The Demyansk Pocket

As the Soviet pincers closed around the German II Corps, which included the Totenkopf, over the next week Eicke's men were called upon to act as "fire brigades", rushed to threatened sectors to plug breaches in the line. By 20 January, 95,000 German troops were trapped in a huge pocket centred on the city of Demyansk, with air transport the only way of supplying them. Hitler refused requests from his army generals for the troops to break out. The men in the pocket were ordered to hold their positions until a relief force could be mustered. Eicke threw himself into this desperate fight with messianic zeal, organizing his division into two battlegroups that took over responsibility for defence of the pocket's western edge. Daily artillery barrages and infantry human-wave assaults were launched at the SS lines.

This was a battle of survival in every respect. Neither side was interested in taking prisoners, and when Waffen-SS positions were overrun few survivors emerged from them. Totenkopf men were also loath to withdraw under Soviet pressure, fearing a lack of shelter from the elements if they were driven into the open and forced to endure extreme night-time temperatures.

The German airlift

As the siege dragged on into February, the Luftwaffe started to get its airlift organized, and daily supply flights by Junkers Ju 52 transports started to help the Totenkopf build up stocks of ammunition and food. Winter clothing looted from the Jews of Riga was also flown in to improve the conditions of Eicke's men. The Latvian city was controlled by SS men who had served under Eicke in the concentration camps, and they were keen to help their old comrade.

In the third week of February a huge Soviet offensive surged over the Totenkopf's lines, isolating many Waffen-SS positions and forcing individual units to fight desperate battles to survive. Each battalion now had to fight its own siege. There was no way to evacuate wounded SS men to hospital in Demyansk, and everyone except the most seriously wounded had to stay in their trenches to fight off the Russians. Eicke's command was slowly dying around him, and at the end of the month he could muster only 1500 men fit for battle. For 10 days the Totenkopf strongholds withstood daily attempts to overrun them. They held out, but only just.

At the end of the month, Himmler had mustered 400 reinforcements to be flown in to relieve the pressure on Eicke's hard-pressed men. Their arrival, and rising temperatures, helped raise morale among the Totenkopf survivors. Only some 9669 men were left in the division, after it had suffered 6600 casualties during the first two months of the siege.

The relief of the Demyansk Pocket

The Soviet forces attacking the pocket were exhausted after suffering tens of thousands of casualties, including 22,000 claimed killed and wounded by the Totenkopf. Only a few dozen prisoners were taken by the division, highlighting the ferocity of the fighting.

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