7/25/2023 0 Comments Tannenberg battle![]() ![]() ![]() The positions of the 11th Infantry Division were mainly attacked by the 35,000-strong 8th Army with their 112th Rifle Corps, two fresh Tank Regiments, 1,680 assault guns, deployed in nine artillery regiments and 150 armoured vehicles. The 109th and 117th Corps were concentrated close to the Sinimäed, while the 122nd Rifle Corps to the southern section by the church of Vaivara Parish. The delivery of Soviet heavy artillery complimented the nine divisions of the 109th, the 117th and the 122nd Rifle Corps. The Soviet units that had suffered losses were brought up to strength with fresh manpower. For the attack on 29 July, Leonid Govorov concentrated all of the capable Soviet units, consisting of eleven divisions and six tank regiments. There is no complete overview of the order of the Soviet forces or the detachment sizes in the Battle of Tannenberg Line. To accomplish this, Govorov was ordered to destroy communications behind the German forces and conduct air assaults on the railway stations of Jõhvi and Tapa on 26 July. ![]() The goal set by the War Council of the 2nd Shock Army was to break through the defense line of the III SS Panzer Corps at the Lastekodumägi, force their way to the town of Jõhvi in the west and reach the Kunda River by 1 August. Additional 122nd, 124th Rifle Corps and divisions from 117th Rifle Corps were subordinated to General Ivan Fedyuninsky, commanding the 2nd Shock Army. The Soviet Marshall Leonid Govorov, considered the Tannenberg Line as the key position of Army Group North and concentrated the best forces of the Leningrad Front. Another front section manned by the East Prussians of the 11th Infantry Division was situated a few kilometres further south, against the 8th Army in the Krivasoo bridgehead. The 4th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Brigade Nederland started digging in on the left (north) flank of the Tannenberg Line, units of the 20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Estonian) in the centre, and the 11th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Nordland on the right (south) flank. On the hills, the formations of Gruppenführer Felix Steiner's III SS (Germanic) Panzer Corps halted their withdrawal and moved into defensive positions. The hills are less than imposing and resemble gently sloping mounds rather than defensible heights. The eastern hill was known to Estonians as the Lastekodumägi, Kinderheimhöhe in German (Orphanage Hill), the central hill was the Grenaderimägi or Grenadierhöhe (Grenadier Hill) and the westernmost as the Tornimägi or 69.9 Höhe (Tower Hill, also known in German as Liebhöhe or Love Hill). View from the summit of the Grenaderimägi towards Lastekodumägi hillĪfter defending the Narva bridgehead for six months, the German forces fell back to the Tannenberg Line in the hills of Sinimäed (Russian: Синие горы) on 26 July 1944. Main articles: Battle of Narva (1944) and Narva Offensive (July 1944) As the Soviet forces were constantly reinforced, the casualties of the battle were 150,000–200,000 dead and wounded Soviet troops and 157–164 tanks. The German force of 22,250 men held off 136,830 Soviet troops. ![]() Roughly half of the infantry consisted of local Estonian conscripts motivated to resist the looming Soviet re-occupation. Several Western scholars refer to it as the Battle of the European SS for the 24 volunteer infantry battalions from Denmark, East Prussia, Flanders, Holland, Norway, and Wallonia within the Waffen-SS. The strategic aim of the Soviet Estonian Operation was to reoccupy Estonia as a favourable base for the invasions of Finland and East Prussia. The battle was fought on the Eastern Front during World War II. They fought for the strategically important Narva Isthmus from 25 July to 10 August 1944. The Battle of Tannenberg Line (German language: Die Schlacht um die Tannenbergstellung Estonian language: Sinimägede lahing Russian Битва за линию «Танненберг») was a military engagement between the German Army Detachment " Narwa" and the Soviet Leningrad Front. This is a sub-article to Battle of Narva. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |