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For the German World War II offensive, see Baltic Operation (1941).
The Red Army's 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Baltic Fronts engaged German Army Group Centre and Army Group North. The result of the series of battles was a permanent loss of contact between Army Groups North and Centre, and the creation of the Courland Pocket in Latvia. Soviet historians divide the offensive into four operations:
[edit] Setting the stageDuring 1944, the Wehrmacht was pressed back along its entire frontline in the east. In February 1944 it retreated from the approaches to Leningrad to the prepared section of the Panther Line in the border of Estonia. In June and July, Army Group Centre was thrown back from the Belorussian SSR into Poland by Operation Bagration. This created the opportunity for the Red Army to attack towards the Baltic Sea, thereby splitting the land connection between the German Army Groups. By 5 July 1944, the Shyaulyay Offensive Operation commenced, as a follow-on from Operation Bagration. The Soviet 43rd, 51st, and 2nd Guards Armies attacked towards Riga on the Baltic coast with 3rd Guards Mechanized Corps in the van. By 31 July 1944 the coast on the Gulf of Riga had been reached; 6th Guards Army covered Riga and the extended flank of the penetration towards the north. The German reaction was rapid, and initially successful. An attack, code-named Operation Doppelkopf, was attempted from 16 August 1944 by XXXX and XXXIX Panzer Corps under the command of Third Panzer Army, Army Group Centre. Acting in coordination with armoured formations from Army Group North, they initially cut off the Soviet troops on the coast, and re-established a tenous 30-km wide corridor connecting Army Groups Centre and North. The main objective of the attack was to re-take the key road-junction of Šiauliai (German: Schaulen), but the German tanks ran head-on into an in-depth defensive by the 1st Baltic Front, and by 20 August the German advance had stalled with heavy losses. A follow-on attack, code-named Operation Cäsar, failed in the same manner. After a brief period of respite, STAVKA issued orders for the Baltic Strategic Offensive, which lasted from 14 September to 24 November 1944. [edit] BattlesIn common with other Soviet strategic offensives, the Baltic Offensive covers a number of operational level operations and individual Front offensive operations:[2]
From the German defensive perspective, the period included parts of the following operations:
[edit] Consequences The Soviet fronts involved in the battle lost a total of ca. 260,000 men to all causes (killed, missing, wounded, sick). The Baltic Offensive operation resulted in the expulsion of German forces from Estonia and Lithuania. Army Group North land lines of communication were permanently severed from Army Group Centre, and it was relegated to an occupied Baltic seashore area in Latvia. On the 25 January Hitler renamed Army Group North to Army Group Courland implicitly recognising that there was no possibility of restoring a new land corridor between Courland and East Prussia.[3] The Red Army commenced the encirclement and reduction of the Courland cauldron which retained a possibility of being a major threat, but were able to focus on operations on its northern flank that were now aiming at East Prussia. Operations by the Red Army against the Courland Pocket continued until the surrender of the Army Group Courland on 9 May 1945, when close to 200,000 Germans were taken prisoner there. The German command released thousands of native conscripts from military service. However the Soviet command began conscripting Baltic natives as areas were brought under Soviet control.[4] While some ended up serving on both sides, many hid in the woods to avoid conscription. (See also Forest Brothers) [edit] Formations and units involved[edit] Soviet
[edit] German
[edit] Notes and references
[edit] Further reading
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