Austria
On 14 January 1945, Dietrich's 6th SS Panzer Army was ordered east to Hungary where it was to take part in an offensive to recapture the Hungarian oilfields and open the way to Budapest, where 45,000 men of the IX SS Mountain Corps had been encircled.
While the division was in transit, the IV SS Panzer Corps launched several ill-fated relief operations. The 12th SS, alongside the LSSAH as a part of I SS Panzer Corps arrived in Hungary in early February 1945, only a few days before the city fell. The division was thrown into action against the Gran Bridgehead, a strong position formed by the Soviets over the Danube near the town of Gran. The 12th SS and the LSSAH both fought well, and by the end of February the bridgehead had been destroyed.
The division was next to take part in Operation Frühlingserwachen (Spring Awakening), the operation to retake the Hungarian oilfields. Adolf Hitler, desperate to keep the operation a secret, had ordered that no reconnaissance of the battlefield was allowed before the attack began. The attack got underway on 6 March 1945, in atrocious conditions. The spring thaw meant that the German attack was confined to a few narrow roads and, after initial successes, the offensive was aborted after a Soviet counterattack threatened to encircle the German forces. After the failure of "Frühlingserwachen", Hitler lost faith in the Waffen-SS and ordered that the honorary cuffbands issued to the divisions involved in the attack be returned. Outraged at the order, Dietrich refused to pass it on to his men.
In mid-March, a heavy Soviet attack near Stuhlweissenberg split Army Group Balck in half and resulted in a general withdrawal towards Vienna. The 12th SS was involved in many desperate rearguard actions, and on 13 April fell back from Vienna. Withdrawing through Odenburg and Hirtenberg, the division reached Linz, Austria near the American lines. On 8 May 1945, 10,000 survivors of the division surrendered to Major General Stanley Eric Reinhart, commander of the 65th Infantry Division, near Enns.
Read more about this topic: 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend, Hungary
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)