Courland Pocket

The Courland Pocket (Kurland Kessel) was a large isolated sector of German resistance on the Eastern Front, near the Baltic Sea, at the end of World War II. It was formed and got cut off from the rest of the Wehrmacht units in July 1944. It was a direct consequence of the Soviet Operation Bagration, which had been launched on June 23, 1944. This massive Russian Summer offensive had allowed the Red Army to reach Warsaw and conquer more than half of the Polish territory, pushing the German forces back in the direction of Berlin. However, around 210,000 German soldiers of Army Group North got trapped and left behind in the Courland, which was a region of Latvia and a peninsula lying between the Gulf of Riga and the Baltic Sea.

Operation Bagration had forced the Germans to lift the siege of Leningrad and fall back more than 300 miles. In July 1944, when the Red Army's spearhead units of the 1st Baltic Front swung right, in a northwest direction, they reached the Baltic Sea coasts, isolating most of the German Army Group North, under Ferdinand Schörner, in the Courland region, creating a large pocket of stiff resistance. Army Group North was composed of the 16th and 18th Army, totaling 26 divisions, which were ordered by Hitler to stay put and hold the peninsula. The main reason for Hitler denying Army Group North to retreat was that the Courland (Kurland) had a port on the Baltic Sea shore, through which the trapped Germans could be resupplied for a planned counter-offensive.

In order to hold their ground in Courland, the German forces withstood waves after waves of vicious Soviet attacks. From October 1944 to April 1945, the Red Army's 1st and 2nd Baltic Front would launch six massive assaults on the Army Group North's positions. These attacks would be known as the Russian Baltic Offensive. Although the German tenaciously held their ground in the Courland Pocket, they suffered thousands of casualties as several Wehrmacht's units were able to open land corridors and get out of the cauldron. In January 1945, Army Group North was renamed Army Group Courland, led by General Lothar Rendulic, who would be succeeded by Carl Hilpert. The Germans trapped in the pocket finally surrendered to the Soviets on May 7, 1945.