General Grasser’s XXVI Corps included 11th, 58th and 214th Infantry Divisions commanded by Karl Burdach, Curt Siewert and Max Horn. Seyffardt, who was assassinated by the Resistance on February 6, 1943, and “de Ruyter,” named for 17th century Admiral Michiel Adriaenszoon de Ruyter, commanded by Helmut Scholz. The SS Nederlander Division was commanded by Jürgen Wagner, and contained about 10,000 Dutchmen, divided into two regiments - “General Seyffardt,” named for Lt. The SS Estonian Division was commanded by Franz Augsberger and contained 15,000 Estonian soldiers. The SS Nordland, commanded by Fritz von Scholz, contained a Norwegian regiment and a Danish regiment, but it also contained Dutch, Hungarian, Finnish, French, Romanians, Spanish, Swedish, Swiss, British, and Estonian soldiers. SS-Obergruppenführer Steiner’s Panzerkorps consisted of the SS Nordland Panzergrenadier Division, the SS Estonian Grenadier Division, and the SS Nederlander Panzergrenadier Division. The Detachment included the following corps: the III SS Panzerkorps, commanded by Felix Steiner XXVI & XXXXIII Corps commanded by Anton Grasser and Karl von Oven. The area was defended by Army Detachment “Narwa,” commanded by General Johannes Frießner. The offensive was opened on February 2, 1944, by the Leningrad Front, under the command of Marshal Leonid Govorov. Every step backwards will carry the war through the air and water to Germany.” Finally, as 18th Army commander, Georg Lindemann, recognized, “We are standing on the border of our native land. Narva’s loss would also deprive Germany of the fuel derived from the Kohtla-Järve oil shale deposits 25 miles west of Narva, on the coast. The Germans saw Narva as the key to holding the Baltic Sea and insuring the uninterrupted flow of Swedish iron ore. Narva is situated on the 40-mile wide isthmus which is bordered by the Lake and the Gulf of Finland. The Lake and the River form the current border between Estonia and the Russian Federation. It is located at the extreme eastern point of Estonia, on the Narva River, which drains Lake Peipus into the Gulf of Finland. Today, Narva has a population of 60,000 - almost 90 percent of whom are Russian - and is the third largest city in Estonia. In his second attempt, Czar Peter the Great’s army captured the city in 1704, from the Swedish Kingdom. ![]() ![]() After a few years it was transferred to the Swedish Kingdom. The armies of Czar Ivan the Terrible captured it in 1558. This was not the first time that a Russian-led army had besieged the city. THIS WEEK, 70 years ago, the Red Army finally, after six months, captured the 2500-year-old Estonian city of Narva.
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