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Soviet troops eliminated the fortified German bridgehead in Demyansk area
On February 28, 1943, the Demyansk offensive operation of the troops of the Northwestern Front concluded with the assistance of General M. S. Khozin's special forces group, during which the strategic Demyansk bridgehead held by the 16th Army of the Wehrmacht for more than a year was eliminated.
In early 1942, six divisions of the Wehrmacht 16th Army, numbering approximately 96,000 soldiers, were encircled near the village of Demyansk in Leningrad region (now part of Novgorod region) during an offensive by the Northwestern Front on the Old Russian front. However, the enemy group could not be eliminated. The German command established air supply for the encircled units and, in April 1942, unblocked them by breaking through what is now known as the Ramushevsky corridor, named after the village of Ramushevo in modern-day Novgorod. As a result, the enemy maintained the Demyansk bridgehead, which could be utilized for future tactical operations.
In early 1943, influenced by the success of Operation Iskra, the Soviet command decided to launch a large-scale offensive by the forces of the Northwestern, Leningrad and Volkhov fronts, codenamed Polar Star, in order to defeat Army Group North and liberate the Leningrad Region. Marshal of the Soviet Union G. K. Zhukov, a representative of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command on the Northwestern Front, was appointed head of the operation. To the troops of the North-Western Front under the command of Marshal of the Soviet Union S. K. Timoshenko with the support of a Special group of troops of Colonel-General M. S. Khozin was assigned the operational task of cutting the Ramushevsky corridor and destroying enemy troops stationed on the Demyansk bridgehead.
Anticipating the intentions of the Soviet command, in early February 1943, the Wehrmacht leadership began withdrawing its troops from the Demyansk area due to the difficulty of holding it. The offensive on the Northwestern Front, which began on February 15, forced the Germans to accelerate the withdrawal of troops and strengthen the defense of the Ramushevsky corridor, which the Soviet troops were unable to cut. On February 22, the last German units left Demyansk, and by the end of February 28, the troops of the Northwestern Front reached the Lovat River and occupied the Demyansk bridgehead, which the enemy had held for 17 months.
The German command managed to avoid encirclement and defeat. In the changed situation, the Soviet command was forced to abandon the original plan and limited the tasks of the Northwestern Front to the capture of Staraya Russa and access to the Polist River. The front's troops resumed their offensive on March 4, but were unable to dislodge the enemy from Staraya Russa. By the end of March 17, Soviet troops reached the Red River, where the front line stabilized until the winter of 1943-44.
The Starorussian and Demyansk offensive operations did not bring the success that the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command had hoped for. The troops of the North-Western Front failed to carry out operational tasks to eliminate enemy groups. In general, the entire offensive operation Polar Star did not lead to the desired result – the liberation of Leningrad region and the defeat of Army Group North. It was achieved a year later, in January-March 1944, during the so–called "Stalin's first blow" - the Leningrad-Novgorod operation.
Lit.: Воронов Н. Н. На службе военной. М., 1963; Гланц Д. Битва за Ленинград: 1941–1945. М., 2008; Катуков М. Е. На острие главного удара. М., 1974; На Северо-Западном фронте: 1941–1943 / Под ред. П. А. Жилина; сост. Ф. Н. Утенков. М., 1969; Сяков Ю. А. Численность и потери германской группы армий «Север» в ходе битвы за Ленинград (1941–1944) // Журнал «Вопросы истории». 2008. № 1.
Based on the materials of Presidential Library: