German Orders of Battle Balkans Campaign

German Orders of Battle on 5 April 1941 at the attack on Yugoslavia and Greece.
German Army, Airborne Forces and Luftwaffe, Divisions, Corps, Armies and Army Groups.

Balkans Campaign

The Balkan Campaign of 1941 was a military operation conducted by Nazi Germany and its allies against Yugoslavia and Greece during World War II.

Overview of the German forces involved in this campaign

Army Group E:
– Commanded by Field Marshal Wilhelm List
– Consisted of the 12th Army and various other units

12th Army:
– Commanded by Field Marshal Wilhelm List
– Key units included:
– XL Panzer Corps
– XVIII Mountain Corps
– XXX Infantry Corps

2nd Army:
– Commanded by General Maximilian von Weichs
– Primarily involved in the invasion of Yugoslavia

Luftwaffe (Air Force) units:
– 4th Air Fleet, commanded by General Alexander Löhr
– Included various fighter, bomber, and support squadrons

SS units:
– Several SS motorized infantry regiments were involved

Panzer Divisions:
– 2nd Panzer Division
– 5th Panzer Division
– 9th Panzer Division

Mountain Divisions:
– 1st Mountain Division
– 5th Mountain Division

Infantry Divisions:
– Multiple infantry divisions were involved, including the 46th, 50th, 73rd, and 164th Infantry Divisions

Allied forces:
– Italian 2nd Army (for the invasion of Yugoslavia)
– Hungarian 3rd Army (for the invasion of Yugoslavia)

The German forces were highly effective in this campaign, quickly overwhelming the defenses of both Yugoslavia and Greece. The operation lasted from April 6 to June 1, 1941, and resulted in the Axis occupation of both countries.

This campaign delayed the German invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa) probably by several weeks, which some historians argue had significant consequences for the outcome of the war on the Eastern Front.

The operation

In order to secure his southern flank for the invasion of Russia Hitler forced Yugoslavia’s Prince Regent Paul into the Axis alliance, but when he was overthrown by anti-German patriots in Belgrade, Hitler ordered the invasion of Yugoslavia and the expulsion of the British from Greece.

Operation Marita, the invasion of Yugoslavia, was launched on 6 April 1941 (after a mere ten days of preparation) and was a complete success; for the loss of 558 men the Yugoslav Army was completely destroyed, and over 300,000 men taken prisoner.

Simultaneously, five divisions of List’s 12th Army invaded Greece and by the end of April the country lay in German hands, although losses here were rather higher, at just over 5,000. The Wehrmacht’s victory in the Balkans was due to the imaginative handling of armored and airborne forces against the armies of a disorganized enemy.

It can be seen from the Order of Battle further down that the German Army Corps was a very flexible structure, which could be composed of a variety of different formations to suit local needs: XVIII Corps, for example, was composed of two mountain divisions and one panzer division, specifically for operating in difficult terrain.

The divisional organization of the German Army was much the same as it had been in 1940 except for the panzer formations which were reorganized to include a better balanced infantry element, to avoid the problem encountered in France in 1940 when unsupported tank units raced on ahead of the foot-slogging infantry. The panzer division now had one tank regiment, two motorized infantry regiments and stronger supporting units which included self-propelled anti-tank guns and artillery. It was 15,600 men strong and had an establishment strength of 211 tanks. The Panzer III and Panzer IV tanks now formed the striking force of the panzer division.

Airborne Forces

Control of Greece was not control of the Mediterranean, however, and plans were drawn up for the invasion of the strategically important island of Crete.
The XI Air Corps would be the spearhead of the assault: the invasion by some 22,000 men and over 500 transport planes as well as seaborne forces began on 20 May 1941 and after 11 days of bitter fighting, in which the Germans suffered 3,250 dead or missing and 3,400 wounded, the Allied forces evacuated the island, leaving over 10,000 men as prisoners. The capture of Crete was one of the greatest triumphs of the airborne forces but the very high casualties of this parachute operation so shocked Hitler that from then on these elite troops fought mainly in an infantry role.

The assault on Crete was carried out by the 7th Air Division supported by the 5th Mountain Division. The 7th Air Division was organized as follows:

• three parachute regiments, each of three battalions;
• air signals company;
• transport company;
• medical company;
• light anti-aircraft battery;
• anti-tank gun company;
• anti-tank gun battery;
• motorcycle platoon.

After the invasion, the 7th Air Division was withdrawn and re-posted to the Eastern Front, being replaced by the high-quality 22nd Infantry Air Landing Division, an otherwise normal infantry division trained and equipped for air transport, which had been unable to participate in the assault.

Air Force

The first deployment of the German Air Force in the Mediterranean was the arrival of the X Fliegerkorps from Norway in December 1940 to provide support for the ground forces in North Africa and cut off the British supply routes in the Mediterranean. For a time the German Air Force had control of the skies, its Me 109s proving more than a match for the RAF’s Hawker Hurricanes.

In the Balkans the 4th Air Fleet of 1,200 aircraft supported the German Blitzkrieg with great success and contributed to the hard-fought victory over Crete. Large numbers of aircraft from both the X Fliegerkorps and the 4th Air Fleet were withdrawn for the invasion of Russia, however, leaving the Luftwaffe desperately short of aircraft in the Mediterranean.

Schematic layout of the Wehrmacht’s Orders of Battle from April 5, 1941

Army Group A:

Army Group D:

Army Group C:

Army Group B:

Deployment for Balkan Campaign:

other deployments:

Overview of fully established and operational divisions of the Wehrmacht, Waffen-SS and Luftwaffe

Pz = Panzer (Tank); mot.Inf = motorized Infantry; Cav = Cavalry; Inf = Infantry ; Mt = Mountain troops

Approximate organization strength of the major types of the German Army divisions in 1941:
Germany Army Unit Organization 1939-41

References and literature

The Armed Forces of World War II (Andrew Mollo)
Der Grosse Atlas zum II. Weltkrieg (Peter Young)
Kriegstagebuch des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht, Band 1-8 (Percy E. Schramm)
Der 2. Weltkrieg (C. Bertelsmann Verlag)
A World at Arms – A Global History of World War II (Gerhard L. Weinberg)
Zweiter Weltkrieg in Bildern (Mathias Färber)