THE SWORD BEHAND THE SHIELD: Combat History of the German Efforts to Relieve Budapest 1945 - Operation 'Konrad' I, III, III

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The Soviet 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts had encircled Budapest, Hungary, by Christmas 1944, after very heavy combat. However, this was just the first phase of a period of intense combat, as the Germans planned the relief of the capital with a reinforced IV. SS-Panzerkorps.

The first day of Operation 'Konrad' was 1 January 1945, and marked the beginning of a series of fierce clashes that lasted for nearly six weeks. Both sides employed significant numbers of armored forces, including heavy tanks, in these battles. The German-Hungarian forces tried to break through to Budapest three times in three different locations, but each time they struck relocated Soviet tank, mechanized, rifle, cavalry, artillery, and anti-tank units from 3rd Ukrainian Front's reserve. In January 1945, furious tank battles developed in the eastern part of Transdanubia in Hungary.

After Konrad III failed, the Soviet troops launched a counter-offensive in late January 1945 to encircle and eliminate the advancing enemy forces. The German armored Kampfgruppen managed to blunt the Soviet attack, which eventually wound down and fragmented, mirroring the German offensives before it.

Uses German, Soviet, and Hungarian archival records (e.g. war diaries, daily and after-action reports, etc.), including a number of rare unit histories, period private diaries, and reliable personal memoirs to provide a day-by-day account that follows the action and analyzes the command and control systems at operational and tactical levels and the losses of both sides. Also includes many detailed, specially-commissioned color battle maps.