1st Panzer Army The 1st Panzer Army ( ) was a German tank army which was a large armoured formation of the Wehrmacht during World War II . Panzer Group Kleist . When originally formed , the 1st Panzer Army was named Panzer Group Kleist ( Panzergruppe Kleist ) and was activated on November 16 , 1940 with Field Marshal Ewald von Kleist in command . Service history . It was deployed in occupied France until 1941 . In April 1941 , Panzer Group Kleist took part in the invasion of Yugoslavia as part of Field Marshal Maximilian von Weichs ' s Second Army . Panzer Group Kleist performed brilliantly in Yugoslavia , quickly smashing the Yugoslavian Fifth and Sixth Armies before entering Belgrade . 1st Panzer Group . 1941 . In May 1941 , Panzer Group Kleist became Panzer Group 1 ( Panzergruppe 1 ) , which was attached to Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt ' s Army Group South at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa . At the start of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941 , Panzer Group 1 included the III , XIV and XLVIII Army Corps ( mot . ) with five panzer division s and four motorized SS division s equipped with 799 tanks . Panzer Group 1 served on the southern sector of the Eastern Front against the Red Army and was involved the Battle of Brody which involved as many as 1 , 000 Red Army tanks . On October 6 , 1941 , Panzer Group 1 was enlarged to the 1st Panzer Army following the fall of Kiev , with von Kleist still in command . After that the First Panzer Army began its thrust on Rostov . Together with the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler led by Oberstgruppenführer Sepp Dietrich , von Kleist reluctantly made the attack on Rostov . His 1st Panzer Army successfully captured the city in November , but the Red Army recaptured it eight days later . 1942 . In January 1942 , Army Group von Kleist , which consisted of the First Panzer Army along with the Seventeenth Army , was formed with its namesake , von Kleist , in command . Army Group von Kleist played a major role in repulsing the Red Army attack in the Second Battle of Kharkov in May 1942 . Army Group von Kleist was disbanded that month . The First Panzer Army , still under von Kleist , which had been attached to Army Group South earlier , became part of Army Group A under Field Marshal Wilhelm List . Army Group A was to lead the thrust into the Caucasus during Operation Blue and capture Grozny and the Baku oilfields ( current capital of Azerbaijan ) . The First Panzer Army was to spearhead the attack . An initially successful attack was led , with Rostov , Maikop , Krasnodar , and the entire Kuban region captured . However , in September 1942 , Army Group A ' s offensive was stalled in the Caucasus , and List was sacked . After Adolf Hitler briefly took personal control of Army Group A , he appointed von Kleist to command it on November 21 , 1942 . As von Kleist took command of Army Group A , Colonel - General Eberhard von Mackensen took the reins of the First Panzer Army . In December 1942 , as the German Sixth Army was already being crushed in the Battle of Stalingrad , the Red Army launched a successful offensive against Army Group A . The First Panzer Army was evacuated through Rostov in January 1943 , before the Soviets could cut it off in the Kuban . By February 1943 it had been withdrawn west of the Don River , and von Kleist withdrew the remains of his forces from the Caucasus into the Kuban area , east of the Strait of Kerch . 1943 . In January 1943 , von Mackensen ' s First Panzer Army became attached to Army Group Don under Field Marshal Erich von Manstein . The month after that , von Manstein redeployed the First Panzer Army together with the Fourth Panzer Army to counter - attack Soviet penetrations along his northern flank . The First Panzer Army contributed to the success of the Third Battle of Kharkov in March 1943 . In October 1943 Soviet forces crossed the Dnieper River between Dnipropetrovsk and Kremenchug . The First Panzer Army counter - attacked along with the Eighth Army , but failed to dislodge the Soviets . At the end of that month , as the Red Army closed in on Kiev , von Mackensen was replaced by Colonel - General Hans - Valentin Hube . In March 1944 , two Soviet tank armies broke through in the Ukraine and threatened to cut off the First Panzer Army and the Eighth Army from the SS and Fourth Panzer Armies . That same month Hitler , who insisted his armies fight an inflexible defense to the last man , dismissed von Manstein . 1944 . The First Panzer Army remained attached to Army Group South from March 1943 to July 1944 . By that time German troops had been pulled out from the Ukraine , and the Soviets were threatening Warsaw . In March 1944 , crisis hit the First Panzer Army as it was encircled by two Soviet fronts in the Battle of Kamenets - Podolsky Pocket . A successful breakthrough was made , saving most of the manpower but losing the heavy equipment . In October 1941 , when the First Panzer Army had been formed , it was a large army consisting of four corps , several infantry , panzer , motorized , mountain , and SS division s , along with a Romania n army and some Italian , Romanian , Hungarian , and Slovak division s . By the spring of 1944 , the First Panzer Army had shrunk considerably , consisting of only three corps , two infantry , four panzer , and one SS division . After July 1944 it withdrew from Ukraine and Poland before fighting with Army Group A in Slovakia ( Battle of the Dukla Pass ) . 1945 . During its existence , from October 1941 to May 1945 , the First Panzer Army spent its entire time on the Eastern Front . The First Panzer Army , along with other commands subordinated to Army Group Center , surrendered to the Soviets in May 1945 in the area of Deutsch - brod . Its last commander was General Walter Nehring .