Fixed place (Wehrmacht)

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The course of the war 1943–1945
As a result, in March 1944 the concept of “fixed places” was developed.

Fester Platz had the meaning of " fortress " in older German usage . As a catchphrase for a defense concept of the German Wehrmacht , the term gained a specific meaning during World War II . After the German and their allied troops had been forced to retreat from 1943 onwards by the Allies, and especially the offensives of the Soviet Red Army , and the Soviet troops continued to advance, Hitler and the top military leadership introduced the concept of fixed places as a countermeasure a. Fixed places were used to designate places that should be defended particularly tenaciously by the Wehrmacht because of their operational importance as transport hubs and should not be given up in the event of enemy superiority. This could lead to the encirclement of the place. The concept of “fixed places” introduced in March 1944 failed and resulted in greater losses than regular withdrawals .

concept

Since the great summer battles of 1943 , the units of the Wehrmacht were pushed back by the Red Army . The Red Army stood on the border with Belarus and had also recaptured most of Ukraine . This brought it closer to the borders of the “ General Government for the Occupied Polish Territories”. In order to stop the advance, in early March 1944 Hitler developed the idea of ​​setting up “permanent places”. He was referring to places that were of operational or even strategic importance due to their location as logistical traffic junctions . The enemy would first have to occupy these places in order to continue his advance, and important traffic connections would be blocked for as long:

“The 'fixed places' should fulfill the same tasks as the earlier fortresses . You have to prevent the enemy from taking possession of these operationally crucial places. They have to allow themselves to be locked in and thereby bind the strongest enemy forces possible. This means that you have to create the prerequisites for successful counter-operations. "

- Adolf Hitler (March 8, 1944)

Another important reason for setting up “fixed places”, but not mentioned in the order, was later given by Field Marshal Ernst Busch (1885–1945). For political and propagandistic reasons it was necessary to keep larger cities known around the world, even if this contradicted military logic. The “fixed places” were, as it were, objects of prestige .

organization

Organizationally, the “fixed places” were subordinate to the commanders-in-chief of the army groups deployed on the front section . These commanders were allowed to tactically subordinate the “fixed places” to the staff of an army . For all other decisions, the approval of the Wehrmacht High Command had to be obtained beforehand. A “fixed place” could only be given up on the orders of the commander-in-chief of an army group, and then only with Hitler's express consent.

The commander of a “fixed place” should have the rank of general and be “a particularly selected, tough soldier” whose task was “to defend the local base tenaciously with all means and thereby create the conditions for the successful continuation of the fight in his front line. It was also said: "The commander of the permanent place is liable with his soldier honor for the fulfillment of his tasks to the last." All persons, soldiers as well as civilians , who were in the place were subordinate to him . In addition, he had the military judicial penal power, for which he was assigned flying military and court courts .

General of the infantry Otto Lasch (1893–1971) is an example of the liability of the commandant . As commandant of the “fortress” Königsberg he capitulated on April 10, 1945 without permission (→ Battle of East Prussia ). He was then sentenced to death by hanging in absentia and his family was relegated to kin. The general's daughter was immediately arrested.

Every “fixed place” was provided with a permanent security crew, who took care of the maintenance of the defensive systems and protected the objects from unexpected attacks. In the event of a threat to the place, further troops were deployed for defense, thus reaching the entire occupation. The troop strength was based on the military situation and the tasks of the commander and was at the discretion of the commander-in-chief of the respective army group.

Implementation of the concept

The Fuehrer's order of March 8, 1944 immediately designated 29 locations in a facility as “permanent places”. In addition, the general staffs of the four army groups in whose area these locations were located were asked to submit further suggestions for possible “permanent locations”. On average, they received a security crew of a reinforced battalion and a planned total crew of two divisions (in the case of Vitebsk three divisions). In the area of Army Group Center alone, 21 divisions were bound by these measures.

This led to controversy within the staff of the front line commanders. The Chief of Staff of Army Group Center, Lieutenant General Hans Krebs (1898–1945), turned in a memorandum on March 15 against the establishment of “fixed places”. He stated that the units, building materials and pioneers required for this would be lacking at the front, that the tense ammunition supply did not allow supplies to be stored in the "permanent places", that there would be a lack of officers to form the fortress staffs, and finally that thus forces would be tied up that would be needed to fight partisans . In other respects, too, many commanders doubted the assumption that the “fixed places” would actually tie up significant enemy forces. These commanders advocated shortening the front in order to outmaneuver enemy attacks with the help of free operations in space with the creation of mobile reserves and flexible defense. However, Hitler dismissed the latter idea as “nonsense”. He declared that the time of major operations in the East was over; now it would "only be a matter of rigidly holding on."

The Führer order of March 8, 1944 designated the following 29 locations as “permanent places” (the spelling of the place names in the original of the Führer Order No. 11):
  1. Reval
  2. Wesenberg
  3. Jewi
  4. Dorpat
  5. Pleskau
  6. Ostroff
  7. Opochka
  8. Rositten
  9. Polotsk
  10. Vitebsk
  11. Orsha
  12. Mogilev
  13. Borissoff
  14. Minsk
  15. Bobruisk

16. Sslusk
17. Luniniec
18. Pinsk
19. Kovel
20. Brody
21. Tarnopol
22. Proskuroff
23. Shmerinka
24. Vinnitsa
25. Uman
26. Novo Ukrainka
27. Pervomaisk
28. Vosnesensk
29. Nikolayev

Location of the 29 “fixed places” designated by Hitler on March 8, 1944.

In the first few weeks after Hitler's instructions, the implementation of the concept turned out to be questionable. On March 9, 1944, Soviet troops invaded the Ukrainian city of Tarnopol , which had been preparing for defense for a few days. This city was declared a “fixed place” the following day. The Red Army units were initially able to be thrown back, but the city was nevertheless enclosed on March 23. The morning before, her commanding officer had reported Major General Egon von Neindorff : “I also report that, due to insufficient ammunition stocks, the requirements for a permanent location are not sufficient. Likewise, the all-round expansion is unfinished [...] The requirements for a permanent place therefore do not apply to Tarnopol. ”Nevertheless, Hitler refused to give up the city, which was then demanded by Army Group South . The 4600-strong crew could not be supplied from the air by gliders due to insufficient capacities on the part of the German Air Force, as was done at the same time in the case of the also enclosed 1st Panzer Army . After heavy fighting with relief and escape attempts, in the course of which the city was almost completely destroyed, only 55 of the trapped soldiers managed to return to the German lines on April 16, 1944. Local commanders believed that the loss of the crew and their supplies was disproportionate to the operational success. Hitler, however, was of the opinion that the concept had proven itself, since up to four Soviet divisions had been tied up at times. Only then did he stipulate that the other “permanent places” should receive one or more entire divisions as crew. As in other cases later, German propaganda presented the fight for Tarnopol as a success in its own right. The Völkischer Beobachter wrote: "In extremely fierce tank battles, the enemy, who desperately resisted the relief attack, was defeated so that the parts of the occupation that had broken out of the city could be taken in."

Later in the summer of 1944, this operational behavior was one of the main reasons for the complete collapse of Army Group Center (→ Operation Bagration ). There alone 13 German divisions were trapped and wiped out by the Red Army within a few days while attempting to maintain the “fixed places”. The defense of the Western European Atlantic ports, on the other hand, made it much more difficult to supply the Allied forces, as the terrain there favored a defense and the superiority of the Allies over the Germans was not as extreme as the relationship between the Red Army and the Wehrmacht at the front Soviet Union. In the further course of the war, the objects declared as "fortresses" assumed ever larger dimensions. So Kurland (1944) and East Prussia (1945) were cut off and left in their isolated position with the task of binding opposing forces. The commanders-in-chief of the army groups concerned filed unsuccessful complaints against almost all of these decisions.

There is no list of the "fixed places" that were set up later, as they were often declared to be at short notice and also operated under the name "fortress". However, the following places are known:
  1. Brest-Litovsk
  2. Vilnius
  3. Belzig
  4. Berlin
  5. Wroclaw
  6. Brest
  7. Cherbourg
  8. Eichsfeld Gate
  9. Elblag
  10. Fritzlar
  11. Gironde
  12. 's-Hertogenbosch

13. Karlsruhe
14. Kolberg
15. Corsica
16. Küstrin
17. Lublin
18. Nordhausen
19. Poznan
20. Thuringia East
21. Koenigsberg
22. Olomouc
23. Brno
24. Prague
25. Budapest

rating

Overall, the concept was consistently rated negatively, both by the responsible military and by historians. Karl-Heinz Frieser later referred to the “fixed places” as “human traps” because their encirclement and destruction was predetermined. Psychologically, the new doctrine therefore had an extremely negative effect on the troops at the front. In his report from August 1944 , the commander of the 18th Flak Division stated that the word “fixed place” alone was associated with death or imprisonment, which led to a so-called “boiler psychosis ”.

Another major weakness of the concept was the insufficient funds that were available to equip the “permanent places”. The sites were chosen without regard to their nature or the surrounding terrain, which in some cases was completely unsuitable for defense. Tarnopol, for example, had no fortifications whatsoever, while Kovel only had older fortifications. As a result, more troops often had to be deployed than these locations were operationally worthwhile. The German General Field Marshal Erich von Manstein later commented on this as follows: "Fixed places without fortifications and with inevitably inadequate crews had to fall victim to the enemy sooner or later, without being able to fulfill the purpose intended for them."

The operational defense concept that Hitler had manifested with the definition of “fixed places” and also later pursued was characterized by the military historian Percy Ernst Schramm (1894–1970) as a “breakwater” doctrine. He came to the conclusion that Hitler's basic idea that the enemy would need more forces to enclose the “fixed places” than the German side to defend them was not always given. "With regard to the Red Army, it was a miscalculation, as it was numerically superior to the German Eastern forces." One can assume that in Hitler's mind these "fortresses" and "permanent places" as springboards for future attack operations should serve as soon as the fortunes of war turned.

special cases

At individual locations abroad that have been declared "fortresses", e.g. For example, in Royan north of Bordeaux in France, or around Chania in Crete, or around Libau in Latvia, the enclosed German military was able to hold out for a few weeks until the end of the war due to special circumstances.

Details can be found in the respective local articles.

literature

  • Gerd Fricke: "Fester Platz" Tarnopol 1944. (2nd edition) Verlag Rombach, Freiburg im Breisgau 1986 (= individual publications on the military history of the Second World War , Vol. 4), ISBN 3-7930-0160-1 .
  • Karl-Heinz Frieser : Errors and Illusions - The misjudgments of the German leadership in the spring of 1944. In Karl Heinz Frieser Hrsg: The German Reich and the Second World War Part 8, The Eastern Front 1943/1944 - The War in the East and the Side Fronts. Commissioned by MGFA , DVA, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-421-06235-2 .
  • Walter Hubatsch (ed.): Hitler's instructions for warfare 1939–1945. Bernard & Graefe Verlag für Wehrwissen, Frankfurt am Main 1962.
  • Erich von Manstein: lost victories. (6th edition) Bernard & Graefe Verlag für Wehrwissen, Munich 1976, ISBN 3-7637-5051-7 .
  • Christer Bergström: Bagration to Berlin - The Final Air Battles in the East: 1944–1945. Ian Allan Publishing, Hersham (Surrey) 2008, ISBN 978-1-903223-91-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See the numerous references for " fixed place " in the lexical articles at Zeno.org .
  2. ↑ For a brief overview, see: Kurt von Tippelskirch: History of the Second World War. Bonn 1956, pp. 327-347, 370-389.
  3. ↑ a b c d e Fiihrer Order No. 11 (Commanders of Fixed Places and Combat Commanders) of March 8, 1944; Quoted in: Walter Hubatsch (Ed.): Hitler's instructions for warfare 1939–1945. Bernard & Graefe Verlag für Wehrwissen, Frankfurt am Main 1962, Doc. 53, pp. 243–250.
  4. ^ A b Karl-Heinz Frieser: Errors and Illusions - The misjudgments of the German leadership in the spring of 1944. In Karl Heinz Frieser Hg: The German Reich and the Second World War. Volume 8, The Eastern Front 1943/1944. Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-421-06235-2 , p. 524.
  5. ↑ a b Percy E. Schramm: The War Diary of the OKW (Introduction) , Vol. 4/1. Bonn 2002, p. 53 f.
  6. ↑ Leader's order No. 11 (wording) ( Memento from April 9, 2015 in the web archive archive.today )
  7. ↑ See the overview table for Army Group Center, in: Karl-Heinz Frieser: Errtäne und Illusionen - The misjudgments of the German leadership in the spring of 1944. P. 520.
  8. ↑ Karl-Heinz Frieser: Errors and Illusions - The misjudgments of the German leadership in the spring of 1944. P. 520-523.
  9. ↑ Erich von Manstein: Lost victories. Munich 1976, p. 615.
  10. ↑ Gerd Fricke: "Fester Platz" Tarnopol 1944. Freiburg im Breisgau 1986, p. 70.
  11. ^ Christer Bergström: Bagration to Berlin - The Final Air Battles in the East: 1944-1945. Hersham (Surrey) 2008, p. 42.
  12. ↑ To this in detail: Gerd Fricke: "Fester Platz" Tarnopol 1944. Freiburg im Breisgau 1986; An overview is provided by: Karl-Heinz Frieser: Army Group South's retreat operations in Ukraine. In: ders. (Ed.): The Eastern Front 1943/44 - The War in the East and on the Side Fronts. Munich 2007, pp. 424-431.
  13. ↑ Quoted from: Gerd Fricke: "Fester Platz" Tarnopol 1944. Freiburg im Breisgau 1986, p. 131.
  14. ↑ Brief overview of the operations on the Eastern Front in: Kurt von Tippelskirch : History of the Second World War. Bonn 1956, pp. 460-469, 487-491.
  15. ↑ Inventory RH 30 Commanders and Commanders Fixed Places (inventory overview) ( Memento of the original from August 19, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (As of September 12, 2008).  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / startext.net-build.de
  16. ^ Karl-Heinz Frieser: The retreat operations of Army Group South in Ukraine. In Karl-Heinz Frieser Hrsg: The German Reich and the Second World War Part 8, The Eastern Front 1943/1944 - The War in the East and the Side Fronts. Munich 2007, p. 425.
  17. ↑ Erich von Manstein: Lost victories. Munich 1976, p. 599.
  18. ^ Karl-Heinz Frieser: Errors and Illusions - The misjudgments of the German leadership in the spring of 1944. P. 525.
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on September 26, 2008 .