Adolf HitlerJuly 1942
The splitting of Army Group South enabled the launching of Operation Edelweiss and Operation Fischreiher, the two main thrusts of the Army Groups. Both groups had to achieve their objectives simultaneously.
Germany · Warfare / World War, 2nd. Chronological records rendered directly from the World History Database.
The splitting of Army Group South enabled the launching of Operation Edelweiss and Operation Fischreiher, the two main thrusts of the Army Groups. Both groups had to achieve their objectives simultaneously.
The success of the initial advance was such that Hitler ordered the 4th Panzer Army south to assist the First Panzer Army to cross the lower Don river.
This assistance was not needed and Kleist later complained that 4th Panzer Army clogged the roads and that if they had carried on toward Stalingrad, they could have taken it in July.
When it turned north again two weeks later, the Soviets had gathered enough forces together at Stalingrad to check its advance
Believing that the main Soviet threat had been eliminated, short of oil and needing to meet all the of Case Blue, Hitler makes changes to the Fuhrer Directive No. 45: reorganized Army Group South into two.
smaller Army Groups, A and B; directed Army Group A to advance to the Caucasus and capture the oil fields (Operation Edelweis); directed Army Group B to attack towards the Volga and Stalingrad (Operation Fischreiher).
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