Soldier! Bey, which begins today, to calculate the share of the Reich and the nation at the coming of a thousand years.

By order of the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of Nimechchin on 9.5.1940

At nіch 9 on 10 May 1940 r. Hitler's order about the onset of readouts in all companies and batteries of 650 kilometers, stretching from Pivnichna Holland to the cordons in Switzerland of the German front. Since the beginning of the summer, the German Luftwaffe unleashed thousands of tons of deadly force on enemy positions. And before that, as the German gunfire advanced, the earth shook under the volleys of thousands of batteries. After three years of artillery preparation in front of the German divisions, the entire area was charred, covering tens of thousands of deep wounds in the ground...

The 75 divisions of Army Groups “A” and “B”, reinforced by the 22 airborne divisions, were concentrated on directing the head strike. The 19th divisions of Army Group C resisted the French on the Maginot Line and did not take part in active combat operations at the first stage of the operation. Another 45 divisions (along with the Waffen SS divisions) waited their time in the first echelon of the reserve. Army Group "B" with its three armies ordered an additional attack on the night of Belgium and Holland, and Army Group "A" - a head attack through Luxembourg - Pure Belgium - Ardennes department and, after the crossing of the Meuse, reached the lower reaches of the Sommi, which drains the The enemy's Belgian divisions. The attack of the German divisions will cause the Anglo-French allies to attack directly from the ground. After the defeat of the Belgian and Dutch armies, the dismemberment and liquidation of part of the French army and the British expeditionary corps, another stage of the campaign began - Operation "Rit" - a massive offensive against them. Etskih armored forces have been sent directly.

At the beginning of the 10th anniversary of the SS Leibstandarte “Adolf Hitler”, the settlements of the 3rd Regiment “Führer” of the SS Special Purpose Division, then reached the Dutch cordon. The main forces or divisions of special importance of the SS were stationed in the Munster area and were about to overwhelm the Dutch cordon immediately after the breach of the border fortifications. The “Dead Head” division was stationed in the OKH reserves and camped near Kassel. The Waffen SS Police Division was also in reserve and was assigned to Army Group C's Rhine Front.

WAFFEN SS IN THE HOLLANDS

The numerous Dutch army was unable to ensure proper protection of the 300-kilometer-long stretch of the German-Dutch cordon. An important component of the strategic defense of the region was the numerical channels and natural membranes - rivers. The apparently weakly fortified bridges in the border zone and the crossings into the world in the approaching direction became increasingly stronger fortifications, transforming on the remaining line of defense into the unbreakable “Fortress Holland”, which in includes Rotterdam, Amsterdam, The Hague, Utrecht and Leiden. There was a real concern that, in the extreme world, the Dutch could open the floodgates on the banks, as the Belgians had already done in 1915. The plan for the German offensive was based on the buried strategic crossings across the Meuse and the bridges in Maastricht between the Meuse and the Albert Canal. The victory of this most important mission was placed on the parachute-landing units of the Luftwaffe and the landing-landing units of the Wehrmacht.

The Assumption of the Nizhmetsi Tsoma Light is small to forget the rogue of the Group of the Klazieko 4 Divizi: 4,000 parachutist Luftwaffe I 4 planin regiments of the Wehrmacht, Armishka Tankov Diviziya I 4 Motorized regiments of Waffen SS. The third-rate reserve - the cavalry division and six infantry divisions of the Landsturm - could not be taken for granted. With encouragement from the war, the German armies would strengthen the foundations of the Dutch and occupy key places in the “Fort of Holland”.

May 9, 1940 r. At about 21.00 the army radio operators received a short radiogram - “Danzig”. The operation began.

The Leibstandarte took up positions near the border Dutch town of De Poppe. Just before 5.30, in the early hours of the day, the Leibstandarte's assault corral drove in the famous Dutch border guards, moving places and taking up a perimeter defense. Colonies of SS transport vans passed across the bridge across a few hills. At the same time, military transport Yu-52/ZM with landing troops on board took off from ground transport.

The Leibstandart leaned forward with a creepy fluidity, and already before noon of the first day, the administrative center of the province of Oberis-sil, the town of Zwolle, and two bridges across the Issel were on the move. The sensational and practically bloodless success of the German army was soon overshadowed by the fact that, fearing the invasion, the Dutch seriously damaged the crossings. Tim, no less, did not inspire the 3rd battalion of the Leibstandarte to cross to the other bank of the river in the Zuitphen area, to capture Hoven and 200 soldiers of its garrison. In a swift march, the battalion penetrated another 70 kilometers into the corner of Dutch territory and buried 127 troops. For this operation, the battalion commander, Obersturmführer Krasi, was awarded the “Zaliznyi Khrest” of the first level, becoming the first officer of Army Group “B”, who gave honor to the city. Where the successes ended, the Leibstandart died down and fell.

May 11, 1940 the commander-in-chief of Army Group B, Feder von Bock, transferred the ESS division to the Pivdenka front.

Tim, advancing in the vanguard of the 207th Infantry Division of the 3rd Regiment "Führer" of the Special Recognition Division of the Waffen SS 10th Trann, crossed Issel near Arnheim, undercut the "Grebbe Line" and turned to Utrecht.

On the 11th, the 9th Panzer Division of the SS Gausser entered the battle directly at the head of the attack. In one unsafe place, a commando of the sabotage special unit of the military counterintelligence “Brandenburg-800” was buried across the Meuse. Before the invasion, on May 9 (around 23.00) saboteurs overtook the Dutch cordon near the Gennep area. On Svitanka, a column of buried German troops, under the heavy guard of the Dutch, collapsed through the place. Silently liquidating the guards on the opposite side, the column passed further. One of the commandos, who completely convinced Volodya of the Dutch, telephoned ahead of the commander of the Dutch checkpoint on the back side about those who would immediately pass a column of army troops and their traces would be missed without fail... "Brandenburg" having buried the place and catching it before approaching tanks and motorized infantry of the Gausser, which passed Province of Pivnichny Brabant.

As the German offensive developed, the Allies transferred almost all of their light divisions to Belgium in order to stop the Wehrmacht on the Antwerp-Breda line. When the commander of the 7th Army, French General Henri Giraud, learned that German paratroopers had sunk the bridges under Moerdik, it was extremely important to preserve communication between Belgium and the “fortune of Holland”, then, having decided, at all costs, to dislodge the Germans from the bridgehead they had buried . On the 11th of May, the French entered as far as Bredy, and Zhiro sent two motorized regiments for an early descent and for an early approach from Mordik with orders to liquidate the German grouping. This maneuver did not go unnoticed, and the commander of the 9th Panzer Division sent half of his tanks and the division of the Waffen SS for a special retreat, in order to disrupt the development of the French counter-offensive, and himself with formations that were lost in his role. ryadzhenni, having continued the revolution until Moerdik, in the outskirts of whom he is guilty it would be with a waistband thrown over from the night.

Two regiments of Giraud were unexpectedly discovered by air reconnaissance and scattered by a heavy airstrike of bombers that were being launched, the Yu-87 - “Stukas”. On the 11th, the heads of Giraud's forces clashed head-on with Gausser's 9th Panzer and Division. After fierce battles, on the 13th of May the French advanced to Roosendael, and their marching colonies reached Antwerp for the spoils. The Dutch were pressed to safety. So Boov clears Brabant.

On the 12th, the lower flank of the 9 tank divisions met the German parachutists crossing the morning crossing near Moerdik and forced the water crossing. The German offensive attacked the deeply echeloned Dutch defense. On the 14th, Rotterdam, and with it the "Fortress Holland" were still trimmed. The OKH decided to withdraw the 9th Panzer Division and the motorized Waffen SS from Holland and transfer them directly to French.

Before the start of the operation in Holland and Belgium, Hitler stated that the Luftwaffe needed to “show restraint and not bombard civilian objects unnecessarily” - the necessary advice is good, since it is not useful in the minds of the war Nowadays: yakscho na dahu rich apartment living budinku possessions NP or installations kulemet, then This is not a huge object, but a military meta. On May 13, the transfer of the Leibstandarte was completed, and on May 14, Goering punished the bombing of Rotterdam. "Sepp" Dietrich refused the order "after massive bombardment, go through Rotterdam (another echelon is advancing) to join up with German paratroopers who are fighting in the isolated region of Delft-Hague - Schidam."

At about 15:00, Xe-111 aircraft were circling over the city of Rotterdam. After a few years, the place stopped sleeping, turning into a ruin that lay dormant. By the hour of the flood, 800 civilians had died and disappeared into obscurity, thousands had recovered from their wounds, and tens of thousands had lost their lives. The remaining bombs hit the site at 15:45. At this hour, the label standard is hanging out in the exit positions.

Less than 2 years after the bombing of the enemy and the scale of the ruins, the Dutch sent parliamentarians to discuss the minds of capitulation. General Kurt Student, who landed together with his people on the outskirts of Rotterdam on the 10th of May, together with the commander of the glider landing units, Oberstleutnant Dietrich von Holitz, drove to the Dutch headquarters. Around this time, hundreds of Dutch soldiers gathered in front of the headquarters hut for the ceremony of handing over the armor.

As luck would have it, they themselves became the Leibstandarte. So, even though they did not dare to fire the added signals first and then figure it out, the Essesians unleashed a hurricane fire with machine guns. The student rushed to the window, shocked... what happened... who dared... - and took off the important flammable wound. Drenched in blood, the forlorn general fell into the hands of the ice, having encountered his friend von Holitz. The founder of the German parachute troops, General Student, was a marvel, and was born in 1941. commanding the operation from the landing on Crete. The riddle about the zustrich from the Leibstandart lost an extra satisfying scar. So without stopping the collapse, the motorized column went to the exit from the place to join the paratroopers, the commander of whom the stench through the unknown ice did not save his life.

The paratroopers of the 22nd Airborne Division, which landed near Delft and The Hague on 10 May, were able to secure the Dutch military airfields and ensure the landing of transport Ju-52s. The Germans were still unable to defend against such a thick anti-aircraft fire. Even on the way to the capital, most of the transporters were shot down, and all the paratroopers were scattered and liquidated. All that the Leibstandarte has revealed is the tricks of the pilots and the corpses of German paratroopers. Only a few fighters of the 22nd division managed to break through to their own. At about 21.00, the motorized colonies of the Leibstandarte advanced to Delft, and the offensive army to The Hague. During the short, but brutal battles, 3,536 Dutch soldiers and officers were buried. On such a high note, the SS Leibstandarte “Adolf Hitler” ended his tour with the land of tulips – Holland capitulated.

At that time, as the German formations were regrouping to launch an attack on France, Grupenführer Gau Esser “along with part of the SS Special Relevance Division, reinforced by a number of army infantry formations, pushing the Allies to the sea. With the continued support of the attack aircraft, the Deutschland regiment broke through to safety in the area of ​​​​the port of Vlissingen, after the 17th, the Franco-Dutch units that were captured in the battles were allowed to evacuate on British ships. Thank you that we reached the shore.

During the Dutch campaign, symptoms of illness began to show themselves again, and the SS troops were not relieved until the end of the war. The Waffen SS were no strangers to great waste.

“Even though the divisions of the Waffen SS did not fight well, they did not achieve any wonderful successes, there is still no doubt that the creation of these special military formations was an impeccable peace... The blood shed by them did not pay for the world with the successes we have achieved,” he wrote later Field Marshal Eric von Manstein in his memoirs.

The capitulation of Holland followed the completion of another stage of the German offensive in Belgium. The Belgian defenses were swept away, the French positions between the Meuse and Oise were destroyed, and the reserves of the French and British armies were pushed to Flanders. The German military was destroyed until the English Channel was protected.

On the 16th of May, having broken the hour of the “Dead Head” division. She was withdrawn from the OKH reserve and, having completed the rapid march of Kassel - Namur - Charleroi, through Belgium she was transferred from France to the rear flank of General Hoth's 15th Corps, which attacked on a wide front. On the 17th of May, the vanguard of General Rommel’s 7th Panzer Division broke through to Chateau, and the very next day one of the 1st tank battalions occupied Cambrai, where, in the wake of the lust that had arisen, the reinforcements were reinforced by 5 and 7 tank divisions of the 15th Corps. On May 19, the “Dead Head” division appeared at the forefront. Ike refused the order to clear the region of Ivuilles - Abancourt - Magnières - Cambrai. So the division was engulfed in fire and suffered its first losses: from 19 to 20, 16 soldiers were killed and 53 soldiers were wounded.

While 7 tanks and Totenkopf were anchored on the lines for the final approach from Arras, 4 other tank divisions of the Wehrmacht withdrew before the approach to Abbeville, finishing with a sharpening of over 40 Belgian, British and French divisions - nearly a million soldiers - at the Somme and Scarpe basin of French forces armies of Pivdni.

All the attempts of the Allies to make their way to unite with isolated divisions were largely due to the failures of the Anglo-French command, the sluggishness of their intelligence and the recklessness of the Germans. Tim is no less, the frequent success of the counter-attack on the day before Arras became a real shock for the Wehrmacht, having become self-reliant, it was possible to gain victories with little blood.

Daily 21 June 74 important British tanks and 2 battalions of infantry in support of 60 tanks of the light motorized division of the French led the attack on the flanks of the 7th Panzer Division and outposts of the "Totenkopf" division " As soon as they began to fall, they began to panic like the army and the esse bastards. In the first battle, the Germans spent 9 medium tanks and dozens of light tanks and armored vehicles. Costs in manpower totaled: 89 killed, 116 wounded, 173 lost, including Totenkopf SS lost 19 killed, 27 wounded and 2 soldiers lost to death.

The next day, there was a test of the allied divisions' sharp attack. The Leibstandarte, which was redeployed for the day, was then flared up and transferred to the zone of the strait for the day towards Valenciennes. Along the 32-kilometer front, the ESS forces defeated nearly a dozen fearful French counterattacks.

DUNKIRK

To strengthen the pressure on the left flank of the allied forces, which were pressed to safety, the OKH transferred up to a single motorized division to the front line. The Allies concentrated on the narrow stretch of coastal Smuga between Gravelines, Long Plage and Saint-Paul, stretched 80-100 km from Valenciennes. Today, their positions were reliably protected by numerical channels created by the British expeditionary corps into tight and impregnable fortifications. All Waffen SS formations involved in the campaign took part in the operation on the night of France.

At the end of the 23rd to the 24th, the grass of the Leibstandarte was transferred to the approach and took up positions under Wattan, in a one-day transition from the canal. Totenkopf and the division of Grupenführer Gausser pressed the British out of the day, pulling up to the head forces.

On the 24th of May, the SS Special Purpose Division left the Isberg area. 32 fighters of the reconnaissance group in armored cars crossed the Er-La-Basse canal and hung out at the Merville Direction, where they were attacked by British tanks. The reconnaissance group, which had a lot of important formation, received an uneasy battle. The next day, divisional radio operators received a radiogram that the group had lost only 8 fighters, who were still wounded. The situation became hopeless, and those who were lost alive refused the order to save themselves and go out under the cover of night. Until the division is re-established, there will be no turning back from 32 different species. The group did not die in vain: reports transmitted to the headquarters made it possible to reveal failures in the defense of the Allies. kiv. At the promeniste breach, the SS special divisions exploded, having established a bridgehead near the Saint-Venant area. The British transferred the assault force to the village, otherwise it would be too late. The southern line of defense was broken through.

The rest of the SS unit cleared the territory for a descent from Arras. In the battle for the channels, successes alternated between one side and the other. At the end of the 23rd to the 24th, the SS patrol forced the crossing and consolidated on enemy-controlled territory. Early on, a British tank battalion came close behind them, blocking the rearguard's exit. Before the reinforcements of the SS arrived, they had spent three field battles at once due to combat operations, otherwise preventing most of the British tanks from burning out on the battlefield.

To this day, there is no discussion on the topic: why was the woeful “stop order of the Fuhrer” given on May 24, which blocked the canal lines for the troops. By the time the order arrived, the military part of Gausser’s division had already secured a position on the enemy’s birch, and Sepp Dietrich decided to ignore the orders of the Fuhrer Headquarters. For the sake of fairness, it should be respected that at this moment the Leibstandarte had entered into direct contact with the enemy, and Dietrich could no longer advance without destroying most of the regiment. The Leibstandarte broke the baked support of the British, forging a canal under Wattan and occupying the noble heights. A major breach had been made in the British defenses. The most obvious third of the defensive formations became as monolithic as concrete.

There is a pre-storm calm on the Pivdenny front. London is in danger of quickly losing its share and evacuating the expeditionary corps by water from Dunkirk. After a hasty regrouping of forces, three fenced infantry divisions were formed to cover the troops that were advancing to protect the Dover Channel. Now and then, the German motorized and infantry divisions refused the order to “stay in position, carry out repairs for special warehouse repairs, routine work and repair of military equipment.”

At that time, while the Wehrmacht was recovering, the Waffen SS waged intense battles with the enemy to secure bridgeheads and bridgeheads. The bridgehead near Saint-Vienna became the scene of fierce battles. The British were willing to throw out Gausser's main force at all costs, which would cut off their all-important communications and jeopardize the entire plan for evacuation from Dunkirk. On the 25th of May, a fresh brigade from the reinforcements that landed on the shores, the English drove the Esses from their place. First, under the hour of this campaign, the military SS was deprived of the great stronghold. Having reached the point across the Lys near Merville, the British dug in and took up a perimeter defense. In exactly two gains, the Germans reversed their positions.

At the end of the 26th to the 27th, Hitler responded to his order, and the German armies went on the offensive. The “Dead Head” forced a water crossing near Bethune and, with battles, penetrated a corner of enemy-controlled territory near Merville. The allied sub-divisions fought for an inch of land that was so baked. Once upon a time, she had the opportunity to live with five tank divisions, a motorized division of the Wehrmacht, two motorized divisions of the SS, the Elite Army Regiment “Velika Nimečcina” and the Leibstandarte SS “Adolf Hitler”. The battles of 27 May became intense during the course of the campaign, and the military SS began to suffer heavy losses.

The SS Special Relevance Division refused the order to break through to Dieppe with the forces of two regiments through an eight-kilometer thick thick forest. The 3rd Regiment of the Deutschland Division continued the attack on Merville at the warehouse of the battle group of the 3rd Panzer Division (right-handed) and Totenkopf SS (left-handed). The easily formed regiments "Nimechchina" and "Fuhrer" were destroyed under the aimed fire of British batteries. Young commanders raised the fighters to hand-to-hand combat, killed people and died themselves. So, just before the end of this war, the military SS fell in love with the so-called “domino principle” or “the factor of negative manifestation of positive influx” - a kind of paradoxical ethical pasture for the command staff of the Waffen SS, which they never managed to get rid of The end of the war. Promoted by SS commanders, the principle “follow me and work as I do” was the indispensable mental extraordinary value of the SS formations and, at the same time, the reason for the extremely high costs in the non-commissioned officer warehouse.

The British dug into the ground, having formed a tight uk-repriority up the mountain beyond the Lys flow between Saint-Venant - Merville - Nieppe - Armentières. Rushnik, who lived on guns and cullet guns, became the remaining hope for the allied units that were advancing to Dunkirk. The vanguard of the 3rd tank division started fighting on the approaches to Merville. At the other half of the day on the 27th, after numerous attacks, the Deutschland regiment broke through to Lisitsa between Merville and Thien and created a bridgehead, becoming the vanguard of the German offensive on this front. The reserves of the 2nd British divisions, which were regrouped, repaired the baked operation of the group of the abyss, overtaking the development of success, - at all costs, the British were guilty of trying to eliminate the position of the vdovzh Fox and the channel at least 24 years old.

The regiment commander, Oberführer Steiner (the same Felix Steiner, whose model of combat training was adopted by the Waffen SS), ordered to force the water crossing. This year, Steiner’s report on the operation carried out under his command consistently passed through all authorities and ended up on the desktop of the Reichsführer SS. Corporal Hitler, who hovers in strategic empires, without ever delving into the tactical details of a small regimental level for a new regiment, but reported that he had such a strong enmity with Himmler, which led to an unprecedented loss and, superimposing the text in a larger font (one of the most important precautions is “: The Fuhrer was subdued), presenting him to Hitler as “a symbol of the courage and heroism of the Waffen SS.” Hitler got acquainted with the document and turned to Himmler’s adjutant, SS Oberstgruppenführer Karl Wolf, with the badge “Bliskuche!”

For the support of two SS artillery batteries, the third Sturmban of the Deutschland regiment was sent forward. Through the exchange of ammunition, the batteries fired more than tens of shells, and the enemy cannons were able to use precise volleys to destroy enemy weapons and strangle the enemy's machine gun nests. Until noon on the 27th May, two of Steiner's Sturmbahns had already secured the bridgehead. The positions of the evil and panicky heights of Lestrom were lost in the hands of the British. The Death's Head division, unable to cover Steiner's left flank, was hopelessly engaged in battles for about a kilometer. On the right flank, the situation was no less dangerous: the British captured Merville, and the assault squadrons of the 3rd tank division of the Wehrmacht fought the enemy on the advanced approaches to the site. The main forces fought with the soldiers who lost their lives, 2 British divisions on the banks of the canal. In this manner, in order to securely cover the flanks, Steiner tried to stretch his already modest forces. Now the light sapper companies of the SS began clearing mine fences, pro-tank crossings and establishing crossings across the Lys from available materials.

Around 19.00 that day, Steiner and his adjutant crossed to the far bank of the canal to inspect the German bridgehead, which was gradually expanding. Unexpectedly, a group of British combat vehicles appeared directly from the ground, attacking the positions of the 1st Sturmbann in support of the machine gunners. The time-consuming crossings of the Germans were still difficult and were considered only for infantry, so until the evening of the 27th, not only one light tank, but also one anti-tank armor was not transported to the enemy shore. About 20 tanks were patrolling the battalion positions, and 3 companies were literally smeared on the ground. What Oberführer Felix Steiner wrote in his report dated May 31, 1940:

“Soldiers and officers tied themselves with bundles of anti-tank grenades and threw themselves at the tanks. One of the Socialists angrily attacked the armor of an English tank in order to push the crew through the gap with a hand grenade. A British tank, moving on a parallel course, cut a fighter with a heavy-caliber machine gun.

I could see how the soldiers let the tanks go at 5-10 meters and even then fought behind the artillery armor or attacked the target with anti-tank guns and tornado grenade launchers. I want to fuss loudly about the tribute to the first class (posthumously) of three company commanders, who became the heart and soul of the German support (special information is available).

Only the current approach of the pro-Titanish company of the Totenkopf SS division turned the bridgehead against a new liquidation and the British invasion. The British continued to fire at our positions along a flat trajectory with a 190-mm gun and a 200-mm howitzer, which dropped 5 anti-tank shells on the SS artillery regiment. The Allies got their way: they were given the opportunity to unnecessarily stop the invasion of German troops. But on the night of the 28th, the British units and the 1st French Army were about to approach the front line.”

Until his death, Znevaga was the head warehouse of the valuable system, splintered spruce moldings of the Waffen SS. Their fearlessness in battle alternated with fanaticism - merciless towards themselves, they were borderline cruel and towards the enemy.

MASSACRE IN LE PARADIS AND ATROCITIES IN ESKVEBETSI

The expansion of the Her-les-Basse canal near Bethune resulted in the division of the “Dead Head” of two water crossings: the main canal and the other drainage channel. Already on the first day of the operation, Totenkopf SS lost 44 people killed, 144 wounded and 11 dead. When another transition was forced, the division incurred even greater losses. But the worst thing happened to the Esses in front: the soldiers of the 2nd British division stood to death, and they were suicide bombers, who swore not to miss the gate to Lisitsa.

The “Death’s Head” was advancing near the reinforcement zone of the 4th Brigade of the 2nd Division of the British. Under the blows of the ESS, who fiercely stormed the positions, the British entered the Le Paradis - Lokon line and took up defensive positions. The formation of the 1st Royal Scottish, 2nd Royal Norfolk and 1st/8th Lancashire Infantry Regiments, covering the advance of the British lead forces in this direction. The battle for Les Paradis broke up into dozens of frivolous battles. The 4th company of the 1st battalion of the 2nd SS Infantry Regiment Totenkopf of the German Army Führer and Fritz Knochlein stormed the British stronghold from the farm gardens near Le Paradis. For several years, nearly hundreds of infantrymen of the Norfolk Regiment did not allow the Essesians to raise their heads. Disconnected by the support, who knew on this day of cruel losses (on the 27th of May in the battles near Le Paradis, the 2nd Totenkopf SS regiment lost 1 officer and 16 soldiers killed, 50 wounded and unknown on the battlefield), the esesivts carried out a wild reprisal against by the British. After searching and briefly finishing the 28-river Knoch-line, I ordered the military to be formed at the column and shot. Two important guns were slamming away armorless people. Those who were lost alive were finished off by the esesivts with shots to the face or pinned with bagnets. Until the end of the war, Knochlein rose to the rank of Obersturmbannführer and in 1944 he took over the "Licar's Cross", commanding a regiment of Norwegian SS volunteers in Courland.

Details of the massacre in Le Paradis came to light during the trial against the powerful SS commander Knochlein. Two surprisingly surviving, seriously wounded English soldiers, under the cover of night, got out from under the mountains of corpses and were picked up by German soldiers from one of the army units. Two British soldiers passed through German concentration camps, survived and became the leading intelligence officers of the call. October 25, 1948 the court condemned Knochlein to death by hanging.

Before the journal of combat operations of the Totenkopf SS division, this episode of entries, of course, was not true. Nezabar, after the brutal reprisal of the military forces of Les Paradis, the Chief of the Special Staff of the Reichsführer SS, Oberstgruppenführer Wolff, came to know the connection with this, that “they have not yet been honored with due honors.” la heroes of the SS who died in battle.” At the same time, they slightly praised the army’s hugeness: they talked about the amazing calls to Knochlein’s duel by his fellow soldiers and about the amazing formation of SS reservists, released into reserve after the end of the French campaign. ї... On the right in that. that all those included in the Totenkopf reserve gave a signature about the secrecy of the service dungeon, and most of them were forced to serve in any other division, and not in the “Dead Head”, or they declared whether to leave the SS after the end of the war. The efforts of the Head Office of the SS Judges to respond to the situation that had developed were addressed especially by Himmler, and the division commander, Eicke, was at his request. Rizanina in Le Paradis became the harbinger of the upcoming massacre of the Americans in Malmedy in 1944.

In the meantime, the other Totenkopf SS squadrons were engaged in intense battles with the British guard formations along the ground. Each new day of the war cost the “Dead Head” of 150 killed, the British lost up to 300 people per day. On May 28, the Leibstandarte SS, which hung as far as Dunkirk, “Adolf Hitler” without losing its commander. Dissatisfaction with Sepp Dietrich, who arrived at the command post, moved to the forefront. On the route between the 1st and 2nd battalions near Esquebek, his headquarters vehicle did not reach the British units. 50 meters from the hostile position, the car came under fire, and the Obergruppenführer and his adjutant were able to jump out of the car and lie in the drainage ditch, as the car flew into the wind. Streams of gasoline, ready to burn, flowed into the improvised shelter. The only way to get out of bed was to bury your head in the garbage, which created a stink after lying there without a break for nearly five years. Having rejected the news about the commander's traceless disappearance, the chief of staff of the Leibstandarte abandoned two companies to the British positions near Esquebec. The Essenians became aware of the heavy losses and there would be trouble. Then an army tank company went into battle, having lost the commander and 4 tanks, and they turned back with nothing. And only after 5 important tanks, a platoon of armored cars and the 3rd Sturmban of the Leibstandarte were abandoned on the British positions, Dietrich and his adjutant were stolen.

At this hour, the 2nd battalion of Hauptsturmführer Wilhelm Mohnke stormed Esquebec immediately. Enemy of the death of the commander (with every passing year the hope for Dietrich's order faded), the ESSeists shed blood. Having buried about 80 British, the Germans drove them to the barn, set them on fire and threw grenades at them (after the war, 15 soldiers who had lived in that massacre were brought to trial against Mohnke).

After the happy dismissal of Dietrich for the support of tanks, infantry, artillery and aircraft, the strengthened Leibstandart discovered the great British stronghold at Wormhood, having filled in 17 officers and 750 enlisted men. 2nd Royal Warwickshire lust. The Leibstandarte continued to carry out attacks on the enemy rearguard, which was approaching Dunkirk, and soon redeployed to Cambrai to replenish and repair. Part of the division of the SS Gausser, melodiously, would have wandered off into the dense Dieppe forest, as if they had not responded to the rescue and were not transferred to the Cambrai region. The 30th SS Totenkopf Division was redeployed to the Le Portel - Boulogne area for coastal patrol. Until the 3rd of June, 200,000 soldiers of the British expeditionary corps evacuated from Dunkirk - among them, about 140,000 French and Belgians. The army was amazed by the ease with which Hitler stopped the attack and allowed the enemy to fight freely. At the same time, they were discussing a number of fantastic and completely plausible versions of the “Diva of Dunkirk”: the native “Aryan roots” and Hitler’s duty to lay the world on the minds that were important for Germany and the songs of Goering in the fact that the Luftwaffe will not allow the British to drink along the sea route, to operational and tactical Prorakhunkiv OKV…

So the battle was lost, but I lost it and won.

In a meeting with the architect Troost, Hitler declared: “The blood of every Englishman must be dear to me, so that I can shed it without need. Whatever my generals said, I firmly believe that our peoples are united in racial terms.” - Approx. auto

Plan
Enter
1 Alternatives to plan
2 Definition of strategic goals
3 OKH plan dated June 19, 1939
4 OKW notes
5 OKH plan dated 29 June 1939
6 Criticism of the OKH plan
7 Respect for Army Group “A”
8 Additions to the OKH plan
9 "Mechelen Incident"
10 "Slow start"
11 OKH plan from 30 to 1940
12 Military Staff Games
13 Manstein Plan
14 Criticism of Manstein's plan
15 Implementation of the Gelb plan
16 Notatki
17 Dzherela

Enter

Plan "Gelb" or Gelb-plan (nim. Fall Gelb– The Yellow Plan) is the code name for the German blitzkrieg plan against the current Benelux countries: Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, and also France in 1940. This was often implemented during the Hitler offensive, known as the French campaign. The plan became one of the stages of the “Marvelous War”, which was immediately adopted by the German commands as a kind of strategic pause-rearrangement. This allowed Germany to successfully complete the Polish campaign, implement the plan for the occupation of Denmark and Norway (Danish-Norwegian operation), and also prepare for the invasion of France (Vlasna Plan “Gelb”), ultimately consolidating the results of Ansh Lusa (annexation of Austria) and burial of the Sudetenland.

1. Alternatives to the plan

The first version of the military campaign "Gelb", known as "OKH Plan", but rather theoretical, positional in nature. You were not destined to fit into life. Another option, known as the Manstein Plan, appeared more distantly and was successfully implemented on May 10, 1940 in the first phase of the French campaign. The result of this plan was the occupation of the territories of Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg and southern France by German troops.

2. Setting strategic goals

The dissolution of the coming of France was opened on the 27th of June 1939. At meetings of commanders-in-chief and military chiefs of staff, Hitler said: “The strategy of war is to put England on the spot, to defeat France.”

The commander-in-chief of the ground forces, Brauchich, and the chief of the general staff, Halder, opposed the plan. They were preparing a plan to remove Hitler from power, but, not knowing the encouragement of the commander of the reserve army, General Fromm, they were afraid to try.

On June 6, 1939, German troops completed the occupation of Poland, and on June 9, the “Message about the war on the Western Front” was sent to the commanders of the armored forces, Brauchitsch, Goering and Raeder. This document, based on the “blitzkrieg” concept, outlined the strategic goals of the upcoming campaign:

"3. ... for the further conduct of military actions I punish:

a) on the southern flank of the Western Front, prepare an attack through the territory of Luxembourg, Belgium and Holland. It is necessary to attack with greater forces and sooner; b) this operation is to destroy, if possible, the large combined French army and the allies that are on their battlefield, and immediately want to seize as much territory as possible in Holland, Belgium and the Netherlands the bottom of France, in order to create a springboard for the successful conduct of the war and sea war against England and expand the buffer zone of the vitally important Ruhr region.”

"3. …Für die weitere Durchführung der Feindseligkeiten bestellt:

a) auf der nördlichen Flanke des westlichen front bereiten offensive teritorrii durch Luxemburg, Belgien und Holland. Die Offensive sollte s viel Kräfte wie möglich und so schnell wie möglich; en und Westen Frankreichs zu schaffen, ein Sprungbrett für eine erfolgreiche Luft-und Seeweg Krieg gegen England und erweitern Sie den Puffer Die Umgebung von entscheidender Bedeutung Ruhrgebiet.”

The great German generals were placed before Hitler's decree, which was dubious. One of the generals hooted: “France is not Poland!” Ale, not caring about the disastrous result of the operation, the commander-in-chief of the ground forces, Walter von Brauchitsch, gave orders to the General Staff (JCG) to organize “Gelb’s directive on the strategic disintegration of the military’s throat” .

The basis for the operation plan of the command of the ground forces (OKH) was the Schlieffen plan of 1914, but in addition to the Schlieffen plan, the OKH plan did not take into account victory in Flanders, and inclusively its positional nature - its outer conquest led to the establishment of a positional front from the river Somma.

· Army Group “B” (Fedor von Bock) – 2, 4 and 6 armies (37 divisions)

· Army Group “A” (Gerd von Rundstedt) – 12th and 16th armies (27 divisions)

· Army Group “C” (Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb) – 1st and 7th armies (25 divisions)

· Army Group “N” - 18th Army (3 divisions)

· Reserve - 9 divisions

The head blow was launched by Army Group B on both sides of Liege with the aim of defeating the Anglo-French forces in Belgium simultaneously from the Belgian and Dutch armies. Army Group “A” is disbanding for the day. The 12th Army will withdraw from the defense of the abandoned flank of Army Group “B”, the 16th Army will attack directly towards the abandoned Belgium and Luxembourg. After marching through Luxembourg, the 16th Army must take up defensive positions on the outer flank of the Maginot Line between the Saar and Meuse. Opposite the Magino Line is Army Group C. Due to the political climate, Army Group “N” was designated for the defeat of Holland. The directive ended with the orders of Army Groups “A” and “B” to concentrate their troops in such a manner that the troops could occupy exit positions in six night marches before the attack.

4. Respect for OKW

On June 21, 1939, the commander of the Supreme High Command of the Wehrmacht (ZKV), Wilhelm Keitel, declared Hitler’s critical respect for the “Gelb plan.” The stench grew to this:

· Army Group “N” has incredibly great forces. However, she has little chance of breaking through the fortified Grebbe line.

· The left-flank 4th army of Army Group “B”, which advances towards Liege on the day, is obliged to launch a strike on the approach, and only in the extreme case - on the front approach.

· Varto will take a look at the warehouse of the 6th Army, which is in charge of the attack from Liege. Seeing three tank divisions and one motorized division is not enough to achieve success.

· After the withdrawal of the French troops from the Maginot Line from Army Group C, ten divisions could be transferred to strengthen the offensive grouping.

Then, the headquarters of the OKW operational corps tried to strengthen the front flank even more, especially with the Russian troops.

The strategic plan on June 29, 1939 was even more ambitious - to reduce the allied grouping in the area along the Sommi and reach the English Channel. The 18th Army was additionally included in the warehouse of Army Group “B”, and the number of its divisions increased to 43 (including 9 tank and 4 motorized). The warehouse of Army Group “A” has changed to 22, and that of Army Group “C” to 18 divisions. The divisions that joined forces strengthened the front line. Army Group "B" was ordered to break through with one attack group on the day before Liege, in the Brussels area, and with the other on the day before Liege, in the area around Namur, and then continue the attack on the day before. in the afternoon direction. Army Group "A" has a small additional defense - cover Army Group "B" on the retreat and retreat flanks; Army Group C, as planned for the 19th Army, took a position opposite the Maginot Line. The cordon from Holland covered the 6th Corps District, which was subordinate to Army Group B.

It was planned to finish the garden before the 5th leaf fall. On the 12th of leaf fall 1939, the onslaught was not enough for fate.

6. Criticism of the OKH plan

Adolf Hitler called the OKH preparation plan the height of the middle. At one point, after discussing the operational plan, Hitler went all the way to Keitel and Jodl, saying:

“So this is the old Schlieffen plan of strengthening the right flank and leading a direct attack on the Atlantic coast. Two such numbers cannot be passed!

Repeating Schliefen's plan for the beginning of a century, attacking France with a sickle-shaped arm through Belgium, without controlling it. In 1939 it was more obvious than in 1914 that fighting between Germany and the allies was carried out, then in Belgium, fragments of the Maginot Line were reliably protected from the Franco-German cordon France. The Belgian fortifications were even weaker. Obviously, the French also understood this and were inspired by such a development. However, although Hitler would like to take a different point of view, he would immediately begin an offensive operation:

“The hour is running on the enemy... Our Achilles’ heel is the Ruhr... If England and France break through Belgium and Holland to the Ruhr, we refer to the great necessities.”

5 leaf fall Brauchitsch again tried to defend Hitler against the invasion of France. Hitler, in his own words, once again confirmed that the onset must be launched no later than the 12th of November. Against the 7th leaf fall, the order was tied up with unfriendly meteorological minds. Later, the operation will be repeated 29 more times.

7. Respect for Army Group "A"

Even before the OKH plan was being prepared, the Chief of Staff of Army Group A under Rundstedt's command, Erich von Manstein, indicated that the plan was very obvious. Another flaw in the OKH plan, in Manstein’s opinion, was that the German troops would have to clash with English units, which would be a more important enemy, not the French. Moreover, this plan did not promise great victory.

Having pondered this problem, Manstein decided on the best way to launch a head attack through the Ardennes directly from Sedan, which the Allies could not stop. The main idea of ​​this plan was “enticement”. Manstein had no doubt that the Allies would react forcefully to the invasion of Belgium. Ale, burning up their troops there, they will spend their free reserve (hire for a few days), seize the road, and, above all, weaken the operational division Dinan - Sedan.

Love the girls again!

Don't worry about two deaths!

(Visa Torir Icenik)

The main forces of “Panskaya Poland” were defeated by the troops of the “Third Reich” in just eighteen days. Throughout the entire “Bliskavich” Polish campaign and the winter of 1939–1940, which followed its completion, a new calm fell on Zakhod. The Anglo-French troops, on one side, and the weak German units that occupied the “Second Shaft” on the other, stood one against one, separated by the lines of their fortifications. Among other things, this “sedentary” war (also called “wonderful” and “funny”) went to the advantage of the RS SR (also “another and ally” of Hitler’s Germany). During the hour of the “wonderful war” at Sunset, Stalin was able to create a whole series of strongholds in the SR, which had reached the RS, behind the “Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact” of the Baltics, and on November 26, 1939, fate unleashed the so-called “winter war” against Fi inland, like I did not accept Radyansky’s demands about “change the cordon” near the Leningrad region. Once the Anglo-French learned about the creation of a “Finnish people’s order” in the town of Terioki under the rule of the RS SR, they voiced the beginning of a “popular uprising” in Finland and called for “to help the Finnish revolution” Chervon at the Army, the stinks are worried. Wanting this Red Army, wisely, innocently responded to the cry of the “oppressed Finnish proletariat” for help, and hastened to quickly “discontinue its international obligation”, on the Karelian Isthmus they wore - no matter to the colossal advantage of the invading Radian army in strength and ability! - seemingly softly, but in a nasty way, the Western powers expected to speed up the “winter war” and want to start a Scandinavian revolution under the drive of “helping the small democratic Finland against the great totalitarian Radian monster a". In the English and French headquarters, “quietly” the development of plans for the burial of Scandinavia began.

Shortly after the conquest of Poland, the new SS Grupenführer (Lieutenant General) Paul Gausser granted the SS Division special status as its first commander. A month later, people left the town of Pilzen (Plzeň), located at the border of Czechoslovakia, to spend about six months at the border of Germany. There they underwent an intensive course of basic training and preparation for the upcoming war with Great Britain and France. In the early days, the “Green Socialists” under the command of Gausser began to fight and interact in the warehouse of a single division.

In the beginning of 1940, the new division was replenished with the appearance of new parts intended to bring its numbers to the level necessary to ensure the new division's ability to effectively teach stі have invaded Holland (Netherlands) and Belgium. The addition of fresh manpower and an intensive regime of combat training did not make the fighters of the SS-FT divisions doubtful that they were destined to play an important role in the current operational plan “Gelb” (“ Zhovtiy"). It is not surprising that the Socialists were highly motivated and ready to resign from their obligations. During the preparatory period, they developed a strong sense of military camaraderie and loyalty to their division commander, familiarly called by them “Papa Gausser” (similar to the Cossacks of the XIV Cossack Cavalry Corps before CC is so affectionate, even familiar, even familiar) - Lieutenant Helmut von Pannwitz "Father Pannwitz").

While the ranks of the Specially Important SS Divisions were undergoing combat training in western Germany, the authorities of England and France praised the decision on 27 June 1940 to occupy Norway by the forces of two English and French forces. no French division. The joint command of the incoming allies was determined to quickly invade the Norwegian town of Narvik, thus blocking the Swedish mining district of Gällivare, the exploitation of the treasures of every little living is important for the smooth functioning of the from the German military industry, supplemented with dark brown and blue cheeses. But “intelligence confirmed for sure,” and already in the 20th of 1940, “the Fuhrer and the Reich Chancellor” informed General Nikolaus von Falkengorst about the presence of reliable information about the world of the British and French to land and close Drink in Norway. Hitler reinforced that whatever he gets, the inheritance for Germany may not be transferred, and his intention is to get ahead of the English. Von Falkenhorst was appointed commander of the army “Group 21”, formed for the occupation (now by the Germans) of Denmark and Norway, and promptly subordinated to Hitler. The Fuhrer entrusted General von Falkengorst with the preparation of a combined landing operation, which was given the code name “Weserübung” (“Warning on the Weser”), which was issued in January 1940. At the same time, Adolf Hitler and the great military strategists of the “Third Reich” were working on a plan for the rapid conquest of Western Europe. Even before the start of Operation Gelb (the code name for the invasion plan to Belgium, Holland and modern France), on the 9th quarter of 1940, the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW) issued an order to launch a rapt attack on Denmark (opera ce "Weserübung-Süd") i Norway (Operation Weserubung Nord). As it turned out, the German landings buried these Scandinavian countries “under the very noses” of those who intended to create the same Anglo-French, Hitler and the OKW, successfully put into practice the “Weserübung” plan, it became possible to immediately spare the English military and naval forces The military forces were able to seize bases on Danish and Norwegian territory, and also prevent the British from wanting to invade the rich ancestry of the weed plant on the territory of Norway and blockade the Gällivare region. However, Hitler was able to become a leader without gaining any serious support (except for the brief shooting of the German invasion forces to protect the royal palace in Copenhagen). The Germans had a lot more trouble with Norway. At the time of the German invasion, English and French troops had already settled on this territory. Prote on the cob of worms 1940 rock. Norway also subordinated itself to the “Third Reich”. In both cases, the Germans were helped by the presence of a strong “fifth colony” in the conquered countries - the Danish National Socialist Labor Party (DNSP) of Frits Clausen and the Norwegian Nazi party “Nashunale”. Samling" ("National Assembly", briefly: NS) of the largest military minister Norway (whose nickname became a symbol for Fatherlandism and collaboration in the Anglo world during the war). National Socialist ideas were so widely popular in both Scandinavian countries that, in addition to the Nazi raids, they were even before the war (SA and Volkswernet - in Denmark, Gird, and also known as "Riksgird" - in Norway), Immediately after the beginning of the German occupation, the government formed the national “SS units of foreign significance.” Denmark has the SS Regiment Danmark (Denmark) and the leading battalion of the SS Schalburg (which served as the basis for the formation of the Schalburg Corps). Norway has “Norwegian SS”. In addition, the Germans fought on the fronts of the Other World, which formed from the Danes “Volunteer Corps of Danmark (Denmark), as well as the “Norwegian SS Legion” and the “Norwegian Liege-Jäger SS Battalion”, not taking into account the numerical strength of the Norwegians Tsiv and Danes, as served simultaneously with imperial and ethnic Germans and representatives of other German (or “Nordic”) peoples in the Waffen SS Nordland and Viking divisions.

Plan "Gelb"

“We have conquered many countries,

There is a new campaign to glorify us.”

("Holger the Dane and Veleten Didrik")

The German plan to invade the Netherlands, Belgium and French France, transferring the fate of the new three army groups. Today, Army Group “C(S)” took up positions along the “Siegfried Line” (“Siegfried Line”), about which there was already a force that stretched from Luxembourg to Switzerland. This group of armies, which was under the command of Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Loeb, included two armies at its warehouse and was located along the cordon, just opposite the French fortified “Maginot Line”, which was important being “inexhaustible” and effectively opposing, at first glance, the measures of fortification dispute, created by the French to prevent a new breakthrough of German troops from France across the Rhine River, similar to the fate they killed in 1914. Prote, going a little ahead, it is significant that the sentiments about their “inconsistency” were no less intense than the sentiments about the “inaccessibility” of the German “Siegfried Line”. It can be said that, after the beginning of the German offensive at Zakhodi, the vaunted defensive formations of the “Maginot Line” were broken through by the Germans within just a few years of the normal onset of infantry units without any tank support. The German infantry advanced under the cover of aviation and artillery, which widely stacked Dimov's shells. It turned out that a lot of French fire points were not exposed to direct hits from shells and bombs. In addition, most of the fortifications turned out to be absolutely unsuitable for all-round defense, and they could easily be attacked from behind the front and destroyed with the help of hand grenades and flamethrowers. But everything has become much later, and we have still clearly broken the thread of our relationship.

Therefore, the German Army Group C was to defend the German Siegfried Line in front of the French Maginot Line, linking its presence to the French-English alliance. any troops that are afraid of a German attack from which side, like the other two Germans Army groups were designated for offensive operations at night.

Army Group A was deployed over a wide area from Aachen to Luxembourg and included almost all other armies and was under the command of Field Marshal Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt. The command of Field Marshal Rundstedt's Army Group A was to go through the Ardennes Forest, break through the territory of Luxembourg and deserted Belgium, after which they would turn around and get out of the snow. The canals cannot be reached directly from the docks of tanks or motorized divisions. The English Channel near the area on the pivnich in front of the people. Sommy. The OKW suspected that if von Rundstedt were to die, they could exterminate tens of thousands of soldiers of the French Army and the British Expeditionary Corps on the Atlantic coast near the port of Dunkirk.

On the right flank of the German forces, the invasion was being prepared for the advance of the Army Group under the command of Field Marshal Feodor von Bock, which included 29 divisions, divided into two armies (6th and 18th). At that time, as the 6th Army was about to break through the wilderness areas of Holland, General Georg von Kühlerus and his 18th Army had to cross the Meuse River and help two German airborne divisions - 7 22nd aviation (parachute-strike) Airborne - want to visit the important port of Rotterdam and the capital of Holland, The Hague. Particularly important duties were assigned to the 9th Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht. It was necessary, having broken through the “Pelian Line” of the Dutch at Gennep, to push through at maximum speed to Moerdijk and the great (up to a half a kilometer long) bridge across the Meuse River (which until that moment may end up in the hands of the German archers - parachutists), wedge itself into the heart "Forts of Holland". On an important road that passed through all of Holland straight from day to day, the airborne troops of the Third Reich had to build a bridge across the river Waal near the town of Dordrecht and a bridge across the river Lower Rhine from the town of Rotter lady. The larger German airborne landing in the area of ​​The Hague, which we predicted, would have been completely unable to penetrate the full Dutch order or, if hired, would have consumed the strength of the 1st Army Corps of the Dutch, thus covering the capital. Ale Hitler does not exclude the possibility that the Dutch Queen Wilhelmine, after the first shootings, will come to terms with the occupation of her country by the German army - having thus created a Danish king immediately after the beginning of the operation ї "Weserübung-Süd". Before that, the invading German army was looking for possible support from the side of the “fifth colony” that was founded in Holland - the “National Socialist Movement” (NSR) along with Adrian Mussert (the strength of the feet of another light war Little Holland, which also established on its territory the powerful Dutch SS units of foreign significance in the Netherlands, replenished with a significant contingent of Dutch volunteers the SS Viking divisions and sent two front-line Waffen SS troops to the warehouse This is staffed by the Dutch SS division: the 23rd Volunteer Motorpededer Division of the German SS Landstorm Nedraland (Landsturm Niralandi) Yak Bulo is not bounced there, Fuhrer about all vipado gave the Nizhmsky parachuted vіsycam, recognized to the wikida, at the deposit of the gaga, the nysuvory order of the Nadavati Royal Vonya, and the Scho to lean. Before Paul Gausser and his SS Division of Special Purpose, then within the framework of the current operational plan "Gelb", Paul Gausser and his SS Division of Special Purpose were working at the warehouse of the 18th Army of von Küchler. During the upcoming operation, von Küchler's troops had to compete not only with the Dutch and Belgian armies, but also with the twenty-six British and French divisions stationed in the vast area between Dunkirk and the River yu Oise.

From the beginning, Hitler and the OKW coordinated to the point of transferring most of their existing divisions to the warehouse of Army Group B, respecting the maximum strength of the German right flank, the absolutely necessary brainwashing of a successful breakthrough through the Benelux countries, the defeat of the enemies forces on the south side of the Sommi River, Dunkirk burials and Other important ports, bent so that everything would be “beyond Schlieffen” (who, like those lying on their deathbed, continued to think about their plan for a possible French campaign and died with the words: “It is my right to strengthen!”). Ale chief of staff of Army Group von Rundstedt, Lieutenant General Erich von Manstein, was able to persuade the Fuhrer to give more divisions to the command of Army Group A, so that von Rundstedt’s armies could invade France at great depths and cross the enemy for to give an effective counterattack directly to the pivnich. Manstein believed that in this situation it would be easier for the Germans to push back the Allied armies against Sedan. Hitler praised this plan, as a result of which the dismantled 18th Army lost fewer divisions for the conquest of Holland and Belgium. There was nothing to be done - since the Fuhrer himself had uttered his word.

As before the beginning of the Polish campaign in the spring of 1939, the strength of the German army did not lie in numerical and material transportation (which the Germans never had in the past. war - it’s enough to marvel at the map - and even better, at the globe!) numbers were based on their technical equipment and the principles of combat development. Inveterately fighting against the routinists of the “old school”, General Heinz Guderian, with great difficulty, managed to put into practice his idea of ​​“tank wedges”, which are hardly followed by parts of motorized infantry, without thinking about ensuring the protection of their flanks . Guderian's tactics followed the achievement of one priority goal - deeply penetrating the enemy's defense, disrupting the activity of the enemy's military services, disrupting his post, bringing chaos and confusion to the activity of the enemy's command apparatus and and a sudden panic at the enemy's lava. The Anglo-French, who had long outlived the “linear tactics”, were still full of doubts about the next war and its positional nature, and therefore hoped for a gain in strength in the fight on a broad front and for victory through systematic defeating the enemy, Guderian tanks. , building deep into the enemy's soil. As a result of victory over the enemy, instead of a bloody frontal struggle, it was achieved with much greater and lesser expenditure of forces and capabilities, with a series of attacks on communications and rupture of arteries, which knocked on the enemy. The great principle for the armies of the “Third Reich”, which, depending on the sharing of all types of their resources, simply could not afford a repetition of the almost identical positional battle of 1914-1918, as was already said earlier, there was the Swedes there is, as Georges Danton once said: “ Kindness, kindness and once again kindness!” Based on this very principle, General Guderian (to whom the soldiers not without reason gave him the nickname “Swedish Heinz”!) dismantled the foundations of the armored forces. The “loose troops” of the German ground forces, during the military operations, far outstripped the infantry units, which were moving on foot, surpassing the infantry in speed five times.

The order of the air forces, which were small in number, as soon as possible, far ahead of their advancing troops, was to ensure that the attacking enemies of communications, positions and junction points would paralyze and weaken as much as possible and respect the enemy by not allowing the warlord of aviation into his territory spaciousness For the successful completion of the assigned air force mission, the Luftwaffe has little current information and is working hard to describe the moment of flight time.

At the time of the Polish campaign, within the framework of the Gelb plan, the Germans, as they had already guessed, planned to conquer the third branch of the army, which would not stagnate in the hour of the conquest of Poland. It was about the young German airborne troops. The OKW believed that airborne units (later called "Bliskavich troops") could provide valuable service during the invasion, serving as a safe haven for secure interaction between air and ground forces. kami. The airborne landings, which rushed far ahead of the German tank “wedges”, were responsible for attacking fortifications, destroying important river crossings and destroying the enemy’s strongholds.

Defense plan for the advancing allies

"... The French Polish army was fought not with a sword, but with a broomstick."

(J. F. S. Fuller. “The Other World War 1939–1945”)

Dislocated from the other side of the sovereign cordons of Belgium and Holland, the forces of the immediate allies were organizationally divided into two groups. The 1st Army Group, which covered the territory from Dunkirk to Montmédie, included the 1st, 2nd, 7th and 9th French Armies and the British Expeditionary Corps - or, more precisely, the British Ex pediatric forces (BES, BEF), stationed near the city of Lille. The 2nd Army Group was deployed on the day and included the French armies that occupied the Maginot Line stretching from Verdun to the town of Selestat. The 3rd Allied Army Group was stationed near the Swiss cordon and stood up to the German 7th Army. At the onset of the German offensive, the 2nd and 3rd Army Groups were obliged to take up defense, while the 1st Army Group had to launch a counter-offensive through the territory of Belgium.

Due to the small number of their armored forces (all infantry divisions, three brigade formations, one light motorized division and border guard units), the Dutch were hesitant to limit their defense to the main region of their kingdom, which had been expanded by between the Zuider Zee and the Meuse river. The center and main point of the Dutch defense was the Amsterdam-Utrecht-Rotterdam-Dordrecht region. On the adjacent flank of this main area of ​​the Dutch defense, the heavily fortified Grebbe Line was built, bordered by the Zuider Zee backwater and by the Meuse River.

Behind it, covering the area of ​​the Dutch capital of The Hague, passed another fortified position, created before the war and which has passed down to history as the “line of water crossings.” The Eyssel position of the city of Arnhem and the "Pel Line" to this day, according to the plan of the Dutch command, were to serve the front forces and increase the advance of the German troops on the "Fort of Holland" (the name for the area was strong fortification in the center of Holland, including the places of Utrecht and Dordrecht ), about how the report will be said below, and also cover the Grebbe-Maas line. To defend this line, the Dutch deployed two army corps (which included colonial units as well). The Dutch light division and another army corps were stationed near Eindhoven and in the area of ​​'s-Hertogenbosch. The I Army Corps, which became the reserve of the Dutch High Command, was deployed near The Hague-Leiden.

The Belgians concentrated their defense along the Albert Canal, as a result of which, between the Dutch and Belgian fortifications, they lost the most undefended smudge, fifty kilometers wide, which stretched across the sea to the German cordon. This weak place in the Belgian-Dutch defense system did not fade away due to the respect of the Anglo-French command, so the coming allies planned, at the time of the German offensive, to send the 7th French army there through Antwerp and would be closed and this fifty-kilometer gap. The crumbling united 7th French Army (two fully equipped mechanized divisions) would soon arrive at the dangerous site just a couple of years after the start of military operations, so that There are three Dutchmen who are defending themselves.

Just a few months before the German army groups crossed the cordons of Holland and Belgium, the authorities of both countries were already well aware of Hitler’s invasion plan. In the early 1940s, their suspicions became firmly established after a Luftwaffe pilot with two German officers on board, as a result of a problem, prevented a landing on Belgian territory. Both Germans were targeted by the Belgian military services, who found out in one of the Luftwaffe officers that they had stolen a report on the invasion and disunity in the OKW. As soon as this incident was reported, Hitler and the German High Command decided to speed up the Gelb plan by making even more minor changes. After the incident with the SS-flight, the other units assigned to the 18th Army were not yet able to complete their training when the Germans launched an invasion of Holland.

Early on May 10, 1940, the German armored forces defeated the Gelb plan. Two groups of German gunners-paratroopers converged from their Junkers-52 transport aircraft, dotting the sky over Holland with parachute canopies, filled with the gloom of the shells of the Dutch anti-aircraft artillery. , and fell right on the heads of the Dutch. Under the cover of a squadron of fighters and dive bombers, soldiers of the 22nd Airborne Division landed in a designated area near the Dutch capital of The Hague, the same as the 7th Paratroopers. divisions of the Luftwaffe, also under the protection of military aircraft in the largest port of continental Europe. The parachutists descended on the Rotterdam Walhaven airfield, ensuring that German airborne troops could land further away. At the same time, a German strike force (11th company of the 16th Airborne Regiment), landing from the “airborne forces that fly”, landed directly on the Rhine River, along the bridges over the Rhine in Rotterdam, around the bridges and the island of Norder-Ey land, The burials of which were of utmost importance for the success of the entire operation, the fragments of the islands in the center of Rotterdam shuffled along the highway and the slopes, cutting off the German invading forces and easily paralyzing the support of the Dutch. Remnants of the offensive airborne landing paddocks, having landed in two separate zones, appeared to be isolated from one of the successful parachute landings, lying in the middle for the timely arrival to the aid of the 18th Army - even before , how the Dutch can overcome and relieve the offense of a group of parachutists.

Near the Dutch capital of The Hague, the 22nd Division immediately lost ground. Initially, the German paratroopers decided, apparently before the battle order they had set, to want to attack three airfields located near The Hague - Valkenburg (ten kilometers from The Hague and several kilometers from Leiden), Eupenburg (Raztashovannykh pіvdenno-skhіd, so it was possible to easily cut the roads The Hague-Utrecht and The Hague-Rotterdam, and Okenburg (2 km away from the Hague). attack. The Dutch again attacked everything three airfields, after which they pressed the German paratroopers to the river bank and captured nearly thousands of Germans, secretly transporting them to the internment camps located on the territory of the British Isles. o The Hague will be lost in the hands of the Dutch.

In Rotterdam, the German 7th Division of the Luftwaffe achieved enemy successes. Having occupied the Walhaven airfield and part of the place, the German paratroopers successfully repelled several counterattacks of the Dutch troops, supported by the influx of English bombers. With the support of German aviation, the parachute gunners of the 7th Luftwaffe Division gradually consolidated control over the territories they controlled, after which they buried another area, expanding to the point where they occupied the rest. In this manner, the stinks paved a corridor, which was intended to relieve the 18th Army from entering the Dutch territory. Having expanded the buried territory, German paratroopers occupied the banks of the Meuse River and the town of Dordrecht. They also built strategically important bridges across the Meuse at Moerdijk, which crossed the mouth of the rivers, preventing them from being ruined by the Dutch.

SS - FT u dii

“Smіlovo v bryazkіt mi lіzemo

Krizhina crooked tysnyavi.”

(Weight of Harald the Severe)

Just as two groups of German paratroopers attacked The Hague and Rotterdam, the SS Special Recognition Division and other formations of the 18th Army, involved in the operation to occupy the Netherlands, crossed the Dutch cordon. At this early stage of the “Gelb” operational plan, the units that were organizationally part of the SS division warehouse acted as one type of one, as during the Polish campaign. In the spring of 1939, the Der Fuehrer Regiment, 2nd Battalion of the Artillery Regiment of the SS Division, an engineering company and a motorized column were added as a reinforcement of the 207th Infantry Division. At the same time, the reconnaissance battalion of the SS Division of special importance and a platoon of armored vehicles from the Deutschland Regiment were transferred to the 254th Infantry Division of the Wehrmacht.

In order to reunite with the German paratroopers who were fighting in Rotterdam, the 18th Army needed to break through a few lines of deep defense of the Dutch troops. The relief of the locality had essentially protected their defenses, and the Dutch fortifications became important in preventing the advancing German troops. The task of the remaining ones was complicated by the need to plating the number of channels and channels. The first time units of the 18th Army crossed the road, we realized that the defensive position of the Dutch between the rivers IJssel and Meuse near the towns of Arnhem, Nijmegen and Malden, not far from the German-Dutch cordon, had been greatly strengthened. Another pereshkoda there were two complexes of fortification sporuds. In the territory that stretched from the Zuider Zee inlet to the Meuse River, the II and IV Dutch corps defended the once heavily fortified “Grebbe Line”. Having completely retaliated against this position, the Dutch III Corps defended the Pelsk Line, which reached the place of Werth on the day. The task of the III Corps, which occupied this plot, did not include resisting the German onslaught for an unknown hour. The troops that entered the warehouse of the corps were placed on the “Pelsk Line” in order to streamline the onslaught of the German 18th Army until the arrival of the Anglo-French forces to the rescue of the Dutch, who, having arrived in the designated area, were to blame whether to launch a counterattack.

The third defensive line of the Dutch army went back to the history of Another World War called “Fortifications of Holland”. This area consisted of a whole series of fire points and other fortification disputes located along the line that began at the exit of Amsterdam and went the day before 's-Hertogenbosch, then turned around at the exit of the river The villages of Vaal, the hiding places of Dordrecht and Rotterdam and the incomers. As a last resort, in order to stop the German offensive, the Dutch army planned to open the floodgates of the coastal dams in the dangerous region, potentially flooding this part of Holland with sea water (as soon as the area was flooded city of Leiden, which led to the taking of taxes by the Spaniards of the 16th century) .

Paul Gausser and other high-ranking officers of the 18th Army realized that only the highest possible level of penetration into Dutch and Belgian territory could ensure the success of Operation Gelb. The Dutch decided to streamline the onslaught of von Bock's armies to wait long enough to overcome important bridges and rowing in one hour, so that they could finish off the 7th division of the Luftwaffe and win enough time to allow the French and English The Russian troops will arrive in the area fights As only a few parachutists landed in the landing zone near Rotterdam and The Hague, von Küchler's 10th Division crossed the cordon, attempting to reach the shores of the Pivnichny Sea as soon as possible.

In the field of the 18th German Army, the time of combat had come for the Der Fuehrer regiment, assigned to the 207th Infantry Division X Corps, and the German invasion that was in the West. The Rashta part of the SS Division, which was behind the regiment Der Führer, was of special importance, along with many other units of the army, waited until the leading units of the 207th Division invaded the Netherlands. Due to the strength of the 18th Army, the rearguard units of Gausser were still on the banks of the Rhine, sticking out in one of the marching columns, since the invasion of Holland had already begun

In the first year of the invasion, the officials of the Der Fuhrer regiment demonstrated their courage and enthusiasm for achieving their assigned task. After two years, the 3rd battalion of the regiment reached the narrow bank of the Iessel River near the town of Arnhem. However, despite this rapid success, he did not manage to arrive promptly to the area of ​​military operations and prevent the destruction of the bridges across the river by the Dutch troops stationed on their birch. Not being fooled by this failure, the 2nd battalion of the Der Fuehrer regiment crossed the Eyssel River, and its sapper company was able to create a bridgehead on another birch the next day. Finally, the regiment occupied a fortified point near the town of Westerworth, and later took the place of Arnhem. During the course of the battles, the Dutch, who were defending themselves, threw out the white ensign several times, after which they opened fire on those approaching them, not suspecting anything, to the “green Essesians.” True, such access was demonstrated inclusively by the colonial units of the Dutch army.

Low morale among the Dutch

Glancing and staring, there is no end in sight

To go out from under the bridge

(John Milton. “Paradise Turned”)

The senior military ranks of the Dutch armored forces believed that their troops would be able to cover this territory within at least three days before the arrival of the main Allied forces. When the soldiers of the Der Fuehrer regiment began to rush to Westerworth and Arnhem in just a few years, the stench brought shock with its offensive blast and the staunchness of the Dutch army. Until the end of the day, finally, the action of this part of the “Green SS”, the 18th Army penetrated the depths of Dutch territory for more than a hundred kilometers. Completely satisfied with their successes achieved during the first day of Operation Gelb, the Der Fuehrer regiment moved to the camp near Renkum, preparing to attack the “Grebbe Line”. The assault on this fortified line, entering the battlefield, placed an offensive wound.

While the Der Fuehrer regiment was crossing the Iyssel River in battle, Gauser's reconnaissance battalion was operating in the area on the day, at a molding warehouse known as the "Groupe Grave". The Crimean regiment of the “Green SS”, “Groupe Grave” included two battalions of the 254th Wehrmacht Infantry Division in its warehouse. One of the two battalions was a musketry battalion, the other was an artillery battalion. Divided into two separate pens, the “Groupe Grave” plays a small role similar to that of the Der Fuhrer regiment. In order to assist the main forces of the 18th Army in their passage through Belgium and the Netherlands, parts of the bridge were used to bridge the Vaal River near the town of Nymegen, as well as a number of bridges over canals near Ha Terta, Heymana, Maldena and Neerbosch.

On behalf of the soldiers of the Der Fuehrer regiment, the soldiers of the SS reconnaissance battalion and their colleagues from the Wehrmacht experienced an important day. Wanting one of the corrals that led up to the “Groupi Grave” warehouse to be completely and carelessly allowed to open a bridge over the canal near Hayman, the other birds put on a baked support from the side of the burying purposes for burial purposes and incurred heavy losses. During the battle for the place at Khatert, every single rank of the German assault force that took part in the operation was killed or wounded. Tim, no less, the wounded managed to recapture the place before the Dutch, who were advancing, could inflict serious injuries on him.

In areas with other goals, the forces encountered destroyed bridges before they fell into the hands of the Germans. Undeterred by this failure, the Germans managed to destroy the line of fortified defensive bunkers near the town of Neerbosch, thereby ensuring the 18th Army's ability to force the Meuse-Waal Canal without losing its supports at the side of the Dutch troops, who are fighting from well-fortified ukritts. After the end of this battle, the reconnaissance battalion again became the main force of the SS Division of special importance.

The next day the Der Fuhrer regiment would come, turning to combat duty and showing good results. On this day, wedged into the disarray of the II and IV Dutch corps and broke their defenses on the “Grebbe Line” - another echelon of defense created by the advancing allies on the territory of Holland. It is not surprising that when the 18th Army followed this vanguard and continued its advance in the approaching direction until it was safe, the situation for the Allied armies in Belgium and Holland significantly worsened. At that time, as three Dutch corps were thrown up from the "Grebbe Line" and the "Pelian Line", the Belgian army, which had been defending the previous day, withdrew from its defensive positions along the Albert Canal and took up new positions in the area, extending from Antwerp to the city Louvain. These maneuvers left the 1st Light Mechanized Division of the 7th French Army in isolation, which was aware of the attacks of the German 6th and 18th Armies and prevented the French from withdrawing from the Netherlands.

On May 12, 1940, the 92nd Panzer Division reached the fortified edge of the Fort Holland area and came into contact with units of the 7th Parachute Division in the area of ​​the Moordijk Bridges. At night, other elements of the 18th Army advanced on Amsterdam. Following the great successes achieved by the regiment Der Fuehrer on the river Iessel and on the “Grebbe Line”, the commander of the X Corps gave this SS unit the honor of carrying out the assault on the similar line “Fortets Holland”. This area was the only important change that the ancient capital of Holland had lost to the Germans.

With majestic sounds, “fuelled with the spirit of the warrior” (as the ancient Russian chroniclers described in similar outbursts), the Der Fuehrer regiment was swiftly attacked by the Dutch troops, who occupied the similar edge of the “Fortifications of Holland”, and again made their way through the gates the living lines, having cleared the roads, were given full attention to the X Corps Go through the city of Utrecht and go to Amsterdam. After the successful operation, this part of the SS continued forward until the docks reached the coastal areas of Jymuiden and Sandvoort. Although the military garrisons of these places were baked and repaired, the stench could not overcome the Der Fuhrer regiment, break through their positions and want to offend the place. Two days later, the regiment reached the main forces of the SS Division of Special Purpose at Marienburz.

Although the regiment Der Fuhrer received great recognition for its actions in Holland, the SS Divisions of Special Purpose never had a chance to smell gunpowder in Holland. During the early stages of Operation Gelb, the main forces of Gausser's division arrived in two motorized columns at Hilvarenbeek, a Dutch town just above Antwerp. Due to the need to counterattack the British and French, the High Command of the German ground forces sent a division to the area with the aim of covering the left flank of the 18th Army. In the event that the Allied counter-offensive was about to begin, the division had to hold its position until German infantry units arrived to assist.

When it became clear that the Anglo-French offensive would not materialize, the OKH ordered Gausser's divisions to attack the Allied forces in Eastern Belgium in the Blitzkrieg style. True, the division of the “green SS” was soon forced to face the inconvenience of the cessation of the Soviet Union, as it suffered from a military traffic jam that clogged the main roads between Holland and Belgium. In search of an alternative route to Belgium, Gausser has launched research groups. Their mission lay among the prominent rural nobles, and any victorious division could have been victorious from the battlefield. Although the patrols discovered similar possibilities, the division took on a new task without being able to destroy it directly. Once again, the Supreme Command of the ground forces asked the SS Division for special duty to attack the Allied forces that occupied the western edge of Holland.

The developments near the Beveland pier, on the upper part of the river Scheldt (Scheldt), and the connection with Beveland by a narrow concrete dam, the island of Walcheren was the remaining Dutch territory, which until the middle of the grass was still in in the hands of formidable allies. The 18th German Army had already buried the remains of the region's mine, and the demoralized Dutch Army capitulated. Queen Wilhelmine of the Netherlands fled on a military ship to Great Britain. Thus, the garrison of the island of Walcheren appeared cut off from the main forces of the Anglo-French troops, deployed at a significant distance from the German provinces of Holland, and was about to flee from the Germans. by sea. Stressed by the results of military operations, which everywhere in the region ended with the defeat of the opponents of the “Third Reich”, the Germans were convinced that it would be easy to run into the numerous Walcheren garrison with the help of the flooding of the “Luftwaffe” and attacks by good forces. The preparation of assault battalions, as they did in battle.

Undeterred by the threatening prospect of being faced with 21 battalions of important artillery and military aviation (six squadrons of pick-ups and five squadrons of important bombers), the garrison of Walcheren Island was abandoned give the Germans a gift by surrendering to them without support. Little of! The Allied forces stationed on the island were willing to fight until evacuated by the British Navy - they wanted to immediately force the Germans to take this landmass in battle. The command of the garrison was in charge that its troops would be given, for the support of the artillery batteries of Antwerp and the military ships of the British Navy, which cruised the shores of the Beveland village, and the Germans would pay dearly behind the island.

Fight for the island of Walcheren

Glory is the soul of the dead.

(Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French)

For the defense of the island of Walcheren, a garrison was deployed in the same manner due to geographical expansion. On the right was not only the fact that the Beveland pier was a narrow, thin land that did not allow attacking forces of any size to launch an attack against the island in two or three columns, but because most of the pier was flooded. This made Gausser angry to throw his battalions through the tight, narrow isthmus, under dagger artillery and machine-gun fire. The allied artillerymen did not need to use their sights; they could aim straight through the stovbur. For example, the Germans only have one land route to reach the island. This single route leads through Mitsna, a concrete dam - a high embankment with a two-length roadway and sides on the sides no more than half a meter wide, which descend steeply straight into the quagmire that connects the Beveland Peninsula with the island of Walcheren and reach the widest, so that the Dutch could There are a number of double asphalt highways, and also a single-lane road.

For the planned attack on Walcheren, Paul Gausser selected two battalions from the Deutschland depot regiment (1st and 3rd), with sufficient force to push back against the island's garrison. The 1st battalion was commanded by SS Sturmbannführer Fritz Witt, the 3rd battalion was commanded by SS Sturmbannführer Matthias Kleingeisterkamp. Wanting Witt and Kleingeisterkamp immediately planned to reach the island of Walcheren overnight, operating in parallel, in two assault columns, so that the territory of the Beveland village lay on their route, the floors appeared flooded, and Witt’s 1st battalion would make a tumult 2nd oil tree.

Having reached the island of Walcheren on the other half of the day on May 16, 1940, the SS assault battalions attacked the baked base of the garrison. Near the Westerdijk area, the ranks of the 3rd battalion had the opportunity to build their own roads through the mine field, which was additionally strengthened by drotiny fences, poking through the swampy, well-targeted area of ​​the enemy, under the heavy fire of the enemy troops that defended the position ii along the entire rowing perimeter. At the same time, the SS assault columns were fired upon by both enemy artillery batteries based in Antwerp and British warships cruising the island of Walcheren. As the division veteran Das Reich Paul Schürmann from the 9th company of the 3rd battalion of the SS Regiment Deutschland recalled earlier: “We fought a hurricane of fire, but the enemy did not skimp on ammunition. I'm lying behind the rowing right-handed facing the crossing. Livoruch was madly firing machine guns in front of me, and shells with guns were flying over our heads. Gurkit Harmat was angry in the roar of the motor, and the clouds of smoke, drink and fog soon thickened on the floors, so that for two or three meters nothing could be seen. I lay there and marveled at them, watching out for how our first comrades, bending down, walked against the strong wind, with rifles approaching the dam. One of them began to descend, the others still called out, looking for something. The stench rushed back, instinctively trying to fight off the foul fire of the enemy. I huddled up and ran away. A small number of our people gathered at the viemtsa, which leads to the dam. We dug through those who were coming out, turned them around and drove them back - and we had to lead some of them by the hand! - until they dare to destroy them again at the bik damby.” During the landing on the island of Walcheren, the SS battalions lost sixteen more killed and at least a hundred wounded, and the attack floundered madly, as if all the officers did not particularly attend to the combat operations of their squadrons.

Dam attack

“To whom is memory, to whom is glory,

For whom the water is black.”

(Olexander Tvardovsky. “Vasil Tjorkin”)

The Yesesians, who landed on the shore of the island of Walcheren, were haunted by the steady sound of the enemy's guns. The attackers lay down, and, unable to respond to the enemy, the Swedish arms of the German machine guns began to crack. Ale the enemy was at a prominent position - he fought from machine guns from behind bars, well-shot locality. Guessing us, Paul Schürmann, a participant in the rowing through the Walcherenska rowing, guessed: “I fell, as one of ours fell, then two more right-handers fell in front of me, and then I struck another comrade, who lay down under the accusations. Those who fell were still alive, and tried, with the help of their teeth, to open their individual first aid kits to bandage wounds on their arms and chests.” And at this hour, “our carts kicked out the carts one by one, and their wounds were no longer lying around them - the clothes, the crooked ones, and the blinds.”

As the hour calmed down and the hour for the assault arrived, Schürmann noticed even more dead and wounded. In one place, he treated one of his comrades, without a uniform or shirt. This seriously wounded soldier “had a majestic crooked hole in his back, and I was walking across this hole as his legs were dying.” Schürmann guesses: “I’m amazed that the left-handed man in front of me is another comrade walking back, in the same line of sight, having left, ignoring the blows that whistle in the wind... and does not surrender respect to the death that threatens. There is blood on his neck, and the uniform on his chest is also stained with blood. The wandering eyes are widely flattened, grey-faced, and will marvel right over my head, the sky hovering behind my back.” Right-handed Schurman noticed another killed soldier, who was “lying on his back. His hands with crooked fingers were raised to the sky.”

Unfazed by the baked conditions, the SS battalions continued to push forward, forcibly making their way through the flooded, muddy territory of the Beveland dam and breaking the most obvious distance of the Walcherenska dam. Here the German attack soon collapsed in front of the even more brutal support of the garrison. Gathering at the rapidly swirling gunmen's stations or behind the salvage wagons, the SS grenadiers dominated the territory they occupied, while the machine guns and artillery shells of the enemy fired at them from the other side of the dam. During the battle, the Germans lost another seventeen people killed and thirty wounded. The garrison of Walcheren is likely to “drink the German blood” and be completely satisfied with the expenses that I was given to the Deutschland regiment on that day, having decided for the sake of evacuating from the islands.

At that time, as the SS Special Relevance Division secured German control over the western edge of Holland, the other military Army Group B took the Belgian capital Brussels, passed through Belgium and southern France, and then passed away. on my own way to the English Channel. After the capitulation of the Dutch army, the main forces of the 18th Army were able to join this offensive and help drive a wedge between the Allied forces in Northern France and the Anglo-French in breasts, spread along the Sommi River. During the course of the operation, the 18th Army was assigned to cover the flanks of this wedge and there was little hope that the forces of the advancing allies, based in the Dunkirk area, would not be able to escape from the “cauldron”, being pressed with their backs to the English Channel.

On May 20, 1940, the 1st Panzer Division of the German Wehrmacht reached the Atlantic Ocean near the town of Noyelles. The powerful armies of the French Republic, the British Expeditionary Forces and the entire Belgian army were in retreat and, for fear, could easily have been overwhelmed by the powerful forces of the Third Reich. The German tanks turned to Dunkirk, hoping to give the enemy the remaining ability to escape by sea. The commander-in-chief of the British expeditionary corps, General Lord Gort, who rejected the order to attack Cambrai, suddenly recognized the unreliability of the communication that was coming from his troops from Dunkirk, creating a regrouping of forces and soldiers There are two divisions for its protection. That same day, London realized that the situation on the continent was developing extremely unfavorably for the British corps, and began to gather military ships and civilian vessels to evacuate the troops of the visiting allies by sea. The rise of ostracized people with nezabar has become critical.

On the evening of the 22nd, the command of the XII Corps gave the SS Divisions a special order to move forward, together with the 6th and 8th tank divisions, directly to the port of Calais to strengthen the German positions on the approach and outside the perimeter and Dunkirk and tighten an ever tighter ring around the advancing allies . The “green SS” was also faced with a special task - to force the La Bassie canal and entice bewitching forces to try to escape from the boiler through the canal on the day before the town of Kassel. In addition, the SS Divisions of Special Purpose were to create bridgeheads across the canal and drive out the English troops from the Nieppes Forest.

Although Paul Gausser's soldiers were exhausted by the rich marches and battles, the stench, as before, was low in high morale and at the prospect of playing an important role in the battle for Western Europe. During their march to the La Bassie canal, units of the “Green SS” covered the right flank of the XII Corps, protruding directly to the town of Er. Gausser received information from the headquarters of the 18th Army and returned to his exit positions. The ground-covered parts of the SS were dissolved in just a little bit of fresh air, in the area of ​​the town of Saint-Hilaire.

Unfortunately for the soldiers of the SS Division of special importance, the military’s wardens did not allow them to relax and enjoy themselves. Throughout the night, groups of broken French mechanized and infantry units repeatedly descended on the German Gausser in an attempt to create a breach from the Dunkirk “cauldron.” Early in the 23rd year of mechanization, the French battalion threw the 9th company of the Der Fuhrer regiment. The tank uniforms of the French trained the 10th and 11th company regiments.

That same day, a little later, the 5th and 7th companies of the DF regiment were also attacked by the French, who had escaped from the “cauldron” in the Blessi area. The soldiers of the 2nd battalion of the Der Fuehrer regiment and the 2nd battalion of the SS artillery regiment dispersed in this area for the night, to recuperate after participating in the nearby battle for the Germans against the enemy, which made them angry. The stinks fought like animals driven into a hole. In the hour of battle, Karl Kreutz, the outstanding star of the SS-FT division, became a witness to the death of the careless commander of his battalion: “I have beaten Erpsenmüller. He stood next to me and calmly smoked a cigarette. Then he said: “Kreutz, why are you shooting at them? Look, please, the military is already in full swing!” Come on, when I reloaded the rifle, I stumbled, as if I had fallen with a shot in the head. He was lying head first, face down to the ground, and the unextinguished cigarette was still burning between the fingers of his left hand. There’s no need for the army to be swarmed!”

Having prepared themselves for the shock caused by the rapt attack of the French, the Germans grouped up and began to defend themselves in earnest. Wanting to be driven away from all sides by enemy tanks, a platoon of anti-tank tanks from the 7th Company Regiment Der Fuhrer found at least fifteen enemy combat vehicles. As the day wore on, the French attacks on Saint-Hilaire began to gradually weaken, and the Germans took the initiative, conducting well-coordinated counterattacks with the forces of infantry and anti-tank units that were operating closely together. At the time of the end of the battle, one or more of the 3rd battalion of the Der Fuehrer regiment had thirteen reduced tanks in its inventory. The SS-FT division took over five hundred military troops. In this battle, the regiment first fought against hostile tanks.

Other SS units also showed themselves well during the battle, during which the division’s front was broken through the La Basse Canal. SS Untersturmführer Fritz Vogt, who commanded a motorcycle patrol corral consisting of thirty men, spotted a mechanized column of French troops that was approaching the retreat, right next to the town of Masingham. Fritz Vogt, who was an officer of the 2nd company of the reconnaissance pen (battalion) of the SS, had already lost his identity behind the Kerivnitsvo army during the assault on the Meuse-Waal canal, defending himself with a strong Dutch garrison. In France, the Holy Cross was awarded to the Holy Cross for successful actions against the French mechanized colony.

Having readied the readiness of his anti-tank shells to open fire on the French column, Vogt ordered his men to shoot at us in front of the light armored vehicles that were blocking the French column. Having shot at targets that were easily spilled, the anti-tank forces fired at the tanks that were at the head of the column, which cut the roads to the entrance. Demoralized and overwhelmed by panic, the French soldiers were desperate to surrender to the kindness of the conquerors. So the patrol patrol, numbering just thirty people, spotted an enemy battalion full of mechanized units.

Hard battles

The owners of good people are beautiful.

(Count Palatine)

It is unlikely for the Germans that the battle at Saint-Hilaire will end. The remainder of the French assault group advanced to the other side of the La Basse Canal and turned towards the Dunkirk “cauldron”. Although the fighting divisions of the SS - FT successfully launched a counterattack, they were oppressed by the overwhelming difficulties they encountered during the fight against the French Renault 35 tanks and other, even larger and more important, combat vehicles in horns The German anti-tank guns turned out to be insufficiently strong, the shells could not penetrate the armor of many hostile tanks, including the shooter at close range, perhaps at point-blank range. In some cases, the German anti-tank guns had to be allowed to The enemy tanks must stand up to five meters so that they can be taken out I sing in harmony. anti-tank artillery - a 37-mm PAK gun, abiyak, although at close range, is capable of fighting against light British and French tanks, and later appeared during the campaign on the Skhidny Front as an absolutely marque these armored units. nicknamed "kalatushka" by the Germans themselves. The lack of fire in the German division was one of the reasons for the loss of French mechanized units, which initially developed successfully through the division's battle formations.

On May 24, the SS Special Purpose Division forced the La Basse canal, created bridgeheads along the canal and penetrated all the kilometers near the enemy lines, until the docks were closed by British soldiers in the warehouse of the 2nd Infantry Division ii. Unfazed by the baked British counterattacks, the Germans pressed into positions and seized their bridgeheads. Even before it ended, the SS-FT division had given orders to destroy the 26th of May in the afternoon and launch an attack on the British forces stationed in the Nieppes forest.

As soon as the SS Special Purpose Division began its assault on the forest. The Nimechchin regiment was advancing on the right flank, and the Der Fuhrer regiment was advancing on the left flank. For an hour, the reconnaissance battalion leaned forward, establishing the center between the 1st and 3rd battalions of the Der Fuhrer regiment. It’s also not surprising that the forest’s abundance made it easier for the British forest guards to defend themselves. The stench also strongly evokes the defensive capabilities of well-constructed field fortification spores.

When the SS battalions launched an assault on the Nieppes Forest, the archers left them with important losses. On the right flank of the units, snipers of the British Royal Majesty the Queen's Zahidno-Kentsky regiment attacked the SS regiment of Nimechchin with a hail of deadly lead. Undeterred at all, the “Green Socialists” did not relax their efforts, aimed at knocking out the British garrisons from the forest, betraying their numerical superiority and conducting the battle in an extremely aggressive manner.

At the end of this rich day, the fighters of the German regiment reached the Haverskerk site in battle, just as the Der Fuhrer regiment broke through the Bois d'Amont and reached the Nieppes Canal. In these areas, the ESS people found anti-tank guns, thrown by warring soldiers who were hastily advancing. Having recognized the fire at the specially equipped shooting range, the Germans came back to the fact that the armor-piercing bullets, released from captured anti-tank rifles, were strongly damaged by the snow. This design turned out to be incorrect, which led to the British stagnation of a similar formation near Dunkirk.

On the 26th of May, it became clear to the English and French that trying to break out of the “cauldron” would be absolutely hopeless and would not bring any success. The strength of the Belgians inevitably weakened completely, and they lost their only exit - access to the sea. Operation "Dynamo" began (a code designated entry for the evacuation of allied troops exiled by the Germans in the Dunkirk area). The British Expeditionary Forces, having abandoned all their equipment (three thousand artillery guns, six hundred tanks, forty-five thousand cars and a lot of other military equipment) rushed to the English Channel, searching for the carriage on board English ships.

Day 28 brought great relief to the armies of the Third Reich as they advanced on the Dunkirk cauldron. On this day, the Belgian king Leopold III capitulated all his army. The capitulation of the Belgians allowed the German 6th and 18th armies, which had previously acted against them, to strike at the edge of the perimeter occupied by the Allied troops. This capitulation, combined with the successful outposts of von Kleist's and Gotha's tank groups, drove the Allies, who were advancing, to a small and narrow patch of land between the place of Ipro m at the gathering and the Franco-Belgian cordon. The fragments of the Nieppes Forest were now spreading across the wedge territory, aimed at isolating and finally, the command of the British Expeditionary Force was calling out from this dangerous plot the Power of the Queen's Majesty for The Hadn-Kent regiment brought other regiments to positions in close proximity to the English Channel.

At that time, as the German Regiment, the Der Fuehrer Regiment and the Reconnaissance Battalion were fighting the British in the Nieppes Forest, Steiner with his Deutschland Regiment at the warehouse of the 3rd Panzer Division was reaching out to Merville. On May 27, this part of the “green SS” attacked the new line of defense of the British at the Liski Canal. After the artillery preparation, which weakened the defense of the enemy positions, Steiner threw his 3rd battalion at the English defenders and threw them away. On the same day, a little later, two battalions crossed to the other bank of the Lisky Canal and created bridgeheads for the crossing of the main German forces that followed them.

Until now, the SS Division Death's Head had long since arrived in this area to help strengthen German control over this section of the canal, but in fact it was still located several kilometers away. Tim an hour, the SS Deutschland regiment launched a counterattack with British mechanized units. Regardless of the valiant support of the SS soldiers, their screw guns and grenades could not penetrate the armor of the British tanks that were advancing on them. Having realized the great expenses, they were buried due to the residual depletion of only the arrival of the company of anti-tank guns in the warehouse of the Death's Head division, which was destroyed by the fire of the British tank attack. Under the cover of the fire of artillery batteries deployed nearby, British tanks arrived.

The secret concept that the commanders and officers of the SS units created for themselves during the battles at Zakhoda, judging by the opinions of veterans, was reduced mainly to the offensive. The German 37-millimeter anti-Titan tank guns turned out to be ineffective against the tanks of the advancing allies - especially against the important (infantry) British tanks such as "Matilda", "Vallentyne" and "Churchill" (Rosstril Vati yakyi happened to Mayzha at point-blank range or for help with 88 mm anti-aircraft shells - there, there were stinks on the armored ones!) and against the medium (cruising) tanks "Crusader" and "Cromwell". As for the light tanks of the enemy - for example, the English "Tetrarchs", then (as the veteran of the Der Fuhrer regiment Walter Rosenwald thought with the author), when they were hit by shells from German thirty-seven-millimeter guns, the stench "lit up like cheesecakes."

Long-term training for repairs

"Dare - and you will become what you want to be"

(William Shakespeare. "The Twelfth Night")

After the end of the battles for the Lissky Canal and the Nieppes Forest, the SS Division of Special Purpose was withdrawn to the Cambrai area, where it was given a short recovery, after which it had to renew the re-examination of England for 31 days all the troops that are going to advance. If the Nimechchin regiment reached through Mont de Cat, the Der Fuhrer regiment entered the town of Kassel. Standing on top of the hill that towered between the city, the soldiers enjoyed the beautiful view of the Dunkirk perimeter. They did not have the opportunity to take part in the final blow by tightening the knot on the throats of the exhausted Anglo-French troops who were crowded into Kazan in the full-scale evacuation to England. On the evening of the 1st of June 1940, the SS Division of Special Purpose received orders to withdraw from the Dunkirk area and redeploy to the Bapaume area, and then receive additional personnel to their warehouse.

At this time, Gausser's division was removing nearly two thousand officers and lower ranks to replenish the expenses that the division had incurred in battles since the beginning of Operation Gelb. Once again, a larger number of the division's companies were established and fully staffed, so that now guard duty does not need to add additional burden to the skin of the division's taken rank, but it was not necessary to perform it as often as before. When the Germans occupied Dunkirk on June 4, 1940, the SS Division of Special Purpose and other formations were already in full swing before the start of Operation Rot (operational plan "Chervoniy", split up by the OKH using the method of the factory South of France).

This operational plan was handed over to three groups of German armies for the day from three operational units directly. On the day before Reims, Army Group "B" began to implement the operational plan "Rit", launching the 5th attack on a large territory that would extend from the Atlantic coast to the river En. Several days after von Bock's forces launched their offensive, Army Group A followed them, charging into the corridor between the river and the Franco-German cordon. At that time, as the French divisions that occupied the Maginot Line as garrisons, devoted all their respect to the enemy, who loomed over them from the Sunset, Army Group C crossed the cordon and launched an attack on the Maginot Line from similar to straight away. As a result, the French soldiers of the 2nd and 3rd Army Groups fell into sharp, squeezing, like breams, with two tight German groups.

Although the French army was still small with no less than sixty divisions deployed today along the Sommi River, it was weakened by huge expenses and weakened by the devastating attacks of the Luftwaffe. All this played into the hands of the German Army Groups “A” and “B”, which broke through the defensive line, hastily created by the French General Maxime Weygand, who changed the position of the Commander-in-Chief, General Gamelin, on the river En. Having quickly broken through the “Weygand Line,” the Germans continued to quickly leave for the day without slowing down. The 14th century Army Group B, without strengthening its support, entered Paris, abandoned by the French Republic and the “hidden place”. The ensign rose from the rotor over the Eiffel Tower.

Low morale among the French

Kozhen the Frenchman felt himself a victim from afar.

(Emmanuel d'Astier. "Seven days of defeat")

It is not surprising that the actual surrender of the capital led to a sharp decline in the morale of the French soldiers and inspired the Germans to increase pressure on all fronts. After three days of sharpening, the French army fell into complete disarray when the heavy tank wedges of Army Groups “A” and “C”, supporting squadrons of important and diving bombers, crashed into the “cauldron” for the day Nancy place. On June 22, 1940, all French forces concentrated in this region capitulated.

During the implementation of the operational plan "Rot", the SS Division of Special Purpose operated at the warehouse of the tank group von Kleist and took part in the day of the Sommi River as part of Army Group "B" on the way out. Just before the start of the operation, the division experienced a baked-in, rather ineffective artillery shelling, which resulted in minor losses. The next day, the SS regiments counterattacked. Unfazed by the ruined bridge, which they had little intention of speeding up to cross the river, the SS artillery regiment and a company of important armor began shelling the enemy positions on the protilegny birch. By this time, the grenadiers of the Deutschland Regiment had crossed the river and immediately alarmed the French, who were defending, before a hasty approach.

With the Germans close to Paris, the French began to repair the SS divisions, which was approaching more intensive operations. Wanting the Der Fuehrer regiment to cross the En River, the enemy's fire forced Gausser to withdraw his forces back and take a similar route for them, where the French support would not be so busy. After the entry of Army Group B into Paris, the SS Special Relevance Division and other units of von Kleist's Panzer Group continued their advance in a direct manner, eager to push into the depths of French territory, near And this is because the enemy's strength is weak. At that time, as the XVI Panzer Corps was approaching the place of Dijon on the day before, Gausser’s units at the warehouse of the XIV Motorized Corps continued to push through the day-defining France.

In this region, the SS - Verfugungsdivision defeated the enemy forces, centered around Orleans, Tours and Poitiers, after which it allowed itself a short recovery. At that time, the fate of the invaded became for Gausser's army, in the world they were pushed to the Franco-Spanish cordon, and it became increasingly important to be transferred to the heirs of the speci. Near the place of Angoulême, Felix Steiner, a company of the Deutschland regiment and a group of SS artillerymen, near the search for suitable apartments, raptly marked a column that was approaching, French soldiers who were advancing, who took the German soldiers for English

Having noted the army and allowed them to safely reach the place, units of the “Green SS” withdrew from Angoulême. The German commanders converged on the measure of the place and were ahead of him in order to destroy the place with artillery at the least stronghold. About an hour the SS Division of Special Purpose came into being. Mer, don’t worry about accepting an ultimatum. The Germans dispersed the small garrison of the place and escorted the French troops to Steiner's headquarters. During the final period of the campaign, the SS division carried out a number of similar operations. In one hour, the SS units captured thirty thousand troops, having spent a total of thirty-three people killed, wounded, and sick in an hour of marching through the deserted France.

On the 25th of June, Operation Roth was completed. The new French order is no longer a French Republic, but a French Power (Etat Francais)! - what about the hero of the Great War - the 10-year-old elder Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain (who became the heir of the famous fort of Verdun in 1916) agreed with the minds of the world dictated by the Axis powers (at that time the French voice or war and fascism, which was scattered,). As a result of the truce, France appeared divided into two zones. The Pivdenny zone, not occupied by German troops, fell under the leadership of Marshal Pétain, as a nominally independent, friendly Axis power, with its capital in the small resort town of Vishi. This part of France, significantly larger in size, came under German control. In addition, before the zone occupied by the German military there was a narrow border of the Atlantic coast, which reached the Franco-Spanish cordon. The SS Division of Special Purpose and the Death's Head Division guarded this territory until the beginning of the linden tree in 1940. outlined by Hitler, but also linked through the long-standing hesitation of the Spanish caudillo Francisco Franco, who could not sooner be welded with the mighty British Empire, operations from the burying of the English military- sea fort of Gibraltar - “the key to the Mediterranean Sea”.

During the campaign in Western Europe, the Germans lost nearly twenty-seven thousand people killed, one hundred and eleven thousand wounded, and over eighteen thousand dead. The French spent ninety-two thousand killed, two hundred and fifty thousand wounded, and at least one million four hundred and fifty thousand casualties, while their advancing allies suffered light losses. The English spent only three thousand and four hundred and fifty seven killed and nearly sixteen thousand wounded. The Dutch spent two thousand and ninety people killed and six thousand and one hundred and ninety wounded, and the Belgians - seven thousand five hundred people killed and fifteen thousand. hundred and fifty wounded.

For the ranks of the Waffen SS division, combat operations in Western Europe became a new opportunity to demonstrate their combat skills and military mastery. After the completion of the conquest of France, many of them received awards and promotions for their bravery and courage, revealed in battles. Among the ranks of the SS divisions of special significance were the Litsarskiy Chrest of the Saliznyi Chrest, Obersturmführer Fritz Vogtiz of the Reconnaissance Battalion, SS Sturmbannführer Fritz Wittiz of the 1st Battalion of the Deutschland and Haupt Regiment Sturmführer In addition, Felix Steiner received the Litsarsky Khrest of the Zalizny Krest for his successful command of the Deutschland regiment, and Georg Keppler - for his equally successful command of the Der Fuhrer regiment.

Notes:

A pentagram, or a pentacle (pentacle) is a five-pointed (in heraldry - “five-pointed”) star (first seen on Sumerian-Akkadian clay tablets) a magical figure, which was distinguished among the ancient Chaldeans by the goddess of the “rank star” Ishtar (Istar) “(five-cut) star” (Chaldean Ishtar-Istara is representative of the Phoenician Astarte, the Canaanite Asherite, and the Parthian-Vermenian Astkhik-Astlik); was respected by the emblem of the Pythagoreans ("pentalpha") and what was evident - the order of the hexagram (the six-pointed "signet of David" or the "mirror of Solomon") - to the greatest extent in the Chaklun practice of late antiquity and The Middle Ages of magical symbols penetrated into the era of European Enlightenment (XVII century .) established itself as one of the favorite symbols of the Rosicrucian Freemasons, becoming, for now, one of the main articles of the sovereign coat of arms and ensign of the United States of America (the founding fathers of which formed the masonic lodge). The inverted pentagram (as a schematic representation of the head of a goat, as Lucifer appeared to his adherents at the Sabbaths of the “black masses”) symbolizes the satanic (Luciferian) anti-church dosi. It is possible, therefore, that there are mirrors on the shoulder straps and buttonholes of the German army, the assault corrals of the SA and SS under Hitler (as well as in the rich fighters of large volunteer corps - for example, the Russian-German "B" Altic Landeswehr" 1918-1919) buli not p' yatikutnі, and chotirikutnі. Regardless of all the uncontested facts, the red five-cut mirror was lost in Russia as an all-pervasive symbol of “the glory of our army”, after hours of being buried by the People’s Commissar for War L.D. Trotsky in 1918 of the Red Army (on the first order of which - the Order of the Battle of the Red Ensign - an inverted pentagram was depicted) and for our rich soldiers, being in their honor for decades of the Bolshevik war propaganda of information closely related to the concept of loyalty to the military community, the Great The Vicious War. However, the existence of a single historical and philosophical approach to traditional-historical national Russian symbols, which is emerging in our region, inevitably and may lead to a sublime, absolutely chimerical addition in one of these attributes (for example, on the field of a coat of arms, ensign or combat flag ensign) absolutely antagonistic and mutually hostile to each other, for their deep meaning, symbols. So, for example, the decline of the same Orthodox Roman Empire (Byzantium) is an old symbol of Russian sovereignty, adopted from the hours of the Grand Duke of Moscow and the sovereign of all Rus Ivan III - a double-headed eagle - appeared placed on the ensign of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation with five-pointed mirrors (! ), PID is a sign of the Yaki on the Rosiyskiy Land of Sovsim recently, crookedly, the brigbling of Borotba is not the deprivation of the cultural and irrigation-moraine Rosiekoye self-tumor, and the very fucked tsilisnіstya!

Just before the end of the Second World War, in the spring of 1945, the XV Cossack Cavalry Corps of the German Wehrmacht under the command of General Helmut von Pannwitz was incorporated into the military SS warehouse under the name of the XIV Cossack Cavalry of the SS Corps, which, however, was in the minds of those formed at that time, for example , no one from the ranks of the corps, except von Pannwitz himself, has an SS rank, without wearing an SS uniform and the obligatory special numbers of all SS ranks, tattooed under the groin).

Freikorps; In Russian literature, I feel like I often write about these large German pens in one - “Volunteer Corps” - I want to talk about more than two thousand units and subdivisions, which are no small part of the necessary command, one organization!

Norwegian: Nasjonal Samling (NS); A similar name (ZBIR) was given to the Serbian Orthodox-monarchist fascist organization of Dmitr Letich, which competed with the German occupation rule during the rocks of the Other World, from among the members of some formations "Ser SS Volunteer Corps" (Serbisches Freiwilligenkorps de.

Nim.: Macht mir den rechten Fluegel stark!

English: British Expeditionary Force (BEF); Russian literature also uses the phrase “British Expeditionary Corps” (BEC).

What is more hostile, given the small size of the Dutch army, is the fact that at the Waffen SS depot, two divisions fully staffed by the Dutch were fighting, plus a significant Dutch contingent at the depot of the SS division "B" iking", behind the blame of the Dutch ("German") territorial "parts" "for foreign purposes in the Netherlands" or "Netherlands SS units for foreign purposes" (Algemeene SS in Nederland/Nederlaandsche SS).

Those who respect the Wehrmacht generals with the butt of their greatest military mystique never became a hiding place for the allies.

On the 10th of today, 1940, Hitler recognized the remaining date as the 17th of today. Operations for the implementation of the Gelb plan.

Just that day, when Hitler praised the ceremony, near the Belgian city of Mechelen, he began to experience a mysterious “fall” (known as the “Mechelen Incident”).

MECHELEN INCIDENT

This story could be guessed from the numerical options, but most importantly from the words of the head commander of the Airborne Forces of Germany, General Kurt Student:

“On the 10th of today, Major, I have been appointed as a communications officer at the 2nd Naval Fleet, flying from Munster to Bonn from the department to clarify minor details of the plan in the command of the fleet. With the help of the new operational plan, I will attack on approach.

As a result of the frosty weather and strong winds over the frozen, snow-covered Rhine, the flight got off course and flew into Belgium, where it had to make an emergency landing.

The major did not manage to burn important documents, and therefore, the hidden warehouse of the offensive operations on the approach became the treasure of the Belgians. The German Military Attache in Haasa informed that on what evening the King of Belgium had a long telephone conversation with the Queen of Holland.

The military pressure of the western lands, doubtful that the operational plan on June 29, 1939 would allow anything other than initial success, as well as the loss of secret documents, led in the coming month to the final I will review the plan at all levels and at the headquarters of the army groups .

The Germans changed the plan.

It would seem like the end of history... and that’s it!

FRENCH EXPLORATION

It is necessary to provide a proper French source.

It was back on the 20th spring of 1939, just before the war in Poland, that the beginning of great transfers of fascist German armies began immediately to the western regions of Nimeczina. At this point, she developed the idea that Hitler and her current plans do not have any intention of continuing the military operations in Western Europe, and the threat of aggression is moving towards the end.

GAUCHER REVIEWED ALL TACTICS OF THE WEHRMACHT

Head of French intelligence General Gaucher To ensure that the French command and action were accurately informed about the specifics of the aggression against Poland.

He reported that the Germans were stuck with such methods of fighting as front-massive strikes from the front on fortified areas, communications and other vulnerable areas of enemy defense, strangling ground troops from the first attack.

The offensive of the great tank divisions, which threatens to penetrate into the depths of the enemy's expansion without occupying intermediate lines, preventing the ability of broken and exhausted units to go over to the defense.

Coming out of this, Gaucher wrote a memo for the officers of the French army, which would indicate the evidence of war in Poland.

On the fields of France, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg, the fascist German armies stood up to the very methods of conducting combat operations that were fought in Poland.

General Gaucher used the tactics... the Germans adopted this very tactic.

The pro-military-political establishment of France ignored all this evidence

THE REVISED PLAN "GELB" was criticized by French intelligence

French intelligence, looming agents on the territory of Germany, again opened up the grouping of the fascist German armies until the beginning of the offensive.

This development was reinforced by the fact that the main forces of the Nazi tank and motorized divisions were revealed at the gathering of designated places.

These reports turned out to be accurate.

The French ruling stake and the High Command ignored their intelligence data….

Commander of the German Army Group “B”, Colonel General Bock, in due course Having discovered great doubts(!) about the extent of the transfer of a head strike in the Arden Sugha Having learned on the first day about the beginning of the invasion of the Anglo-French armies to the border of the Dil River, he wrote to his friend:

“Oh my God, God’s righteousness is coming!”

Right from the military point of view, the plan is to attack France with clean water...

The Nazi-German command did not manage to initiate the invasion from the intelligence of the Allied powers.

The approximate date for the attack became known to the allies already in the spring of 1940, and a little later and the remaining date is the 10th of May.

Prote the most military-political kerivnitsya from the edges of the Anglo-French bloc... ignored everything

THE THIRD DEVELOPMENT OF THE “GELB” PLAN

And here the situation became supernatural.

At the beginning of the grass, a few days before the beginning of the season, two officers of the German General Staff, called von Netschau and Resner, left Zossen, the dismantled headquarters, near the town where the headquarters of the commander of the Army Group was located, as small advance through Belgium.

They carried with them a briefcase, in which there was an order about the attack, from the exact date and hour of the beginning, the direction of the head strike, the number of forces that occur, the line for the first and next days of the attack, the direction of the mercy strikes and everything else, what do you owe what a shame.

In a word, the entire Gelb plan

In the same car with these officers was Resner's old comrade, Sonnenberg, who was not on the staff line, but became a pilot and now commanded an aviation regiment. Zustrich was located near the carriage, and then Sonnenberg ordered to get off the train and go to his new home, fortunately the oncoming train had broken down in two and a half years.

Von Netschau and Resner accepted this proposition, and for good measure the friends sat outside Sonnenberg’s soldier’s apartment overlooking the airfield. It turned out that the schnapps turned out to be too hot, and the sustrich turned out to be too hot, and their anniversary was let down, and it turned out that the stench of the train no longer came. The upcoming train was missing, and the package was required to be delivered today.

Sonnenberg said

“It doesn’t matter, I’ll take you home on my little plane, Mitya.”

POLITT

It was said in detail. Having given all the commands, they flew out of hiding, and the three friends, carefully fitting into the two-wheeled aircraft, headed off on the road.

Sonnenberg ordered to demonstrate the “dead loop”, but his companions watched with awe.

The weather was foggy, there were no landmarks or radio beacons near the front-line zone, but, according to the pilot, he knows the area well and can easily lead to the required airfield.

Nezabar, having made his way through the ball of darkness, actually cleared the airfield, and Sonnenberg was ready to land. Already, they were rolling along the road, shaking their heads with apprehension until they were able to stand in the air with Belgian insignia. Having tried to turn around, a burning car blocked the fire.

« Alright, we've arrived"…. There is only one thing I know to say about the great Sonnenberg.

Von Nechkau asked the Belgian officer while standing on the ground.

"De mi?"

Military officer:

“This is the place of Malin, the kingdom of Belgium, please follow me to the commandant’s office.”

(The place Malin used in Russian language to say “raspberry ringing”, because of the very production of ringing calls that sounded incredibly beautiful, once famous)

ZNOW'S ALLIES HAVE EVERYTHING BEEN KNOWN....YET FOR THE NUMBER TIME

While still sitting in the cockpit of the aircraft, so as to move on German territory, the officers began to feverishly shoot cheesecakes in order to burn the package. Ale, as luck would have it, none of them smoked, and there were no cheesecakes.

The officers were brought to the service quarters and, upon arrival, the authorities were placed in a nearby room, where, fortunately, due to the cold weather of the grass, the stove was burning, in which the Belgian rulers placed kava for the enemy. any guests.

Dear soldier of the Viyshov, the same thought came to mind for all three of us: “The axis is in, it’s in!” Resner snatched a bag of instructions and cards from his briefcase and quickly stuffed it into the stove. The tight package was not sealed, but the husks began to smolder.

Just then a soldier turned to the room and asked:

“Why are you afraid? Henri, P'éré, come here! There’s a stink of burning here!”.....I grabbed the dark bag with a poker and threw it halfway.”

A handful of Belgian soldiers ran into the room. It’s easy to lean on it.

The package, with the most important order of the headquarters, with the words of the Fuhrer himself, ended up in the hands of the enemy. ….

The officer's honor required him to shoot himself. Nemov, a middle-aged Belgian colonel, noticed that he had gone to his room, saying: “Give me a break!”

After which the formal and extremely polite will add and chant, the German consulate has already been informed about what happened, and its representative will arrive from Hwyliny to Hwyliny.

Trial of the Witoku Vinuwatians

The consul showed up promptly, the officers were transported by car to Brussels, and the first flight sent them to Berlin. At the Tempelhof airfield they were already being watched by Gestapo officers, who had sent the culprits to the prison of Plötzensee. It was clear to them that they themselves had forged mortals there, and the officers now had no doubt about their lot.

The investigation lasted for just a few years, and the next day the military court was held in the presence of the most senior staff officers. Judging by giving the skin lichen one nutrition:

“Do you feel guilty that it was your fault that a document of the highest level of secrecy was leaked into the hands of the enemy?”

I skin types:

“Yes, I see.”

If I were a fastidious lawyer here, I could say that up to this point Belgium had not yet been an adversary. Ale tse bula b empty vіdmovka. Kozhen knows that the Belgians have already handed over the buried documents to the allies, and at the same time a whole group of inquisitive English and French staff officers is analyzing the German plan piece by piece and preparing strikes from the army.

Garyachkovo worked with the German General Staff. It was necessary to rework all the parameters of the order for the attack, essentially preparing a new order with different dates, directions of strikes, etc.

There were no viable motives for correcting or compromising the virus. Those same wines asked for the greatest punishment for themselves.

І The devil is built for mercy...

Arkush paper with three nicknames lying in front of Hitler. With the nicknames of the officers, who, through their own fault, have ruined the great preparation of the robot, trained by tens of thousands of Germans, may have ruined the entire summer campaign of 1940, and perhaps even more in the end Yes. What kind of idiots do you need to be like that, drink, and fly into the middle of nowhere?!

Hitler reached for the handle. The adjutant obligingly boasted in order to praise the virok of the dirty resolution from his hands:

"Harden!"

And the pen began to hover over the paper for a second, and with a firm hand (Hitler’s hands began to tremble after Stalingrad) the Fuhrer wrote:

"Skasuwati."..... Having signed and put a bold mark.

“ASK FOR CANARISA”…

Hitler signed his name and said:

“Inquire immediately from the Chief of the General Staff and the Chief of the Abwehr. And also Himmler, Ribbentrop and Goebbels.

Hitler called Canaris again, as one of the people he had found, without knowingly handing over everything to the allies.

SPIVNIKI

1. We didn’t live long enough until the impending German offensive, the plan for which lay on the table of the General Staff.

2. They persuaded the Belgian and Dutch authorities to allow the Germans to pass through Arden without crossing

3. They ignored all their intelligence reports

And today to discredit Stalin - without believing in the spies... believing and living until the end as a true patriot

CAPITULATION OF THE STRONG...

After the symbolic resistance, the French army laid down its armor.

VISNOVOK

The military-political bureaucracy of the Ukrainian allies was incredibly aware of all the strategic plans of Adolf Hitler.

Plans, dates and deployments of forces... everything was clear until the end.

Admiral Canaris, French explorers and German pilots put the French government in an extremely difficult position.

And the stench has long haunted their land.

It is possible that this group (VK: WWII) of fans of the history of the Other World will tell you about such secret moments in history is banal. On the other hand, there are such astonishing versions about the length of chest pants, so that a small leak is entirely pre-oral. So, before that - before the blatant confusion, and the Gelb plan itself is not just one document, but a whole bunch of options for the plan for the attack, the first and the rest of which are radically protracted in their entirety.
Then, even before the completion of the complete occupation of Poland - on the 27th of June 1939 - the plan for an attack on France was announced. Meta operation was: " Destroy, if possible, the great combined forces of the French army and allies that are on their side, and immediately want as much territory as possible in Holland, Belgium and Western France to create a plan a goal for the successful conduct of the military and naval war against England and the expansion of the buffer zone of vital importance ​​Rourse region».
On the 19th of June the JCG was presented with the plan for Operation Gelb. Army Group "A" was advancing through Luxembourg and the Ardennes, Army Group "C" was demonstrating an attack on the Maginot Line, Army Group " N "Advanced in ancient Holland. And the main blow behind this plan was in charge of Army Group “B”: the armies of Belgium and Holland were defeated, as well as the Anglo-French armies, which would come to the aid of the Belgians. At the end of the day, the operation finally reached the Somme.

OKH plan dated June 19, 1939
Here we need to make a small introduction and explain why the Germans wanted the Anglo-French armies to push them back from Belgium. Of course, “we all know that the French went crazy after the Maginot Line.” But it is true that the Maginot line will not be able to escape the attack of Germany in France along the shortest route. And in this regard, the Maginot Line has its own legacy: the Germans never thought of delivering their head blow here. For Germany, having lost only one available route to attack France - through Belgium and Luxembourg, this was obvious to both the Germans and the French. Obviously, the French had already prepared a plan for the German offensive through the Benelux: the French troops advanced to Belgium and there, at the back of the preparation positions, at the same time from the Belgian to Yes, the German troops chirped.
The first version of the "Gelb" plan was without controlling anyone. After his analysis, it became obvious that the French were about to leave Belgium and join the Belgian army - that is. The plan did not at all guarantee the defeat of the enemy, but threatened to transfer the war into a “positional blind spot.” On June 29, a new version of the Gelb plan was created.


OKH plan dated June 29, 1939
The forces of Army Group “B” were significantly strengthened behind the new plan by joining the army group before it. N ", as well as 12 divisions from Army Groups "A" and "C". The date for the arrival of the cob was assigned - the 12th of leaf fall. However, this version of the plan did not at all guarantee the defeat of the enemy forces and succumbed to criticism and revision. And the date of the onset was postponed due to unfavorable weather conditions (the cob was postponed two dozen times over the year).
And the axis here is the story of Manstein’s appearance as a result of the “Gelb” plan. At this time, being the chief of staff of Army Group “A”, the plan was no longer suitable for him. On June 31, he sent his proposals to OKH headquarters to change the offensive plan. Although Manstein’s propositions were thrown out, Hitler was informed about them.


Manstein's plan
The essence of Manstein’s proposition is that Army Group “A” inflicted the greatest hits, while Army Group “B” engaged the enemy forces in Belgium. Manstein believed that if the most powerful Anglo-French forces were to reach Belgium, the village of Dinan - Sedan would be weakened and the French troops there would not be able to resist the invasion, and the French troops already in B Elgii, don’t catch up and turn around immediately. It turned out that all the enemy forces in Belgium would be cut off by the advances of Army Group “A” from the main forces and forces, which would be reduced to virtual extremity.
Manstein’s plan promised a further defeat of the Belgian grouped enemy and the burying of France in the dark, but why did they throw away the OKH headquarters? On the right, in contrast to the fact that “everyone knows that the Germans fought at the Other World with the theory of the Blitzkrieg,” the Germans fought at the beginning of the Other World in the old way. There were among the German generals adherents of new methods of waging war - if the main striking force of the attack was mechanized units, and hunting followed, consolidating in buried territories and achieving divisions of the "tank" "with the wedges" of the enemy's army. Most of the German generals considered such ideas dubious. And although the elements of the “blitzkrieg” were successfully tested in the Polish company, they were not changed: the German command, as before, considered infantry as the main striking force.
Therefore, the OKH headquarters believed that the Ardennes - a mountainous and wooded area, with a minimum of roads - would slow down the pace of the German advance, thereby ruining the entire plan. Truth: 170 km of urban roads (of which there are many more), part of the expedition, at an average speed of 20-25 km to be completed, with battles and inevitable traffic jams, will be covered in 9 - 10 days. In this hour, the French will be able to pull up their troops to the Ardennes, and the German infantry units that are advancing will be demoralized by constant bombing from the wind. Manstein’s idea of ​​launching an attack with tank and motorized forces (at an average rate of collapse of 15 km per year) and passing the Ardennes in 4-5 days was considered an adventure.
Hitler agreed with the OKH's idea, wanting to "make all preparatory moves before transferring directly the main strike in the operation of Army Group "B" to the front of Army Group "A", as there, as it is possible to let go of the current distribution of forces, Greater Swedish and global successes can be achieved with Army Group B below.
Manstein, however, did not calm down and continued to force his proposals to the OKH headquarters. And also consulted with Guderian and asked the commander of Army Group A, Rundstedt, to support the plan he proposed. Zreshta, the non-Nevgamov Manstein was promoted to chief of staff and given command of the army corps, what is molded in Stettin. Formally, there was a promotion, aka Manstein, who, having actually found the OKH, obviously decided to shove it into the ground, thereby interfering with his participation in the agreed upon plan “Gelb”.
While Manstein filled the OKH headquarters with his proposals, they were adjusting the plan for the 29th, and new dates for the onset were announced and discussed. And on the 10th of today, the “Mechelen Incident” (the same “brown underpants”) was extinguished. As a result, the German plans ended up in the hands of the enemy. Despite Hitler’s cruelty, this idea led to yet another correction to the “Helb” plan and another postponement of the start date. The new plan - dated 30 June 1940 - again departed from the excessive ideas of the OKH, although also giving a great role to mechanized forces in the offensive.


OKH plan from 30 to 1940
In the first half of the fierce battle, for the remaining testing of offensive plans, the OKH conducted operational games on cards. The analysis of the results of the war is unclear for the Germans: the plan did not at all guarantee success, and in view of the onset of counterattacks from the enemy, it was very reliable. Navigation Halder, the author of the main concept of the OKH plan, stated to his colleague: “ doubt the success of the zagalom operation».
And it so happened that at that hour Manstein himself was in Berlin - having arrived to introduce himself to the high command for his recognition as commander of the corps. On the 17th of 1940, she became involved with Hitler and did not fail to tell him about her ideas. It is important to say that Hitler had powerful strategic ideas, but those who were not even dissatisfied with the original Gelb plan are absolutely certain. Manstein’s plan, regardless of all his adventurism, promised the possibility of decisive victory. And the OKH plan, which was already in place, at the shortest burst of evidence of a successful beginning of a positional war, was based not only on Hitler, but on most of the generals of the German high command. However, not all: that same Von Bock fiercely criticized Manstein’s idea until the end. But the Germans still decided to reject the remaining version of the “Gelb” plan, the confirmation of the 24th, being created on the basis of Manstein’s plan, which nevertheless pushed through its line.


Pouch version of the Gelb plan

According to the plan, Army Group B was in charge of attacking Belgium and Holland. Their main plans were to convince the enemy that the Germans had begun to implement the very same Schlieffen plan and lure the Anglo-French armies into Belgium. And the main attack on the axis was led by Army Group "A": the vanguard - Kleist's tank group (which included 7 out of 10 Germans who took part in the offensive of the tank divisions) - needed to break through in the short term through Ardennes and want to cross the river Maas. The further offensive of Army Group A - from Sedan to the English Channel - cut the front of the German opponents in two, including the Belgian grouped enemy from the Tiles. Well, Army Group “C” is still trying to demonstrate the Germans’ desire to storm the Maginot Line and not allow the French to transfer troops there.

On May 10, 1940, about the 5th year of the 35th century, the German armies voted against the Gelb plan.
The Germans' fear of inertia and the fear of the French command was completely true - the French were not able to immediately stop the German march through the Ardennes. The advanced units of the German troops managed to overcome the Ardennes and reach the Meuse River before the middle of the third offensive - in just 57 years. At that time, the Anglo-French armies were already able to reach Belgium and become involved in battle. Before the “Mechelen Incident”, the French command increased its grouping, which now extends to Belgium, perhaps twice as much - up to 32 divisions. At the same time, the 7th French Army, which had previously been assigned to the strategic reserve and was stationed just opposite the Ardennes, also went to Belgium. N The German armies cut off the Franco-British forces that had marched into Belgium, defeated their forces and lines, forced them to fight on two fronts - against Army Group B, which was advancing from Germany -Belgian cordon, and Army Group A, which having mentored the ground.
Having defeated the enemy in Belgium and Holland, the Germans regrouped their forces and struck France in several direct attacks. Organized by Weygand (the new French commander), the crumbling defense lasted for a little more than a decade, and then the French asked the Germans for a truce, which actually capitulated.

Manstein's ideas proved their correctness and led the Germans to victory.