Operation Parkplatz

parking place

'Parkplatz' was a German unrealised plan, originally known as 'Bärenfang', for an operation to take Leningrad (15 March 1943).

The undertaking was planned, in the quiescent months of the spring of 1943, by the staff of Generalfeldmarschall Georg von Küchler’s Heeresgruppe 'Nord'. The planners worked on the premise that much of the heavy artillery which would be required was still in the northern sector of the Eastern Front, but that a reinforcement of eight or nine divisions would also be needed. The concept then foundered on the fact that these could not be supplied until after Generalfeldmarschall Erich von Manstein’s Heeresgruppe 'Süd' had completed its 'Zitadelle' offensive to pinch off the Kursk salient. 'Zitadelle' was a strategic failure, however, and no reinforcements of the scale envisaged could be delivered to Heeresgruppe 'Nord'.