Days of Battle: Armored Operations North of the River Danube, Hungary 1944-45
Days of Battle describes a hitherto neglected part of the military history of Hungary during World War II. Dr Norbert Számvéber presents detailed accounts of four important clashes of German-Hungarian and Soviet armor north of the river Danube, in the southern territory of the historical Upper Hungary (part of Hungary between 1938 and 1945, at the present time now part of Slovakia).
The first is an account of the battle between the Ipoly and Garam rivers during the second half of December 1944, in which the élite Hungarian Division "Szent László" saw action for the first time. The second study is about the fierce tank battle of Komárom, fought 6 to 22 January 1945. This was an integral part of the Battle for Budapest, parallel in time with Operation "Konrad."
The third part of the book describes the combat during the German Operation "Südwind" in February 1945; whilst the fourth, the Soviet attack launched in the direction of Bratislava in March 1945.
The author, chief of Hungary's military archives, has based his research firmly on files and documentation from German, Hungarian and Soviet sources. The book's authoritative text is supported by specially-commissioned color battle maps.
This is a very important new study that throws much-needed light on armored warfare on the Eastern Front during the final months of the war.
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234mm x 156mm
287 pages
22 color maps
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Tomb of the Panzerwaffe: The Defeat of the Sixth SS Panzer Army in Hungary 1945
In March 1945, the German Wehrmacht undertook its final attempt to change the course of the war by launching a counteroffensive in the area of Lake Balaton, Hungary. Here, the best panzer forces of the Third Reich and the elite of the Panzerwaffe were assembled – the panzer divisions SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, Das Reich, Totenkopf, Wiking and others, staffed by ardent believers in Nazism and armed with the most up-to-date combat equipment, including up to 900 tanks and self-propelled guns.
At the time, this was considered a secondary axis for the Red Army, and thus the troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front had to stop the German counteroffensive with their own forces and could not count upon reinforcements from the Stavka Reserve, which were needed for the decisive storming of Berlin. Relying upon their combat skill and rich combat experience, the Soviet troops carried out this task with honor, stopping the tidal wave of German armor and inflicting a decisive defeat and enormous, irreplaceable losses upon the enemy. The defeat of the Sixth SS Panzer Army became a genuine catastrophe for Germany, and Balaton became the tomb of the Panzerwaffe.
In this book, penned by two leading Russian military historians, this major defeat suffered by the Wehrmacht has been described and analyzed for the first time using data from both Soviet and German archives. It focuses not only on Operation Spring Awakening, but also describes the preceding Konrad offensives conducted by the Germans in the effort to come to the aid of the encircled and desperate German and fascist Hungarian defenders of Budapest. This edition is lavishly illustrated with over 100 rare photographs of destroyed or disabled German armor taken shortly after the battle by a Soviet inspection team, besides other photographs and specially-commissioned color maps.
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234mm x 156mm
186 pages
121 black-and-white photos
4 color maps
9 tables
