Operation Platinum Fox

German soldiers in the Arctic

Date	29 June – 21 September 1941
Location	Petsamo, Litsa River, Rybachy Peninsula
Result	Soviet victory

Belligerents

Nazi Germany

Finland

Soviet Union

Commanders and leaders

Eduard Dietl

Valerian A. Frolov

Strength

2nd Mountain Division
3rd Mountain Division
2 additional SS regiments
Finnish 14th Infantry Regiment
Finnish Ivalo Border Guard Battalion
27,500 men (initially)

14th Rifle Division
52nd Rifle Division
Polyarny Division
Soviet Northern Fleet

Casualties and losses

10,300 overall

unknown

Operation Platinum Fox (German: Unternehmen Platinfuchs) was a German and Finnish military offensive launched during World War II. Platinum Fox took place on the Eastern Front and had the objective of capturing the Barents Sea port of Murmansk. It was part of a larger operation, called Operation Silver Fox (Silberfuchs).

At the beginning of Operation Barbarossa German units of Army of Norway, commanded by Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, attacked from Norway to secure Petsamo at the Finnish-Soviet border as part of Operation Reindeer. They joined Finnish forces on the border of Soviet territory. These divisions consisted of elite mountain troops mostly from Austria specially trained to operate above the Arctic Circle. The Finnish-German forces launched Operation Silver Fox (Silberfuchs), attacking Murmansk from two directions. The assault from Finnish Petsamo directly towards the port of Murmansk was codenamed Platinum Fox (Platinfuchs). The other assault was an attack Kandalaksha from Salla and to isolate Murmansk from the south by cutting off the Murmansk railway. This concurrent operation was codenamed Operation Arctic Fox (Polarfuchs).

On 29 June 1941 the Platinum Fox phase of Silver Fox was launched. Mountain Corps Norway under the command of Generalleutnant Eduard Dietl, consisting of the German 2nd Mountain Division and German 3rd Mountain Division together with the Finnish Ivalo Border Guard Battalion crossed the border and advanced on Murmansk. They were opposed by units of the Soviet 14th Army, namely the 14th and 52nd Rifle Division, which were commanded by Valerian A. Frolov. After some initial successes the advance was slowed. The German offensive met with lots of problems from the start on, as the rough terrain with bad roads made any advance difficult. The German units also lacked proper maps and had to move mostly through unknown terrain.

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