'Winkelried' was a German undertaking, planned and implemented as a substitute for 'Schlingpflanze', to secure a southward extension of the corridor linking the main positions of Generaloberst Ernst Busch’s 16^th Army at Staraya Russa on the Eastern Front with the pocket at Demyansk held by General Wilhelm Graf von Brockdorff-Ahlefeldt’s II Corps after Adolf Hitler had expressly forbidden planning for any possible evacuation of the Demyansk pocket (27 September/11 October 1942).