Editing Eberhard von Mackensen (section)

===== Operations on the Oriental front (1941-1943) =====
During the Polish campaign he was the chief of staff of the 14th Army which was part of Army Group A of General Gerd von Rundstedt, while during the French campaign he became chief of staff of the 12th Army of General Wilhelm List which carried out a very important task in the initial breakthrough phase on the Meuse up to the shores of the Channel. After his victory in the west, von Mackensen was again promoted to the higher rank of general der Kavalerie from 1 August 1940.

On January 15th 1941, von Mackensen finally received an operational command assignment by taking over the leadership of the new 3rd Panzerkorps, an armored formation made up of two Panzer-Divisions assigned to the 1st Panzergruppe of General Ewald von Kleist. This powerful mechanized grouping would have been the spearhead of Field Marshal von Rundstedt's Southern Army Group which, deployed in the southern sector of the Eastern Front, would have taken part in the upcoming Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union.

Starting from June 22nd 1941, the day the Wehrmacht's general offensive began in the east, von Mackensen led his armored forces with remarkable skill, which immediately advanced in depth and repelled the first counterattacks of the Soviet mobile reserves; von Mackensen's units took part in the great battle of Brody-Dubno and claimed the destruction of 267 enemy tanks. The panzers of the 3rd Panzerkorps advanced ahead of the 1st Panzergruppe and first conquered Luc'k and Rivne and then entered Berdičiv on 7 July and Žytomyr on 9 July. For these brilliant victories von Mackensen received on July 27 the prestigious decoration of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.

After the initial successes, von Mackensen advanced the 13th Panzer-Division directly towards Kiev, which went up to thirty kilometers from the great Ukrainian city and crossed the Irpen River. However, the general's leading units were too weak and isolated and the German high command decided to avoid a frontal attack on Kiev defended by growing Soviet forces.

Von Mackensen instead received at the end of July the order to divert his armored forces south to take part in the great encirclement battle of Uman. After the destruction of the Soviet armies encircled in Uman, the advance of the Southern Army Group resumed and von Mackensen led the 3rd Panzerkorps in the direction of the Dnieper which was successfully crossed in Dnipropetrovsk on 25 August 1941 with the help of a bridgehead. In this phase von Mackensen also had operational control of the Italian units of the CSIR sent to reinforce his troops deployed in the bridgehead. From the 1st October 1941, von Mackensen advanced south from Dnipropetrovsk towards the Black Sea coast and occupied Melitopol on 5 October.

On 22nd October 1941, Hitler and the German high command decided to continue the advance in the southern sector with the aim of reaching Rostov-on-Don and the access roads to the Caucasus before the winter. Von Mackensen was charged with marching with his armored units of the 3rd Panzerkorps, the leading formation of General von Kleist's 1st Panzerarmee, towards Rostov and occupying the city. The general began the attack on November 17th 1941 and after violent clashes the leading elements managed to reach Rostov on November 20th and penetrated inside the city. Even the great bridges over the Don were taken by surprise. But yet, the Red Army was determined to prevent the German advance towards the Caucasus and counterattacked on the flank of the 3rd Panzerkorps. On November 25th, von Mackensen was forced to withdraw part of his forces to protect the rear, while the units remaining inside Rostov suffered a series of attacks en masse and found themselves in serious difficulty. On the 1st December 1941, Field Marshal Walter von Reichenau, the new commander of the Southern Army Group, decided to avoid a defeat by ordering von Mackensen, despite Hitler's opposition, to abandon Rostov and retreat to the position of the River Mius. The Germans evacuated the city and retreated with difficulty to the new position where von Mackensen gathered his forces and managed to stabilize the situation by resisting the new Soviet attacks throughout the winter. 
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-B24543, Hauptquartier Heeresgruppe Süd, Lagebesprechung.jpg|thumb|360x360px|Reunion in the Headquarter of [[Adolf Hitler]] in the spring of 1942: von Mackensen is viewable at the right.]]
In the spring of 1942, von Mackensen maintained command of the 3rd Panzerkorps which remained in the employ of the Southern Army Group which had passed under the command of Field Marshal Fedor von Bock and was charged with playing the main role in the Operation Blue, the new great German summer offensive on the western front. Even before the general attack began, von Mackensen took part in the bitter and bloody second battle of Kharkov which began on May 12th 1942 with a dangerous and unexpected Soviet offensive in the direction of the great Ukrainian city. The general played a decisive role in the battle; the 3rd Panzerkorps launched the counterattack on the southern flank of the Soviet troops on 17 May and contributed with its panzers to enclose two enemy armies in a large pocket; von Mackensen also skillfully directed the final phase of the battle, organizing a barrage that progressively destroyed the encircled Soviet forces. For his brilliant success, von Mackensen received on May 26th 1942 the decoration of the oak leaves of the Knight's Cross.

Then, Operation Blue began on June 28th 1942 and von Mackensen led the deep advance of the General's 1st Panzerarmee von Kleist who was again in charge of marching to Rostov and then to the Caucasus. The Soviet resistance was initially weak and von Mackensen was able to reach the city of Rostov with his armored forces, which was conquered for the second time on 23 July 1942. Soon after, the general crossed the Don and began the advance in the steppe towards the important wells. oil from the Caucasus. On 9th August, von Mackensen occupied Majkop. Despite apparently decisive successes, the German advance towards the Caucasus became increasingly difficult in the face of growing Soviet resistance. Von Mackensen still gained ground with the 3rd Panzerkorps but the German mobile forces were wearing out and at the end of September the German Army Group A had to temporarily halt its march on the northern edge of the mountain range. At the end of October, the German offensive resumed and von Mackensen was charged with launching a pincer attack to take Vladikavkaz. After hard fighting the German armored vehicles conquered a bridgehead on the Terek River and arrived on November the 5th 1942 a few kilometers from the city, but the Soviets counterattacked and von Mackensen's lead units risked being encircled. Only with great difficulty the Germans were able to retreat to the north of the river and on the 12th November they re-established the connection. The general had to go definitively on the defensive and the entire Army Group A was now blocked on the eve of the great Soviet winter offensive.

On the 19th November 1942, the Red Army initiated Operation Uranus. In four days the German-Romanian front was broken south and north of Stalingrad and the 6th Army of General Friedrich Paulus was encircled. The catastrophic progress of operations forced Hitler to reorganize the order of battle in the entire southern sector: Army Group A, which after the dismissal of Field Marshal Wilhelm List, had been directly controlled by the OKW, passed to the command of the general von Kleist, while von Mackensen received command of the 1. Panzerarmee. Initially the German high command believed it could restore the situation and then ordered to maintain the positions reached in the Caucasus, but after the new defeats on the Don, on the night of 27-28 December 1942, Hitler was forced to order the general retreat of the Group of armies A to avoid a new encirclement and von Mackensen then retreated behind the Terek on January 5, 1943 and began the difficult retreat to Rostov, 580 kilometers away, with the 1st Panzerarmee.

The retreat continued for thirty days in prohibitive climatic conditions. Von Mackensen was in command of some of the advanced German forces in the Caucasus and at first Hitler seemed intent on making them fall back towards the Kuban bridgehead. The increasingly difficult situation north of the Don forced them to abandon these optimistic plans and hijack von Mackensen's troops, two Panzer-Divisions, a motorized division, three infantry divisions and the SS "Wiking", to the north to reinforce Group d Army of Field Marshal Erich von Manstein's Don. On January 31st 1943, after numerous rearguard fights, the 1st Panzerarmee, escaped from the Soviet pursuit, reached the great bridges over the Don of Batajsk from where the units flowed safely to Taganrog. On 8th February, the rear departments of the 16th Motorized Division crossed the bridges over the Don, Rostov was evacuated and on 14 February it was liberated by the Red Army.

After the successful retreat, von Mackensen contributed with the 1st Panzerarmee reinforced with other Panzer-Divisions, to the general counterattack launched by Field Marshal von Manstein between Donets and Char'kov. The third battle of Char'kov ended on March 15th 1943 with a significant German success and the general took part in the fighting directing his armored formations towards Slov "jans'k. General Markian Popov's armored group was destroyed and the Germans reached the banks of the Donec where they were forced to stop for the strengthening of the Soviet defenses and for the arrival of the "mud period" caused by the spring thaw.

Eberhard von Mackensen remained in command of the 1st Panzerarmee even during the harsh summer-autumn 1943 campaign on the Eastern Front. He had to face the violent Soviet attack on the line of the river Mius on 17th July. The general had great difficulty in restraining the Soviet advance and only with the intervention of some mechanized reserves sent by field marshal von Manstein, it was possible to re-establish the situation and repel the enemy. Von Mackensen's forces suffered very high losses as a result of these clashes and were irreversibly weakened. Starting from 18th September 1943, the entire Southern Army Group of Field Marshal von Manstein began the general retreat behind the Dnieper and von Mackensen directed the difficult maneuver of the 1st Panzerarmee which was engaged in continuous rearguard fighting before reaching the heads of the bridge of Zaporizhja and Dnipropetrovsk where the river was crossed. The Red Army closely pursued the retreating German columns and immediately attacked the bridgehead of Zaporož'e. Von Mackensen defended the important position east of the Dnieper until mid-October before being forced to evacuate after blowing up the bridge and the large dam on the river with explosives.

After a period of command of over two years on the eastern front, Eberhard von Mackensen, promoted from 6th July 1943 to generaloberst, was finally recalled and handed over the leadership of the 1st Panzerarmee to General Hans-Valentin Hube. He was transferred to Italy and assumed the direction, starting from 3 November 1943, of the new 14th Army, set up, with a command in Verona, to group all the German forces deployed in northern Italy with functions of territorial control and strategic reserve for the Army Group C of Field Marshal Albert Kesselring committed to tenaciously oppose the advance of the Allies south of Rome.