Panther position

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Map of the Eastern Front 1943; the jagged line shows the course of the panther position and the subsequent Wotan position

The panther position was a line of defense in the war against the Soviet Union , which was also known as the "Eastern Wall", which was built in 1943 by direct orders from Adolf Hitler . It ran along the entire eastern front and was intended to serve as a rear catchment position for the German army groups . However, it could not be expanded in the short period of time and therefore consisted almost exclusively of field fortifications . By the summer of 1944, the Red Army had penetrated the Panther position in its entire length.

background

As early as the spring of 1943, the Army General Staff had requested the construction of positions far back. However, Hitler opposed this and only approved the construction of front-facing detention positions a few kilometers behind the front line. Hitler argued that the very existence of such a developed line of defense would induce soldiers to retreat from the actual front line. Furthermore, for ideological reasons, Hitler was against any abandonment of terrain. The war against the Soviet Union was a war of conquest. Retreats, the establishment of rear defensive positions and all other restrictions on purely defensive warfare in the East were simply not part of the conception determined by Hitler.

After the battle in the Kursk Arch and the subsequent Soviet counter-offensives (→ Orjoler Operation / Belgorod-Charkov Operation ) in July and August 1943, it was not possible to build a defensive line that could be defended with the limited available forces postpone more. On August 12, 1943, Hitler issued “ Führerbefehl Nr.10 ” for the “immediate expansion of the east wall” .

Structure and reactions

The line on which the panther position was to run began on the Baltic Sea and led initially along the Narva and along the west bank of Lake Peipus . Then it followed the course of the Velikaya and led via Vitebsk to the Dnepr . On this stream it stretched to the mouth of the Black Sea . While the construction funds to expand this position were lacking, Hitler was convinced that the river obstacles (especially the steep banks of the Dnepr) alone would be sufficient to give it sufficient strength.

Three days after the order was issued, on August 15, 1943, the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Karl Dönitz, raised concerns about moving to this rearward position. The Luftwaffe leadership also criticized it. On August 21, the Wehrmacht headquarters summarized their concerns in a lecture note: The air force could no longer reach destinations such as Grozny, Saratov and Gorky, while the Soviet planes could fly to Upper Silesia and Berlin . The supply of the Crimea , which would then be cut off, could not be ensured by the Navy. In general, the abandonment of land on the Black Sea would have negative effects on the allies Romania and Bulgaria as well as on the attitude of Turkey . The evacuation of the Donets Basin would mean the loss of resources such as raw materials and food. On the northern sector, withdrawing the front would have a negative impact on the attitude of Finland and Sweden . In addition, there would be restrictions on submarine training, the exploitation of the Estonian oil shale area and troop transport on the Baltic Sea. This affected the following events in so far as Hitler was reluctant to give permission to retreat to the panther position .

Nevertheless, the construction of the position began on September 8, 1943. For this purpose, more than 50,000 workers, mainly from the civilian population, were drawn together in the area of Army Group North alone , who built around 6,000 field fortifications (800 of them concrete bunkers ), laid 180 km of barbed wire and more than 30 km of anti- tank trenches were dug. In November and December 1943, 100 freight wagons with building materials arrived every day. When the Army Group began planning the retreat to this line in September 1943, it also took into account that around 900,000 people lived in the area, which then had to be abandoned, who could then be recruited by the Red Army. The deportation of the male population capable of military service to Lithuania and Latvia soon began . About 250,000 men were affected by this coercive measure.

Operations around the panther position

On August 19, Colonel-General Alfred Jodl (1890–1946), as chief of the Wehrmacht command staff, had determined that the panther position in the area of ​​the Central and South Army Groups had already been overtaken by the course of operations. This was confirmed in the following weeks. In the area of ​​Army Group South, the German units were thrown back on the Dnepr and thus on the Panther position in the course of the Soviet Donets Basin operation by September 29, 1943 . Only just north of the Sea of Azov could the Red Army be stopped briefly in advance at the so-called Wotan position of the 6th Army . The fighting over the Dnieper Line itself lasted until the end of the year, with the Soviet troops building large bridgeheads on the west bank as early as November 1943.

In the area of ​​Army Group Center, the Wehrmacht units withdrew to the panther position by October 2, 1943 . Here she successfully defended herself against Soviet attacks for a long time. In June 1944, however, the Red Army broke through the positions in this area and in the following operations destroyed almost the entire Army Group (→ Operation Bagration ). Before that, however, in November 1943, north of Vitebsk , at the interface with Army Group North, she had successfully broken into the panther position .

Army Group North was initially left in its positions south of Leningrad . Due to a major Soviet offensive in January 1944 (→ Leningrad-Novgorod Operation ), General Field Marshal Georg von Küchler (1881–1968) ordered the unauthorized disengagement into the panther position (for which he was released). This was, favored by the longer preparation time, much better developed than in the areas of the other army groups. So the Soviet offensive could be stopped on March 1, 1944 along this line. It was only in the course of the collapse of Army Group Center in the summer of 1944 that Army Group North was also forced to withdraw further from the Panther position .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bernd Wegener: Die Aporie des Krieges , p. 269 f.
  2. ↑ Bernd Wegener: Die Aporie des Krieges , p. 271 f.
  3. ↑ Entry on August 12, in: Kriegstagebuch des OKW , Vol. 3, Augsburg 2002, p. 933.
  4. ↑ a b Entry for August 21, in: War diary of the OKW , Vol. 3, Augsburg 2002, p. 982 f.
  5. ^ David M. Glantz: Battle for Leningrad 1941-1944 , Lawrence 2002, p. 321 f.
  6. ↑ David M. Glantz: Battle for Leningrad 1941-1944 , Lawrence 2002, p. 322.

literature