Soviet advances from 1 September 1943 – 31 December 1944, the Courland Pocket is the white area west of the Gulf of Riga
Date
31 July 1944 – 10 May 1945
Location
Courland Peninsula, Latvia
57°0′0″N 22°0′0″E
Result
Soviet victory
German forces in Courland surrender after the general German surrender
Belligerents
Germany
Soviet Union
Commanders and leaders
Ferdinand Schörner Lothar Rendulic Heinrich von Vietinghoff Carl Hilpert Walter Krüger
Ivan Bagramyan Andrey Yeryomenko Leonid Govorov
Units involved
Army Group Courland
1st Baltic Front 2nd Baltic Front
Casualties and losses
October 1944–8 May 1945 117,871 combat casualties (39,537 in February–March 1945)[1] 189,112 captured on 9 May 1945[1]
16 Feb – 8 May 1945 30,501 killed, 130,447 wounded or sick[2] Total: 160,948
v
t
e
Eastern Front
Naval warfare
Baltic Sea
Black Sea
Arctic Ocean
1941
Barbarossa
Brest
Białystok–Minsk
1st Baltic
Brody
Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina
1st Smolensk
Uman
Odessa
1st Kiev
Tallinn
Leningrad
Sea of Azov
1st Kharkov
1st Crimea
Sevastopol
Rostov
Gorky
Moscow
Finland
Kerch
Chechnya
Air war 1941
1942
Lyuban
Barvenkovo–Lozovaya
Rzhev
Toropets–Kholm
Demyansk
Kholm
2nd Kharkov
Case Blue
Caucasus
Rzhev–Sychyovka
Sinyavino
Stalingrad
Velikiye Luki
Mars
Little Saturn
1943
Iskra
Ostrogozhsk–Rossosh
Voronezh–Kharkov
Polar Star
3rd Kharkov
Gorky Blitz
Kursk
1st Donbas
Belgorod-Kharkov
2nd Donbas
2nd Smolensk
Lenino
Dnieper
Nevel
2nd Kiev
1944
Dnieper–Carpathian
Leningrad–Novgorod
Narva
2nd Crimea
1st Jassy–Kishinev
Karelia
Bagration
Lvov–Sandomierz
Doppelkopf
2nd Jassy–Kishinev
Dukla Pass
2nd Baltic
Belgrade
Debrecen
Petsamo–Kirkenes
Courland
Gumbinnen
Budapest
1945
Vistula–Oder
Western Carpathian
East Prussia
Silesia
Breslau
Solstice
East Pomerania
Lake Balaton
Drava
Moravia–Ostrava
Vienna
Bratislava–Brno
Nagykanizsa–Körmend
Berlin
Prague
Prague uprising
Czech Radio
Slivice
v
t
e
Leningrad and the Baltics 1941–44
1941
June in Lithuania
Summer War
Strategic defensive
Evacuation of Tallinn
Leningrad
Oranienbaum
Tikhvin
1942
Lyuban
Toropets–Kholm
Demyansk
Kholm
Sinyavino
1943
Iskra
Polar Star
Krasny Bor
Mga
1944
Relief of Leningrad
Narva
Karelian Isthmus
Vilnius
Šiauliai
Kaunas
Tartu
Riga
Tallinn
Moonsund Archipelago
Memel
Courland
The Courland Pocket[a] was an area of the Courland Peninsula where Army Group North of Nazi Germany and the Reichskommissariat Ostland were cut off and surrounded by the Red Army for almost a year, lasting from July 1944 until 10 May 1945.
The pocket was created during the Red Army's Baltic Offensive, when forces of the 1st Baltic Front reached the Baltic Sea near Memel (Klaipėda) during its lesser Memel Offensive Operation phases in October 1944. This action isolated the German Army Group North from the rest of the German forces, having been pushed from the south by the Red Army, standing in a front between Tukums and Libau in Latvia, with the Baltic Sea in the West, the Irbe Strait in the North and the Gulf of Riga in the East behind the Germans. Renamed Army Group Courland on 25 January, the Army Group in the Courland Pocket remained isolated until the end of the war. When they were ordered to surrender to the Soviet command on 8 May, they were in "blackout" and did not get the official order before 10 May, two days after the capitulation of Germany. It was one of the last German groups to surrender in Europe.
^ abFrieser 2007, p. 661.
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