Defense of Schwedt Bridgehead - Battle at The Bridgehead

Battle At The Bridgehead

The first encounter battles were between the screening German infantry, and the 2nd Guards Tank Army on 28 January, which "was pouring now like a torrent north of Notec River towards Küstrin", when elements of the 9th Guards Tank Corps probed the positions of Kampfgruppe Voigt (Generalmajor Adolf Voigt) east of Pyritz and 18 km east of Schwedt. As the 2nd Guards Tank Army turned towards Küstrin, the encounters between patrols from the German 56th Jäger Regiment (CI Army Corps) and the Red Army's 89th Rifle Corps on February 1 intensified. As of February 5 the number of Red and Polish Armies' forces had grown so much that German probes behind enemy lines were no longer possible. Once the 2nd Belorussian Front troops had captured the railway in Bad Schönfliess, they received a steady flow of reinforcements by train. However, unbeknown to Skorzeny, the Red Army reinforcements were those belonging to the 61st Army and the 1st Polish Army of the 1st Belorussian Front's northern flank. They had orders to bypass Schwedt and attack in the direction of Eberswalde. They also masked the movement of the 2nd Belorussian Front's 49th Army which would attack north of Schwedt. Extensive deception operations, and the rapid tempo of advance meant that the German command was largely unaware of the switch in forces, or the true direction of the impending assaults. For much of the time they were under the impression they were facing a major armored thrust while the 2nd Guards Tank Army was replaced in line by the 5th Shock Army, including the preparation of 136 T-34 mock-ups. These deceptive measures were hampered by the previous deception conducted by Zhukov in the final stage of the Vistula-Oder Strategic Offensive Operation.

After fighting to the north of their position, the 9th Army, which had replaced the 3rd Panzer Army, had to fall back from its forward defenses and on February 7 the evacuation of all villages outside the bridgehead began. Two Red Army battalions supported by T-34 tanks conducted a daily reconnaissance in force as this evacuation took place.

On March 3 9th German Army forces abandoned the Schwedt bridgehead, having fruitlessly awaited the orders for a counter-offensive and not having witnessed the expected Soviet attack on their positions for over a month, had assumed new positions on the western banks of the Oder.