Defense of Schwedt Bridgehead

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Defense of Schwedt Bridgehead
Part of World War II
Date February 1 – March 3, 1945 Location Schwedt, Germany Result Successful Soviet deception
Belligerents
Germany	Soviet Union
Commanders and leaders
Heinrich Himmler Otto Skorzeny	Konstantin Rokossovsky
Strength
Originally a Kampfgruppe, later XI SS Panzer Corps	Deception by 2nd Guards Tank Army, supported by 61st and 49th Armies

The defense of the Schwedt bridgehead was a German 3rd Panzer Army operation on the Eastern Front during the final months of World War II. German forces, commanded by Otto Skorzeny, were ordered to prepare to conduct a counter-offensive. However they were forced to hold a bridgehead against expected numerically superior forces of the Soviet 2nd Belorussian Front (Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky) for 31 days. Their position was largely ignored during the Red Army's Cottbus–Potsdam Offensive Operation which breached German defenses at Gartz to the north of Schwedt.^[1] This was unexpected because it required the Red Army to cross the Randowbruch Swamp that lay between the Oder and Randow rivers.