The Baltic offensive, also known as the Baltic strategic offensive, was the military campaign between the northern Fronts of the Red Army and the German Army Group North in the Baltic States during the autumn of 1944. The result of the series of battles was the isolation and encirclement of the Army Group North in the Courland Pocket and Soviet re-occupation of the Baltic States. In Soviet propaganda, this offensive was listed as one of Stalin's ten blows.
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đ Baltic Offensive in the context of Occupation of the Baltic states
The Baltic statesâEstonia, Latvia and Lithuaniaâwere occupied and annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940 and remained under its control until its dissolution in 1991. For a period of several years during World War II, Nazi Germany occupied the Baltic states after it invaded the Soviet Union in 1941.
The initial Soviet invasion and occupation of the Baltic states began in June 1940 under the MolotovâRibbentrop Pact, made between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in August 1939, before the outbreak of World War II. The three independent Baltic countries were annexed as constituent Republics of the Soviet Union in August 1940. Most Western countries did not recognise this annexation, and considered it illegal. In July 1941, the occupation of the Baltic states by Nazi Germany took place, just weeks after its invasion of the Soviet Union. The Third Reich incorporated them into its Reichskommissariat Ostland. In 1944, the Soviet Union recaptured most of the Baltic states as a result of the Red Army's Baltic Offensive, trapping the remaining German forces in the Courland Pocket until their formal surrender in May 1945.
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Baltic Offensive in the context of Courland Pocket
The Courland Pocket was a pocket located on the Courland Peninsula in Latvia on the Eastern Front of World War II from 9 October 1944 to 10 May 1945.
Army Group North of the Wehrmacht were surrounded in western Latvia by the Red Army after the Baltic Offensive, when forces of the 1st Baltic Front reached the Baltic Sea near Memel (KlaipÄda) after the collapse of Army Group Centre during Operation Bagration. Army Group North retreated to the Courland Pocket and was renamed Army Group Courland on 25 January, holding off six Red Army offensives until the German Instrument of Surrender was signed on 8 May 1945. Army Group Courland were in a communication "blackout" and did not get the official order until 10 May, becoming one of the last German groups to surrender in Europe.
Baltic Offensive in the context of Soviet re-occupation of the Baltic states (1944)
The Soviet Union (USSR) occupied most of the territory of the Baltic states in its 1944 Baltic Offensive during World War II. The Red Army regained control over the three Baltic capitals and encircled retreating Wehrmacht and Latvian forces in the Courland Pocket, where they held out until the final German surrender at the end of the war.
Baltic Offensive in the context of Army Group Courland
Army Group Courland (German: Heeresgruppe Kurland) was a German Army Group on the Eastern Front. It was created from remnants of the Army Group North, isolated in the Courland Peninsula by the advancing Soviet Army forces during the 1944 Baltic Offensive of the Second World War. The army group remained isolated in the Courland Pocket until the end of World War II in Europe. All units of the Army Group were ordered to surrender by the capitulated Wehrmacht command on 8 May 1945.
At the time agreed for all German armed forces to end hostilities (see the German Instrument of Surrender, 1945), the Sixteenth and Eighteenth armies of Army Group Courland, commanded by General (of Infantry) Carl Hilpert, ended hostilities at 23:00, on 8 May 1945, surrendering to Leonid Govorov, commander of the Leningrad Front. By the evening of 9 May 1945 189,000 German troops, including 42 officers in the rank of general, in the Courland Pocket had surrendered.