The 2nd Panzer Army ( German : 2. Panzerarmee ) was a German armoured formation during World War II , formed from the 2nd Panzer Group on October 5, 1941.
136-710: Panzer Group Guderian ( German : Panzergruppe Guderian ) was formed on 5 June 1940 and named after its commander, general Heinz Guderian . In early June 1940, after reaching the English Channel following the breakthrough in the Ardennes , the Panzergruppe Guderian was formed from the XIX Army Corps , and thrust deep into France , cutting off the Maginot Line . In November 1940, it
272-465: A de facto official language of Namibia after the end of German colonial rule alongside English and Afrikaans , and had de jure co-official status from 1984 until its independence from South Africa in 1990. However, the Namibian government perceived Afrikaans and German as symbols of apartheid and colonialism, and decided English would be the sole official language upon independence, stating that it
408-537: A new constitution and relinquished his dictatorship in 1931. However, Alexander's policies later encountered opposition from other European powers stemming from developments in Italy and Germany, where Fascists and Nazis rose to power, and the Soviet Union , where Joseph Stalin became absolute ruler. None of these three regimes favored the policy pursued by Alexander I. In fact, Italy and Germany wanted to revise
544-402: A second language , and 75–100 million as a foreign language . This would imply the existence of approximately 175–220 million German speakers worldwide. German sociolinguist Ulrich Ammon estimated a number of 289 million German foreign language speakers without clarifying the criteria by which he classified a speaker. As of 2012 , about 90 million people, or 16% of
680-612: A "commonly used" language and the Pan South African Language Board is obligated to promote and ensure respect for it. Cameroon was also a colony of the German Empire from the same period (1884 to 1916). However, German was replaced by French and English, the languages of the two successor colonial powers, after its loss in World War I . Nevertheless, since the 21st century, German has become
816-580: A Kosovar republic. This angered Serbia's leadership which proceeded to use police force and later, federal police troops to restore civil order. In January 1990, the extraordinary 14th Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia was convened, where the Serbian and Slovenian delegations argued over the future of the League of Communists and Yugoslavia. The Serbian delegation, led by Milošević, insisted on
952-455: A close relationship between the two Communist countries, and enable Yugoslavia to start a civil war in Greece and use Albania and Bulgaria as bases. Stalin vetoed this agreement and it was never realised. The break between Belgrade and Moscow was now imminent. Yugoslavia solved the national issue of nations and nationalities (national minorities) in a way that all nations and nationalities had
1088-597: A common state for all South Slavic peoples, emerged in the late 17th century and gained prominence through the Illyrian Movement of the 19th century. The name was created by the combination of the Slavic words jug ("south") and Slaveni / Sloveni (Slavs). Moves towards the formal creation of Yugoslavia accelerated after the 1917 Corfu Declaration between the Yugoslav Committee and
1224-588: A dubious traffic incident after he started to complain about Tito's politics. Minister of the interior Aleksandar Ranković lost all of his titles and rights after a major disagreement with Tito regarding state politics. Some influential ministers in government, such as Edvard Kardelj or Stane Dolanc , were more important than the Prime Minister. First cracks in the tightly governed system surfaced when students in Belgrade and several other cities joined
1360-533: A federation (this date was celebrated as Republic Day after the war). The Yugoslav Partisans were able to expel the Axis from Serbia in 1944 and the rest of Yugoslavia in 1945. The Red Army provided limited assistance with the liberation of Belgrade and withdrew after the war was over. In May 1945, the Partisans met with Allied forces outside former Yugoslav borders, after also taking over Trieste and parts of
1496-656: A free fall and social programmes collapsed; creating within the population an atmosphere of social despair and hopelessness. This was a critical turning point in the events to follow. After Tito's death on 4 May 1980, ethnic tensions grew in Yugoslavia. The legacy of the Constitution of 1974 threw the system of decision-making into a state of paralysis, made all the more hopeless as the conflict of interests became irreconcilable. The Albanian majority in Kosovo demanded
SECTION 10
#17327879900191632-559: A greater need for regularity in written conventions. While the major changes of the MHG period were socio-cultural, High German was still undergoing significant linguistic changes in syntax, phonetics, and morphology as well (e.g. diphthongization of certain vowel sounds: hus (OHG & MHG "house") → haus (regionally in later MHG)→ Haus (NHG), and weakening of unstressed short vowels to schwa [ə]: taga (OHG "days")→ tage (MHG)). A great wealth of texts survives from
1768-542: A minimum: Serbia proper, then-loyal Montenegro, Vojvodina, and Kosovo. As a result of these events, ethnic Albanian miners in Kosovo organised the 1989 Kosovo miners' strike , which dovetailed into an ethnic conflict between the Albanians and the non-Albanians in the province. At around 80% of the population of Kosovo in the 1980s , ethnic-Albanians were the majority. With Milošević gaining control over Kosovo in 1989,
1904-458: A native tongue today, mostly descendants of German colonial settlers . The period of German colonialism in Namibia also led to the evolution of a Standard German-based pidgin language called " Namibian Black German ", which became a second language for parts of the indigenous population. Although it is nearly extinct today, some older Namibians still have some knowledge of it. German remained
2040-647: A policy of "one person, one vote" which would empower the plurality population, the Serbs . In turn, the Slovenian delegation, supported by Croats, sought to reform Yugoslavia by devolving even more power to republics, but were voted down. As a result, the Slovene and Croatian delegations left the Congress and the all-Yugoslav Communist party was dissolved. The constitutional crisis that inevitably followed resulted in
2176-696: A popular foreign language among pupils and students, with 300,000 people learning or speaking German in Cameroon in 2010 and over 230,000 in 2020. Today Cameroon is one of the African countries outside Namibia with the highest number of people learning German. In the United States, German is the fifth most spoken language in terms of native and second language speakers after English, Spanish , French , and Chinese (with figures for Cantonese and Mandarin combined), with over 1 million total speakers. In
2312-483: A result, the surviving texts are written in highly disparate regional dialects and exhibit significant Latin influence, particularly in vocabulary. At this point monasteries, where most written works were produced, were dominated by Latin, and German saw only occasional use in official and ecclesiastical writing. While there is no complete agreement over the dates of the Middle High German (MHG) period, it
2448-513: A revival of greater Serbian hegemonism. Through a series of moves known as the " anti-bureaucratic revolution ", Milošević succeeded in reducing the autonomy of Vojvodina and of Kosovo and Metohija, but both entities retained a vote in the Yugoslav Presidency Council. The very instrument that reduced Serbian influence before was now used to increase it: in the eight-member Council, Serbia could now count on four votes at
2584-530: A rise of nationalism in all republics: Slovenia and Croatia voiced demands for looser ties within the federation. Following the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, each of the republics held multi-party elections in 1990. Slovenia and Croatia held the elections in April since their communist parties chose to cede power peacefully. Other Yugoslav republics—especially Serbia—were more or less dissatisfied with
2720-717: Is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family , mainly spoken in Western and Central Europe . It is the most spoken native language within the European Union . It is the most widely spoken and official (or co-official) language in Germany , Austria , Switzerland , Liechtenstein , and the Italian autonomous province of South Tyrol . It is also an official language of Luxembourg , Belgium and
2856-601: Is a recognized minority language in the following countries: In France, the High German varieties of Alsatian and Moselle Franconian are identified as " regional languages ", but the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of 1998 has not yet been ratified by the government. Namibia also was a colony of the German Empire, from 1884 to 1915. About 30,000 people still speak German as
SECTION 20
#17327879900192992-612: Is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects , with many varieties existing in Europe and other parts of the world. Some of these non-standard varieties have become recognized and protected by regional or national governments. Since 2004, heads of state of the German-speaking countries have met every year, and the Council for German Orthography has been the main international body regulating German orthography . German
3128-558: Is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages . The Germanic languages are traditionally subdivided into three branches: North Germanic , East Germanic , and West Germanic . The first of these branches survives in modern Danish , Swedish , Norwegian , Faroese , and Icelandic , all of which are descended from Old Norse . The East Germanic languages are now extinct, and Gothic
3264-478: Is called the "German Sprachraum ". German is the official language of the following countries: German is a co-official language of the following countries: Although expulsions and (forced) assimilation after the two World wars greatly diminished them, minority communities of mostly bilingual German native speakers exist in areas both adjacent to and detached from the Sprachraum. Within Europe, German
3400-430: Is complicated by the existence of several varieties whose status as separate "languages" or "dialects" is disputed for political and linguistic reasons, including quantitatively strong varieties like certain forms of Alemannic and Low German . With the inclusion or exclusion of certain varieties, it is estimated that approximately 90–95 million people speak German as a first language , 10–25 million speak it as
3536-535: Is generally seen as ending when the 1346–53 Black Death decimated Europe's population. Modern High German begins with the Early New High German (ENHG) period, which Wilhelm Scherer dates 1350–1650, terminating with the end of the Thirty Years' War . This period saw the further displacement of Latin by German as the primary language of courtly proceedings and, increasingly, of literature in
3672-611: Is generally seen as lasting from 1050 to 1350. This was a period of significant expansion of the geographical territory occupied by Germanic tribes, and consequently of the number of German speakers. Whereas during the Old High German period the Germanic tribes extended only as far east as the Elbe and Saale rivers, the MHG period saw a number of these tribes expanding beyond this eastern boundary into Slavic territory (known as
3808-565: Is less closely related to languages based on Low Franconian dialects (e.g., Dutch and Afrikaans), Low German or Low Saxon dialects (spoken in northern Germany and southern Denmark ), neither of which underwent the High German consonant shift. As has been noted, the former of these dialect types is Istvaeonic and the latter Ingvaeonic, whereas the High German dialects are all Irminonic; the differences between these languages and standard German are therefore considerable. Also related to German are
3944-435: Is one of the major languages of the world . German is the second-most widely spoken Germanic language , after English, both as a first and as a second language . German is also widely taught as a foreign language , especially in continental Europe (where it is the third most taught foreign language after English and French), and in the United States. Overall, German is the fourth most commonly learned second language, and
4080-597: Is one of the three biggest newspapers in Namibia and the only German-language daily in Africa. An estimated 12,000 people speak German or a German variety as a first language in South Africa, mostly originating from different waves of immigration during the 19th and 20th centuries. One of the largest communities consists of the speakers of "Nataler Deutsch", a variety of Low German concentrated in and around Wartburg . The South African constitution identifies German as
4216-401: Is partly derived from Latin and Greek , along with fewer words borrowed from French and Modern English . English, however, is the main source of more recent loanwords . German is a pluricentric language ; the three standardized variants are German , Austrian , and Swiss Standard German . Standard German is sometimes called High German , which refers to its regional origin. German
2nd Panzer Army - Misplaced Pages Continue
4352-525: Is the Sachsenspiegel , the first book of laws written in Middle Low German ( c. 1220 ). The abundance and especially the secular character of the literature of the MHG period demonstrate the beginnings of a standardized written form of German, as well as the desire of poets and authors to be understood by individuals on supra-dialectal terms. The Middle High German period
4488-578: Is the only language in this branch which survives in written texts. The West Germanic languages, however, have undergone extensive dialectal subdivision and are now represented in modern languages such as English, German, Dutch , Yiddish , Afrikaans , and others. Within the West Germanic language dialect continuum, the Benrath and Uerdingen lines (running through Düsseldorf - Benrath and Krefeld - Uerdingen , respectively) serve to distinguish
4624-485: Is understood in all areas where German is spoken. Approximate distribution of native German speakers (assuming a rounded total of 95 million) worldwide: As a result of the German diaspora , as well as the popularity of German taught as a foreign language , the geographical distribution of German speakers (or "Germanophones") spans all inhabited continents. However, an exact, global number of native German speakers
4760-689: The Ostsiedlung ). With the increasing wealth and geographic spread of the Germanic groups came greater use of German in the courts of nobles as the standard language of official proceedings and literature. A clear example of this is the mittelhochdeutsche Dichtersprache employed in the Hohenstaufen court in Swabia as a standardized supra-dialectal written language. While these efforts were still regionally bound, German began to be used in place of Latin for certain official purposes, leading to
4896-639: The Alamanni , Bavarian, and Thuringian groups, all belonging to the Elbe Germanic group ( Irminones ), which had settled in what is now southern-central Germany and Austria between the second and sixth centuries, during the great migration. In general, the surviving texts of Old High German (OHG) show a wide range of dialectal diversity with very little written uniformity. The early written tradition of OHG survived mostly through monasteries and scriptoria as local translations of Latin originals; as
5032-947: The Belgrade Offensive overtook army headquarters, surviving units of the 2nd Panzer Army were subsequently transferred to Hungary as part of Army Group South in January 1945, holding off the Soviet invasion of Austria. 2nd Panzer Army took part in the Battle of the Transdanubian Hills in March 1945 before surrendering at the end of the war to both Soviet and Anglo-American forces. Organization of Panzer Group Guderian on 28 May 1940 Generaloberst Heinz Guderian German language German (German: Deutsch , pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] )
5168-636: The Conference of Ambassadors in Paris . The official name of the state was changed to Kingdom of Yugoslavia on 3 October 1929. The kingdom was invaded and occupied by the Axis powers in April 1941. In 1943, Democratic Federal Yugoslavia was proclaimed by the Partisan resistance . In 1944, King Peter II , then living in exile , recognised it as the legitimate government. After a communist government
5304-537: The Early Middle Ages . German is an inflected language , with four cases for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative); three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and two numbers (singular, plural). It has strong and weak verbs . The majority of its vocabulary derives from the ancient Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, while a smaller share
5440-417: The European Union 's population, spoke German as their mother tongue, making it the second most widely spoken language on the continent after Russian and the second biggest language in terms of overall speakers (after English), as well as the most spoken native language. The area in central Europe where the majority of the population speaks German as a first language and has German as a (co-)official language
5576-522: The German states . While these states were still part of the Holy Roman Empire , and far from any form of unification, the desire for a cohesive written language that would be understandable across the many German-speaking principalities and kingdoms was stronger than ever. As a spoken language German remained highly fractured throughout this period, with a vast number of often mutually incomprehensible regional dialects being spoken throughout
2nd Panzer Army - Misplaced Pages Continue
5712-746: The Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I , and the other being Meißner Deutsch , used in the Electorate of Saxony in the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg . Alongside these courtly written standards, the invention of the printing press led to the development of a number of printers' languages ( Druckersprachen ) aimed at making printed material readable and understandable across as many diverse dialects of German as possible. The greater ease of production and increased availability of written texts brought about increased standardisation in
5848-526: The Non-Aligned Movement in 1961, which remained the official affiliation of the country until it dissolved. On 7 April 1963, the nation changed its official name to Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Josip Broz Tito was named President for life . In the SFRY, each republic and province had its own constitution, supreme court, parliament, president and prime minister. At the top of
5984-666: The Old High German language in several Elder Futhark inscriptions from as early as the sixth century AD (such as the Pforzen buckle ), the Old High German period is generally seen as beginning with the Abrogans (written c. 765–775 ), a Latin-German glossary supplying over 3,000 Old High German words with their Latin equivalents. After the Abrogans , the first coherent works written in Old High German appear in
6120-676: The Sprachraum in Europe. German is used in a wide variety of spheres throughout the country, especially in business, tourism, and public signage, as well as in education, churches (most notably the German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (GELK) ), other cultural spheres such as music, and media (such as German language radio programs by the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation ). The Allgemeine Zeitung
6256-550: The Standard German language in its written form, and the Duden Handbook was declared its standard definition. Punctuation and compound spelling (joined or isolated compounds) were not standardized in the process. The Deutsche Bühnensprache ( lit. ' German stage language ' ) by Theodor Siebs had established conventions for German pronunciation in theatres , three years earlier; however, this
6392-513: The Upper German dialects spoken in the southern German-speaking countries , such as Swiss German ( Alemannic dialects ) and the various Germanic dialects spoken in the French region of Grand Est , such as Alsatian (mainly Alemannic, but also Central–and Upper Franconian dialects) and Lorraine Franconian (Central Franconian). After these High German dialects, standard German
6528-406: The Yugoslav Wars . From 1993 to 2017, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia tried political and military leaders from the former Yugoslavia for war crimes , genocide, and other crimes committed during those wars. After the breakup, the republics of Montenegro and Serbia formed a reduced federative state, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). This state aspired to
6664-408: The pagan Germanic tradition. Of particular interest to scholars, however, has been the Hildebrandslied , a secular epic poem telling the tale of an estranged father and son unknowingly meeting each other in battle. Linguistically, this text is highly interesting due to the mixed use of Old Saxon and Old High German dialects in its composition. The written works of this period stem mainly from
6800-476: The 1974 constitution as weakening Serbia's influence and jeopardising the unity of the country by allowing the republics the right to separate. According to official statistics, from the 1950s to the early 1980s, Yugoslavia was among the fastest growing countries, approaching the ranges reported in South Korea and other countries undergoing an economic miracle . The unique socialist system in Yugoslavia, where factories were worker cooperatives and decision-making
6936-470: The 2nd Panzer Army and all of Army Group F were pushed out of Belgrade in a joint operation by the Partisans and Red Army during the Belgrade Offensive . The 2nd Panzer Army finished the war in disarray in modern Austria . As all German armies on the Eastern Front, Panzer Group 2 implemented the criminal Commissar Order during Operation Barbarossa . In September 1942, the 2nd Panzer Army took part in war crimes while conducting anti-guerrilla operations in
SECTION 50
#17327879900197072-512: The Albanians of Kosovo and Hungarians of Vojvodina. Both provinces were afforded much of the same status as the six republics of Yugoslavia, though they could not secede. Vojvodina and Kosovo formed the provinces of the Republic of Serbia but also formed part of the federation, which led to the unique situation in which Central Serbia did not have its own assembly but a joint assembly with its provinces represented in it. Albanian and Hungarian became nationally recognised minority languages, and
7208-546: The Croatian Defence minister Martin Špegelj and two unidentified men. The video, filmed by the Yugoslav counter-intelligence ( KOS, Kontra-obavještajna služba ), showed Špegel announcing that they were at war with the army and giving instructions about arms smuggling as well as methods of dealing with the Yugoslav Army's officers stationed in Croatian cities. Serbia and JNA used this discovery of Croatian rearmament for propaganda purposes. Guns were also fired from army bases through Croatia. Elsewhere, tensions were running high. In
7344-426: The Croatian armed forces ("police") and civilians mark the beginning of the Yugoslav war that inflamed the region. Similarly, the attempt to replace Yugoslav frontier police by Slovene police forces provoked regional armed conflicts which ended with a minimal number of victims. A similar attempt in Bosnia and Herzegovina led to a war that lasted more than three years (see below). The results of all these conflicts were
7480-462: The Dalmatian coast towards the interior almost a year before Croatian leadership made any move towards independence. These uprisings were more or less discreetly backed by the Serb-dominated federal army (JNA). The Serbs in Croatia proclaimed "Serb autonomous areas", which were later united into the Republic of Serb Krajina . The federal army tried to disarm the territorial defence forces of Slovenia (the republics had their local defence forces similar to
7616-614: The Empire. Its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Prague (German: Prag ) and Budapest ( Buda , German: Ofen ), to name two examples, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain; others, like Pressburg ( Pozsony , now Bratislava), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, and cities like Zagreb (German: Agram ) or Ljubljana (German: Laibach ), contained significant German minorities. In
7752-414: The Frisian languages— North Frisian (spoken in Nordfriesland ), Saterland Frisian (spoken in Saterland ), and West Frisian (spoken in Friesland )—as well as the Anglic languages of English and Scots. These Anglo-Frisian dialects did not take part in the High German consonant shift, and the Anglic languages also adopted much vocabulary from both Old Norse and the Norman language . The history of
7888-428: The German forces advanced deeper into the Soviet Union. The rasputitsa season (literally "roadlessness", due to heavy rains and sluggish muddy roads) began to slow down the formation's progress to a few kilometres a day. The rasputitsa was not an unusual phenomenon, but the Wehrmacht did not prepare for this contingency as the German high command had expected the German army to be in Moscow and beyond at this time, with
8024-417: The German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the Migration Period , which separated Old High German dialects from Old Saxon . This sound shift involved a drastic change in the pronunciation of both voiced and voiceless stop consonants ( b , d , g , and p , t , k , respectively). The primary effects of the shift were the following below. While there is written evidence of
8160-399: The German states; the invention of the printing press c. 1440 and the publication of Luther's vernacular translation of the Bible in 1534, however, had an immense effect on standardizing German as a supra-dialectal written language. The ENHG period saw the rise of several important cross-regional forms of chancery German, one being gemeine tiutsch , used in the court of
8296-623: The Germanic dialects that were affected by the High German consonant shift (south of Benrath) from those that were not (north of Uerdingen). The various regional dialects spoken south of these lines are grouped as High German dialects, while those spoken to the north comprise the Low German and Low Franconian dialects. As members of the West Germanic language family, High German, Low German, and Low Franconian have been proposed to be further distinguished historically as Irminonic , Ingvaeonic , and Istvaeonic , respectively. This classification indicates their historical descent from dialects spoken by
SECTION 60
#17327879900198432-400: The Home Guard) in 1990 but was not completely successful. Still, Slovenia began to covertly import arms to replenish its armed forces. Croatia also embarked upon the illegal importation of arms, (following the disarmament of the republics' armed forces by the federal army) mainly from Hungary. These activities were under constant surveillance and produced a video of a secret meeting between
8568-547: The Irminones (also known as the Elbe group), Ingvaeones (or North Sea Germanic group), and Istvaeones (or Weser–Rhine group). Standard German is based on a combination of Thuringian - Upper Saxon and Upper Franconian dialects, which are Central German and Upper German dialects belonging to the High German dialect group. German is therefore closely related to the other languages based on High German dialects, such as Luxembourgish (based on Central Franconian dialects ) and Yiddish . Also closely related to Standard German are
8704-644: The Italian autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia , as well as a recognized national language in Namibia . There are also notable German-speaking communities in France ( Alsace ), the Czech Republic ( North Bohemia ), Poland ( Upper Silesia ), Slovakia ( Košice Region , Spiš , and Hauerland ), Denmark ( North Schleswig ), Romania and Hungary ( Sopron ). Overseas, sizeable communities of German-speakers are found in Brazil ( Blumenau and Pomerode ), South Africa ( Kroondal ), Namibia , among others, some communities have decidedly Austrian German or Swiss German characters (e.g. Pozuzo , Peru). German
8840-468: The Kyiv encirclement, the German planned for the three Panzer armies to attack Moscow from different directions: 4th Panzer Army in the North around Leningrad would attack southward. Hoth's 3rd Panzer Army would attack eastward towards Moscow, while the 2nd Panzer Army would turn northwest and attack Moscow from the south. Guderian's forces tried to encircle the 50th Army , which was successfully defending Tula . After unsuccessful attempts to capture Tula,
8976-408: The MHG period. Significantly, these texts include a number of impressive secular works, such as the Nibelungenlied , an epic poem telling the story of the dragon -slayer Siegfried ( c. thirteenth century ), and the Iwein , an Arthurian verse poem by Hartmann von Aue ( c. 1203 ), lyric poems , and courtly romances such as Parzival and Tristan . Also noteworthy
9112-482: The Marshall plan. However, in 1948 Tito broke decisively with Stalin on other issues, making Yugoslavia an independent communist state. Yugoslavia requested American aid. American leaders were internally divided, but finally agreed and began sending money on a small scale in 1949, and on a much larger scale 1950–53. The American aid was not part of the Marshall plan. Tito criticised both Eastern Bloc and NATO nations and, together with India and other countries, started
9248-556: The SFRY were the socialist republics of Bosnia and Herzegovina , Croatia , Macedonia , Montenegro , Serbia , and Slovenia . Within Serbia were the two socialist autonomous provinces, Kosovo and Vojvodina , which following the adoption of 1974 Yugoslav Constitution were largely equal to the other members of the federation. After an economic and political crisis and the rise of nationalism and ethnic conflicts following Tito's death in 1980, Yugoslavia broke up along its republics' borders, at first into five countries, leading to
9384-426: The Serbo-Croat of Bosnia and Montenegro altered to a form based on the speech of the local people and not on the standards of Zagreb and Belgrade. In Slovenia the recognized minorities were Hungarians and Italians. The fact that these autonomous provinces held the same voting power as the republics but unlike other republics could not legally separate from Yugoslavia satisfied Croatia and Slovenia, but in Serbia and in
9520-595: The Soviet Union. These operations killed at least a thousand people, razed entire villages, and deported over 18,500. During these operations, Jews and suspected partisans were murdered by being forced to drag ploughs through minefields. In August 1943, the army's headquarters was subordinated to Army Group F and transferred to the Balkans for anti-partisan operations. The army became primarily an infantry formation at this point and found itself committed to anti-partisan operations, and personnel were accused postwar of multiple atrocities against civilians and partisans. After
9656-399: The Soviet counter-offensive, the Germans enjoyed complete domination of the skies and numerical advantage in material and men power during the Battle of Moscow . The massive and unexpected counter-attacks of 1st Guards Cavalry Corps , 50th Army, 10th Army , and parts of 49th Army drove the Germans the furthest from the capital, thus resulting in Hitler's dismissal of Heinz Guderian . After
9792-860: The Yugoslav government were the President (Tito), the federal Prime Minister, and the federal Parliament (a collective Presidency was formed after Tito's death in 1980). Also important were the Communist Party general secretaries for each republic and province, and the general secretary of Central Committee of the Communist Party. Tito was the most powerful person in the country, followed by republican and provincial premiers and presidents, and Communist Party presidents. Slobodan Penezić Krcun, Tito's chief of secret police in Serbia, fell victim to
9928-539: The actual number of dead was about 1 million. On 11 November 1945, elections were held with only the Communist-led People's Front appearing on the ballot, securing all 354 seats. On 29 November, while still in exile, King Peter II was deposed by Yugoslavia's Constituent Assembly , and the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia was declared. However, he refused to abdicate. Marshal Tito
10064-733: The almost total emigration of the Serbs from all three regions, the massive displacement of the populations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the establishment of the three new independent states. The separation of Macedonia was peaceful, although the Yugoslav Army occupied the peak of the Straža mountain on Macedonian soil. Serbian uprisings in Croatia began in August 1990 by blocking roads leading from
10200-576: The battle, he would never again reach the height and the popularity with Hitler or command any significant part of the German forces. In August 1943, the 2nd Panzer Army was transferred to occupied Yugoslavia , where it was incorporated into Army Group F and engaged in anti-partisan operations against the Chetniks under Draža Mihailović and the communist Yugoslav Partisans under Josip Broz Tito . Despite engaging in several operations aimed to crush
10336-516: The breakdown in logistics. By November, the situation of Guderian's Panzer Group was dire. Nonetheless, Guderian expected the Red Army's resistance to collapse and, driven by National Socialist military thinking, including the idea that the "will" was key to success, continued to direct his forces to attack. By early December, the final advance on Moscow failed in the face of stiffening Soviet resistance and due to shortages in men and equipment. Until
10472-454: The campaign over before the end of summer. After Minsk, the 2nd and 3rd Panzer Armies captured Smolensk in another successful pincer operation taking around 300,000 prisoners. Hitler ordered Army Group Center to detach the 2nd Panzer Group, turning southward towards Kyiv to form the northern pincer at Kyiv. Guderian's 2nd Panzer Army and Kleist's 1st Panzer Army were locked in a pincer around Kyiv to trap 665,000 Soviet prisoners. After concluding
10608-560: The constitution was heavily amended to replace the emphasis on democratic centralism with workers' self-management and decentralization . The Communist Party was renamed to the League of Communists and adopted Titoism at its congress the previous year . All the Communist European Countries had deferred to Stalin and rejected the Marshall Plan aid in 1947. Tito, at first went along and rejected
10744-466: The control of the Communist Party, and on recognition of the multiple nationalities. The flags of the republics used versions of the red flag or Slavic tricolor , with a red star in the centre or in the canton. Tito's regional goal was to expand south and take control of Albania and parts of Greece. In 1947, negotiations between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria led to the Bled agreement , which proposed to form
10880-477: The country and responded in a manner to appease both Croats and Serbs: he ordered the arrest of the Croatian Spring protestors while at the same time conceding to some of their demands. Following the 1974 Yugoslav Constitution , Serbia's influence in the country was significantly reduced, while its autonomous provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo were granted greater autonomy, along with greater rights for
11016-496: The country were occupied by Bulgaria , Hungary, and Italy. From 1941 to 1945, the Croatian Ustaše regime persecuted and murdered around 300,000 Serbs, along with at least 30,000 Jews and Roma; hundreds of thousands of Serbs were also expelled and another 200,000-300,000 were forced to convert to Catholicism . From the start, the Yugoslav resistance forces consisted of two factions: the communist-led Yugoslav Partisans and
11152-524: The decision, while all other republics, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, voted against. The tie delayed an escalation of conflicts, but not for long. Following the first multi-party election results, in the autumn of 1990, the republics of Slovenia and Croatia proposed transforming Yugoslavia into a loose confederation of six republics. By this proposal, republics would have right to self-determination. However Milošević rejected all such proposals, arguing that like Slovenes and Croats,
11288-488: The democratisation in two of the republics and proposed different sanctions (e.g. Serbian "customs tax" for Slovene products) against the two, but as the year progressed, other republics' communist parties saw the inevitability of the democratisation process. In December, as the last member of the federation, Serbia held parliamentary elections confirming the rule of former communists in the republic. Slovenia and Croatia elected governments oriented towards greater autonomy of
11424-482: The development of non-local forms of language and exposed all speakers to forms of German from outside their own area. With Luther's rendering of the Bible in the vernacular, German asserted itself against the dominance of Latin as a legitimate language for courtly, literary, and now ecclesiastical subject-matter. His Bible was ubiquitous in the German states: nearly every household possessed a copy. Nevertheless, even with
11560-456: The dialect so as to make the work as natural and accessible to German speakers as possible. Copies of Luther's Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region, translating words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Luther said the following concerning his translation method: One who would talk German does not ask the Latin how he shall do it; he must ask the mother in
11696-519: The eastern provinces of Banat , Bukovina , and Transylvania (German: Banat, Buchenland, Siebenbürgen ), German was the predominant language not only in the larger towns—like Temeschburg ( Timișoara ), Hermannstadt ( Sibiu ), and Kronstadt ( Brașov )—but also in many smaller localities in the surrounding areas. In 1901, the Second Orthographic Conference ended with a (nearly) complete standardization of
11832-649: The exiled royal government and the Allies , but they soon focused increasingly on combating the Partisans rather than the occupying Axis forces. By the end of the war, the Chetnik movement transformed into a collaborationist Serb nationalist militia completely dependent on Axis supplies. The Chetniks also persecuted and killed Muslims and Croats , with an estimated 50,000-68,000 victims (of which 41,000 were civilians). The highly mobile Partisans, however, carried on their guerrilla warfare with great success. Most notable of
11968-605: The government of the Kingdom of Serbia . The country was formed in 1918 immediately after World War I as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes by union of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs and the Kingdom of Serbia . It was commonly referred to at the time as a " Versailles state". Later, King Alexander I renamed the country to Yugoslavia in 1929. On 20 June 1928, Serb deputy Puniša Račić shot at five members of
12104-486: The high command ordered Gudarian to bypass Tula on November 18 and head towards the vital town of Kashira. The furthest attack was stopped near Kashira by the 1st Guards Cavalry Corps , 173rd Rifle Division , and other units that withstood the central attack of the Guderian army. The Group's divisions had suffered heavy attrition since the beginning of the invasion and experienced shortages in fuel and ammunition due to
12240-435: The home, the children on the streets, the common man in the market-place and note carefully how they talk, then translate accordingly. They will then understand what is said to them because it is German. When Christ says ' ex abundantia cordis os loquitur ,' I would translate, if I followed the papists, aus dem Überflusz des Herzens redet der Mund . But tell me is this talking German? What German understands such stuff? No,
12376-481: The influence of Luther's Bible as an unofficial written standard, a widely accepted standard for written German did not appear until the middle of the eighteenth century. German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire , which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe . Until the mid-nineteenth century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of
12512-574: The international treaties signed after World War I, and the Soviets were determined to regain their positions in Europe and pursue a more active international policy. Alexander attempted to create a centralised Yugoslavia. He decided to abolish Yugoslavia's historic regions, and new internal boundaries were drawn for provinces or banovinas. The banovinas were named after rivers. Many politicians were jailed or kept under police surveillance. During his reign, communist movements were restricted. The king
12648-541: The invading German forces. More than 300,000 Yugoslav officers and soldiers were taken prisoner. The Axis Powers occupied Yugoslavia and split it up. The Independent State of Croatia was established as a Nazi satellite state, ruled by the fascist militia known as the Ustaše that came into existence in 1929, but was relatively limited in its activities until 1941. German troops occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as part of Serbia and Slovenia , while other parts of
12784-570: The largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina , and Espírito Santo . Yugoslavia Yugoslavia ( / ˌ j uː ɡ oʊ ˈ s l ɑː v i ə / ; lit. ' Land of the South Slavs ' ) was a country in Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 to 1992. It came into existence following World War I , under
12920-580: The late 1930s was marked by growing intolerance between the principal figures, by the aggressive attitude of the totalitarian regimes, and by the certainty that the order set up after World War I was losing its strongholds and its sponsors their strength. Supported and pressured by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany , Croatian leader Vladko Maček and his party managed the creation of the Banovina of Croatia (Autonomous Region with significant internal self-government) in 1939. The agreement specified that Croatia
13056-402: The mother in the home and the plain man would say, Wesz das Herz voll ist, des gehet der Mund über . Luther's translation of the Bible into High German was also decisive for the German language and its evolution from Early New High German to modern Standard German. The publication of Luther's Bible was a decisive moment in the spread of literacy in early modern Germany , and promoted
13192-575: The name of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes from the merger of the Kingdom of Serbia with the provisional State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs , and constituted the first union of South Slavic peoples as a sovereign state , following centuries of foreign rule over the region under the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg monarchy . Peter I of Serbia was its first sovereign . The kingdom gained international recognition on 13 July 1922 at
13328-507: The new autonomous province of Kosovo, reaction was different. Serbs saw the new constitution as conceding to Croat and ethnic Albanian nationalists. Ethnic Albanians in Kosovo saw the creation of an autonomous province as not being enough, and demanded that Kosovo become a constituent republic with the right to separate from Yugoslavia. This created tensions within the Communist leadership, particularly among Communist Serb officials who viewed
13464-653: The ninth century, chief among them being the Muspilli , Merseburg charms , and Hildebrandslied , and other religious texts (the Georgslied , Ludwigslied , Evangelienbuch , and translated hymns and prayers). The Muspilli is a Christian poem written in a Bavarian dialect offering an account of the soul after the Last Judgment , and the Merseburg charms are transcriptions of spells and charms from
13600-498: The opposition Croatian Peasant Party in the National Assembly , resulting in the death of two deputies on the spot and that of leader Stjepan Radić a few weeks later. On 6 January 1929, King Alexander I got rid of the constitution , banned national political parties , assumed executive power , and renamed the country Yugoslavia. He hoped to curb separatist tendencies and mitigate nationalist passions. He imposed
13736-534: The original residency changed drastically leaving only a minimum number of Serbians in the region. The number of Serbs in Kosovo was quickly declining for several reasons, among them the ever-increasing ethnic tensions and subsequent emigration from the area. Meanwhile, Slovenia , under the presidency of Milan Kučan , and Croatia supported the Albanian miners and their struggle for formal recognition. Initial strikes turned into widespread demonstrations demanding
13872-493: The partisan movement, particularly the communists, no clear victory was gained. Indeed, the partisan movement grew in size and equipment, particularly after Italy signed the Armistice of Cassibile on 8 September 1943, which led to Italian units in occupied Bosnia and Montenegro either surrendering or defecting to the partisans. Throughout 1943-44, the 2nd Panzer Army was progressively stripped of its heavy armor destined for
14008-462: The pronunciation of the ending -ig as [ɪk] instead of [ɪç]. In Northern Germany, High German was a foreign language to most inhabitants, whose native dialects were subsets of Low German. It was usually encountered only in writing or formal speech; in fact, most of High German was a written language, not identical to any spoken dialect, throughout the German-speaking area until well into the 19th century. However, wider standardization of pronunciation
14144-553: The public protest and incarcerated the leaders, though many key Croatian representatives in the Party silently supported this cause. As a result, a new Constitution was ratified in 1974, which gave more rights to the individual republics in Yugoslavia and provinces in Serbia. After the Yugoslav Partisans took over the country at the end of WWII, nationalism was banned from being publicly promoted. Overall relative peace
14280-522: The regions of Kosovo and Vojvodina was reduced by the 1974 Constitution. Because its two autonomous provinces had de facto prerogatives of full-fledged republics, Serbia found that its hands were tied, for the republican government was restricted in making and carrying out decisions that would apply to the provinces. Since the provinces had a vote in the Federal Presidency Council (an eight-member council composed of representatives from
14416-452: The republics (under Milan Kučan and Franjo Tuđman , respectively). Serbia and Montenegro elected candidates who favoured Yugoslav unity. The Croat quest for independence led to large Serb communities within Croatia rebelling and trying to secede from the Croat republic. Serbs in Croatia would not accept the status of a national minority in a sovereign Croatia since they would be demoted from
14552-472: The royalist Chetniks , with the former receiving Allied recognition at the Tehran conference (1943). The heavily pro-Serbian Chetniks were led by Draža Mihajlović , while the pan-Yugoslav oriented Partisans were led by Josip Broz Tito . The Partisans initiated a guerrilla campaign that developed into the largest resistance army in occupied Western and Central Europe. The Chetniks were initially supported by
14688-614: The same fate. In other words, in less than two years "the trigger mechanism" (under the Financial Operations Act) had led to the layoff of more than 600,000 workers out of a total industrial workforce of the order of 2.7 million. An additional 20% of the work force, or half a million people, were not paid wages during the early months of 1990 as enterprises sought to avoid bankruptcy. The largest concentrations of bankrupt firms and lay-offs were in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Kosovo. Real earnings were in
14824-543: The same month, the Army leaders met with the Presidency of Yugoslavia in an attempt to get them to declare a state of emergency which would allow for the army to take control of the country. The army was seen as an arm of the Serbian government by that time so the consequence feared by the other republics was to be total Serbian domination of the union. The representatives of Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Vojvodina voted for
14960-408: The same rights. However, most of the German minority of Yugoslavia, most of whom had collaborated during the occupation and had been recruited to German forces, were expelled towards Germany or Austria. The country distanced itself from the Soviets in 1948 (cf. Cominform and Informbiro ) and started to build its own way to socialism under the political leadership of Josip Broz Tito. Accordingly,
15096-484: The same time, Western economies went into recession, decreasing demand for Yugoslav imports thereby creating a large debt problem. In 1989, 248 firms were declared bankrupt or were liquidated and 89,400 workers were laid off according to official sources . During the first nine months of 1990 and directly following the adoption of the IMF programme, another 889 enterprises with a combined work-force of 525,000 workers suffered
15232-569: The six republics and the two autonomous provinces), they sometimes even entered into coalitions with other republics, thus outvoting Serbia. Serbia's political impotence made it possible for others to exert pressure on the 2 million Serbs (20% of the total Serbian population) living outside Serbia. After Tito's death, Serbian communist leader Slobodan Milošević began making his way toward the pinnacle of Serbian leadership. Milošević sought to restore pre-1974 Serbian sovereignty. Other republics, especially Slovenia and Croatia, denounced his proposal as
15368-579: The southern Austrian provinces of Styria and Carinthia . However, the Partisans withdrew from Trieste in June of the same year under heavy pressure from Stalin, who did not want a confrontation with the other Allies. Western attempts to reunite the Partisans, who denied the supremacy of the old government of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia , and the émigrés loyal to the king led to the Tito-Šubašić Agreement in June 1944; however, Marshal Josip Broz Tito
15504-546: The states of North Dakota and South Dakota , German is the most common language spoken at home after English. As a legacy of significant German immigration to the country , German geographical names can be found throughout the Midwest region , such as New Ulm and Bismarck (North Dakota's state capital), plus many other regions. A number of German varieties have developed in the country and are still spoken today, such as Pennsylvania Dutch and Texas German . In Brazil,
15640-525: The status of a constituent nation. The war broke out when the new regimes tried to replace Yugoslav civilian and military forces with secessionist forces. When, in August 1990, Croatia attempted to replace police in the Serb-populated Croat Krajina by force, the population first looked for refuge in the Yugoslav Army barracks, while the army remained passive. The civilians then organised armed resistance. These armed conflicts between
15776-488: The status of a republic in the 1981 protests in Kosovo while Serbian authorities suppressed this sentiment and proceeded to reduce the province's autonomy. In 1986, the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts drafted a memorandum addressing some burning issues concerning the position of Serbs as the most numerous people in Yugoslavia. The largest Yugoslav republic in territory and population, Serbia's influence over
15912-581: The status of sole legal successor to the SFRY, but those claims were opposed by the other former republics. Eventually, it accepted the opinion of the Badinter Arbitration Committee about shared succession and in 2003 its official name was changed to Serbia and Montenegro. This state dissolved when Montenegro and Serbia each became independent states in 2006, with Kosovo having an ongoing dispute over its declaration of independence in 2008. The concept of Yugoslavia , as
16048-500: The third most commonly learned second language in the United States in K-12 education. The language has been influential in the fields of philosophy, theology, science, and technology. It is the second most commonly used language in science and the third most widely used language on websites . The German-speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of annual publication of new books, with one-tenth of all books (including e-books) in
16184-786: The treaty and launched a coup d'état when the king returned on 27 March . Army General Dušan Simović seized power, arrested the Vienna delegation, exiled Prince Paul, and ended the regency, giving 17-year-old King Peter full powers. Hitler then decided to attack Yugoslavia on 6 April 1941, followed immediately by an invasion of Greece where Mussolini had previously been repelled. At 5:12 a.m. on 6 April 1941, German , Italian and Hungarian forces invaded Yugoslavia . The German Air Force ( Luftwaffe ) bombed Belgrade and other major Yugoslav cities. On 17 April, representatives of Yugoslavia's various regions signed an armistice with Germany in Belgrade, ending eleven days of resistance against
16320-578: The victories against the occupying forces were the battles of Neretva and Sutjeska . On 25 November 1942, the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia was convened in Bihać , modern day Bosnia and Herzegovina . The council reconvened on 29 November 1943, in Jajce , also in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and established the basis for post-war organisation of the country, establishing
16456-684: The war on the Eastern Front , and became a primarily motorized infantry force. It did gain specialized Alpine support from units like the Brandenburgers and 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen divisions. However, endemic guerilla warfare cost the 2nd Panzer Army heavily, and only months after the Raid on Drvar (Operation Rösselsprung) failed to assassinate the communist partisan leadership via airborne assault ,
16592-555: The world being published in German. German is most closely related to other West Germanic languages, namely Afrikaans , Dutch , English , the Frisian languages , and Scots . It also contains close similarities in vocabulary to some languages in the North Germanic group , such as Danish , Norwegian , and Swedish . Modern German gradually developed from Old High German , which in turn developed from Proto-Germanic during
16728-646: The worldwide protests of 1968 . President Josip Broz Tito gradually stopped the protests by giving in to some of the students' demands and saying that "students are right" during a televised speech. However, in the following years, he dealt with the leaders of the protests by sacking them from university and Communist party posts. A more severe sign of disobedience was so-called Croatian Spring of 1970 and 1971, when students in Zagreb organised demonstrations for greater civil liberties and greater Croatian autonomy, followed by mass protests across Croatia. The regime stifled
16864-600: The written form of German. One of the central events in the development of ENHG was the publication of Luther's translation of the Bible into High German (the New Testament was published in 1522; the Old Testament was published in parts and completed in 1534). Luther based his translation primarily on the Meißner Deutsch of Saxony , spending much time among the population of Saxony researching
17000-429: Was a "neutral" language as there were virtually no English native speakers in Namibia at that time. German, Afrikaans, and several indigenous languages thus became "national languages" by law, identifying them as elements of the cultural heritage of the nation and ensuring that the state acknowledged and supported their presence in the country. Today, Namibia is considered to be the only German-speaking country outside of
17136-547: Was an artificial standard that did not correspond to any traditional spoken dialect. Rather, it was based on the pronunciation of German in Northern Germany, although it was subsequently regarded often as a general prescriptive norm, despite differing pronunciation traditions especially in the Upper-German-speaking regions that still characterise the dialect of the area today – especially
17272-502: Was assassinated in Marseille during an official visit to France in 1934 by Vlado Chernozemski , an experienced marksman from Ivan Mihailov 's Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization with the cooperation of the Ustaše , a Croatian fascist revolutionary organisation. Alexander was succeeded by his eleven-year-old son Peter II and a regency council headed by his cousin, Prince Paul . The international political scene in
17408-630: Was elected in November 1945, the monarchy was abolished, and the country was renamed the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia. It acquired the territories of Istria , Rijeka , and Zadar from Italy . Partisan leader Josip Broz Tito ruled the country from 1944 as prime minister and later as president until his death in 1980. In 1963, the country was renamed for the final time, as the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). The six constituent republics that made up
17544-492: Was established on the basis of public speaking in theatres and the media during the 20th century and documented in pronouncing dictionaries. Official revisions of some of the rules from 1901 were not issued until the controversial German orthography reform of 1996 was made the official standard by governments of all German-speaking countries. Media and written works are now almost all produced in Standard German which
17680-419: Was in control and was determined to lead an independent communist state, starting as a prime minister. He had the support of Moscow and London and led by far the strongest Partisan force with 800,000 men. The official Yugoslav post-war estimate of victims in Yugoslavia during World War II is 1,704,000. Subsequent data gathering in the 1980s by historians Vladimir Žerjavić and Bogoljub Kočović showed that
17816-658: Was less centralized than in other socialist countries, may have led to the stronger growth. However, even if the absolute value of the growth rates was not as high as indicated by the official statistics, both the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia were characterized by surprisingly high growth rates of both income and education during the 1950s. The period of European growth ended after the oil price shock in 1970s. Following that, an economic crisis erupted in Yugoslavia due to disastrous economic policies such as borrowing vast amounts of Western capital to fund growth through exports. At
17952-481: Was now in full control, and all opposition elements were eliminated. On 31 January 1946, the new constitution of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia , modelled after the Constitution of the Soviet Union , established six republics , an autonomous province, and an autonomous district that were a part of Serbia. The federal capital was Belgrade. The policy focused on a strong central government under
18088-599: Was part of the Army Group Centre during Operation Barbarossa , the invasion of the Soviet Union. Guderian's 2nd Panzer Army formed the Army Group's southern pincer while Hoth's 3rd Panzer Army formed the northern pincer destroying several Soviet armies during the opening phase of Operation Barbarossa. During the battles of Bialystok and Minsk, substantial numbers of prisoners were captured and several weapons captured. Suffering heavy losses in men and equipment,
18224-412: Was retained under Tito's rule, though nationalist protests did occur, but these were usually repressed and nationalist leaders were arrested and some were executed by Yugoslav officials. However, the Croatian Spring protests in the 1970s were backed by large numbers of Croats who complained that Yugoslavia remained a Serb hegemony. Tito, whose home republic was Croatia, was concerned over the stability of
18360-467: Was to remain part of Yugoslavia, but it was hurriedly building an independent political identity in international relations. Prince Paul submitted to fascist pressure and signed the Tripartite Pact in Vienna on 25 March 1941, hoping to continue keeping Yugoslavia out of the war. However, this was at the expense of popular support for Paul's regency. Senior military officers were also opposed to
18496-417: Was upgraded into Panzergruppe 2 . The 2nd Panzer Group ( German : Panzergruppe 2 ) was formed in November 1940 from Panzer Group Guderian. In October 1941 it was renamed the 2nd Panzer Army. Panzer Group 2 played a significant role in the early stages of the German invasion of the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa in 1941 when it was a constituent part of Army Group Centre . 2nd Panzer Group
#18981