The Road to Berlin (89 page)

The main assault group from 1st Baltic Front (43rd Army and 4th Shock Army) had already run into more German attacks in an effort to close the gap opening up on the southerly approaches to Riga. In the area of Baldon 14th
Panzer
Division put in yet another appearance, supported by two divisions pulled out of Group ‘Narva’. Beloborodov’s 43rd Army on the left flank took the
brunt of these attacks mounted by at least six German divisions, but by the evening of 22 September Soviet divisions were still pushing on to a point not much more than ten miles from Riga. Bagramyan’s progress with the 1st Baltic Front could not, however, hide the obvious fact that German forces still held substantial areas of the Baltic states. Destroying the enemy north of the Dvina was evidently beyond the capacity of the 2nd and 3rd Baltic Fronts until they were reinforced and regrouped. The slow rate of advance allowed the German command to make systematic and orderly withdrawals, falling back on Riga to turn it into a key fortified area; possession of Riga and the Moon islands also gave German warships freedom of the gulf of Riga and the middle reaches of the Baltic. Schörner still disposed of a formidable force on the northern bank of the Dvina—up to seventeen divisions—and drawing them into a much shorter line on this northern arc enabled him to start moving larger contingents into Courland and western Lithuania, anchoring himself against East Prussia without depending on the narrow ‘gap’ between Jelgava and the sea where only one road could be used.

The race to form a new front was on. If Shörner won it, he could count on building up a stable front line between Jelgava and Tilsit, firmly secured to East Prussia and anchored from Tukum in the north to Kelmy south-west of Shaulyai. In the event of a Soviet attack across the East Prussian border, the German command could riposte by attacking in the direction of Kaunas and striking the Russians deep in the flank. Neither side had a moment to lose. The
Stavka
ordered an immediate halt to all operations aimed at Riga and on 24 September issued a radically revised offensive plan, one which finally recognized the merits of Bagramyan’s earlier pleading to put his weight on the left flank in order to strike the decisive blow. The concentration of German forces at Riga and in the ‘Riga corridor’, from which they could be syphoned westwards, demanded that the main Soviet attack be shifted from ‘the Riga axis’ to the ‘Memel axis’. Bagramyan’s 1st Baltic Front would transfer its right-flank armies presently engaged south of Riga to the region of Shaulyai, in order to strike in the direction of the coast and towards Memel, aiming for the mouth of the Niemen and thereby severing once and for all Army Group North’s land connections with East Prussia. Riga itself was to be left to Maslennikov and Yeremenko, whose progress was slow but sure. In order to achieve maximum surprise Bagramyan’s new offensive was timed for the very beginning of October.

The projected attack along the ‘Memel axis’ presented the rare spectacle of an entire Front being swung on to a completely new alignment. It was also an enterprise that commanded Stalin’s closest personal attention: he alone conducted the discussions with Marshal Vasilevskii,
Stavka
representative with the Baltic Fronts, checking on the forces required, the problems of the massive regrouping, and the difficulties of concealing a manoeuvre on this scale. Attaining surprise—the indispensable condition of success—caused Stalin much misgiving, but the information available to the Soviet General Staff suggested that the
Stavka
had
chosen a good moment in which to launch this enterprise: the maximum distance over which formations must be moved did not exceed 120 miles and the Soviet command disposed of more than twenty-five separate routes along which they could be shifted. Soviet command of the air also guaranteed a minimum, if not the total absence, of German observation. In six days Bagramyan’s right-flank and centre army formations—three infantry armies, a tank army and three armoured corps, together with equipment and supplies—moved into the new deployment area to the north of Shaulyai; south of the Dvina Yeremenko’s 3rd Shock Army took over what had been 1st Baltic sector. Late in September more than half a million men, 10,000 guns and mortars, and well over a thousand tanks criss-crossed Front, army and divisional boundaries. From Dobele, Bagramyan transferred 5th Guards Tank Army, three armoured corps (1st and 19th Tank, 3rd Mechanized) and two rifle crops detached from 2nd Baltic Front: the new concentration area lay to the north of Shaulyai, making use of the woods and thick forest for concealment. Further south Chernyakhovskii with the 3rd Belorussian Front received orders to use his right-flank 39th Army in an attack from the Rasieni area towards Tauroggen, with an additional thrust south of the Niemen aimed at Gumbinnen, designed to block German attempts to move reinforcements up to Memel.

Bagramyan planned to break into the German defences on his left along two sectors, with a distance of some twenty miles separating the two attacks: 6th Guards, 43rd, 51st and 5th Guards Tank Armies would launch the main blow. Where the flanks of 6th Guards and 43rd Armies locked, along a ten-mile breakthrough sector, Bagramyan concentrated twenty-nine rifle divisions (half the force available to the Front); 6th Guards was to strike north-westwards, 43rd Army west and south-west, with Volskii’s tank army moving into the junction of the two infantry armies with orders to clear a path to the west by the end of the first day of offensive operations. Since 6th Guards and 43rd would be moving on divergent axes, Bagramyan planned to bring his second-echelon army—the 51st—up to the junction as additional stiffening and protection. The second thrust was aimed at Kelme–Tilsit and assigned to 2nd Guards Army, whose breakthrough sector ran for five miles: the objective was the river Niemen and the aim to cover the main Soviet striking force from any attack coming from the south. General Chernyakhovskii would meanwhile employ 39th Army with six divisions to break out on a two-mile sector south of Rasieni with the object of capturing Tauroggen and linking up with 2nd Guards Army in the drive for the Niemen, thereby encircling German forces to the east of Tauroggen itself.

To screen this massive deployment on his left flank, Bagramyan moved infantry and tank formations only by night. Infantry units travelled usually about twenty miles, towed artillery and armour almost twice that distance, with the infantry moving out first, followed by armour taking separate roads and then concealed or camouflaged irr the Shaulyai woods. Only on 2 October did the German command discern what was happening on Bagramyan’s left. By that time it was
too late. From Aut to the Niemen there were about eight German divisions, five of them facing Bagramyan’s assault armies. Schörner’s divisions, also on the move, lay straddled between the gulf of Riga and the railway line running from Shaulyai to Libau, falling back into Courland. Further east the two Baltic Fronts, 2nd and 3rd, continued to batter at the last German defence line, ‘Sigulda’, blind and almost purposeless attacks save for the fact that they prevented Schörner pulling more troops out. Marshal Govorov was assigned by the
Stavka
to act as ‘co-ordinator’ for this two-front operation and planned a massive break-in for 7 October, but a rapid change in the situation further west brought another abrupt change in plans.

For the first few days in October thick fog had hung over Bagramyan’s left flank, hampering his reconnaissance battalions. On 5 October the fog still lingered and only at 11 o’clock could reconnaissance parties move forward. Ten minutes later the guns opened fire and the forward parties rushed for the first line of German trenches. In 6th Guards and 43rd Army area, the forward units made for crossings over the river Venta; on 2nd Guards front for the river Dubissa. After ninety minutes the attack roared into high gear. Chistyakov’s 6th Guards and Beloborodov’s 43rd drove on for about five miles, but the fog tied Soviet aircraft to their airfields and blinded the artillery. The short October day ended before the tank formations could be brought into the action. On 6 October Volskii’s tanks drove through rain and slush to join the battle which was unrolling across a 120-mile front: Chanchibadze’s 2nd Guards Army had already driven several thousand yards into the German lines and now 39th Army, supported by the 1st Air Army, extended the Soviet offensive across the length of the front.

With all of Bagramyan’s armies engaged and Chernyakhovskii’s right-flank army committed, the German command—well aware of the danger of encirclement—began withdrawing divisions from the north-west of Riga during the night of 6 October. On the morning of 7 October 2nd and 3rd Baltic Fronts pushed forward in the wake of the retreating German troops and advanced up to seven miles during that same day. In this effort to compress Army Group North still further, units of the Leningrad Front landed on the islands of Dago and Osel. To hold off the Soviet pressure Schörner needed more men, but with East Prussia now visibly threatened by 3rd Belorussian Front the German command could not release a single division. With the Soviet offensive developing along multiple axes—towards Memel, Riga and the Moon islands—the available German forces were pinned down across a huge arc, facing an additional threat developing in the direction of Gumbinnen. No longer could reserves be switched almost at will. By the evening of 8 October, 43rd Army was closing on the first defensive positions covering Memel, an indication that Bagramyan was on the verge of decisive success. Advancing at high speed, Volskii’s 5th Guards Tank Army also drew up to the defences at the approach to Memel, the assault formations of 1st Baltic Front having torn a gap forty-five miles deep across a front of over 120 miles and rolling up the few German divisions in their path.

With his left-flank armies Bagramyan pressed on towards the lower reaches of the Niemen, at the centre towards the sea and on the right in a north-westerly direction, though on this axis the Soviet advance slowed down in the face of growing German resistance. Kreizer’s 51st Army made the fastest progress and on 10 October captured the small Lithuanian port of Palanga, twenty miles to the north of Memel itself; Volskii’s tanks forced the river Minija and also reached the sea in the area of Palanga. Beloborodov’s 43rd, with the Minija already behind it, pressed even closer to Memel. On the left flank 2nd Guards Army, moving to the south-west in the direction of Tilsit, reached Tauroggen, taking over a sector from 39th Army which was to strike on to the south of the Niemen. With this mass of Soviet divisions implanted on the coast and north of Memel, the trap finally swung shut and cut Army Group North off from any land link with East Prussia.

Meanwhile, in the direction of Riga, Maslennikov’s units fought the German rearguards on the ‘Sigulda line’, while Yeremenko’s 2nd Baltic Front took Oger (where the river Oger joins the Dvina) on 8 October. Schörner’s plea to retire to the Tukums line west of Riga fell on deaf ears at Hitler’s headquarters; German divisions north and south of the Dvina fought on. The first Soviet attempt on 10 October to storm the outer defences of Riga failed, but the morning attacks were renewed in the afternoon, piercing the German lines in a number of places. Fierce German counter-attacks then restored the position within a few hours. The next day the pattern repeated itself, full of bloody actions amidst the marshes and lesser lakes, but Soviet infantrymen pushed as far as the perimeter defences covering the city itself. Schörner again appealed for permission to withdraw from what was rapidly becoming a hopeless situation, and this time was authorized to retire to the ‘Tukums line’—but not before the evening of 12 October. On the morning of 12 October, however, Soviet units finally battered their way through the first line of defence inside Riga, and by the afternoon were fighting within the second line. The end was a matter of hours. Piece by piece the German defences disintegrated and the garrison sought what safety it could in flight. Riga fell to Soviet troops on 13 October. The campaign to liberate the Baltic states was over, and in Moscow Stalin announced the fall of Riga to the accompaniment of the Prime Minister’s plaudits.

After ten weeks the Soviet armies finally succeeded in isolating Army Group North holding the Baltic states from East Prussia. With the fall of Riga the
Stavka
disbanded Maslennikov’s 3rd Baltic Front: 1st Shock Army and the 14th Air Army went to Yeremenko’s command, 61st Army to Bagramyan’s 1st Baltic Front. The German forces were now grouped into two ‘bridgeheads’, a smaller one at Memel and a much larger force blockaded within Courland, remnants of the German Sixteenth and Eighteenth Armies amounting to some thirty divisions which dwindled through evacuation by sea: a few divisions escaped to East Prussia, using Tilsit itself or the ferries on the Niemen. The
Stavka
nevertheless decided upon the destruction of these trapped divisions, a task which fell to 2nd Baltic
and 1st Baltic Fronts. Yeremenko’s 2nd Baltic would attack westwards from Dobele, and Bagramyan would strike to the north-west, using the remainder of his Front forces to clear Memel and to occupy the northern bank of the Niemen in the area of Tilsit. Chernyakhovskii would attack simultaneously in the direction of Gumbinnen to prevent any transfer of troops to Courland. The main Soviet objective was the isolation of Schörner’s Courland group and the investment of the northern bank of the Niemen, a prerequisite for any offensive across the East Prussian border.

Thirty or so German divisions were jammed into Courland between Tukums and Libau (Liepaja): four German divisions were holding Memel and several more—two
Panzer
divisions, four infantry divisions and a motorized brigade (assigned to Third
Panzer
Army)—faced Bagramyan’s left-flank units converging on Tilsit. Chernyakhovskii had to reckon with some ten German divisions from Fourth Army (Army Group Centre). To eliminate these forces the
Stavka
approved plans which called for 2nd Baltic Front to attack from Dobele with three armies (3rd Shock, 42nd and 22nd Armies) in a westerly direction, assisted by a secondary attack rolling along the coastline to Tukums and bringing Soviet units to a line running from Tukums to Aut; Bagramyan would make his main effort to the north, with the object of destroying the trapped divisions in Courland, striking to Skrunda with 6th Guards Army and towards Liepaja with 51st Army. Two armies, 61st and 5th Tank Armies, moved up to support this attack, while the flank armies moving to the Niemen and presently investing Memel would prevent any German attempt to link up with the Courland garrisons. To tie down German units in East Prussia, Chernyakhovskii’s 3rd Belorussian Front prepared an attack from the area of Volkovishki aimed at Insterburg with the object of bringing Soviet troops to the Gumbinnen–Goldap line.