Battle for Velikiye Luki

both the LVII and XXXX Panzer Corps, and the city was
recaptured on Aug. 26.[7]
The city had great strategic value due to the main
north-south railway line running just west of the city at
Novosokolniki, as well as the citys own rail network to
Vitebsk and bridges over the Lovat River. After its capture and with the German oensive running out of steam
for the winter, the area was fortied. Marshy terrain extended to Lake Peipus from just north of the city defended by the German 16th Field Army, making operations in the region around the city dicult for both sides.
Rather than maintaining a solid front in the area, the
Germans established a series of thinly held outposts to
the north and south of the city.
Soviet counterattacks during the Winter Campaign of
19411942, especially the Battles of Rzhev just to the
south, formed a large salient in the German lines. Velikiye Luki lay just on the western edge of the original
advance, and was just as strategic for the Soviets as the
German. The city dominated the region and would therefore be the natural point for ghting, oering the possibility of eliminating the German bridges on the Lovat, and
to deny the Germans use of the rail line that provided
communications between Army groups North and Centre. Furthermore, as long as the German Army occupied
both rail junctions at Velikiye Luki and Rzhev, the Red
Army could not reliably reinforce or resupply its troops
on the north face of the massive Rzhev Salient.
In view of its strategic signicance, the Germans heavily
fortied the city over the course of 1942. The Soviets
Situation after the initial Soviet advance.
often raided into German-held territory around the town
and the town could only be kept supplied by armoured
The Velikiye Luki oensive operation (Russian: - trains.
) was executed by
the forces of the Red Army's Kalinin Front against the
Wehrmacht's 3rd Panzer Army during the Winter Campaign of 19421943 with the objective of liberating the 2 The oensive
Russian city of Velikiye Luki as part of the northern pincer of the Rzhev-Sychevka Strategic Oensive Operation
The Soviet oensive to retake the city was developed
(Operation Mars).
in mid-November 1942 using troops from the 3rd and
4th Shock armies, and 3rd Air Army. The city itself
was defended by the 83rd Infantry Division commanded
1 Background
by Lieutenant General Theodor Scherer, the lines to the
south held by the 3rd Mountain Division, and the front
As part of Operation Barbarossa, the German LVII to the north held by the 5th Mountain Division. The city
Panzer Corps took Velikiye Luki on 19 July 1941, but itself, however, was provided with extensive prepared dewas forced to retreat the next day due to Soviet counter- fenses and garrisoned by a full regiment of the 83rd Diviattacks breaking the line of communications in multiple sion, Infantry Regiment 277, commanded by Lieutenantplaces.[6] A new attack was launched in late August by Colonel Eduard Freiherr von Sa, who had only assumed
1

3 AFTERMATH

command a matter of days before the oensive. Along

with artillery, engineer and support units (including Artillery Regiment 183 and Pioneer Battalion 183) the garrison totalled around 7,000 troops.

2.1

Encirclement

Rather than attacking the town directly, the Soviet forces

advanced into the dicult terrain to the north and south
of the town. Spearheaded by four rie divisions to the
south and one to the north, the operation commenced
on 24 November. Despite heavy losses, they successfully cut the land links to the city by 27 November, trapping the garrison; by the next day they threatened to cut
o other elements of the corps south of the city when
the front commander released his 2nd Mechanised Corps
into the breach created between the 3rd Mountain and
83rd Infantry Divisions. Army Group Centre's commander asked the OKH for permission to conduct a breakout
operation while the situation was still relatively uid by
pulling the German lines back by around ten miles (16
km); this would have both screened the vital rail link and
left the resulting Soviet salient exposed to counter-attack.
The request was dismissed by Hitler, who, pointing to
an earlier success in a similar situation at Kholm, demanded that the encircled formations stand fast while the
Gruppe Chevallerie from the north and 20th Motorised
Division[8] from the south counter-attacked to open the
encirclement.

2.2

The relief force

LtCol von Sa and the garrison were ordered to hold the

city at all costs, while a relief force was hurriedly assembled. The remainder of the 83rd Infantry and 3rd
Mountain Divisions, encircled south of Velikiye Luki,
fought their way west to meet the relieving troops. Due
to Army Group Centres commitments at Rzhev, the only
resources immediately available to man the lines opposite
Velikiye Luki were those already in the area, which were
organised as Gruppe Whler (291st Infantry Division) under an improvised sta headquartered in a peasant hut.
Later, other divisions were made available, including the
understrength 8th Panzer Division from Gruppe Chevallerie, the 20th Motorized Infantry Division from Army
Group Centre reserve, and the weak 6th Luftwae Field
Division, and the hurriedly rushed to the front 707th and
708th Security, and 205th and 331st Infantry divisions
although there was a corresponding build-up of Soviet
strength.

while conditions in the city steadily deteriorated despite

airdrops of supplies, ammunition and equipment. In the
meantime, Soviet attempts to take their main objective,
the rail lines at Novosokolniki, had been frustrated by the
counter-attacks of the relief force. An attempt by the
Germans to reach Velikiye Luki in late December, ran
into stubborn Soviet defence and halted.

2.3 Final relief attempts

Operation Totila, the next attempt to break through to Velikiye Luki, was launched on 4 January. The two German
spearheads advanced to within ve miles (8 km) of the
city, but stalled due to pressure on their anks. Soviet
attempts to reduce the defence and capture the city continued. On 5 January, a Soviet attack from the north split
Velikiye Luki in two, a small German force along with
several hundred wounded becoming isolated in the fortied "citadel" in the west of the city, while von Sa and
the bulk of the garrison retained a sector centred around
the rail station in the south of the city. It now seemed
unlikely that any breakthrough operation would succeed,
though after repeated representations to the Luftwae, a
battalion of the 7th Flieger-Division paratroopers located
20 miles southeast of the city was nally released to assist
the operations.
On 10 January, a force of 15 armoured vehicles overran a
series of soviet positions and broke through into the town.
However, the force concentrated itself in the citadel and
soon after was bombarded by Soviet artillery. By this
point, von Sa's force in the easterly pocket lacked the
resources for a westward breakout to link up with the relieving force. The German plan called for the paratroop
battalion to advance to the citadel on the night of 14
January and assist a breakout by the troops there and any
walking wounded. The paratroopers failed to reach the
citadel after losing their way in the featureless and snowcovered landscape, but the force in the citadel broke out
on their own under cover of darkness; around 150 men
eventually reached German lines.

3 Aftermath

Radio contact with the eastern side of Velikiye Luki

ceased on 15 January: at 04:40 Sa stated that a breakout appears out of the question because almost 2,000
wounded would fall into Russian hands...help must immediately come from the outside. Along with 3,0004,000
of his men, he was taken into Soviet captivity when his
Throughout December, the garrison which maintained forces surrendered on 16 January.
radio contact with the relief forces held out against re- After the war, the Soviet authorities collected a represenpeated Soviet attempts to reduce their lines, and in par- tative set of men of various ranks from General to private
ticular the rail depot in the citys southern suburb. The who had fought at Velikiye Luki from prisoner of war
Soviet forces, attacking strongly entrenched troops in se- camps and brought them to the city. A military tribunal
vere winter weather, suered extremely high casualties, held a public trial in the city and convicted them of col-

4.1

Soviet

lective responsibility for war crimes generally related to

anti-partisan warfare. Von Sa, von Rappard, the previous commander of Infantry Regiment 277 and six others
were publicly hanged in the main square of Velikiye Luki
in January 1946. All others who were identied as having
been involved in the battle were typically given sentences
of twenty to twenty-ve years. Between 1953 and 1955,
a total of eleven survivors returned to Germany.[9]
The battle is sometimes called The Little Stalingrad of
the North due to its similarities with the larger and
better-known Battle of Stalingrad that raged simultaneously in the southern sector of the front. Judged purely
by the numbers, this battle was a small aair by the usual
standards of the Eastern Front (150,000 total casualties
suered by both sides as opposed to 2,000,000 total casualties at Stalingrad), but had enormous strategic consequences. The liberation of Velikiye Luki meant the Red
Army had, for the rst time since October 1941, a direct
rail supply line to the northern face of the Rzhev Salient
exposing the German troops defending Rzhev to encirclement. Events at Velikiye Luki thus necessitated the
withdrawal from Rzhev salient ending any German military threat to Moscow.[10] However, even after withdrawing from Rzhev, possession of Velikiye Luki meant that
the rail link between Army groups North and Centre was
severed, preventing the German Army from shifting reinforcements between threatened sectors. Furthermore,
the rail lines from Velikiye Luki led directly into the rear
of Vitebsk, a critical logistics hub for Army Group Centre. The eects of this battle meant that Army Group
Centre was exposed to attack from the north, east, and
(after the Battle of Smolensk (1943)) south, exposing the German relief attempts. (Notice that the order of battle given on
whole army group to mass encirclement, which is exactly this 1952 map is not accurate.)
what happened in the massive Operation Bagration the
following year.
249th Estonian Rie Division (Colonel I.
Ya. Lombak)

Orders of battle

While it is somewhat dicult to separate the actions of

various Red Army and Wehrmacht units within the urry
of movements involved in the larger scope of the Soviet
operations, for the most part these below are derived from
Glantz and Isayev.

4.1

Soviet

Kalinin Front (Maksim Alekseyevich Purkayev) engaged in the Second Rzhev-Sychevka Oensive to
the south of Velikiye Luki.
4th Shock Army
3rd Shock Army (General Lieutenant Galitsky)
8th Estonian Rie Corps(General Major Prn)
7th Estonian Rie Division (Colonel Vassil')

5th Guards Rie Corps (General Colonel

Afanasy Beloborodov)
357th Rie Division (Colonel Kronik)
257th Rie Division (Colonel Dyakonov)
2nd Mechanised Corps(General Colonel Korchagin)
47th Motor-rie
Dremov)

brigade

(Colonel

13th independent Guards breakthrough tank

regiment (Sub-colonel Galkin) equipped with
KV-1 tanks
34th independent tank regiment (Sub-colonel
Bogdanov) equipped with T-34 tanks
38th independent tank regiment (Sub-colonel
Zheleznov, after 30.12.42 Sub-colonel
Khubayev) equipped with T-34 tanks
3rd Air Army
Long Range Aviation

REFERENCES

3rd Long-range aviation division (Colonel Almost half of the 83rd Infantry Division was assigned to
Yukhanov)
the Velikiye Luki garrison.
17th Long-range aviation division (General The 3rd Mountain Division was at little more than half
Major of Aviation Loginov)
strength, since its 139th Regiment had been left in Lap 222nd Long-range aviation division (Colonel land when the division withdrew from northern Finland.
The 138th Mountain Regiment was the unknown unit of
Titov)
3rd Mountain shown in Maps 2 and 3.

4.2

German

Army Group Center

Gruppe Chevallerie from (LIX Corps)
Wehrmachts Velikiye Luki garrison
Gruppe Whler
83rd Infantry Division (LieutenantGeneral Scherer)
Kampfgruppe Meyer (South-West
of Velikiye Luki)
Three infantry battalions, two batteries of StuGIII assault guns, two
artillery and one rocket launcher
batteries
Infantry Regiment 277 (LieutenantColonel von Sa) (garrison)
3rd Ski Battalion (attached)
336th Security Battalion (garrison)
Battery of 21 cm Nebelwerfer 42
(rocket launcher) mortars
Operation "Totila" Relief forces
II/11th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht) (3 Pz.II,
2 PzKW III short, 28 Pz.III long, 3 PzKW
IV long and one command tank)
Two battalions/331st Infantry Division

20th Motorized was from Army Group Centers reserve.

5 See also
Eastern Front (World War II)

6 Notes
[1] Christensen, C.B.; Poulsen, N.B.; Smith, P.S.(1998) Under Hagekors og Dannebrog pp. 176185
[2] Oldwitg von Natzmer. Operations of Encircled Forces.
German Experiences in Russia. Department of the
Army, Washington, DC 1952. (Oldwitg von Natzmer).
Washington DC. 1952
[3] . . . 1941
1944 ( ) .: , 1973.
.185
[4] .
19411945 .
/ - . .
. .: , 2005. ISBN
5-8213-0232-3
[5] Glantz (1995), p. 296
[6] David Stahel, Operation Barbarossa and Germanys Defeat in the East, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
UK, 2009, pp. 290-91

8th Panzer Division (14 PzKW 38t, and one

command tank)

[7] Stahel, p. 409

20th Motorized Infantry Division

[8] reinforced by elements of 291st Infantry Division

German 6th Luftwae Field Division

[9] Carell, Paul. Scorched Earth. p. 289.

197th Assault Gun Battalion (Wehrmacht)

Infantry Regiment 358/205th Infantry
Division
3rd Gebirgsjger Division (at Novosokol'niki
to the rear of 83rd Infantry Divisions positions)
291st Infantry Division
1 SS Infantry Brigade (mot)
Frikorps Danmark[1]
Most of Army Group Center was engaged in resisting the
second Soviet Rzhev-Sychevka oensive throughout this
period.

[10] http://www.hulu.com/watch/386276#i0,p10,d0

7 References
Chadwick, Frank A. et al. (1979). White Death: Velikiye Luki, The Stalingrad of the North. Normal, Il:,
game design notes, GDW (Game Designers Workshop) a board wargame that covers the battle with
considerable detail. It includes notes on the battle,
orders of battle for each side, and a 1:100,000 map
derived from Soviet wartime situation maps. Shelby
Stanton had researched primary sources using the
captured German records held by NARA in Wash.
DC.

5
Department of the Army, Historical Study Operations of Encircled Forces German Experiences in
Russia, Pamphlet 20-234, Washington DC, 1952.
This pamphlet was written by German ocers to
relay their experiences ghting the Russians. The
ocers had to rely on memory so there are some
inaccuracies but gives a good overall account of various operations and battles.
Glantz, D.M., Zhukovs greatest defeat: The Red
Armys Epic Disaster in Operation Mars, 1942, University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, 1999
Glantz, David M. & House, Jonathan (1995), When
Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler,
Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas,
ISBN 0-7006-0899-0
Isayev, A.V., When there were no surprises: History
of the Great Patriotic War which we never knew,
Velikiye Luki operation Russian:
, Yauza, Eksmo, 2006 (Russian:
. . .
, . .: , ,
2006)
Webb, William A., Battle of Velikiye Luki: Surrounded in the Snow, PRIMEDIA Enthusiast Publications, Inc.(2000). ". Accessed on 21 April 2005.

8 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

8.1

Text

Battle for Velikiye Luki Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_for_Velikiye_Luki?oldid=663183836 Contributors: Bryan Derksen, Maury Markowitz, Bobby D. Bryant, Topbanana, Dimadick, Oberiko, Wwoods, Ezhiki, Sam Hocevar, Loopy, Pearle, Max rspct,
Woohookitty, Azkar, RxS, Ketiltrout, Rjwilmsi, Ansbachdragoner, Stoph, Kurt Leyman, Kirill Lokshin, Manxruler, Bdmcmahon, SmackBot, Chris the speller, Tswold@msn.com, SuperDeng, OnixWP, Ohconfucius, Marko M, Andrwsc, Ehistory, Neelix, Aldis90, Thijs!bot,
CopperKettle, Rickyyeo2503, Ericoides, Dodo19~enwiki, Buckshot06, The Anomebot2, Mrg3105, MisterBee1966, Esdrasbarnevelt,
TXiKiBoT, Snowbot, HansHermans, Gbawden, Lightmouse, Carpasian, Denisarona, MBK004, EoGuy, Niceguyedc, EnigmaMcmxc, Arjayay, DJ Sturm, A.h. king, Jim Sweeney, Addbot, Pelex, SpBot, LuxNevada, Luckas-bot, PMLawrence, LilHelpa, Xqbot, TechBot,
Anotherclown, Magnus242, StoneProphet, DocYako, RjwilmsiBot, EmausBot, John of Reading, Muta112, Igor Piryazev, Frietjes, Alphasinus, Wreck Smurfy, BattyBot, DA - DP, Yura2404 and Anonymous: 45

8.2

Images

File:Eastern_Front_1942-11_to_1943-03--Velikiye_Luki.png Source:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/
Eastern_Front_1942-11_to_1943-03--Velikiye_Luki.png License: CC-BY-SA-3.0 Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
File:Flag_of_Denmark.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Flag_of_Denmark.svg License: Public domain Contributors: Own work Original artist: User:Madden
File:Flag_of_German_Reich_(19351945).svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Flag_of_German_
Reich_%281935%E2%80%931945%29.svg License: Public domain Contributors: Own work Original artist: Fornax
File:Flag_of_the_Soviet_Union_(1923-1955).svg Source:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Flag_of_the_
Soviet_Union_%281923-1955%29.svg License: CC-BY-SA-3.0 Contributors: ? Original artist: created by rotemliss from Image:Flag of
the Soviet Union.svg.
File:OEF-map-2.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/OEF-map-2.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
File:OEF-map-3.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/OEF-map-3.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
File:Text_document_with_red_question_mark.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/Text_document_
with_red_question_mark.svg License: Public domain Contributors: Created by bdesham with Inkscape; based upon Text-x-generic.svg
from the Tango project. Original artist: Benjamin D. Esham (bdesham)

8.3

Content license

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0