Company Rösselsprung (1944)

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Operation Rösselsprung
Desant na Drvar.jpg
date May 25 to June 6, 1944
place Balkans : Drvar
output tactical victory of the Axis powers
Parties to the conflict

Flag of Germany (1935–1945) .svg German Empire and allies

Yugoslav People's Liberation Army

Commander

Lothar Rendulic as commander in chief of the 2nd Panzer Army

Josip Broz Tito as the leader of the Yugoslav People's Liberation Army

Troop strength
SS Paratrooper Battalion 500 , XV. Mountain Corps with 373rd (Croatian) Infantry Division , 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division "Prinz Eugen" and a .; Pilot guide Croatia 1st and 6th Proletarian Corps, Tito's escort battalion = 12,000–16,000 men plus auxiliaries
losses

789 dead
929 wounded
57 missing

6,240 dead, wounded and prisoners (according to OKW ) 247 dead, 470 wounded and 85 prisoners (according to Tito)

The company Rösselsprung was a German military enterprise from May 25 to June 6, 1944 against the Yugoslav People's Liberation Army (JVBA). The aim was to capture or kill Josip Broz Tito and thus to weaken the management structures of the JVBA. For this purpose, the SS Parachute Battalion 500 landed in the Bosnian Drvar , where the JVBA's Supreme Headquarters was located. Other German and Croatian units advanced from different directions to Drvar, which they reached on May 26, 1944. The goal of capturing Tito was not achieved, but the command structures of the JVBA were temporarily disrupted by Tito's escape. The operation was the last of seven offensives to combat the Yugoslav partisans and is therefore also known as the Seventh Offensive in the Yugoslav context .

Starting position

After a putsch staged by the British against the axis-friendly government of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia on March 27, 1941, Adolf Hitler ordered the country to be occupied. On April 6, 1941, German , Italian and Hungarian troops attacked the country, whose army surrendered unconditionally on April 17, 1941. This was followed by the destruction of the state of Yugoslavia and the occupation by troops of the Axis powers. In their occupation zones, the occupying powers created some new state structures, such as the NDH state , which led to an exacerbation of latent ethnic tensions. The conflict between the various ethnic groups escalated into a partisan war waged with extreme brutality .

The resistance against the occupation was initially carried out by nationalist Serb Chetniks under Dragoljub Draža Mihailović . After the attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia under Tito began active struggle against the occupying powers. The political contradictions between the two main resistance groups led to a complicated situation in a civil war with changing alliances.

The departure of Italy from the war on September 8, 1943 meant that the JVBA fell into the hands of extensive war material. It then succeeded not only in creating “liberated zones”, especially in Bosnia , but also in gaining the support of the Western Allies who had previously supported the Chetniks. Thus, the JVBA, which had meanwhile grown to 100,000 to 150,000 men, became the main opponent of the German occupation forces, which the German leadership rated as “well managed, equipped with heavy weapons”.

In a number of military companies, the German Commander-in-Chief of the Southeast, Maximilian von Weichs , tried to break up the JVBA, but this proved difficult in view of the tense personnel situation. In order to control the occupied territories, Army Group F had only a few German divisions , the majority of the occupation troops belonged to the Croatian Legion , troops of the NDH state with German support personnel or to divisions of the Waffen-SS recruited from the country .

In 1942, the Waffen SS had begun to use the nationally capable ethnic Germans for service, which eventually led to the formation of the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division “Prinz Eugen” . The SS division was mainly used in the fight against partisans. This was followed by the formation of two further divisions, the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS "Handschar" (Croatian No. 1) (1943) and the 23rd Waffen Mountain Division of the SS "Kama" (1944) consisted mostly of Bosnian Muslims.

planning

Already in October 1943 there were considerations about the use of the division " Brandenburg " against the top management of the JVBA, especially Tito himself. However, the planning was made more difficult by the conquest of Jajce , where the headquarters of the JVBA had been.

Tito (right) with members of the cabinet and the staff in Drvar, a few days before the Rösselsprung operation.

It was not until March 1944 that the German leadership succeeded in locating the new location of the Supreme Staff in Drvar by radio direction finding . This presented the opportunity to inflict a serious defeat on the JVBA and to crush their leadership.

View of Drvar today

On May 6, 1944, the Army High Command of the 2nd Panzer Army (Colonel General Lothar Rendulic ) was instructed by the Commander-in-Chief Southeast (OB Southeast) to prepare to encircle and destroy the JVBA troops concentrated around Drvar. In addition to the XV. Gebirgs-Korps ( General of Infantry Ernst von Leyser ) and the V. SS-Gebirgs-Korps became the Panzer-Division 202, the 4th Regiment " Brandenburg " and the Grenadier-Regiment 92 (motorized) from the 2nd Panzer Army Reserve of the OB Southeast subordinated. In addition, on May 7th, the reconnaissance department of the 1st Mountain Division came from the reserve of the OKW and, after a separate request from the Wehrmacht command staff to the Reichsführer SS, finally, on May 11th, the SS Parachute Battalion 500 . The air forces involved were subordinate to the pilot in Croatia .

On May 13th, the governing body of the company was communicated to the OB Südost, according to which the SS parachute battalion should be deployed via Drvar and, together with units of the “Brandenburg” division , disguise the enemy command center in full camouflage. At the same time it was planned to use five motorized combat groups in regimental strength against Drvar and to relieve their own troops. This plan was essentially approved by Hitler on May 21. May 25th was determined to be the X day, the start of the operation.

preparation

Objective of the operation "Citadel": Tito's cave hiding place today

In the days before the start of the operation, the air force flew more aerial reconnaissance over the area of ​​operation in Drvar, which did not go unnoticed. The SS paratrooper battalion, reinforced by two companies from the 1st Paratrooper Regiment of the 1st Paratrooper Division , had been on standby in Kraljevo, strictly shielded , since May 21 . All identifying marks had been removed and the soldiers wore regular infantry uniforms. Each of the 875 men received a photo of Tito to facilitate identification.

The Air Force set for the transport of the parachute 40 Ju 52 of Group II. Squadron of the transport 4 and 34 glider the towing group 1 and II. And III. Air landing squadron 1 group available. The DFS 230 B-1 cargo gliders were towed by 17 Hs-126s , 12 Ju-87s and five Avia B.534s . One group each from Jagdgeschwaders 51 (II./JG51) and battle squadrons 2 (I./SG 2) were available for ground combat support . Since not enough transport machines or gliders were available to transport the reinforced battalion at the same time, three groups were formed. The first group (314 men) was supposed to jump with the parachute, while the second group (340 men) landed in gliders. The remaining 220 men were supposed to land with the parachute in a second wave.

The glider group was divided into six combat groups. The strongest group, "Panthers" (110 men), was supposed to occupy the "Citadel" object, where Tito and his staff were supposed to be. It was an expanded cave in the ridge surrounding the city. The combat groups “Greifer” (40 men), “Stürmer” (50 men), “Brecher” (50 men) and “Beißer” (20 men) were to take over the Allied military missions, the combat group “Daredevil” (70 men) the radio station .

The jump group formed three combat groups, “Blue” (100 men), “Green” (95 men) and “Red” (85 men), which were supposed to conquer the city and prevent attempts to break out. Then there was the battalion staff with 34 men. The 2nd wave (220 men) should follow up as soon as possible. On the eve of day X, the combat groups of the two mountain corps moved to their starting positions at Knin , Srb and Bihać in the greatest secrecy .

Course of operation

On the morning of May 25, 1944, the paratroopers of the SS-Fallschirmjäger-Battalion 500 landed with parachutes or gliders at about 7:00 a.m. in Drvar. Several cargo gliders had an accident on landing, so that the battalion suffered considerable losses right from the start of the company. After heavy fighting with the partisan units in the city, the paratroopers, supported by fighter planes, managed to gain control of Drvar by around noon. During the fighting in the city no consideration was given to the civilian population.

At the same time, the five combat groups of the XV. Mountain Corps moving towards Drvar from various directions.

German soldiers during the operation in front of Tito's cave hiding place.

Since the exact location of Tito's headquarters was unknown to the German commandos , it first had to be precisely located, which was only possible in the late morning. The attack on the "Citadel" remained in the fire of the escort battalion, which was supported by officer students, whereupon the paratroopers withdrew for the time being.

Just a few hours after the paratroopers landed, the 3rd Brigade of the 6th Lika Division, which was quickly brought up, began counter-attacks. Despite the reinforcement by the second wave, which landed shortly before noon, the SS paratrooper battalion found itself in the toughest defensive battles against outnumbered partisan forces from 4:00 p.m. and was pushed back to the city cemetery, where a defensive position, was by evening was obtained. Battalion commander Kurt Rybka was seriously wounded and flown out. After Rybka was wounded, Captain Bentrup took command of the 1st Parachute Regiment.

On the night of May 26th, the paratrooper positions at the Drvar cemetery were repeatedly attacked by the four battalions of the 3rd Brigade, which were later reinforced by the 9th Dalmatian Division. At the height of the fighting, a group of partisans managed to break through the German defensive ring; the broken-in partisans were killed in a counterattack by the paratroopers. At daybreak, the partisans were forced to withdraw because of the danger of German air strikes again. At 7:00 a.m., twelve Ju-52s dropped urgently needed supplies, mainly ammunition.

The heads of the German reconnaissance division 373 arrived in Drvar around 10 a.m., and around noon the remnants of the combat group of the 373rd (Croatian) infantry division as well as the 92nd motorized grenadier regiment and the combat group arrived Willam the place. The fighting with units of the Yugoslav People's Liberation Army in western Bosnia lasted until June 6, 1944, when the German high command declared the operation over.

Tito's escape

Although the German preparations had not gone unnoticed by the Allies, the aim of the operation was not known there. A few days before the attack on Drvar, the military missions of Great Britain and the USA had moved their quarters away from Drvar because of the increased German air reconnaissance. Tito, his staff and his bodyguard left the cave in which the headquarters were located at around 11:15 a.m. and retired to Potoci (15 km away), where they were joined by the Allied military missions. The group hid in the area until they were flown from the Kupreško polje airfield to Bari on June 3 , from where Tito traveled to his new headquarters on the island of Vis .

Result

The SS Paratrooper Battalion 500 managed to surprise the enemy, take Drvar and destroy the headquarters of the Yugoslav People's Liberation Army there. However, the company's real goal of capturing or killing Tito was not achieved. The reason for this is u. a. stated that Tito's exact whereabouts were not known and had to be found out on site, which meant that valuable time was lost. It is also criticized that the plateau above Tito's cave hideout was not occupied from the outset, which could have thwarted Tito's escape. The extent to which this argument is valid in view of the ignorance about the hiding place is controversial in the literature. The question of deploying a second paratrooper battalion in this context is likely to be of a purely hypothetical nature, since the transport of one battalion already fully utilized the available air transport capacities and made landing in two waves necessary.

The XV. Mountain Corps lost 1,145 men (213 dead, 881 wounded and 51 missing) in the fighting in the Sanski Most and Glamoč areas, and in return reported 1,916 "counted" deaths and 419 captured rifles. The losses of the SS-Fallschirmjäger Battalion 500 amounted to 576 dead and 48 wounded. H. 624 of 874 soldiers deployed (71 percent). According to the OKW, the losses of the partisans including prisoners amounted to 6,240 men.

Brian Jeffrey Stree describes the operation as a "brilliantly executed failure".

Remarks

  1. ^ Romedio Graf von Thun-Hohenstein: Rösselsprung . In: Austrian Military Journal , No. 1, 2007
  2. ^ Percy E. Schramm: War diary of the OKW . Volume II / 2, p. 1198.
  3. ^ War diary of the OKW, Volume IV, pp. 661–665.
  4. BA / MA, RH24-15 / 59 XV. Geb.AK to Pz.AOK 2 (June 7, 1944) Quoted in Klaus Schmider : Partisan War in Yugoslavia 1941–1944 . Mittler, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-8132-0794-3 , p. 385.
  5. Quoted from Charles D. Melson: “Red Sun: A German Airborne Raid, May 1944.” In: Journal of Slavic Military Studies , Vol. 13, No. 4 (December 2000), pp. 101-126. P. 116 footnote 66.
  6. ^ " The attack on Drvar had been a brilliantly executed failure ... " Brian Jeffrey Stree: The Parachute Ward: A Canadian Surgeon's Wartime Adventures in Yugoslavia. Lester & Orpen Dennys, 1987, ISBN 0-88619-103-3 , p. 118.

literature