7th Army ( Wehrmacht ) The 7th Army ( ) was a World War II field army of the German land forces . Origins . The 7th Army was activated in Stuttgart on August 25 , 1939 with General Friedrich Dollmann in command . At the outbreak of the war , the 7th Army defended the German border and manned the Westwall in the Upper Rhine region . At the start of the Campaign in the West in 1940 , the 7th Army was part of General Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb ' s Army Group C . On 14 June 1940 , Army Group C attacked the Maginot Line after it had been cut off by armored units of the XXXXI Panzer Corps . Lead elements of the 7th Army reached the area in front of Colmar and later pursued parts of the French 2nd Army Group into Lorraine . At the conclusion of the campaign , the 7th Army was in eastern France . From July 1940 until April 1941 , the 7th Army guarded a region of the coast in southwestern France . From 18 April 1941 , the 7th Army was responsible for coastal defense in Brittany and Normandy . By mid - 1944 , the 7th Army was part of Erwin Rommel ' s Army Group B . Normandy . Because of uncertainty in the German high command regarding Allied intentions after the D - Day landings , the 7th Army did most of the initial fighting in Normandy although it was later reinforced by the Panzer Group West . The 15th Army was kept at the Pas de Calais , expecting another landing by the Allies . By 18 June , the 7th Army had lost 97 , 000 men , including five generals . On 28 June , the army ' s commander , General Dollmann , died of a heart attack . Under unrelenting Allied pressure , the 7th Army was slowly forced back through the hedgerow country in Normandy . Finally , in late July 1944 , the 7th Army ' s weakened left wing was flattened by a massive Allied aerial bombardment and then assaulted and broken by the U . S . 1st Army . Armored exploitation of the rent in the front lines by U . S . units forced first a German retreat and then an unsuccessful counter - attack which ultimately culminated in the 7th Army being nearly wiped out in the Falaise Pocket . Abandoning what remained of their heavy equipment , shattered remnants of the 7th Army escaped from the Falaise Pocket and retreated eastward to the German border . During the autumn of 1944 , the 7th Army adopted a defensive posture in the Eifel region on the Belgian and Luxembourgian border while Hitler husbanded forces for a winter offensive on the Western Front . Battle of the Bulge . During the Battle of the Bulge it consisted of three infantry ( 212th , 256th , 352nd Volksgrenadier ) and one parachute ( 5th ) divisions . Its role was to protect the southern flank of 5th Panzer Army and the entire Ardennes Offensive . Like the other two German armies in the offensive , the 7th Army took substantial losses . The 7th Army defended against the northward attack of the U . S . 3rd Army , but ultimately failed to halt General Patton ' s drive to Bastogne and Houffalize . The 7th Army , however , managed to avoid encirclement and retreated again to the Westwall . Germany . In January 1945 , the U . S . 3rd Army attacked to the east , forcing the 7th Army to retreat from the area of Trier to the region of Koblenz . Under further U . S . pressure , the 7th Army was forced to retreat through the areas around Mainz and Mannheim . Unable to stop the U . S . advances in central Germany during March and April 1945 , the 7th Army continued its retreat through the valleys of the Main and Lahn Rivers , through the Spessart hills , Fulda , Gotha , and then through the Thuringian Forest to the region between Leipzig and Hof . Fate . The 7th Army surrendered to U . S . 3rd Army in the area of the Bavarian Forest and western Bohemia on 8 May 1945 .