About: Allied siege of La Rochelle   Sponge Permalink

An Entity of Type : dbkwik:resource/krD_GSPHhNL2IejCI7diCQ==, within Data Space : 134.155.108.49:8890 associated with source dataset(s)

The "pocket" of La Rochelle ("Poche de La Rochelle") was a zone extending to a distance of about 10 kilometers around La Rochelle, reinforced by an anti-tank trench. After the allied landing in Normandy in June 1944, a large number of German troops had regrouped in the area. Agreements were made between the French and the German occupation force in La Rochelle, to the effect that the French would not attack and that in exchange the Germans would not destroy the port installations of La Rochelle-La Pallice.

AttributesValues
rdf:type
rdfs:label
  • Allied siege of La Rochelle
rdfs:comment
  • The "pocket" of La Rochelle ("Poche de La Rochelle") was a zone extending to a distance of about 10 kilometers around La Rochelle, reinforced by an anti-tank trench. After the allied landing in Normandy in June 1944, a large number of German troops had regrouped in the area. Agreements were made between the French and the German occupation force in La Rochelle, to the effect that the French would not attack and that in exchange the Germans would not destroy the port installations of La Rochelle-La Pallice.
sameAs
Strength
  • 22000(xsd:integer)
dcterms:subject
dbkwik:military/pr...iPageUsesTemplate
Partof
Date
  • September 1944 – May 1945
Commander
  • General de Larminat
  • Vice-Admiral Ernst Schirlitz
Caption
  • Free French armoured car which participated in the liberation of La Rochelle in 1945. Musée d'Orbigny-Bernon.
Result
  • German surrender
Place
Conflict
  • Allied siege of La Rochelle
abstract
  • The "pocket" of La Rochelle ("Poche de La Rochelle") was a zone extending to a distance of about 10 kilometers around La Rochelle, reinforced by an anti-tank trench. After the allied landing in Normandy in June 1944, a large number of German troops had regrouped in the area. The allied siege of the pocket of La Rochelle lasted from September 1944 to May 1945, without heavy bombardment. La Rochelle remained in German hands until the end of the war, much as other Atlantic harbours such as Brest, Saint-Nazaire, Lorient, Gironde-Nord, Gironde-Sud because the main thrust of the war was more concerned with focusing on Germany itself. Just surrounding the city was considered wiser than leading a frontal attack, as the city would ultimately fall anyway with the end of the war. The German command also wished to keep control of the coastal garrisons and rejected evacuation in order to maintain a threat on Allied shipping in the Atlantic. In total 39,500 French civilians were under the rule of Vice-Admiral Schirlitz, head of Navy Command West, in La Rochelle during the war. The German garrison numbered 22,000 men. During the siege the Allies still allowed for electricity, wood and some supplies to be delivered in order to alleviate the ordeal of the civilian population inside the walls of the city. The Free French Forces were opposed to such a passive attitude, and desired to take these coastal cities by force, mostly out of considerations of national pride. FFI troops, however, remained unable to capture the city. Agreements were made between the French and the German occupation force in La Rochelle, to the effect that the French would not attack and that in exchange the Germans would not destroy the port installations of La Rochelle-La Pallice. In effect, La Rochelle was surrounded efficiently enough, and suffered enough from the siege, with harbour facilities being damaged by Allied air attacks, that the Germans were unable to launch major U-Boat attacks on Allied shipping for the duration of the siege. However, every week a Luftwaffe plane was able to break through the blockade and supply the garrison. In order to raise the morale of German troops in La Rochelle, the propaganda movie Kolberg, celebrating resistance against the French in 1806, was sent in by Göring and premiered simultaneously in Berlin and La Rochelle on 30 January 1945.
Alternative Linked Data Views: ODE     Raw Data in: CXML | CSV | RDF ( N-Triples N3/Turtle JSON XML ) | OData ( Atom JSON ) | Microdata ( JSON HTML) | JSON-LD    About   
This material is Open Knowledge   W3C Semantic Web Technology [RDF Data] Valid XHTML + RDFa
OpenLink Virtuoso version 07.20.3217, on Linux (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu), Standard Edition
Data on this page belongs to its respective rights holders.
Virtuoso Faceted Browser Copyright © 2009-2012 OpenLink Software