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Battle of Beuthen
Part of Upper Silesian Offensive
Ruined Beuthen Market Square, 1945.
Date 27-28 January 1945 Location Beuthen, Upper Silesia Result Soviet victory
Belligerents
Soviet Union Support: Polish Workers' Party	Germany
Commanders and leaders
Ivan Konev Dmitry Gusev	Ferdinand Schörner
Units involved
1st Ukrainian Front 21st Army 50th Army	Army Group Centre Battlegroup "Sieler"
Casualties and losses
350	700

German Preparations

Hohenlinde Auschwitz sub camp

On the 19th of January Germans evacuated prisoners at the Arbeitslager Hohenlinde - a sub camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The camp housed around 200 prisoners, predominantly Jewish, employed to work at the nearby Hubertushütte in Hohenlinde (present-day district of Bytom). Prisoners were evacuated on foot to Gleiwitz and from there to Sachsenhausen on rail.

Fighting at the gates of Beuthen

On the 22nd of January, units of the Soviet 21st Army captured Tarnowitz (occupied Tarnowskie Góry), located less than 10km north of Beuthen. From there, the Red Army continued its onslaught on Beuthen.

Soviet plans initially foresaw the fall of Beuthen to occur the very next day, on the 23rd of January. However, German resistance was significantly underestimated, and so on the 23rd of January Soviet troops had only reached Friedrichswille [crossing the present-day border of Bytom]. Soldiers of the 118th Corps of the 1st Ukrainian Front were responsible for the capture of Friedrichswille.
German authorities had organized an evacuation of civilians from Friedrichswille before the Soviet attack. However only a negligible number of the village's population left their homes, with only around 10% of inhabitants evacuating Friedrichswille.

Fortress Stillersfeld

The town of Stillersfeld (located south of Friedrichswille; north-west of Beuthen) alongside the road onward to Mechtal was guarded by a German anti-aircraft unit of the Heimatflakabwehr, the so-called Großkampfbatterie Stillersfeld.

The Großkampfbatterie was made up of two batteries: the 205/VIII from Mechtal and the 230/VIII from Martinau; and positioned itself on a small elevation on the road between Stillersfeld and Ptakowitz. Bolstering the German defences was a series of bunkers stretching from Friedrichswille to Stillersfeld, built before the war between 1937 and 1938. The Großkampfbatterie's operational area was referred to as Festung Stillersfeld [Fortress Stillersfeld].

Red Army captures Schomberg

On the 28th of January 1945 Red Army troops entered Schomberg, a present-day district of Bytom, which lay just south of the city.

Deportations and worker shortage

Deportations of men to forced labour camps deep in the USSR soon started, dealing a huge blow to the local population, especially to locals sympathetic to Germany. Official reports put the figure of Schomberg residents deported to forced labour camps at 448 total.

The situation in Schomberg was made worse by the fact that roughly 600 of the town's residents had lost their live fighting on various fronts of the Second World War; This coupled with aforementioned deportations led to huge worker shortages in the industrial town. The Hohenzollern Coal Mine (Since 1945 Szombierki Coal Mine) was forced to hire 400 women as a result, most often widows and wifes of coal miners deported deep into the Soviet Union. Furthermore, the release of prisoners of war and forced laborers employed by the National Socialist regime took place.

Red Army's pillaging

The Red Army entering Schomberg plundered and pillaged multiple sites.

Among plundered sites was Godulla's Palace in Schomberg. Red Army troops ransacked the property before burning the palace to the ground. Furthermore, the arriving Red Army also destroyed the monument standing in front of the Schomberg Town Hall. The monument itself was made up of a mortar piece on top of a plinth, commemorating residents of Schomberg who fought in the First World War. Soviets tore down the monument, leaving only the plinth behind [which was torn down in 2009].

Sources

• Bednarek, Michalina. (18th September, 2017). "Nieznany pałac w Bytomiu. Zachwycał przepychem, ale został zburzony ponad 70 lat temu [ARCHIWALNE ZDJĘCIA]". wyborcza.pl Katowice. https://katowice.wyborcza.pl/katowice/5,35063,22388728.html
• Larisch, Józef (2011). Historia Szombierek. Fischer.