Operation Schlittenfahrt

sleigh ride

'Schlittenfahrt' was a German unrealised plan for withdrawal of elements of General Smilo Freiherr von Lüttwitz’s 9th Army and General Fritz-Hubert Gräser’s 4th Panzerarmee of Generaloberst Josef Harpe’s Heeresgruppe 'A' from the salient in eastern Poland between the Soviet bridgeheads of Marshal Sovetskogo Soyuza Georgi K. Zhukov’s 1st Belorussian Front at Puławy over the Wisła and Kurówka rivers and of Marshal Sovetskogo Soyuza Ivan S. Konev’s 1st Ukrainian Front at Baranów Sandomierski on the Vistula river (January 1945).

Adolf Hitler rejected the plan during the night of 9/10 January, and on the following day the Soviet forces attacked in the great 'Vistula-Oder Strategic Offensive Operation' and had effectively destroyed both armies by 17 January.