Company Aster
The code name company Aster denotes the withdrawal of the German Army Group North from Estonia from September 17th to 22nd, 1944 under the command of the German Navy during the Second World War . The aim of the company was to retreat to protect the German troop units of Army Group North encircled by the Soviet operation Bagration and the beginning Baltic operation from being broken up and at the same time to stabilize and shorten the front.
prehistory
After the collapse of Army Group Center as a result of Soviet Operation Bagration , large parts of Army Group North threatened to be included, especially after Soviet units had penetrated the Panther-Wotan Line in the area west of Pleskau and only again in the Battle of the Embach (Estonian: Emajögi) had come to a standstill at Dorpat . Most of the evacuation was carried out by naval forces, as Soviet troops west of Riga had already pushed through to the sea at times and thus largely cut off Army Group North. Only after clearing a corridor a few kilometers wide west of Riga ( Kemmern corridor ) was a land connection restored ( Doppelkopf company ). In order to avoid the enclosure, it was decided to evacuate Estonia except for the offshore islands Dagö and Ösel . These islands should continue to be held in order to maintain the closure of Soviet naval formations in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland and to prevent Soviet advances into the central and western Baltic Sea. Furthermore, the control of the Irbenstrasse should be maintained. This was ensured by naval batteries on the Sworbe peninsula at the southern end of Ösels and on the northern tip of Courland .
course
The operation began on September 17, 1944 under the command of the German naval forces under Vice Admiral Theodor Burchardi . The aim was to evacuate the Narva army group and Estonian civilians. Within six days, 50,000 German and Estonian soldiers, 20,000 Estonian civilians and 1,000 prisoners of war were evacuated mostly to Latvia via the ports of Reval , Hapsal and Pernau . A small part of the German troops also withdrew to the offshore islands Moon , Dagö and Ösel. The rapid retreat was covered by units of III. SS Panzer Corps , which reached Pernau on September 20, 1944, and in the south by the II Army Corps , which retreated in a general direction towards the port of Pernau and towards Riga. The operation ended on September 22, 1944 with the evacuation of the island of Worms by naval units from the beach.
Consequences
Estonian troops that remained in the evacuated area withdrew into the woods as partisans in front of the Red Army ( Forest Brothers Movement) and in some cases continued to offer armed resistance against the Soviet occupation forces in Estonia until the early 1950s. The Soviet Army quickly moved into the evacuated areas. This became the basis for the conquest of the Estonian islands of Ösel and Dagö, which remained in German hands. The attack by the Red Army on Moon Island began on September 29, and its defenses were quickly overrun. The German troops had to retreat to Ösel, so that Moon was in Soviet hands by September 30, 1944. On October 1st, the 218th was moved to the island of Ösel to reinforce the 23rd Infantry Division . On October 2nd, the Soviets attacked Dago. Here, too, the island was occupied within a day. On October 3rd it was evacuated by the last German soldiers. Only two days later, on October 5th, the landing of Soviet troops on Ösel began. In this case, too, the island could not be defended by the weak German forces for long, so that on October 8 the units withdrew to the Sworbe peninsula. This was where the heavy fighting began, which would drag on until November 24, 1944. The German heavy cruisers Lützow , Admiral Scheer and Prinz Eugen also intervened from the sea in these heavy fighting . During this time, preparations were made to evacuate the island. But the Führer Headquarters did not agree. After a visit by the Commander-in-Chief of the Courland Army, who later became General Field Marshal Ferdinand Schörner , parts of the 12th Air Force Field Division were relocated to Sworbe on October 23, 1944. These strong combat units were taken back to the mainland by November 12th. Only when the troops were compressed to a small area on the peninsula did the Army Group agree to the evacuation of the peninsula on the night of 23/24. November 1944 too. Schörner opposed a directive from Hitler , who had ordered the islands to be defended to the last man. By the morning of November 24, 1944, the crew from Sworbe had evacuated to Windau in Latvia. The German occupation of Estonia ended with the evacuation of the Sworbe peninsula and Runö island in the Riga Bay.
Commemoration
In Estonia September 17, 1944 is considered the beginning of the great flight ; There are various commemorative events, especially for the 75th anniversary in 2019.
literature
- S. Mitcham: German Defeat in the East 1944-45. Stackpole, 2007, ISBN 978-0-8117-3371-7 .
- A. Vercamer: Naval was in the Baltic.
Web links
- Naval war history
- Map of the battles on the islands of Ösel and Dagö
- Detailed map of the fighting on Ösel
