Page:Robert M. Kennedy - German Antiguerrilla Operations in the Balkans (1941-1944) - CMH Pub 104-18 (1954).pdf/56



I. General

Exhausted by long marches and intermittent fighting to gain the areas vacated by the Italians, the German troops were in no condition to pursue the guerrillas into the mountains. Instead, German commanders hurried to set up a defense against Allied landings, allocated units specific areas of responsibility, and organized mobile forces to seek out and destroy the guerrilla bands.

Experience already gained in operations in the Balkans and in Russia enabled the Germans to devise more effective antiguerrilla measures than had their Italian predecessors. With the forces at hand, they set about to contain the guerrillas and keep up the flow of bauxite and other strategic raw materials produced in the Balkans to the German war machine.

On the passive defense side, the occupiers set up a network of Stuetzpunkte (strongpoints) to secure vital rail and road arteries and important installations. These strongpoints were actually small forts, heavily armed with automatic weapons, mortars, antitank guns, and even light field pieces, and situated in the vicinity of such guerrilla targets as bridges, tunnels, and portions of the rail and road lines difficult to keep under observation from the air or by roving patrols. Strongpoints were first occupied by a minimum of one squad, later by a platoon, when the smaller garrisons began to invite attack by the increasingly aggressive enemy. Some were of the field type, with earthen trenches and bunkers reinforced and revetted with logs and sandbags; others were elaborately constructed concrete fortifications with accommodations for a permanent garrison. They were situated to deliver all-round fire, and usually had radio communication with the next higher headquarters and adjacent strongpoints. Approaches to the positions were heavily mined, and the lanes through the mine fields were changed frequently. Barbed wire obstacles were also constructed, but were seldom effective against determined attackers.

Armored car patrols, a platoon or more in strength and equipped with searchlights and heavy weapons, made frequent and irregular runs between strongpoints; the same was done with armored trains along the vulnerable rail lines. In addition, mobile and heavily 47