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