Hitler's Panzer Armies on the Eastern Fron by Robert Kirchubel Page A

. For dates when a certain city changed hands, etc., if secondary sources conflicted, I used H-A Jacobsen, A Hilgruber, W Hubatsch, PE Schramm (eds), Kriegstagebuch des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht . For all German orders of battle, in the text and appendices, I used the official Federal German Bundesarchiv–Militarchiv Internet site (unless otherwise noted). While these sources may not be one-hundred per cent accurate themselves, they do provide a uniform standard.

List of Maps
    Key to Maps
    1. Barbarossa: Fourth Panzer Army
    2. Barbarossa: Third Panzer Army
    3. Barbarossa: Second Panzer Army
    4. Barbarossa: First Panzer Army (West)
    5. Barbarossa: Fourth Panzer Army (East)
    6. Typhoon: Second, Third and Fourth Panzer Armies
    7. Fridericus, Wilhelm and Blau: First and Fourth Panzer Armies
    8. Blau and Winter Storm: Fourth Panzer Army
    9. Defense of Army Group Center: Second and Third Panzer Armies
    10. Blau: First Panzer Army
    11. Backhand Blow and Citadel: First and Fourth Panzer Armies
    12. Balkans: Second Panzer Army
    13. Defense of the Ukraine (East): First and Fourth Panzer Armies
    14. Defense of the Ukraine (West): First and Fourth Panzer Armies
    15. Defense of Hungary and Czechoslovakia: First Panzer Army
    16. Defense of the Baltics: Third Panzer Army
    17. Defense of Poland and the Reich: Third and Fourth Panzer Armies
    Key to Maps

    Map 1

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Chapter 6
    Conclusions
    The fates of the four panzer armies described here largely mirrored that of the German Reich. In the early stages of the war, fighting in France, Yugoslavia and during Operation Barbarossa, they carried all before them. Neither terrain, weather, sanguine German logistical planning nor the enemy could seriously slow the panzer armies. These slashing formations, their clever commanders and dedicated Panzertruppen seemingly could not be stopped. The panzer armies made things happen, they created undreamed of opportunities for the German high command by laying Dunkirk (1940), Leningrad, Moscow, Rostov (1941), Stalingrad and the Caucasus Mountains (1942) at Hitler’s feet. 1 However, with its small size and paucity of strategic thinkers, Germany could not exploit the openings that these moves presented. As Hitler surrendered the strategic initiative, the panzer armies became just like any other army in the German arsenal.
    This trend began around Moscow, especially in regards to the Second and Third Panzer Armies. In June of 1941, Germany attacked all along the massive Soviet frontier, but it could only sustain that level of activity for five months. The First and Fourth Panzer Armies enjoyed a renaissance of operational significance in 1942. But by this stage in the war, Germany could only impose its will over the southern half of the front. By 1943, only Fourth Panzer enjoyed anything close to the freedom of maneuver that panzer armies had come to expect, and then in a sector covering a mere few hundred square kilometers and for one short week. From mid–July of that year until VE Day, all four panzer armies would reel back like an exhausted boxer, retreating into his corner under a hail of blows from his opponent who could smell victory at any moment. The Second Panzer Army disappeared to near obscurity in the Balkans. In 1944, the First (March–April) and Third (June–July) were fortunate to avoid total destruction. Ironically, the panzer army closest to the central theater during the last few months of the war, the Fourth, survived largely intact.
    By the middle stages of Operation Blau, infantry armies, the Sixth in particular, were commanded by panzer generals (Paulus in this case) and often had as many panzer divisions under command as did the panzer armies themselves. The same happened during Operation Citadel, when an infantry army, the Ninth (although commanded by a panzer general, Model), had thesecond