Armeegruppe

Armeegruppe was a historical type of major formation of German military history, in use in the Imperial German Army during World War I and the Wehrmacht during World War II.

While the term literally translates as army group, the German-language equivalent of an English-language army group is Heeresgruppe. Whereas a Heeresgruppe-type army group was designed to be permanent, an Armeegruppe-type army group was usually an ad hoc formation for a specific military task. Typically, Armeegruppe-type formations were short-lived.

Whereas Heeresgruppe-type formations were typically named after a geographic region (such as Heeresgruppe Courland), geographic direction (such as Heeresgruppe North) or even named by simple letters (such as Army Group A), Armeegruppe-type army groups were typically named after their commanding general, e.g. Army Group Steiner was named after Felix Steiner.

Armeegruppe-type formations during World War I

 * Army Group Beseler
 * Army Group Gallwitz
 * Army Group Gronau
 * Army Group Marwitz
 * Army Group Litzmann
 * Army Group Eben

Overview
The Wehrmacht of World War II was peculiar compared to the German army of World War I due to its much stronger inclusion of allied armed forces (such as the Royal Italian Army or Royal Hungarian Army), and Armeegruppe-type army groups were once again revived to serve as ad hoc combinations of an army-level command, typically German, which would take the lead, and a second army-level command, typically of another Axis country, which would be subordinate. Exceptions from this rule were Army Group Dumitrescu, when a non-German army (in this case 3rd Romanian Army) was superior to a German army (in this case 6th Army) and Army Group Felber, which was only of corps-strength and would typically have been referred to as a 'Gruppe' rather than 'Armeegruppe' if Wehrmacht precedent had been followed more closely. Additionally, Army Group G and Army Group Liguria were not named after commanders but instead after a letter or a region, respectively; Army Group G was later upgraded to Heeresgruppe-level.