Hermann Hoth

The Early Years

Hermann Hoth was born on the 12th of April 1885, in Neuruppin in Prussia. In June 1903, he was commissioned as a Lieutenant into the 72nd Infantry Regiment. He was promoted to Captain shortly after the outbreak of WWI, during which he won both classes of Iron Cross. After the end of the war he remained in the army and was quick to realize the potential of mobile warfare. Promoted to Major at the beginning of 1922, he joined the staff of the Truppenamt department, which was responsible for the development of motorised troops under Oswald Lutz and later, Heinz Guderian. Rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in 1929 and then Colonel in 1932 when he took command of the 17th Infantry Regiment. In October 1934 he was transferred to Liegnitz and having been promoted to Major General, oversaw the formation of the 18th Infantry Division.
Following his promotion to Lieutenant General in 1938, he became commander of the 15th Army Corps in 1939. Attached to 10th Army, as part of Army Group South, he led the Corps during the Polish Campaign. After crossing into southern Poland, the Corps played a role in the defeat of the encircled Polish forces on the Bzura and Hoth was awarded the Knights Cross for his leadership at the end of the campaign. Hoth was an unflappable commander, a good tactician and strategist, liked and respected by his troops, who nicknamed him 'Papa Hoth'.
During the campaign in the Low Countries he commanded the Hoth Panzer Group. One of the first units to cross the Meuse, Hoth's command formed the inside wing of the armoured spearheads as they cut off Belgium, Holland, the B.E.F. and the bulk of the French Army and faced the most serious attempt to cut the panzer corridor by the British at Arras in May, before clearing the remaining Channel ports in June and July. Following the successful conclusion of the campaign he was promoted to Colonel General and given command of the 3rd Panzer Group for the invasion of Russia.

Barbarossa Begins

When operation Barbarossa opened, Hoth's Panzer Group struck eastwards along the boundary line of the Russian Northwestern and Western Fronts, reaching Vilnius by the evening of the 23rd. By June 26th, elements of Hoth's Panzer Group had reached Minsk, which it captured two days later. In cooperation with Guderian, he closed a huge pocket west of Minsk, encircling the 3rd, 4th, 10th and 13th Armies. On the 10th of July the group captured Vitebsk and by the 15th had partially encircled Smolensk. Hoth, like Guderian, was emphatic that the advance towards Moscow be resumed at the earliest possible opportunity. However this was not to be and the bulk of 3rd Panzer Army was moved over to the right flank of Army Group North.
When the advance towards Moscow did resume, with operation 'Typhoon' in October, Hoth's Panzer Group, in cooperation with Höpner's4th Panzer Group encircled large elements of the 19th, 20th, 24th and 32nd Armies in the Vyazma area. On the 5th of October 1941, he became commander of the 17th Army, which was in the Donets region. On the 6th of October the Army resumed its advance capturing Kharkov on the 24th and crossed the northern Donets River on the 27th. By the 28th, it had, in cooperation with the 1st Panzer Army, destroyed the Russian 6th and 38th Armies and forced the Southern Front to withdraw behind the Mius and Northern Donets Rivers.
On January 1st 1942, Russian forces attacked between Kharkov and Izyum and drove a 60-mile wide wedge in between the 17th Army and 6th Army on its right flank. The Russian offensive lost momentum and was finally halted during the first week of February. The Army managed to form a new defence line, but the Russians retained occupation of the Barvenkovo salient.

Fighting in the Donets

In May 1942, Hoth was given command of the 4th Panzer Army. In June 1942, his Panzer Army cooperated with the 2nd Army in order to defeat Russian forces around Voronezh. The Army then joined 6th Army for its drive down the southern bank of the Don River.
In July, the Panzer Army was attached to Army Group A, then to Army Group B. In a daring move, Hoth disengaged his armour from the hilly country around Tundutovo, switching the 48th Panzer Corps to his left flank and making a dash across the Kalmyk Steppe, reaching the Stalingrad-Morozovsk railway line on the 31st of August. He pushed on and linked up with the 51st Corps of 6th Army at Kalach, on the 3rd of September.
On the 19th of November, when the Russian's opened operation Uranus, they broke through the positions of the Rumanian 3rd Army on Hoth's left flank, advancing rapidly to Kalach and splitting his Panzer Army in half. He had never favoured the Rumanian forces and had previously commented, 'German commands, which have Rumanian troops serving under them must reconcile themselves to the fact that moderately heavy fire, even without an enemy attack, will be enough to cause these troops to fall back, and that the reports they submit concerning their own situation are worthless since they are not aware of their own troop dispositions and their estimates of enemy strength are vastly exaggerated.'
Hoth commanded operation 'Winter Tempest', the relief attempt to break through to the trapped 6th Army in Stalingrad. Despite an excessive length of time taken to assemble forces for the operation, it began on the 12th of December and initially made good progress, crossing the Aksai River on the 19th. It then advanced as far as Mishkova, some 30 miles from the southwestern edge of the pocket at Stalingrad. However strong Russian attacks held the relief force here and it made no further progress. On the 27th of December, as the situation deteriorated elsewhere, Hoth was forced to begin withdrawing back towards his starting position at Kotelnikovo.
During operation Citadel he commanded the 4th Panzer Army, which consisted of two Panzer Corps and was tasked with striking from the north of Kharkov towards Kursk via Oboyan.
Between the Don and Manych Rivers during January 1943, Hoth moved his forces from switchline to switchline, back towards the southwest. By sudden sharp counter attacks he harassed the enemy who was pressing hard on his heels. His ingenuity, drive and cool head, enabled him to hold the line with a weakened Corps against three Russian Armies and keep open a corridor, which enabled the 1st Panzer Army to escape from the Caucasus.
In February 1943, 4th Panzer Army took part in Manstein's counter offensive against the Russian 6th Army and mobile group Popov, which were threatening to cut off Army Group Don. Following the successful destruction of the Russian forces he then took part in the recapture of Kharkov.

Dismissal

During November 1943, strong forces of the Russian 1st Ukranian Front, attacked the 4th Panzer Army to the west of Kiev. Hoth was forced to withdraw, as his Panzer Army was torn into three widely separated groups by the Russian attacks. Despite the fact that the situation was restored in mid November, Hoth was relieved of his command and sent on leave. In December 1943, he was dismissed entirely and spent the remainder of the war in retirement. In April 1945, he was briefly recalled to command the defence of the Harz Mountains, a position he held until the surrender of the Reich in May.
In October 1948, he was sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment at the Nuremberg trials for war crimes. However he only served six years of the sentence and was released in 1954. Hermann Hoth died on 25th January 1971 in Goslar.