Defense of Schwedt Bridgehead

The defense of the Schwedt bridgehead was a German 3rd Panzer Army operation on the Eastern Front during the final months of World War II. German forces, commanded by Otto Skorzeny, were ordered to prepare to conduct a counter-offensive. However they were forced to hold a bridgehead against expected numerically superior forces of the Soviet 2nd Belorussian Front (Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky) for 31 days. Their position was largely ignored during the Red Army's Cottbus–Potsdam Offensive Operation which breached German defenses at Gartz to the north of Schwedt. This was unexpected because it required the Red Army to cross the Randowbruch Swamp that lay between the Oder and Randow rivers.