German pockets in 1945

[Gilles de Rais]

I'm interested in more closely studying the isolated German holdouts at the very end of the war. By this I mean not just the Festung cities like Breslau or Konigsberg, but generally the unneccessary fronts that were kept in existence for apparently no good reasons except stubborness.
It would be nice to know how much German fighting strenght at the end of the war was lost on this fronts, while Germany was loosing its heartland provinces on the Eastern and Western Fronts. For instance, I know that there were around 330 000 German troops stationed in Norway until the very end of the war. I think similar number of men were also kept in Italy and Courland peninsula, so that might be as much as 1 million fighting men kept on the periphery of the Germany, while Berlin and Ruhr itself were threatened. My question for disscussion would be:

- were there any proposals to move this troops to the vital sectors of the Western and Eastern Fronts?

-how many German troops were stationed in, like, february 1945 on these secondary fronts and in fortresses? By this I mean troops stationed in Norway, Denmark, Courland, Italy, Croatia and in fortresses like Posen, Breslau, Konigsberg, Dunkerque, La Rochelle, Crete and others?

[Prosper Vandenbroucke]

Hello Gilles here below are some informations:

Dünkirchen 10.000 Mann Vizeadmiral Friedrich Frisius 9. Mai 1945
Kanalinseln 198 km² 28.500 Mann Generalleutnant Rudolf Graf von Schmettow, später Vizeadmiral Friedrich Hüffmeier 9. Mai 1945
Lorient 24.500 Mann General der Artillerie Wilhelm Fahrmbacher 10. Mai 1945
Saint-Nazaire 1.500 km² 30.000 Mann Generalleutnant Hans Junck 11. Mai 1945
La Rochelle 400 km² 11.500 Mann Vizeadmiral Ernst Schirlitz 9. Mai 1945
Gironde Nord (Royan) 5.000 Mann Konteradmiral Hans Michahelles 17. April 1945
Gironde Süd (Le Verdon)170 km² 3.500 Mann Oberst Otto Prahl 20. April 1945

It's in german language but I hope you will understand.
Kindly regards and sorry for my poor english
Prosper
P.S. Kanalinseln means Channel Islands.
I Think that there was also a pocket in the Netherlands (Ijmuiden) but I don't know the strenght of the german troops.

[Gilles de Rais]

Thank you very much for your data. It is really helpfull.

Basically, some 113 000 German soldiers were lost in those pockets in France with no apparent purpose in war. Lorient and Saint-Nazaire were important submarine bases, so those strongholds were somewhat justified, though it should have been clear to the Germans that by june 1944 the submarine war was lost and that further escalation of that war would only drain already strained and limited German resources. So, in France, an entire army was basically lost guarding submarine bases and few symbolic places like Channel Islands, while troops were desperately needed on the Western Front.

[Prosper Vandenbroucke]

Hello
You'r right but by his order of the 19th of january 1944, Hitler Adolf declared that those places along the Atlantic Wall are fortresses (festungen) to be held until the last man. So if AH said it himself..............
Have a look over here:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poches_de_ ... op%C3%A9en
it's in french language but you are able to translate the whole page in english language
Kindly regards.
Prosper

[Gilles de Rais]

I'm well aware of the concept of Festungen. That's why I opened this topic, to discuss the implications such strategy had on the war, in diverting front-line soldiers to fortress duties and weakening the defence of Germany itself. I made that comment about futility of Atlantic Festungen, not because I'm unaware of their existence or Hitler's order or role in their formation, but because I was somewhat puzzled by numbers that were commited to their defence. I believed that in total no more than a few weak divisions were stationed in them, so I was surprised that a whole field army of 113 000 men was lost in such an idiotic way. Apparently they might have been far better used elsewhere.

[Manuferey]

Apparently they might have been far better used elsewhere.

From an Allied point of view, German forces were indeed better used in these holdouts than in the defense of the Reich. For the German troops in these holdouts, particularly in Norway and in the Atlantic harbors, it means that they had a better chance of survival than fighting in the Ruhr or on the Eastern front. So, overall it was a great idea for humanity but a dumb idea from a military perspective !

Emmanuel

[Leutnant Von Historian]

About the Hitler's fortress concept. It was actually only draining Germany resources. Once the line was breached, it was no longer an affective defence line.

[doogal]

GILLES DE RAIS WROTE : to discuss the implications such strategy had on the war

By 1944 the pockets designated Festung really didn't have such serious implications due to the war being lost already...
Maybe "113,000" men on the western front would have been available for the Ardennes at the end of the year, but maybe they would have been swallowed up before that, and even if they had it would only delay rather than solve any strategic problems. The troops in Norway ??w do you get them all back without losing a lot in transit???? they would have been shared bwtn fronts but would they really make a difference so late in the war.
The Courland pocket added to the troops from Norway would have made a solid formation but again its a case of too little to late.
The only real implications were that this sped up the splintering of German forces denied them further manpower and weapons in a pointless venture with no practical military benefits. When your festung is in the heart of the country you have invaded say like at Stalingrad and of significant size, then there is value in that it ties down a significant amount of troops as such you blunt to an extent your opponents offensive power, but this is no golden rule and applying this idea late in the war when the soviets are strong everywhere unlike 1942 and then using the same faulty tactic in the west was sheer stupidity and bloody mindedness on Hitlers part... Although I am sure that he designated a lot of areas festung after they had been surrounded as much as he designated them before hand.

[Kingfish]

Thank you very much for your data. It is really helpfull.

Basically, some 113 000 German soldiers were lost in those pockets in France with no apparent purpose in war. Lorient and Saint-Nazaire were important submarine bases, so those strongholds were somewhat justified, though it should have been clear to the Germans that by june 1944 the submarine war was lost and that further escalation of that war would only drain already strained and limited German resources. So, in France, an entire army was basically lost guarding submarine bases and few symbolic places like Channel Islands, while troops were desperately needed on the Western Front.

I don't think the Germans really had much of a choice in the matter.

Consider that a good portion of the forces deployed in Brittany did in fact send troops to fight in Normandy, but in doing so they also sent a significant portion of the available transport. This left the reminder, never a highly mobile force to begin with, even less able to move any appreciable distance.

Now add to that a front line that is blown wide open, a highly mobile army pouring through the breach, and all under the umbrella of complete allied air superiority. Not the conditions one would want to have with foot and horse-drawn divisions inching their way through the French countryside.

Something else to consider: Lorient and St-Nazaire (and Brest) were not just U-boat bases, but very valuable ports as well. Withdrawing the forces from these would in effect gift their use (even after demolitions) to the allies. Note how valuable Marseille and Toulon were to the allied logistics.

[sandeepmukherjee196]

Hi...

This issue is not that simple.. in black and white.. as it seems post facto. The Germans denied the French ports to the allies long enough to seriously hamper resource mobilisation on the continent. Supplies were being unloaded via the artificial harbours in Normandy for a long time and transported to the front line formations which were rapidly moving away from the beaches.

From August 25 till November 16 ( 44) this so called Red Ball Express convoys operated..till the port facilities at Antwerp were opened up. This logistics nightmare cramped the strategic options and operational flexibility of the allies. They just couldn't unload and move enough supplies to move powerfully along the entire width of the front. They had to pick and choose priority sectors.. thus giving the reeling Germans breathing time and opportunity to recoup.

After the Atlantic and Channel ports had lost their relevance to the German war effort..the front lines were too far away for any disengagement of troops stationed there. So well...

At the Courland pocket, Heeresgruppe Kurland tied up the 1st Baltic Front ( 6 armies) and as per Soviet sources (Grigoriy Krivosheyev) inflicted upwards of one hundred and sixty thousand casualties in less than 3 months between feb and may 45. Latvian and German sources claim four hundred thousand casualties inflicted in men and over two thousand six hundred AFVs.

Presence in Norway had been required all through the war to keep open the Swedish iron ore supplies for German war industry.
However, finally it meant nothing of course.. with hindsight

Ciao
Sandeep

[ML59]

The troops blocked in the Atlantic ports were lost to the war effort anyway so, in principle, the idea of not giving up was sound enough from a purely military perspective. What probably Hitler didn't know was that the Allies, the American especially, were never inclined in wasting lives and resources on very secondary and unimportant fronts. They left the task of reducing all those festung to second-line troops of very low quality and, often, miserable equipment, mostly French FFI or newly formed and very "green" French Army units. They lacked everything: uniforms, weapons, motor vehicles, artillery, armor and made up their deficiency with a wide selections of captured, "liberated", obsolete weapons and vehicles of every kind.

Norway and Courland are different matters. Norway was since 1940 a fixation for Hitler, he strongly feared an allied invasion of the country that could deprive Germany of the iron ore coming from north Sweden and embarked on ships in the Norwegian port of Narvik.
Moreover, in 1941 Norway, actually the region called Finnmark, became the rear area of major operation when AOK Norwegen deployed about 250.000 men for operations in the Arctic Circle and central Finland aimed at cutting off the soviet communication lines between Murmansk and Archangelsk. In September 1944, when Finland turned against Germany and expelled the German troops from Finnish territory, the control of Norway was essential to recover almost 200.000 men that were extricating themselves from Soviet and Finnish pressure in the very unhospitable areas of the Great North. In any case, the troops still in Norway by May 1945 were hardly first line units, most of the best units having been already recalled to the continent in late 1944, early 1945.

[mescal]

This issue is not that simple.. in black and white.. as it seems post facto. The Germans denied the French ports to the allies long enough to seriously hamper resource mobilisation on the continent.

Brest was taken on 19 september ... and was not put back in use.
The main reason was not the destructions made by the Germans, but simply that the front was so far East by that time that it was a of extremely little use for the Allies.
St Nazaire & Lorient were only marginally closer to the front, and Bordeaux was farther still.

As an hindrance to the Allied logistics, the pockets that remained till the end of the war were useless.

From August 25 till November 16 ( 44) this so called Red Ball Express convoys operated..till the port facilities at Antwerp were opened up. This logistics nightmare cramped the strategic options and operational flexibility of the allies. They just couldn't unload and move enough supplies to move powerfully along the entire width of the front.

Actually, the problem with the Red Ball Express was *not* the unloading capacity at Cherbourg or Arromanche, but the lengthening of the distance to be covered by trucks to the front.
Which, as stated above would not have been shortened but lengthened if the Atlantic pockets could have been used.

[Michael Kenny]

The Atlantic ports were to be used for the planned 'slow' build-up of Allied Forces in the sumer of 1944. It was not expected to reach the Rhine until 1945. The catastrophic total German collapse in a mere 3 months was far in excess of any Allied logistic planning. The Allied problem was that they just could not keep up with the fleeing Germans.
Montgomery used his Czech/Dutch forces to invest the channel ports.

[BDV]

Sure coming up with some sort of evacuation solution would have been nice. Possibly using modified UBoats, especially as the withdrawn soldiers don't have to be shipped to Germany, the Norway coast can function as a drop-off.

Again, much planning and preparation are needed, not Nazi Germany's forte.

[ML59]

Do not forget Rhodes and the Dodecannes islands, completely isolated from motherland since November 1944. Generally speaking, for all those isolated garrisons (I don't put in the figure Norway and Courland) the military usefulness of such a prolonged resistance is highly questionable, to say the less.