Operation Edelweiss Totally Explained

Everything about Operation Edelweiss totally explained

Operation Edelweiss, named after one of the best-known European mountain flowers, was a German plan to gain control over the Caucasus and capture the oil fields of Baku during the Soviet-German War. The operation was authorised by Hitler on July 23, 1942. The main forces included the Army Group A commanded by Wilhelm List, 1st Panzer Army (Ewald von Kleist), 4th Panzer Army (Colonel-General Hermann Hoth), 17th Army (Colonel-General Richard Ruoff), part of the Luftflotte 4 (4th Air Fleet) and the 3rd Romanian Army (General Petre Dumitrescu). The Army Group A was supported to the east by Army Group B commanded by Fedor von Bock and by the remaining 4th Air Fleet aircraft (1,000 aircraft in all). The land forces, accompanied by 15,000 oil industry workers, included 167,000 troops, 4,540 guns and 1,130 tanks.

Preparations

Several oil firms such as "German Oil on Caucasus", "Ost-Öl" and "Karpaten-Öl" have been established in Germany. They gained the sole right from the state for exploitation of the Caucasian oil fields within 99 years. For these purposes a large number of pipes, which later proved useful to the Soviet oil industry workers, have been delivered. A special economic inspection "A", headed by Lieutenant-General Nidenfuhr was created. The bombing of oil fields was strongly banned. In order to defend them from destruction by Nikolai Baibakov and Semyon Budennyi an SS guard regiment and a Cossack regiment was formed. The head of Abwehr developed the operation Schamil, which assumed landing in the Grozny, Malgobek and Maikop regions. They should be supported by the local fifth column

Operation

After neutralizing the Soviet counter-attack on the Izyum-Barvenkovsk direction the German Army Group B rapidly attacked towards the Caucasus. When Rostov-on-Don, nicknamed "The Gates of Caucasus" fell on July 23, 1942 the tank units of Ewald von Kleist moved across the Caucasian Mountain Range. The "Edelweiss" division commander Hubert Lanz competently decided to advance through the gorges of rivers of the Kuban River basin and by crossing the Marukhskiy Pass (Maly Zelenchuk River), Teberda, Uchkulan reach the Klukhorskiy Pass and simultaneously through the Khotyu-tau Pass block the upper reaches of the Baksan River and the Donguz-Orun and Becho passes. Concurrently with the outflanking maneuvers the Caucasian Mountain Range was supposed to be crossed by such passes as Sancharo, Klukhorskiy and Marukhskiy in order to reach Kutaisi, Zugdidi, Sukhumi and Tbilisi. The units of the 4th German Mountain Division, manned with Tyroleans were active in this direction. The units of this division succeeded in approaching Sukhumi to a distance of 30 km. In order to attack from the Kuban region, capture the passes which led to Elbrus and for the flank cover of "Edelweiss" a vanguard detachment of 150 men commanded by Colonel-General Grott was formed. From the Old Karachay through the Khurzuk aul and the Ullu-kam Gorge the detachment reached the Khotyu-tau Pass, which hadn't been defended by the Soviet troops. Khotyu-tau gained a new name - "The Pass of General Konrad".
The starting point of operation on the Krasnodar-Pyatigorsk-Maikop line was reached on August 10, 1942. On August 16 the battalion commanded by von Hirschfeld made a dummy maneuver and reached the Kadar Gorge. On August 21 a Nazi flag was installed on the Elbrus peak, the highest point of Caucasus.

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