Vienna had been bombarded continuously for the year before the arrival of Soviet troops, and many buildings and facilities had been damaged and destroyed.

[7] After the failure of Operation Spring Awakening (Unternehmen Frühlingserwachen), Sepp Dietrich's 6th SS Panzer Army retreated in stages to the Vienna area.

In the spring of 1945, the advance of Soviet Marshal Fyodor Tolbukhin's 3rd Ukrainian Front through western Hungary gathered momentum on both sides of the Danube.

On the same day, Soviet troops approached Vienna from the south after they overran Wiener Neustadt, Eisenstadt, Neunkirchen and Gloggnitz.

After arriving in the Vienna area, the armies of the Soviet 3rd Ukrainian Front surrounded, besieged, and attacked the city.

The "O-5 Resistance Group," Austrians led by Carl Szokoll, wanting to spare Vienna destruction, actively attempted to sabotage the German defenses and to aid the entry of the Red Army.

The battle for the Austrian capital was characterized in some cases by fierce urban combat, but there were also parts of the city the Soviets advanced into with little opposition.

The 2nd SS Panzer "Das Reich" left a dozen artillery pieces including 37mm anti-aircraft guns to hold off enemy attacks.

There was no water, electricity, or gas — and bands of people, both foreigners and Austrians, plundered and assaulted the helpless residents in the absence of a police force.

A large number of lootings and cases of rape took place in a several-week long violence that has been compared to the worst aspects of the Thirty Years War.

Austrian politician Karl Renner set up a Provisional Government in Vienna sometime in April with the tacit approval of the victorious Soviet forces,[16] and declared Austria's secession from the Third Reich.

On 30 April, the following order of battle was recorded by the German Army High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, or OKW).