The 12th Army (German: 12. Armee) was a World War II field army of the Wehrmacht.
History
Campaign in the west
The 12th Army was activated on October 13, 1939, with General Wilhelm List in command. First seeing defensive action along the Siegfried Line, the army was part of Rundstedt's Army Group A responsible for the Ardennes offensive. It had under its command seven infantry divisions and one mountain division in May 1940. After the breakthrough on the Meuse near Sedan, the infantry divisions fought their way to the Aisne. In the ensuing Fall Rot the army marched to the Swiss border and secured the demarcation line with Zone libre. For the rest of 1940 the army was assigned to occupation duties in France.
Balkan campaign
In February 1941, an agreement between Field Marshal List and the Bulgarian General Staff allowed the passage of German troops. On the night of February 28, German Army units crossed the Danube from Romania and took up strategic positions in Bulgaria.
On 6 April, units of the 12th army advanced into Yugoslavia and Greece. The Yugoslavs crumbled first. After six months of fighting the Italians, the Greeks could not stand up to the 12th Army's fifteen divisions, four of which were armored. As the Greek army capitulated, four Commonwealth divisions rushed from North Africa to aid the Greeks were forced to evacuate after defeats at Olympus and Thermopylae. With the command staff of the dissolved Army Group North, the army consisted of XLVIII, XX, and XXXI Army Corps.