Northwest Front (Red Army)

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The Northwest Front ( Russian Северо-Западный фронт - Severo-Sapadny Front) was a formation of the Red Army during the Second World War . On November 19, 1943 , the front was disbanded. The headquarters was made available to the Supreme Command and on February 17, 1944, it was used to form the 2nd Belarusian Front .

Lineup

The front was first erected on January 7, 1940 during the Finnish-Soviet Winter War 1939/40 from the headquarters of the Leningrad Military District to coordinate the operations of the 7th and 13th Armies. After the fighting ended, the front command moved back to the headquarters of the military district. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 , the Northwest Front was rebuilt from the Baltic Special Military District . Their mission was to protect the Baltic States . For this purpose, the 8th , 11th and 27th Army and smaller units such as the 5th Airborne Corps and the staff of the 65th Rifle Corps were subordinate to the front command.

In the autumn of 1941 the 34th, 48th and 52nd Armies were on the front and in the following years of the war also the second formation of the 27th, 68th and 22nd Army and in 1943 the 1st , 3rd and 4th shock armies , the Subordinate to the 1st Panzer Army and the 6th Air Army, as well as the Operational Army Group under Lieutenant General MS Khosin and the Novgorod Group .

commitment

1940

In the course of the reorganization of the command structure of the Red Army as a result of the setbacks during the first phase of the Soviet-Finnish winter war, Marshal Semyon Konstantinovich Tymoshenko was appointed commander in chief of a north-western front , which was supposed to coordinate the operations against the Mannerheim line on the Karelian isthmus . The 7th Army under Kirill Afanassjewitsch Merezkow , whose command of the entire operation against Finland had been withdrawn, was subordinated to the front , as was the newly formed 13th Army. In addition, a special mobile group was formed under Dmitri Grigoryevich Pavlov , which had a rifle corps, a cavalry corps and a tank brigade, which should attack and take Vyborg across the ice . After completing an intensive training program, the attack on the Finnish positions began on February 12, 1940, and was broken through after two and a half days of fierce fighting near Samma. The Finnish troops then withdrew to a second line of defense around Vyborg. Due to bad weather, the attack operations came to a standstill for three days on February 21. Tymoshenko took the opportunity to bring in fresh forces and on February 24, Pavlov's Mobile Group pushed across the ice and captured Koivisto Island . On February 28, the front went on the offensive again and was able to penetrate into the suburbs of Vyborg in four days of fighting, while Pavlov's Mobile Group interrupted the connection to Helsinki . A little later the Finnish troops evacuated Vyborg and left the city to the troops of the Northwest Front, not without first flooding the whole area. Since the Finnish troops were completely exhausted, the Finnish commander-in-chief, General Heinrichs , sought an armistice on March 9, 1940, which came into force on March 13. With the end of the fighting in Finland, the northwest front returned to the command of the Leningrad Military District.

1941

At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the Northwest Front was the weakest of the Soviet fronts with 369,000 men in 24 divisions and 5 brigades. It was formed from the Baltic Special Military District by order of the Soviet High Command on June 22, 1941. In the summer of 1941 all parts of the Northwest Front were involved in the heavy fighting in the Baltic States and around the approaches to Leningrad . In the first 18 days of the war, the armies of the front had to retreat 450 km to the east. The commander of the front, Colonel General FI Kuznetsov , was replaced by Marshal Kliment Voroshilov at the beginning of July , but nominally the front was headed by the previous commander of the 8th Army, General PS Sobennikov. On July 14th, the Soviet 11th Army (General VI Morozov) launched a successful counter-offensive from Utorgosh and the Dno Raion towards Sitnja and Solzy and inflicted such heavy losses on the German troops, especially the 8th Panzer Division , that they had to withdraw. The Soviet troops were able to take Solzy on July 16 and thus temporarily halt the German advance on Leningrad and Novgorod . The success of the offensive made a great contribution to raising the morale of the Soviet troops. However, the German troops regrouped and received replacements, so that they could attack again on August 12 and advanced on Novgorod, which they occupied on August 19. The further advance of the German troops was stopped at Demyansk .

In the autumn, the northwest front was the fulcrum in the fighting along the attack axes of Moscow and Leningrad. It covered the strategically important Waldai heights , from where it could threaten the northern flank of the advancing Army Group Center . The Soviet troops prepared a deeply staggered line of defense between the Ilmensee and the Seligersee , which they successfully defended.

In the further course of 1941, the Volkhov Front was rebuilt from the front , which was supposed to cover the area north of Lake Ilmen to Lake Ladoga . The main task of the Northwest Front was now to recapture the Staraya Russa transport hub , which had been lost in August, in a struggle that lasted 880 days.

1942

In the course of the winter offensive of 1941/1942, the armies of the left wing of the Northwest Front (which were subordinated to the Kalinin Front on January 22, 1942 ) made attacks in the direction of Toropez - Kholm , as a result of which they were able to advance almost 250 km so that they were south von Demyansk stood, while in the south, together with the armies of the Kalinin Front, the enemy groups at Vyazma and Rzhev were captured. The forces of the right wing of the Northwest Front simultaneously struck Staraya Russa with the aim of encircling and destroying the enemy group in Demyansk district. At the end of February 1942, the groups in Staraya Russa and Demjansk were separated from the German lines and six German divisions were encircled. At the end of winter, the troops on the northwest front crossed the Lowat river and destroyed the enemy bases on the right bank.

1943

On November 19, 1943, the Northwest Front was disbanded and its troops were placed under the newly formed 1st and 2nd Baltic Fronts . By then the front had lost more than 2,000,000 dead and wounded. The Northwest Front High Command was called in to form the 2nd Belarusian Front in February 1944 .

Front command

Commander in chief

Member of the Military Council

  • Corps Commissioner PA Dibrowa (June 1941)
  • Corps Commissioner WN Bogatkin (July 1941 to May 1943 - from December 1942 Lieutenant General)
  • Lieutenant General F. Je. Bokow (May – November 1943)

Chiefs of Staff

  • Lieutenant General PS Klenow (June 1941)
  • Lieutenant General NF Watutin (June 1941 to May 1942)
  • Major General IT Schljomin (Chief of Staff, May – August 1942)
  • Lieutenant General MN Sharochin (August – October 1942)
  • Lieutenant General WM Slobin (October 1942 to March 1943)
  • Lieutenant General AN Bogolyubov (March – November 1943)
  • Major General PI Igolkin (November 1943)

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ David M. Glantz, Jonathan House: When Titans Clashed. How the Red Army Stopped Hitler. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas 1995, ISBN 0-7006-0899-0 . Pp. 21-23.