Axis Powers: Hungarian and Romanian Armies under Heeresgruppe Süd

3.Infanterie-Division (mot.) during Axis summer offensive Fall Blau

Royal Hungarian Second Army

Volunteers in one of the three Hungarian field armies 1942

On April 11 1942, the 209,000-man-strong Hungarian Second Army was assigned to the German Heeresgruppe Süd in Ukraine. In June 1942 the Second Army was divided between Heeresgruppe A and Heeresgruppe B for the offensive Case Blue, the Axis summer offensive. Their participation was noted by German observers for its particular cruelty, with occupied peoples subjected to arbitrary violence. Volunteers in the Hungarian Army were sometimes referred to as engaging in "murder tourism." In fall 1942, the Hungarian Second Army was deployed to protect the Italian Eighth Army's northern flank, between Novaya Pokrovka on the Don River and Rossosh, while German Sixth Army attacked Stalingrad. Hungarian Second Army, like other armies protecting the flanks of the Sixth Army, was annihilated in the Soviet counter-offensives of the winter of 1942-1943. Soviet forces drove through the Romanian Third Army and Romanian Fourth Army, trapping Sixth Army in Stalingrad. The Romanians committed more troops to the Eastern Front than all the other allies of the German Reich combined. Their troops were responsible for the persecution and massacre of up to 260,000 Jews in Romanian-controlled territories in Ukraine, Bessarabia and elsewhere. Credit: Wikipedia. Top image: a German medium tank, commonly known as the Panzer IV, moving through a burning village in Ukraine during the Axis summer offensive Case Blue in June or July 1942. Panzer IV n°324 belonged to the German 3rd Motorized Infantry Division. In mid-1942, the division was transferred to Heeresgruppe Süd to take part in the offensive Case Blue. It was ultimately caught up in the Battle of Stalingrad, where it was destroyed in the encirclement with the German 6th Army in Feb. 1943. Credit: Julius Jääskeläinen. c. Bundesarchiv. Middle image: Hungarian volunteers with a three-legged anti-aircraft gun mount (Schwarzlose) on Eastern Front in 1942. Photo by Hungarian Major Tamás Konok. Bottom image: Hungarian volunteers before the departure for the Don in 1942. Photo by Hungarian military officer Jenő Kókány. Credit: Ana-Maria Bujor. Fortepan. FU