Operation Fischreiher

Part of World War II

Date	July 22, 1942
Location	Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Result	Inconclusive

Belligerents

Germany

Soviet Union

Commanders and leaders

Friedrich Paulus

(6th Army commander)

Hermann Hoth (4th Panzer Army commander)

S. Timoshenko (Commander Stalingrad front)

N.F. Vatutin(Commander South-Western Front)

A. Yeremenko(Commander South-Eastern Front)

Eastern Front

Naval warfare

1941

1942

1943

1944

1945

Case Blue to 3rd Kharkov

Blue Voronezh Caucasus Drive towards Stalingrad Stalingrad Arbuzovka Nikolayevka Ostrogozhsk–Rossosh Offensive 3rd Kharkov

Operation Fischreiher (German for heron) was an extension to Operation Blue II during the German invasion of the Soviet Union in World War II. General Friedrich Paulus' 6th Army, and part of the 4th Panzer Army under General Hermann Hoth, was to advance across the Don river towards the city of Stalingrad on the Western bend of the Volga river.^[1]

The original operational plans had called for a defensive line on the Don river by Army Group B, while Army Group A under General List was to advance south towards the oil fields in the Caucasus. The diversion of Operation Fischreiher became an offensive in its own right, to the detriment of the drive south by Army Group A. The forces under General Paulus were very modest for the task assigned to them, especially since the Soviets were determined not to lose Stalingrad by forming the Stalingrad front on July 12, 1942.

The 6th Army came up against the first defensive lines on August 17, and were thereafter locked in vicious street fighting without quarter for the next months until they reached their offensive limit on November 18. After this date, the 6th Army and the 4th Panzer Army were on the defensive after their lines of communication with Army Group B were cut by a sudden Soviet pincer movement from General Nikolai Fyodorovich Vatutin's South-West front and General Andrey Yeryomenko's Stalingrad front, whose forces met in the German rear on between Kalach and Sovetskiy on November 23, 1942.

References

↑ "Fischreiher" entry, The encyclopedia of codenames of World War II, Christopher Chant, Routledge, 1986 ISBN 0-7102-0718-2

Bibliography

Chant, Christopher. (1986) The encyclopedia of codenames of World War II. Routledge. ISBN 0-7102-0718-2

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