Geography of the USSR. Smolensk under the german occupation

[AndyM35]

A fascinating post! I can appreciate the effort that has gone into it. A worthy inclusion of After the Battle magazine! Thanks for sharing.
Andy

[wpheaton]

Thanks for this new thread. I look forward to following it and learning from it.

Thanks,

William

[Vocht]

Good stuff!

[AZPhil]

Another excellent thread.
Thank you Santi!!!

Semper Fi
Phil

[TabsTabs1964]

The train station.

As we have already said, the northern part of the city, which is the smallest and forms the Zadneprovie district, is crossed by the train tracks and the Moscow highway.

In that area is the station and its vast facilities, power station, market and a factory area. The tracks run east, west. North of the Dnieper that divides the city into two parts.

Even today the highway and the railway through Smolensk form the only land transport corridor that, through Belarus, directly connects the Russian Federation with the countries of Western Europe.

With the help of a fragment of the German map of the city from 1941 I have marked the area occupied by the train station in red, to understand its importance.



A German aerial photograph also allows us to appreciate its dimensions.



Thus, the strategic importance of this station is clear. All the supplies of Army Group Center were transported by this line.
Troops, weapons, vehicles, ammunition, gasoline, medical supplies, food, everything. Hospital trains traveled in the opposite direction towards the Reich with their transports of wounded. It was the vital artery of the war effort in the central sector of the eastern front.

The station was badly damaged by the bombings and the fighting in the city.
But railway units, engineers, sappers, German civil railroads, Russian prisoners, and forced laborers worked day and night to get the station and the tracks operational. Within a few days the trains circulated in both directions and as the weeks passed, more and more tracks became operational again until it was once again a large train station, full of activity with its warehouses, sheds, locomotive workshops and huge material and fuel tanks.

Four images of the area of the train station shortly after the conquest. Quick repairs and major damage around, but operational.


The small Peter and Paul Church in the middle of the place

[TabsTabs1964]

The train station just after the conquest of the city



Train cars damaged by the battle were pushed aside. The objective was the operability of the facilities.







And the trains began to circulate .. Looking south from the tracks, a silhouette that is already familiar to us: the Cathedral of the Assumption.













The railwaymen and the safety and repair units have to prevent any small incident from interrupting the traffic





Because the blood of the Army Group center is the gasoline of its panzers that reaches Smolensk


tabstabs collection
Original photograph of a gasoline tank upon arrival at Smolensk train station

[wpheaton]

Fascinating.

[TabsTabs1964]

Arrival of the Commander of Army Group Center, Field Marshal von kluge















The German organization and forced labor allowed the station to offer an acceptable appearance within a few weeks of the conquest.

[TabsTabs1964]

The arrival of troops to the station was constant.







The station had a lot of activity and passenger traffic



An iron arch divided the two station buildings in directions of travel. Moscow-Brest left. and Rigo-Orlovskaya right.


A group of ambulances waits for a transport of the injured. In smolensk there were several large hospitals







More images of the station's iron arch.


A view of the station, from afar in the dead of winter

[TabsTabs1964]

But as in all railway communications in Russia, one thing was official advertising....



and another, very different, reality.





A Railroad traffic disruptions in the area of Army Group Center map. August 1943

The reality was the strong partisan activity in the entire rear of the Army group center and the constant sabotage of the train tracks.



Soviet locomotive put into service by the Germans.



Soviet Train captured. Locomotiv named Sergó Ordzhonikidze. (1886-1937 Stalin's comrade of early times)