Hermann Hoth Hermann " Papa " Hoth ( 12 April 1885 – 25 January 1971 ) was an officer in the German military from 1903 to 1945 . He attained the rank of Generaloberst during World War II . He fought in France , but is most noted for his later exploits as a panzer commander on the Eastern Front . Hoth commanded the 3rd Panzer Group during Operation " Barbarossa " in 1941 , and the 4th Panzer Army later during the Wehrmacht ' s 1942 summer offensive . Following the encirclement of the 6th Army in Stalingrad in November 1942 , Hoth commanded the panzer army during Operation " Wintergewitter " . After Stalingrad , Hoth was involved in the Kursk counter offensive in the summer of 1943 and the Battle of Kiev . The Fourth Panzer Army under his command at Kursk was the largest tank formation ever assembled . Hoth was dismissed from command by Adolf Hitler in 1943 , only to be reinstated for a short time during the last weeks of the war . After the war , he served six years in prison for war crime s , and became a writer on military history . Before the war . Hoth was born in Neuruppin , the son of an army medical officer . He joined the army in 1903 and at the start of World War I was promoted to Captain and he won both classes of Iron Cross . He remained in the Reichswehr ( the armed forces of the Weimar Republic ) in the interwar period . Following the reorganization of the German military into the Wehrmacht in 1935 , he was promoted to Major - General and appointed to command the 18th Infantry Division . World War II . Hoth was promoted to Lieutenant - General and given command of the XV Motorised Corps from 10 November 1938 , leading it in the invasion of Poland the following year . During the invasion of France in May 1940 , his panzer corps guarded Guderian ' s right flank during their dash through the Ardennes , and contained the 5th Panzer Division and Erwin Rommel ' s 7th Panzer Division . Following the successful conclusion of the campaign Hoth was promoted to Generaloberst on 19 July 1940 . In Operation " Barbarossa " in 1941 , Hoth commanded the Third Panzer Group which captured Minsk and Vitebsk . In October he replaced General Carl - Heinrich von Stülpnagel as commander of the Seventeenth Army in Ukraine . As its commander he called upon his men to understand the need for " harsh punishment of Jewry " . His army was driven back by the Russian offensives of early 1942 ( see Second Battle of Kharkov ) . In June 1942 , he took over from General Erich Höpner as commander of Fourth Panzer Army . As part of Operation " Blue " , the German offensive in southern Russia , the army reached the Don River at Voronezh . Hoth was then ordered to swing south to support the First Panzer Army ' s crossing of the Don , a move which General Kliest found unhelpful , as the additional panzer army clogged the roads . and the Sixth Army ' s attempt to capture Stalingrad . In November 1942 , the Soviet winter counteroffensive smashed through the German lines and trapped the Sixth Army in Stalingrad . Hoth ' s panzer army was the centerpiece of Operation " Winter Storm " , the attempt to relieve the Sixth Army , under the overall command of Field Marshal Erich von Manstein ' s Army Group Don . The operation failed , as Soviet reinforcements and worsening weather ground down the German advance . On 25 December , the Soviets resumed their offensive , forcing the Germans back and sealing the fate of the Sixth Army . In July 1943 , Hoth commanded the Fourth Panzer Army in the Battle of Kursk . His divisions , now reinforced by the II SS Panzer Corps , made a significant penetration of the Soviet lines , before being brought to a halt at Prokhorovka . Manstein urged that the attack continue , but the slow progress of the German Ninth Army to the north of Kursk and the Allied invasion of Sicily meant that the operation was called off . In the aftermath of Kursk , the Red Army mounted a series of successful offensives that crossed the Dnieper , retook Kiev and pushed the Germans out of eastern Ukraine . Despite his distinguished record , Hitler blamed Hoth for part of the losses and relieved him of command . In April 1945 he was recalled from the officer reserves to active duty and assigned to command the defense of the Harz Mountains , a position he held until the end of the war . After the war . Following the end of the war , Hoth was put on trial at the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials , found guilty of war crimes in the High Command Trial , and on 27 October 1948 sentenced to 15 years in prison . He was released in 1954 and spent his retirement writing . He died at Goslar , on 25 January 1971 , where he is buried .