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Army Group A

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name of a number of German Army Groups during World War II

Key facts

Active
26 October 1939 – 22 June 1941, 7 July 1942 – 5 April 1944, 23 September 1944 – 25 January 1945
Country
Nazi Germany
Branch
Heer ( Wehrmacht )
Size
Army group
Engagements
Battle of France Battle of Sedan Battle of Arras Battle of Dunkirk German occupation of France Eastern Front Case Blue Battle of the Caucasus Operation Edelweiss Kuban Bridgehead Kerch–Eltigen operation Nikopol–Krivoi Rog offensive Odessa offensive Bereznegovatoye offensive Vistula–Oder offensive
Commanders
Gerd von Rundstedt , Wilhelm List , Adolf Hitler , Ewald von Kleist , Hubert Lanz , Ferdinand Schörner , Josef Harpe
Staff chiefs
Erich von Manstein , Georg von Sodenstern , Hans von Greiffenberg , Alfred Gause , Hans Röttiger , Walther Wenck , Wolf-Dietrich von Xylander

via Wikipedia infobox

~40 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Army Group A (German: Heeresgruppe A) was the name of three distinct army groups of the Heer, the ground forces of the Wehrmacht, during World War II.

The first Army Group A, previously known as "Army Group South", was active from October 1939 to June 1941 and notably served in the Battle of France as the decisive army group in the implementation of the "Sickle Cut" military plan that inflicted crushing subsequent defeats on the French armed forces at occasions such as the Battle of Sedan, Battle of Boulogne and Battle of Dunkirk and that ultimately led to the Armistice of 22 June 1940. Army Group A was subsequently used in the German occupation of France and temporarily became the first Oberbefehlshaber West in German-occupied France. It was eventually replaced in this function by Army Group D and redeployed to German-occupied Poland in preparation for Operation Barbarossa. At the commencement of that attack, Army Group A was renamed "Army Group South" on 22 June 1941, ending the first deployment.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Army Group A” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.