Attack on Modellbaudorf - Part I : Prelude

Modellbaudorf was an inconspicuous, yet surprisingly important town for the German war effort as it was here, in its tiny industrial sector that a key component of the V2 rockets was manufactured.

It is the onset of spring, in 1945. The town had gone unscathed until a few weeks ago, when it made it onto the Allies' radar and it had experienced an air raid. Now, with the rumble of war approaching from the east, the residents had all fled. The town was desolate.

Everyone could see that the end of the war was near. The German forces were barely hanging on, but they kept on fighting with fierce determination trying to buy the civilians time to flee ahead of the Soviets. They hoped that the Allies in the west would capture most of the country. Some even held the naive expectation that the western Allies would join Germany in their fight against the Soviets. Whatever their reasons, they kept on fighting...

At Modellbaudorf, this determination was no exception. It was truly remarkable that its industrial sector, which had been shutdown completely by the recent air raid, had restored operations to almost regular capacity just two weeks after it was bombed. 

Once repaired, the factory continued to operate and supply the parts to power V2 rockets all the way to the evacuation orders 48 hrs earlier. The evacuation however, turned everything into an eerily quiet "No man's land".  

A hastily assembled Kampfgruppe was tasked with defending the town. It had been cobbled together from several small units -some regular infantry, some Waffen SS, military police, engineers, a reconnaissance platoon, a couple panzers, all of them augmenting the anti-aircraft unit which had been based in the town and was now repurposing its last operational 88mm flak gun to fight the oncoming Soviet armor.

Additional men were commandeered and rerouted to Modellbaudorf. Men who were on their way back to the front after a short leave, the lightly wounded who were trying to make their way to a hospital in the rear, and a rare collection of stragglers -half a squad from an adjacent HQ unit which had been sent to get supplies from the divisional quartermaster, a couple cooks who had been foraging for farm animals for that evening's meal, a momentarily disoriented towing crew, and other unlucky souls who were in the vicinity of Modellbaudorf- they all continued to trickle into town and take up positions as regular infantry. 

The Soviets were determined to capture this town but the Germans arrived early enough to dig in and set up a reasonable defense, barricading the main streets...

... and placing heavy weapons at key places throughout the town.

The Soviets, unsure about the level of resistance that they would be facing, unleashed some additional artillery on the town for good measure, but by this stage of the war, the Germans were extremely familiar with the Soviet tactics and they pulled back or went into the bomb shelter prior to the bombardment. Once the shelling was over, the Germans moved back in, taking advantage of the new and generous rubble and craters.

With the Soviets approaching from the east and south, the Germans set up their defenses on the western side of town. They deployed observers in the factory to track the Soviet movements and then, they simply waited patiently to spring the trap...

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