"Where Resurrections --- Be": The Conquest of East Prussia, Feb-March 1944
February saw the Baltic campaign expand as finally Stavka unleashed 2 Bielorussian Front around Warsaw. The Soviet battle plan was ambitious. To split the Memel from Koenigsburg and then to cut into the Baltic west of Koenigsburg at Ebling, the aim was to destroy all the German formations that had sought to hold the Soyuz offensive. If not yet on the operational maps, Berlin was now acknowledged as the prize.
Early February, saw a deceptive lull as Soviet forces moved up from Kaunas and reorganised. 28 and 8 Armies were to destroy the axis forces at Memel, 13 Army to take Koenigsburg and 5, 12 and 1 Tank Armies were tasked with a drive towards Danzig.
As the fronts reorganised, the Germans struck back at Warsaw in a fierce localised counterattack. By 6 February, they broke off having done little to delay or deflect the coming storm.
Almost as soon as the Germans fell back to their starting positions, 2 Bielorussian Front went over to the offensive. Radom fell after 5 days fighting on 12 February, Lodz on the 11th
(Soviet tanks entering Lvov)
as the German lines buckled.
(once 1 Tank Army broke out around Lvov, it became clear to both sides that the war had been decided - the only question now was when it would end)
However, from the 16th to the 24th, briefly they stemmed the offensive. 19 Panzer and 9 Heavy Armour retook Opoczno on the 20th but that proved to be an isolated success. 10 Heavy Armour failed to hold Plock as the Soviets forced the lower Vistula on the 27th, the Tigers of 9 Heavy Armour were overwhelmed at Klobuck as the Soviets widened their offensive north and south of Lvov.
As the German front disolved, the fighting became more and more one-sided. Tarnowskie Gory and Rypin had fallen by the end of the month with under 500 Soviet dead for almost 4,000 Axis soldiers.
In the meantime the Memel sector saw a continuation of the slow intense fighting that had characterised the Baltic battles. 8 Army wrestled Tilsit from the Germans on 17 February and with it split the Memel group from any land connection to the Reich. The German counterattack was inevitable and fierce as units at Koenigsburg tried to break in and those at Memel tried to break out. After 19 days of carnage, they admitted defeat on 7 March.
By then it was too late, 8 Army had seized Memel on 5 March leaving 28 Army the job of destroying the remaining axis forces clustered around Leipaja.
It was at Koenigsberg that the Germans met their greatest defeat of this phase of the war. 13 Army moved directly on the city and 5 Army pushed in their southern flank. By 17 February, backed by Sturmoviks and TU-2s, 13 Army opened the battle for the city at the same time as it reached around to the peninsula to the west. By 26 February, the city was completely surrounded and some 44,000 Axis troops had surrendered at Rauschen.
By 4 March, the Soviet artillery overlooking the now ruined city fell silent. Across two major offensives, Soviet losses amounted to just short of 1,100, the Germans lost almost 6,000.
(Soviet troops entering Koenigsburg)
In effect, their divisions had been so battered in the battles earlier in the campaign that they were no longer capable of organised resistance. To hammer home the scale of the victory, another 132,000 Axis troops marched into captivity.
Stavka still had the final prize of the Soyuz offensive to claim, the 120,000 German soliders now grimly holding out at Leipaja.
In the meantime the RKKH had played a full part in these victories. The submarines of the Baltic Fleet cut axis seaborne supply to near zero,
(Soviet submarine leaving Kronstadt)
destroying convoys at will.
(axis convoy after a submarine attack off Memel)
Kuznetsov's main battle fleet engaged the Bismarck off the Gulf of Finland on 18-19 February
(The Marat at dock in Kronstadt)
(The newly repaired Kaganovich)
and in a hard fought encounter ensured that there would be no mass naval evacuation of the trapped German divisions.
Just to complete the list of battle honours, the Il-4s of the Fleet Aviation bombed and destroyed the Admiral Hipper that had been forced to repair in Leipaja after an earlier engagement with Kuznetsov's forces.
(Il-4 in action over the Baltic)
The casualty rates reflected both the intensity of the fighting and the scale of the victory. The Soviets lost 37,508, the Germans 59,786, their allies a further 5,373. To this was added 175,276 prisoners – some 35 divisions had been removed from the Axis OOB. Once Leipaja fell, the road to the Reich lay open.
With these victories, Stavka ordered 8 Army to redeploy to the Krakow sector further building up Soviet strength on the Upper Vistula and Oder regions. Once Leipaja fell, 28 Army was stripped of its SU-100s and IS-2s and was sent to reinforce the Vladivostock region. Slowly the Red Army was re-organising not just to knock out the European Axis powers but to wage war on a truely global scale.
