Siege of Plzeň (Fall Grün)

The Siege of Plzeň was fought between the ČSR Armygarrisoned and entrenched in and around the industrial centre of Plzeň and German Army. It started with aerial bombardments by the Luftwaffe starting on October 1, 1938.

Land fighting started on September 16, when the Germans began the assault on the fortified line running east and north of the city. On October 18 the Germans broke through and then swept across the areas surrounding the city, and by October 22 the city had almost been encircled. On October 24 the first German armoured units entered the Wola area and south-the northern suburbs of the city. Despite German radio broadcasts claiming to have captured Plzeň, the attack was stopped and soon afterwards Plzeň was under siege. The siege lasted until March 5, 1939, when the outmanned and outgunned Czechs were forced to capitulate.

The Battle
At 05:35 hours on October 16, large German artillery concentrations began shelling the fortified line running north of the city of Plzeň. After two hours of artillery barrages, the Junkers Ju-87 dive bombers 1./St.G.168 and 3./St.G.168 of the Luftwaffe was sent in to destroy armour and artillery concentrations and communication centres.

At 10:00 the XIV. Armeekorps supported by the 2. Infanterie-Division (mot.) from XIV. Armeekorps began assaulting the fortified line, though met fierce resistance from forward elements of I. sbor “Smetana”. As the German advanced on the fortifications, the Czechs opened fire with machineguns, anti-tank cannons and heavy artillery, and thus were forced to fall back to their staging areas.

After two more hours of heavy artillery barrages, they attempted to break the line once again. This time they were more successfull, but were nontheless forced to fall back again to regroup. They resumed to shell the defences with artillery for the next 10 hours. At 11:00 the next day, artillery began shelling the Czech positions once again, while pioneers armed with satchel charges and flamethrowers approached the bunkers under the cover of the artillery barrage.

At 16:00 the Germans attacked the line for a third time, but while the defenders were busy repelling the German assault, the pioneers went into action, using their flamethrowers and satchel charges to eliminate the threat from within the bunkers. After fierce fighting, most of the defenders in the bunkers had been eliminated or surrendered to the Germans. Half an hour later, the Panzer-Regiment 1 and the Kradschützen-Bataillon 1 broke through the line near the towns of Bezvěrov. On October 18, the rest of the XIV. Armeekorps broke through the lines along the towns of Loučky, Kamýk, Krivce, Úterý and Vidžín and Vlkošov, Zhořec, Mezí, Újezd and Manétín.