Vom 18. bis 26. [78] After German troops were observed in the area of Potoci, Tito and his companions were escorted towards Kupres. Rösselsprung was a plan by the German Kriegsmarine to intercept an arctic convoy in mid-1942. ς; in inglese: Battle of Crete) fu l'invasione da parte della Wehrmacht dell'isola greca di Creta, durante la seconda guerra mondiale.La cosiddetta "Operazione Mercurio" (in tedesco: Unternehmen Merkur) iniziò il 20 maggio 1941 ed ebbe termine il 1º giugno, quando fu completata … [33] After landing, the first wave of the 500th SS Parachute Battalion quickly gained control of Drvar. The Partisans also managed to recapture the deserter Skorzeny had interrogated. [86], On 26 May, due to the rapidly changing situation and communications difficulties, a degree of confusion emerged on both sides. Das Unternehmen Rösselsprung war eine deutsche Militärunternehmung vom 25. [30], In outline, the XV Mountain Corps plan was for a heavy aerial bombardment of Partisan positions in and around Drvar by Luftwaffe aircraft, followed by a parachute and glider assault by the 500th SS Parachute Battalion who had the task of capturing or killing Tito and destroying his headquarters. He realised that the gliders and transport aircraft would be insufficient for the whole of the 500th SS Parachute Battalion to be delivered to Drvar in one lift, so he came up with a plan involving two waves. The 39th Krajina Division then ordered the 13th Krajina Brigade to block the road from Čađavica to Ključ to prevent the loss of Ključ, but only one battalion of the brigade managed to reach that position by dawn on 26 May. The British mission was headed by Brigadier Fitzroy Maclean, who was in London at the time of the raid, and included Major Randolph Churchill, son of Winston Churchill. [24] Initially, Tito had been in favour of continuing the attack on the SS paratroopers, but after reassessing the situation, he cancelled further attacks. During the withdrawal, at least one group of troops was cut off and killed. [90], Tito, his staff and his escort continued toward Kupres, travelling on foot and horseback, as well as on the wagons of a narrow-gauge logging railway. The attack was scheduled to begin on the morning of 28 May. Tirpitz in the altafjord. The next day, the Arado Ar 196 seaplane on board Admiral Scheer flew to Kravkova Island in the Mona Islands and spotted three groups of Soviet ships, including icebreakers Lenin and Krasin. Leutnant[b] Kirchner of that unit had been responsible for locating Tito before the re-capture of Jajce, and he established a patrol base near Bosansko Grahovo. [34], The plan for the ground forces of von Leyser's XV Mountain Corps was for nine separate but coordinated thrusts toward the Drvar–Bosanski Petrovac area from all directions. [21], The Partisans had their own highly effective intelligence network. [53] During Operation Rösselsprung, the Germans rendered these tactics ineffective by combining strong and fast motorised columns with adequate pioneer support. [4], During the operation, U-209 (Lt. Captain Brodda) sank, on 17 August, a transport convoy of the Soviet Secret Service (NKVD) composed of cargo ships Nord and Komsomolets and light vessels Sh-III and P-IV west of the Yugorsky Strait. Operation Doppelschlag (Unternehmen/Operation Double Blow) was a plan for a sortie in 1942 during the Second World War into the Arctic Ocean by the Kriegsmarine.The operation followed Unternehmen/Operation Rösselsprung, against Convoy PQ 17 in July 1942 to attack convoy PQ 18 the next Arctic convoy … [98] The operation was a failure,[94] 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 British mission signals officer had brought the only surviving radio. On 16 August 1942, Admiral Scheer—under Kommodore Wilhelm Meendsen-Bohlken—left Narvik and entered the Barents Sea. [32], The 2nd Panzer Army was monitoring the operation closely. In late November, he held a National Congress at Jajce in a liberated area of the NDH, during which he was designated marshal of Yugoslavia and prime minister. This was observed by Street, the acting commander of the British military mission, who assumed it was spotting for a bombing raid and advised both Tito and the Americans. The occupants of the glider that landed in Bastasi were immediately killed by members of the Tito Escort Battalion guarding the cave, and the occupants of the gliders at Vrtoče had to fight their way toward Drvar. They split into two groups, a smaller group which crossed the Unac and advanced west along the railway line on the ridge leading toward Tito's cave, and a larger group which collected arms and ammunition from several stray canisters of German equipment dropped by parachute. Fighting continued throughout the afternoon with both sides taking heavy casualties. Otto Rolf Skorzeny (Viena, 12 de junio de 1908 - Madrid, 7 de julio de 1975), [1] ingeniero y coronel austríaco de las Waffen-SS, que estuvo al mando de la unidad Friedentahler, fue especialista en operaciones especiales durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial.. Experto en acciones de espionaje y sabotaje, fue apodado por los estadounidenses como «Caracortada» debido a … Auf die Haube des Vormars-Basisgeräts kam eine veränderte Funkmesseinrichtung. About 06:35, five squadrons of Luftwaffe bombers, including Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers, began bombing targets within Drvar and Bosanski Petrovac. [1], By 19 August, the German fleet rounded Cape Zhelaniya and entered the Kara Sea which was fairly free from ice during the short summer. [1][3], On 8 September, U-251 surfaced close to Uyedineniya Island and destroyed a Soviet weather station with gunfire. The 92nd Motorised Grenadier Regiment, advancing from Vrtoče, took Bosanski Petrovac without a fight about 08:00. This column launched its assault from the Jajce area, and had the task of reaching Mliništa (20 km south of Ključ). Januar 1942. Greifer Group and Brecher Group were also unsuccessful as the British and American groups had moved following the aerial reconnaissance on 23 May. By 17:20, II Battalion of the 13th SS Mountain Regiment had taken Šipovo, but any further advance was halted by the defences of the 1st Proletarian Brigade. L'invasione della Jugoslavia (chiamata anche guerra d'aprile soprattutto dalla storiografia jugoslava e identificata con il nome in codice Operazione 25 dall'Asse), fu l'attacco sferrato dalle potenze dell'Asse contro il Regno di Jugoslavia durante la seconda guerra mondiale. Kampfgruppe Panzergrenadier Sturmbattalion entered Ključ at 14:15. [55], Throughout 25 May, the ground forces of XV Mountain Corps were not able to advance as quickly as planned. During this trek, one of the members of the Soviet mission was wounded by shellfire. Some gliders landed significantly off course, including one that landed in front of the Bastasi cave 7 km to the west of Drvar, and several that landed in a locality named Vrtoče near Drvar (not to be confused with Vrtoče between Bihać and Petrovac, which was on the axis of advance of the 92nd Motorised Regiment). The ground forces were also subjected to Allied air attacks by Air Vice-Marshal William Elliot's Balkan Air Force throughout the day, called in by the British mission using their surviving radio. The target of this operation was Josif Broz Tito’s communist Partisans. [1][5], Operation Wunderland was only moderately successful. The groupings and tasks were:[36], The offensive began at 05:00 on 25 May 1944 with the advance of ground forces from their assembly areas surrounding their assigned operational areas. [1], On 24 August, U-601 sank the Soviet steamer Kuybyshev (2,332 BRT). A Bismarck-osztály egy két csatahajóból álló német hajóosztály volt a második világháború idején. Fighting continued late into 3 June 1944 and resulted in the reinforcement of the island by a further 1,900 German troops. Zu diesem Zweck landete … [81][82] The 105th SS Reconnaissance Battalion arrived at Bosansko Grahovo at 10:30, where it was joined by the 1st Regiment of the Brandenburg Division at 16:00. [6][7] At the time of Operation Rösselsprung (German: Unternehmen Rösselsprung), the British mission was led by its second-in-command, Lieutenant Colonel Vivian Street. [22], On 23 May 1944, a single German Fieseler Fi 156 reconnaissance aircraft flew several parallel runs up and down the Una valley over Drvar at around 600 metres (2,000 ft);[23] activity consistent with conducting aerial photography. Wegen einer möglichen Bedrohung durch schwere deutsche Kriegsschiffe, die im Rahmen des Unternehmens Rösselsprung ausgelaufen waren, wurde das Geleit aufgelöst und erlitt in der Folge … By the end of the day, the western column had reached Vrtoče, halfway between Bihać and Bosanski Petrovac. Mai bis zum 6. Below the cave ran the Unac River, creating an obstacle to movement between the town and the cave, and a rail line ran along the ridgeline above the cave. They were also running low on water. [73][74] The 105th SS Reconnaissance Battalion column overcame the resistance of local Partisan units and the 1st and 4th Battalions of the 13th Dalmatian Brigade, and by the end of the day had reached Crni Lug, some 20 km from Bosansko Grahovo. Operation Rösselsprung (German: Unternehmen Rösselsprung, Knight's move) was a combined airborne and ground assault by the German XV Mountain Corps and collaborationist forces on the Supreme Headquarters of the Yugoslav Partisans located in the Bosnian town of Drvar in the Independent State of Croatia during World War II. Its powerful guns caused random destruction ashore at Dikson and badly damaged the ships Semyon Dezhnev and Revolutsioner anchored in the harbour. [100] Only 200 soldiers of the battalion were fit to fight on the morning of 26 May. [84][85] After the defeat it had suffered the previous day, the 369th Reconnaissance Battalion column did not resume its advance towards Glamoč on the 26th. They had been aware of the presence of the 500th SS Parachute Battalion in Yugoslavia for some time, and of the general threat of an airborne assault for over six months. One battalion attacked the German position at the cemetery while the other two swung around to strike the Germans from the west. The 2nd Lika Proletarian Brigade requested assistance from the 1st Lika Proletarian Shock Brigade, but divisional headquarters ordered it to send reinforcements to Drvar instead. The Benesch Special Unit was part of the Brandenburg Division, and was staffed by ethnic Germans who spoke local languages. Seven Douglas C-47 Skytrain aircraft, one with a Soviet crew and the remainder with US crew, carried Tito and his party, the Allied missions and 118 wounded Partisans to Bari in Italy. The glider-borne group tasks were:[34], The second wave of 220 troops based on the training company of the 500th SS Parachute Battalion were to insert by parachute at midday. Since it was unable to find any Soviet ships, Admiral Scheer headed southeast towards Dikson Island in order to attack its military installations. [26], Through Ultra intercepts of German signal traffic, the British had become aware that the Germans were planning an operation codenamed "Rösselsprung" but the information available did not include where the operation would occur or what its objectives might be. On 28 May, he sent a message to Korneev detailing his suspicions. The ground forces included Home Guard forces of the Independent State of Croatia along with collaborationist Chetniks. [15], The second intelligence organisation was FAT (Front Reconnaissance Troop) 216 of Section I of the Abwehr. [91] After three days of fighting, the combined forces returned to Vis. Operation Rösselsprung was a coup de main operation, involving direct action by a combined parachute and glider-borne assault by the 500th SS Parachute Battalion and a planned subsequent link-up with ground forces of the XV Mountain Corps converging on Drvar. Juni 1944 gegen die kommunistischen Partisanenverbände Titos in Jugoslawien. Tito, his principal headquarters staff and the Allied military personnel escaped, despite their presence in Drvar at the time of the airborne assault. [6], Wunderland explained: Comprehensive historical account, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Operation_Wunderland&oldid=960061056, Naval battles of World War II involving Germany, Naval battles of World War II involving the Soviet Union, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from October 2018, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 31 May 2020, at 22:58. Fog and ice floes prevented the German warships from approaching. [77], Escorted by elements of the 3rd Krajina Brigade, Tito made his way to Potoci, where he was met by a battalion of the 1st Proletarian Brigade. Despite having only two battalions in the area (the third was facing Kampfgruppe Panzergrenadier Sturmbattalion at Čađavica), the 13th Proletarian Brigade managed to hold off this thrust. Code-named "Operation Flounced",[57] the assault was mounted from the British-held island of Vis further out in the Adriatic Sea on the night of 1/2 June. Critically, the intelligence he was given regarding the suspected location of Tito's headquarters (codenamed "Citadel") was that it was in or near a cemetery on high ground southwest of the centre of Drvar, nearly 2 km (1.2 mi) from Tito's actual headquarters cave. [52] The Partisans defended the territory they controlled with significant demolition and mining of roads. Operation Doppelschlag was a plan for a sortie in 1942 during the Second World War into the Arctic Ocean by the Kriegsmarine. The NDH immediately implemented genocidal policies against the Serb, Jewish and Romani population of the puppet state. The western column advanced southeast from Bihać, and encountered resistance from the 6th Krajina Brigade of the 4th Krajina Division. Drvar reverted to Partisan control within a few weeks of the operation. [25], Despite the intelligence received and observations made by the British, the Partisans appear to have been quite complacent about the threat; Tito's chief of staff, Arso Jovanović, swore that "a German attack was impossible". Kumm also claimed that six Allied aircraft were shot down during the operation. [24], Throughout their escape, the British mission were able to maintain contact with their headquarters via radio and continued to call in support from the Balkan Air Force against the German formations taking part in Operation Rösselsprung and the Luftwaffe aircraft in the skies over Yugoslavia. Both Blue Group and Green Group, consisting of parachute troops that landed in the eastern part of Drvar where most of the population lived, were also engaged in heavy fighting. The Germans had to rely on special forces and improved tactics. [16], On Adolf Hitler's orders, SS-Sturmbannführer[c] Otto Skorzeny of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD, the intelligence branch of the SS), who had commanded the operation to rescue Mussolini in September 1943, was independently involved in intelligence gathering in the lead-up to the raid. The operation failed due to several factors, including Partisan resistance in the town itself and along the approaches to Drvar. The drop zone was within fields of fire of the Partisans to the west of Drvar, and the paratroops suffered many casualties during the drop. Convoy PQ 17, which left Iceland on 27 June and the German fleet departed, in what was called “Operation Knight’s Move”. The assault also included tasks to capture or destroy the Allied military missions to the Partisans. It moved swiftly southwest from its start point near Banja Luka, and had reached Čađavica (at a crossroads halfway between Mrkonjić Grad and Ključ) by the evening of 25 May, brushing off the 16th Krajina Brigade of the 39th Krajina Division deployed on the right flank of its axis of advance. [8], Apart from Partisan headquarters and related organisations in and around Drvar, there were between 12,000 and 16,000 Partisans in the area of operations that would be subject to the ground assault by XV Mountain Corps. He established his headquarters nearby at Drvar in the Dinaric Alps and temporarily suspended his successful tactic of being constantly on the move. [62], The 92nd Motorised Regiment kampfgruppe consisted of two columns, a western column based on the 92nd Motorised Regiment, and an eastern column consisting of the 54th Reconnaissance Battalion and 1st Home Guard Jäger Regiment of the 2nd Croatian Light Infantry Brigade. The airborne assault was preceded by heavy bombing of the town by the Luftwaffe. [47], About 11:15, after Rybka's first attack had been defeated, Tito and the small group gathered with him escaped from the cave. -27 June 1942: Unternehmen Rösselsprung. Of this total, the casualties suffered in fighting with the 500th SS Parachute Battalion at Drvar numbered 179 killed, 63 wounded, and 19 missing. A costly ground attack was also launched by a combined Partisan, British and United States force on the German-held Dalmatian island of Brač. He therefore fired the red signal flare to rally his troops for an assault in that direction. Willam then decided to halt the advance and place the remaining units into all-round defence. [44], Panther Group supported by Red Group overcame minimal resistance at the cemetery and Rybka established his headquarters behind the cemetery walls, but there was no sign of Tito or his headquarters. Operation Wunderland (German: Unternehmen Wunderland) comprised a large-scale operation undertaken in summer 1942 by the German Kriegsmarine in the waters of the Northern Sea Route close to the Arctic Ocean.The Germans knew that many ships of the Soviet Navy had sought refuge in the Kara Sea because of the protection that its ice pack provided during 10 months … They then linked up with their transport aircraft, including the ten-man Luftwaffe DFS230 gliders that would deliver the glider-borne troops onto their objectives. Das Unternehmen Rösselsprung war eine deutsche Militärunternehmung vom 25. Generalfeldmarschall[a] Maximilian von Weichs, the Wehrmacht Commander-in-chief Southeast Europe, admitted a few weeks later that "Tito is our most dangerous enemy. [32], Rybka received an outline of the operation on 20 May, and more details the following day. The northern column consisted of Kampfgruppe Panzergrenadier Sturmbattalion and included a company of tanks. Three battalions of the 3rd Lika Proletarian Brigade of the 6th Lika Proletarian Division approached from the southeast. After the 500th Parachute Battalion had been relieved, the XV Mountain Corps ordered the units in the Drvar area to disperse. After three days deliberation, Tito agreed on 3 June and Street arranged the evacuation the same night from an RAF-operated airfield near the town of Kupres. Out of contact with their corps headquarters, the 4th Krajina Division continued to retain two brigades along the Bihać-Bosanski Petrovac road, even though the 92nd Motorised Regiment had already passed along this route and into their rear. After a day's fighting, the Germans had captured Trubar, but were unable to overcome the defences of the hills east of the village. The troops were not briefed on the operation until a few hours before it was launched. [79], About 05:00 on 26 May, a Luftwaffe fighter-bomber formation engaged the Partisan troops withdrawing from Drvar. [1] In the aftermath of the invasion Yugoslavia was partitioned between the Axis powers through a combination of annexations and occupation zones. The report of a special troop, which had been sent into the Partisans’ rear with the help of disguised Chetniks several days earlier, drew particular attention from Rendulic. [9] Its subordinate formations were further away, the 6th Lika Proletarian Division west of Drvar, and the 1st Proletarian Division deployed in the area around Jajce and Mrkonjić Grad, some 50 km (31 mi) east of Drvar. [83], In the eastern sector, the Partisan line of defence was still holding. Mai bis zum 6. Juni 1944 gegen die Jugoslawische Volksbefreiungsarmee . Admiral Scheer then turned northeast and sped towards the Nordenskiöld Archipelago. According to this report, received late on 25 May, Tito was in the area of Potoci, halfway between Drvar and Ribnik. Tirpitz until then had consumed some 8,230 tonnes (8,100 long tons) of fuel oil and it would take three months to replenish this reserve for other sorties. Therefore, the Kriegsmarine campaign only affected the Barents Sea and the Kara Sea. The Partisans were resolutely anti-Axis throughout the war, but the Chetniks extensively collaborated with Italian occupation forces garrisoned in the NDH from mid-1941, and especially after the Italian capitulation in September 1943, also with the Germans.