One of the very few photographs taken during Operation Spring Awakening. It shows Leibstandarte Division panzergrenadiers advancing past the debris of war.
Operation Spring Awakening began officially at 04:30 hours on 6 March, with a massive barrage from the artillery of the Sixth SS Panzer Army. First to move forward were the panzergrenadiers of the Leibstandarte, whose first task was to open several lanes through a Russian minefield before they could begin clearing an extensive system of trenches and strong-points at bayonet point. This took all the morning, and then the division’s panzer kampfgruppe was able to race forward. After a few kilometres, though, it ran into a well-prepared pak-front, protected by more minefields. As the kampfgruppe’s tanks and armoured halftracks tried to deploy off the roads to engage the enemy antitank guns, they started to get stuck in axle-deep mud. The panzergrenadiers had to press home their attacks without armoured support. Not surprisingly, the rate of advance was unimpressive.
Advancing on the Leibstandarte’s left, the Hitlerjugend Division found the going equally hard. Its tanks also got stuck in the mud, and the division was only able to push 1.6km (one mile) forward. II SS Panzer Corps’ attack did not even reach its assembly area until well after dark. Thanks to their successful initial defence, the Russians were able to deploy an extra infantry corps, with limited tank support, across the path of I SS Panzer Corps. They did not move their main armoured reserves, but kept them around Budapest in preparation for their own offensive.
On 7 March the German attack began to gather momentum, as both the Leibstandarte and Hitlerjugend Divisions at last broke through the Soviet defences and were able to launch their panzer kampfgruppen into action to exploit the breaches created by the panzergrenadiers. During the night, the Soviet infantry divisions began a deliberate withdrawal back to the Sio Canal, where a new defensive front was being prepared by the reserve divisions. II Panzer Corps’ attack did not get very far before it ground to a halt in waterlogged ground. One tank even sank up to its turret ring in the mud!
As dawn broke on 8 March, German fortunes looked as if they had changed. The Hitlerjugend surged 16km (10 miles) forward until it ran into a pak-front dug-in on ridge lines. The division’s reconnaissance battalion was ordered to take the position in a night attack, to allow the advance to begin again at first light. A dozen Jagdpanthers and Jagdpanzer IVs formed a panzerkeil which charged up the hill and routed the defenders. The reconnaissance battalion’s halftracks followed close behind, and the Waffen-SS troopers machine-gunned and grenaded the fleeing Russian troops as they drove among them.
Bittrich’s men, spearheaded by Das Reich, now ran headlong into the Soviet XXX Corps and XVIII Tank Corps, which battled furiously to hold them back from the Danube. The Russians even resorted to using their heavy antiaircraft artillery in the direct-fire mode against German tanks. The next day the Hohenstaufen and Wiking Divisions joined the attack, driving a wedge 24km (15 miles) into the Soviet line.
I SS Panzer Corps now caught up with the retreating Russians on the Sio Canal, with German Panthers and Jagdpanthers inflicting heavy losses on a number of Soviet truck convoys that had not yet crossed over the canal.
For the next two days, Leibstandarte and Hitlerjugend panzergrenadiers battled to cross the Sio Canal. Small Russian rearguard detachments had to be evicted, one-by-one, from a series of villages on the north bank of the canal. King Tigers were brought up to deal with the Soviet antitank guns and Su-100 assault guns that were left behind to slow up the German advance. Heavy rain and sleet made this miserable work, and scores of vehicles got stuck in mud as they tried to manoeuvre through the fields along the canal bank. Soviet Sturmovik fighter-bombers then appeared over the battlefield, and picked off many of the immobilized German tanks.
II SS Panzer Corps also kept battering its way forward, albeit at a snail’s pace, with Das Reich’s panzer regiments having a good day knocking out scores of Soviet tanks. To pen in this incursion, the Soviet XXIII Tank Corps was thrown into the battle against the Waffen-SS division.
The fighting along the Sio Canal reached a climax on 12 March with a major effort being mounted to push bridgeheads across the 30m- (98.42ft-) wide obstacle. The Hitlerjugend’s attack ended in a slaughter, when its fire-support panzers and Jagdpanzers were forced to fall back from the canal bank by a withering barrage of antitank gun fire. The panzergrenadiers pressed on, only to be machine-gunned in their rubber assaults boats as they tried to row across the canal. A few of them made it across and established a precarious bridgehead. In the Leibstandarte’s sector, the attack fared better because the division was able to bring its troops forward through a town and protect them from enemy fire until the last moment, before they too rushed across the canal. Deadly 88mm flak guns were brought up to support the assault and, along with the King Tigers, they were able to neutralize many of the Soviet antitank guns and machine-gun bunkers. This firepower was enough to allow the establishment of a bridgehead during the night, and soon the division’s combat engineers were at work erecting a tank bridge. A Jagdpanzer IV got over the structure, but the weight of a second vehicle was too much and it collapsed into the water. Constant repairs were needed to keep it open to allow reinforcements to cross. They were desperately needed to deal with a counterattack by a regiment of T-34/85 tanks.
I SS Panzer Corps managed to hold onto its bridgeheads for three more days in the face of incessant Soviet counterattacks. Battalions, then regiments, were fed into the battle by the Soviets to keep the Waffen-SS penned in. The Red Army was winning the battle of attrition.
With his route south effectively blocked, Dietrich decided on 15 March to switch the schwerpunkt of his army away from I SS Panzer Corps to Bittrich’s front. The Leibstandarte and Hitlerjugend were ordered to disengage and move north, before joining the attack towards the Danube.
The following day, however, the Soviets began their own offensive, which rendered Dietrich’s orders irrelevant. More than 3000 vehicles, including 600 tanks, poured past Budapest and swept around both sides of Lake Valencei.
