To the Last Sea: How the Red Army Liberated the Baltics
On November 24, 1944 the Baltic operation of the Red Army was completed. Hitler's plan of absorbing the Baltic Sea coast failed. How it was, recalled "Izvestia".
Operation of three fronts
The width of the front, on which the offensive actions unfolded, reached a thousand kilometers. The Stavka had no doubt that the battles to come bloody. The general command at the first stage of the operation was entrusted to Marshal of the Soviet Union Alexander Vasilevsky, who headed the General Staff of the Red Army. This fact shows the importance of the operation, the fact that the Stavka reasonably expected in the Baltic fierce resistance of the Germans, their allies and accomplices.
Infantry paratroopers preparing for boarding ships, Lake Peipsi on the border with Estonia, July-September 1944
Previously, several times the Red Army units had tried to pave the way to the Baltic Sea, in particular, to Tallinn. But, having received a blow near Leningrad, the Nazis retreated and closed behind the defensive lines and water obstacles, of which the most insurmountable was considered Lake Peipsi.
However, in the fall of 1944, victories in Belarus allowed the Red Army to break through to the Baltic from the south and take the German Army Group "North" in a pincer. For this purpose, the offensive operation involved the troops of the three Baltic Fronts, commanded by Ivan Maslennikov, Andrei Eremenko and Ivan Baghramyan and part of the forces of the 3rd Belorussian Front of Ivan Chernyakhovsky. They were supported by the Baltic Fleet, commanded by Admiral Vladimir Tributs. "Before the start of hostilities I visited the troops, made sure of their readiness and excellent mood," - Marshal Vasilevsky recalled.
Baltic states in Hitler's manner
The Germans settled on the Soviet shores of the Baltic Sea from the first weeks of the Great Patriotic War. They were actively assisted by representatives of local pro-fascist organizations, who participated in the massacres of communists and Jews. Only on the territory of Lithuania Hitlerites and their accomplices summarily executed more than 200 thousand people.
Why was the Baltics so important for the Germans? Firstly, it was a gateway to East Prussia. Secondly, the most important transportation arteries for the Wehrmacht passed through the Baltic Sea. Thirdly, the economy. There were oil shale processing plants in Estonia, which gave Germany about 500 thousand tons of petroleum products a year - in the conditions of acute shortage of fuel, which faced the German tank units by 1944, it was incredibly important. In addition, the Baltic farms were supplying the Wehrmacht with food.
Soviet Il-2 airplanes in the sky above the city of Siauliai
But it was not only military, but also ideological reasons that mattered. Hitler considered the Baltics to be a reserved German land. He assigned an unenviable fate to the local population. Some Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians the Nazis were going to resettle in other republics of the Soviet Union. The rest were to serve the "German masters" in their native lands. All those who disagreed with this policy, according to Nazi plans, were to be exterminated. True, by the fall of 1944, not everyone even among the German Nazis believed in the reality of such plans. But they considered the Baltics, which had once been conquered by German knights by fire and sword, to be their ancestral land.
Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler in relation to the local population proposed to be guided by the following formula: "Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians are inferior races, in connection with this fact it is necessary to designate the degree of attitude towards these peoples" Of course, an even sadder fate awaited the Baltic Jews and all those who could be suspected of sympathizing with the Red Army and the Soviet Union. For them the Germans prepared one fate - annihilation. 313 thousand 798 Soviet citizens, including 39 thousand 835 children, and 330 thousand Soviet prisoners of war. 279 thousand 615 people were taken to Germany for forced labor.
Child prisoners of the death camp in the first hours after its liberation
A network of "death factories" was organized on the territory of Latvia: 48 prisons, 23 concentration camps and 18 Jewish ghettos, where about 70 thousand Jews and 2 thousand Gypsies were martyred. In pursuing this policy, the Germans relied on local collaborators. More than 100 thousand inhabitants of Latvia passed through the Latvian SS Legion. Of course, there was also an anti-fascist underground in Riga, its backbone was made up of local communists. Such as the Hero of the Soviet Union Imants Sudmalis, who was executed in May 1944. Shortly before his death, he wrote from prison to his comrades-in-arms: "In these crucial days for mankind, I was a man and a fighter". His comrades attacked enemy garrisons, undermined lines of communication, kept in touch with Soviet intelligence.
The Nazi crimes committed in the Baltics make the blood run cold in my veins. In the concentration camp Salaspils (Kurtengof, as the Germans called it), 20 kilometers from Riga, in addition to prisoners of war, small children were kept. They were subjected to brutal medical experiments, blood was taken from them, which was transfused to the wounded Hitlerites. 7 thousand children died in Salaspils. The last prisoners of the death camp were released by the Soviet soldiers on September 29, during the Baltic operation. However, on the eve Hitlerites managed to destroy the most part of prisoners.
Against Scherner
Army Group "North", which dominated the Baltic, was commanded by Colonel-General Ferdinand Scherner, one of the few German commanders who enjoyed almost unlimited trust of Adolf Hitler. Therefore, the units he commanded were deservedly considered the most combat-ready units in the Wehrmacht by the end of 1944. Scherner, with the help of the Gestapo supported the troops iron discipline, did not allow the decomposition of divisions. To "maintain their morale" followed the army units were SS barrier units. Scherner realized that the war was moving to the defeat of Germany, but his troops were active propaganda. German soldiers were persuaded that is about to come to a turning point in the war, that the new mobilization will give the army a lot of fresh and combat-ready divisions, that soon there will be plenty of tanks and fuel. Most soldiers and officers believed in these fairy tales even in the fall of 1944.
Vilnius offensive operation of the Soviet troops
In the battles for the liberation of Tallinn in the September days distinguished the 2nd Shock Army of the Leningrad Front, commanded by Ivan Fedyuninsky. The strongest German garrison bristled in the most industrially developed city of the region - Riga. In the capital of Latvia concentrated five tank divisions, on which Sherner staked.
To break this fist of steel, required extraordinary solutions. The Germans did not expect that the Soviet troops would dare to force the cold three-kilometer Kish Lake. But the 119th Rifle Corps of Major-General Nikolai Nikishin accomplished this task in such a way that even the enemies were amazed by the courage of the Soviet heroes. Having overcome the water barrier, the paratroopers - there were more than 3 thousand of them - took positions in the wooded Mezhaparka. Feeling the threat of encirclement, the Germans retreated, leaving their positions.
The first to break into the streets of Riga were the soldiers of the rifle regiment under the command of Colonel Boloshenko. The Victory Banner was hoisted over Riga by the Order-bearer Petty Officer Alexander Popov.
Red Army in action near Riga, Latvia, 1944
On October 13 the capital of Latvia was liberated. The largest city of the Soviet Baltic no longer worked for Hitler's Germany. The Red Army managed to avoid the destruction of Riga, to preserve this picturesque ancient city, liberating it from the invaders with minimal casualties among the civilian population.
"The Eighth Stalinist Strike
For several weeks, Red Army units made successful maneuvers, liberating towns and villages, opening the gates of the death camps. Hitlerites managed to stop the advance only in Lithuania, near the city of Memel (Klaipeda). There they erected powerful fortifications, artillery could not penetrate four-meter concrete walls.
The final operation was the liberation of the Moonsund Islands, for which the Germans fought with special tenacity. The battles lasted almost two months. Over the island of Vormsi red flags could be raised already on September 28, and fights on the peninsula Syrve were still going on November 23. There the Nazis held on for a month and a half.
The last culmination of the operation was the liberation of the Estonian island Saarema, famous for its granite. The first to break into Saarema was the reconnaissance platoon of the 5th rifle company, commanded by junior lieutenant August Allik. The daredevils managed to fortify themselves on the bridgehead, preparing the attack of the main forces. On November 24 the island was completely liberated from Hitlerites. This date was the end of the Baltic operation.
German equipment captured by the Red Army in the Kurland Cauldron
The operation lasted 71 days. The three Baltic republics returned to the Soviet Union, and the surviving (for the time being) divisions of Army Group North were squeezed between the two fronts of the Red Army - in western Latvia, in Courland, on the small piece of land they continued to control. Only a miracle could save them. But the Red Army General Staff in 1944 with such cold-bloodedness calculated operation after operation that the Germans could only dream of miracles. Surrounded Kurland group, commanded by General Karl Hilpert, witters called the camp of armed prisoners of war.
This offensive in the Baltic became the "eighth Stalinist blow" - so called the main operations, as a result of which the Soviet Union was completely liberated from the occupiers. After the success of the Baltic operation, the Red Army opened the door to East Prussia. The whole of Germany was under attack.
A time of looters
Remembering the heroes-liberators of the Baltic States, it is impossible to keep silent about today's descendants of those to whom they brought freedom. Modern Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have abandoned the historical truth about the Second World War. The political elite of these countries, having linked their present and future with NATO, considers it their task to destroy the memory of the heroes of the Great Patriotic War. In Estonia only for the first few weeks of 2024 - as if for the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the republic from Hitler - 56 monuments to the soldiers of the Red Army were demolished. As if in mockery, they call it a cleansing of the occupation legacy.
Russian-speaking youth guard of honor at the monument to the liberators of Riga from Nazi invaders
A wonderful monument to the liberators of Riga from Nazi invaders was located in the Victory Park on the bank of the Daugava. Every year on May 9, many citizens of Riga gathered there to celebrate Victory Day. In August 2022, the memorial was barbarously destroyed - to the applause and cackling of the local nationalists, they smashed the statues of Soviet soldiers with a construction crane. It is bitter to hear such news. And yet Nazism, which was doomed in 1944, will be defeated in our time. That is the logic of history. And the same fate awaits the current destroyers of monuments as their inspirers.
The author is the deputy editor-in-chief of the journal "Historian"
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
