Battle for Tikhvin

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The battle for Tikhvin was a military conflict in the north of the German-Soviet front during the Second World War and lasted from October 16 to December 30, 1941.

prehistory

After the encirclement of Leningrad ( Leningrad Blockade ), the German Army Group North advanced further east.

The fighting began on October 16, 1941 with an offensive by German troops across the Volkhov with the aim of conquering the city of Tikhvin . After the XXXIX. Army Corps (mot.) Of the Wehrmacht had taken the city on November 8th, it could not advance because of the onset of winter and lack of supplies.

The real battle

Soviet units counterattacked as part of the Tikhvin attack operation ( Russian Тихвинская наступательная операция ). The 4th, 52nd and 54th Armies had 186,000 men, 374 guns and mortars and 154 tanks (26 of them heavy and medium).

The 18th Army of Army Group North under Colonel General Georg von Küchler had 14 divisions between Lake Ladoga and Lake Ilmen with 140,000 men, 1,000 guns and mortars and 200 tanks (they had no more than 60% of their nominal strength). The German troops were here in a promontory.

On November 10, the Soviet Novgorod Army Group attacked north of Novgorod , on November 12 the 52nd Army north and south of Malaya Vishera , on November 19 the 4th Army northeast of Tikhvin and on December 2 the 54th Army west from the city of Volkhov . The 52nd Army did not break through until November 18; on November 20, they recaptured the city of Malaya Wischera. On December 7th the 4th Army broke through the German lines west of Tikhvin and reached Sitomlya; here it threatened to cut off the armed forces' connections to the rear. The German troops began to withdraw behind the Volkhov River . On December 9th, Soviet troops retook Tikhvin and smashed the German garrison in Bolshaya Wischera on December 16. At the same time, the Wehrmacht began to withdraw because their troops were threatened with enclosure by Soviet units. On December 28, the 52nd Army threw German troops back behind the Mga - Kirishi railway line . At the end of December, the Soviet Volkhov Front under Kirill Afanassjewitsch Merezkow , which had been formed on December 17 from the 4th and 52nd Armies, reached the Volkhov River and captured a few bridgeheads on the left bank.

The Red Army advanced around 100 to 120 km, inflicting heavy losses on ten German divisions and forcing the Wehrmacht to move an additional five divisions to this part of the front. In total, she lost around 49,000 men (18,000 of them dead and missing).

The German troops were pushed back to their starting position on the Volkhov by December 30, 1941.

consequences

The German advance in northern Russia was over, but the Leningrad blockade was maintained. The Soviets tried again in early January 1942 in the Battle of the Volkhov - unsuccessfully - to break through this siege.

literature

  • John Erickson: The Road to Stalingrad. Cassell Publ., London 2003, ISBN 978-0-304-36541-8 .
  • David M. Glantz : The Battle for Leningrad 1941-1944. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence / Kansas 2002, ISBN 0-7006-1208-4 .
  • Joachim Hoffmann: The conduct of the war from the perspective of the Soviet Union. in: Horst Boog, Jürgen Förster, Joachim Hoffmann , Ernst Klink, Rolf-Dieter Müller , Gerd R. Ueberschär : The attack on the Soviet Union (= Military History Research Office [ed.]: The German Reich and the Second World War . Volume 4 ). 2nd Edition. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-421-06098-3 , pp. 713–809 ( limited preview in Google Book search). .
  • Ernst Klink : The operation management. in: Horst Boog, Jürgen Förster, Joachim Hoffmann , Ernst Klink, Rolf-Dieter Müller , Gerd R. Ueberschär : The attack on the Soviet Union (= Military History Research Office [ed.]: The German Reich and the Second World War . Volume 4 ). 2nd Edition. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-421-06098-3 , pp. 451–712 ( limited preview in Google Book search). .
  • Григорий Ф. Кривошеев: Россия и СССР в войнах ХХ века. Олма-Пресс, Москва 2001. (German: GF Kriwoschejew: Russia and the USSR in the wars of the 20th century ) ( online version ).
  • KA Merezkow: In the service of the people. Military publishing house of the GDR, Berlin (East) 1972.
  • PN Pospelow (ed.): History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union . Vol. 2, Deutscher Militärverlag, Berlin (East) 1963.
  • Alexander Stahlberg: The damned duty - memories 1932 to 1945. S. 194–202, Ullstein, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-548-33129-7 . The author, then an adjutant in the division leadership, describes the operation from a personal point of view.