ized the outskirts of Zaporizhia on the right bank and the island of Khortytsia. The Red Army blew a 120m x 10m hole in the Dnieper hydroelectric dam (Dnipro HES) at 16:00 on 18 August, producing a flood wave that swept from Zaporizhia to Nikopol, killing local residents as well as soldiers from both sides. After two days, the city defenders received reinforcements, and held the left bank of the river for 45 days. During this time people dismantled heavy machinery, packed and loaded them on the railway platform, marked and accounted for with wiring diagrams. Zaporizhstal alone exported 9,600 railway cars with the equipment. Zaporizhia was taken on 3 October 1941.
The German occupation of Zaporizhia lasted 2 years and 10 days. During this time the Germans shot over 35,000 people, and sent 58,000 people to Germany as forced labour. The Germans also used forced labor (mostly POWs) to try to restore the Dnieper hydroelectric dam, and the steelworks. Local citizens established an underground resistance organisation in Spring 1942.
The Donbass � Stalingrad and Moscow � Crimea railway lines through Zaporizhia were an important supply line for the Germans in 1942�43, but the big three-arch Dnieper railway bridge at Zaporizhia was blown up by the retreating Red Army on 18 August 1941, with further demolition work done during September 1941. and the Germans did not bring it back into operation until Summer 1943. "As a result all goods had to be reloaded, and tank-wagons carrying petrol could not go through to the front."
When the Germans reformed Army Group South in February 1943, it had its headquarters in Zaporizhia. The loss of Kharkiv and other cities caused Adolf Hitler to fly to this headquarters on 17 February 1943, where he stayed until 19 February and met the army group commander Field Marshal von Manstein, and was persuaded to allow Army Group South to fight a mobile defence that quickly led to much of the lost ground being recaptured by
