To accomplish this, Govorov was instructed to destroy communications behind the German forces and conduct air assaults on the railway stations of Jõhvi and Tapa on 26 July.

Fedyuninsky, was to command the assault designed to break through the III SS Panzerkorps defences on the Lastekodumägi, drive through to the town of Jõhvi in the west and reach the Kunda river by 1 August. Yakunin’s CXXIV Corps of the 2 nd Shock Army, whose commander, General Leytenant Ivan I. Korovnikov’s 59 th Army being grouped with General Major Nikolai P. Martynchuk’s CXXII Corps of General Leytenant Ivan T. Trubachev’s CXVII Corps and General Major Nikolai M. Govorov, commander of the Leingrad Front, believed the 'Tannenberg-Stellung' to be the key position of Generalfeldmarschall Ferdinand Schörner’s Heeresgruppe 'Nord', and for the Soviet assault on the position concentrated the best forces available to the Leningrad Front, elements of General Major Vasili A. At Steiner’s disposal were approximately 22,250 men, seven tanks, between 70 and 80 pieces of artillery, and 49 aircraft. Generalleutnant Hellmuth Raymann’s 11 th Division of General Ehrenfried Boege’s XLIII Corps prepared to hold another sector of the front a few miles farther to the south, against the 8 th Army, in the Krivasoo bridgehead. SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen-SS Jürgen Wagner’s 4 th SS Freiwilligen Panzergrenadierbrigade 'Nederland' (from 1 August SS Freiwilligen Panzergrenadierbrigade 'Nederland') started to entrench itself on the northern flank of the 'Tannenberg-Stellung' SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen-SS Franz Augsberger’s 20 th SS Waffen Grenadierdivision der SS (estnische Nr 1 in the centre, and SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen-SS Joachim Ziegler’s 11 th SS Freiwilligen Panzergrenadierdivision 'Nordland' on the southern flank. SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS Felix Steiner’s III SS Panzerkorps (germanisches) of General Anton Grasser’s Armeeabteilung 'Narwa' ended its withdrawal from Narva as it moved into defensive positions on the hills. All three have steep slopes and rise to a height of between 65 and 165 ft (20 and 50 m) above the surrounding land. The hills are aligned in an east/west line, and comprise the Lastekodumägi (Kinderheimhöhe in German), Grenaderimägi (Grenadierhöhe) and Tornimägi (Liebhöhe). After defending the Narva bridgehead for six months, the German forces fell back to the 'Tannenberg-Stellung' in the Sinimäed hills, as noted above, on 26 July. The 'Tannenberg-Stellung' was a German defensive position on the Eastern Front to the west of Narva in Estonia (26 July/10 August 1944).īetween 26 July and 10 August the Battle of the 'Tannenberg-Stellung' was fought as what may be seen as the last act of the 'Narva Offensive Operation' as the winner of this battle would still control the all-important Narva 'isthmus' between Lake Peipus and the south coast of the Gulf if Finland.

Battle of tannenberg date