Seventh Enemy Offensive
Operation Rösselsprung (Knight's move) was a combined airborne and ground assault by the German XV Mountain Corps and their allies on the Supreme Headquarters of the Yugoslav Partisans located at the town of Drvar in western Independent State of Croatia (of which modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina was a part) during World War II. The operation was launched on 25 May 1944, and was aimed at capturing or killing Marshal Josip Broz Tito and destroying the headquarters, support facilities and co-located Allied military missions. It is associated with the Seventh Enemy Offensive (Serbo-Croatian: Sedma neprijateljska ofenziva) in Yugoslav history. The airborne assault itself is also known as the Raid on Drvar (Desant na Drvar).
Operation Rösselsprung was a coup de main operation involving direct action by a parachute and glider-borne assault force based on 500th SS Parachute Battalion and their link-up with ground forces converging on Drvar. The airborne assault was preceded by heavy bombing of the town by the Luftwaffe. The ground forces included Home Guard forces of the Independent State of Croatia.
The operation was a failure, as Tito, his principal headquarters staff and the allied military personnel escaped, despite their presence in Drvar at the time of the airborne assault. The operation failed due to a number of factors, including Partisan resistance in the town itself and along the approaches to Drvar. The failure of the various German intelligence agencies to share the limited intelligence available on Tito's exact location also contributed to the unsuccessful outcome for the Germans, and this failure to share intelligence was compounded by a lack of contingency planning by the commander of the German airborne force.
Read more about Seventh Enemy Offensive: Background, Partisan Dispositions Around Drvar, German Intelligence, Partisan Intelligence, Planning, Operation, Aftermath, In Film, See Also
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