Arctic front

Operation at a main dressing station on the Arctic Ocean Front in May 1943. Propagandist caption: On the Arctic Ocean Front: Operation in impassable tundra. Everything that is necessary for an operation is available in the operating tent of this main dressing station in the middle of the impassable tundra. Rapid help for the wounded is possible even on the distant Arctic Ocean.

Arctic Front Medal

The Arctic Ocean Front (also: Liza or Murmansk Front ) was the term used during World War II to describe a front line between the German Wehrmacht and the Soviet Red Army in the greater Russia , Finland and northern Norway area that lasted several years . The front line extended over several hundred kilometers in the arctic tundra east of the port city of Kirkenes on the Arctic Ocean (also known as the Northern Arctic Ocean ) via Petsamo and Rovaniemi . The term Eismeerfront was coined by the National Socialist propaganda.

history

During the German-Soviet War , the Wehrmacht wanted to take action against the Soviet Karelian Front in 1941 and conquer the ice-free port city of Murmansk in order to interrupt the supply of Allied armaments that came to the main fronts with the Northern Sea convoys and then via the Murman Railway . For this purpose, the Mountain Corps Norway under the Mountain Troop General Eduard Dietl , consisting of the 2nd and 3rd Mountain Divisions , was to advance in June 1941 from its positions in front of the river Liza, which runs from south to north , as part of the company “Silberfuchs” Take targets within a few days. Due to the bitter resistance of the Soviet troops and the difficult and pathless, partly unknown terrain, the rapid advance failed. Positions already reached on the east side of the river had to be abandoned in September 1941; a tough trench war developed from the attack . After high losses for Dietl's troops, the Wehrmacht High Command replaced his units in October 1941 with the 6th Mountain Division led by Major General Ferdinand Schörner - previously deployed in the Balkans and in Greece.

medal

A commemorative badge of the Wehrmacht created in 1944 is the medal in memory of the Arctic Ocean Front (1942-1943) . It shows an edelweiss flower on the front , which refers to the mountain hunter associations mainly used here.

Individual evidence

↑ Michael Salewski and Guntram Schulze-Wegener, war year 1944: in the large and in the small , in: Historische Mitteilungen: Einheft , ISBN 978-3-51506-6-747 , Franz Steiner Verlag , 1995, p. 111. It is the " so-called Arctic Ocean Front on the Liza ”.
↑ Jochen Prien, Die Jagdfliegerverbände der Deutschen Luftwaffe 1934 to 1945 , Volume 9/3, ISBN 978-3-92345-7-786 , Struve-Druck, 2000, p. 360. Mention is made of the command post of the Arctic Ocean Front of the Commander-in-Chief in Norway and Finland deployed German forces in Rovaniemi.
↑ Florian Brückner, Undefeated in literature: Werner Beumelburg (1899–1963) - war poet in the Weimar Republic and during National Socialism , Volume 23: Time and Text , ISBN 978-3-64313-5-469 , LIT Verlag , Münster 2017, P. 393. On the dispatch of Erich Dautert by the Propaganda Ministry in 1943 to a weather station on the Arctic Ocean, u. a. to show the "probation of the German soldiers on the Arctic Ocean".

Web links

Commons : Arctic Ocean Front - collection of images, videos and audio files

[1] Michael Salewski and Guntram Schulze-Wegener, war year 1944: in the large and in the small , in: Historische Mitteilungen: Einheft , ISBN 978-3-51506-6-747 , Franz Steiner Verlag , 1995, p. 111. It is the " so-called Arctic Ocean Front on the Liza ”.

[2] Jochen Prien, Die Jagdfliegerverbände der Deutschen Luftwaffe 1934 to 1945 , Volume 9/3, ISBN 978-3-92345-7-786 , Struve-Druck, 2000, p. 360. Mention is made of the command post of the Arctic Ocean Front of the Commander-in-Chief in Norway and Finland deployed German forces in Rovaniemi.

[3] Florian Brückner, Undefeated in literature: Werner Beumelburg (1899–1963) - war poet in the Weimar Republic and during National Socialism , Volume 23: Time and Text , ISBN 978-3-64313-5-469 , LIT Verlag , Münster 2017, P. 393. On the dispatch of Erich Dautert by the Propaganda Ministry in 1943 to a weather station on the Arctic Ocean, u. a. to show the "probation of the German soldiers on the Arctic Ocean".