Eastern Front
During the invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa), the Polizei Division was initially part of the reserve with Army Group North. In August 1941, the division saw action near Luga. It was during heavy fighting for the Luga bridgehead (held by seven Soviet divisions), that the Polizei Division lost over 2,000 soldiers including the commander, Arthur Mülverstadt, in bloody frontal assaults. The fighting across swamp and forest caused a number of problems and after a series of failed attacks the Polizei Division, along with the help of army formations, managed to fight into the northern part of Luga, encircling and destroying the Soviet defenders in the process.
Read more about this topic: 4th SS Polizei Division
Famous quotes containing the words eastern and/or front:
“And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light;
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!
But westward, look, the land is bright!”
—Arthur Hugh Clough (1819–1861)
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.... I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)