Operation Solstice (German: Unternehmen Sonnenwende), also known as Unternehmen Husarenritt or the "Stargard tank battle", was one of the last German armoured offensive operations on the Eastern Front in World War II.
It was originally planned as a major offensive but was executed as a limited attack. Though it was repulsed by the Red Army, it led to a decision by the Soviet High Command to postpone the planned attack on Berlin for two months.
Read more about Operation Solstice: Planning, The Offensive, Outcome, See Also, Further Reading, Footnotes
Famous quotes containing the words operation and/or solstice:
“Waiting for the race to become official, he began to feel as if he had as much effect on the final outcome of the operation as a single piece of a jumbo jigsaw puzzle has to its predetermined final design. Only the addition of the missing fragments of the puzzle would reveal if the picture was as he guessed it would be.”
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“Oh, what a catastrophe for man when he cut himself off from the rhythm of the year, from his unison with the sun and the earth. Oh, what a catastrophe, what a maiming of love when it was a personal, merely personal feeling, taken away from the rising and the setting of the sun, and cut off from the magic connection of the solstice and the equinox!”
—D.H. (David Herbert)