Battle of the Baltic States

The Battle of the Baltic States ( Russian Прибалтийская стратегическая оборонительная операция ) took place at the beginning of the German-Soviet War on the northern section of the Eastern Front . It ran from June 22 to July 9, 1941 at the same time as the Minsk Kessel Battle, which took place in the central section . After changeable fighting the German Wehrmacht in Operation Barbarossa was able to occupy the territory of Latvia and Lithuania annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940 .

introduction

Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb

The German Army Group North ( Field Marshal Ritter von Leeb ) opened the attack on June 22nd with 23 infantry divisions, three motorized and three tank divisions. It was planned by the German army command to push the Soviet armed forces away from the Baltic coast , secure the Baltic ports, then advance to Leningrad and Kronstadt and take the bases of the Baltic fleet . The German 16th and 18th Armies were concentrated on the East Prussian border and on both banks of the Memel River . Army Group North planned to advance with Panzer Group 4 on the stronger right wing in order to take the Opotschka area as quickly as possible , prevent the withdrawal of Russian troops from the Baltic states and create the conditions for the advance of the advance on Leningrad. In the direction of the main thrust, Army Group North managed to achieve a favorable balance of forces. Only seven Soviet rifle divisions were ready on the first day of the attack directly on the East Prussian border. Further reserves were located in separate groups around Vilna , Kaunas and Schaulen and were concentrated behind them as far as the Opotschka and Pskow regions. The German 16th Army under Colonel General Busch was commissioned to lead its offensive on both sides of the main road to Kaunas in the direction of Dünaburg , while Panzer Group 4 under Colonel General Hoepner had to advance in the same direction north of the lower reaches of the Memel to the Düna. The 18th Army under Colonel General von Küchler had to carry out its main attack via Tilsit to Riga .

At the beginning of the war, the Soviet Northwest Front under Colonel General Fyodor Kuznetsov was significantly weaker than the other Soviet fronts in Belarus and Ukraine , as it only had two mechanized corps . The Baltic states occupied in 1940 were viewed by the Soviets as politically unreliable, in whose territory no sustainable defense should be provided. The Northwest Front had a total of 22 divisions, including 19 rifle divisions, 2 motorized rifle divisions and 3 armored divisions (8th, 11th, 27th Armies, 3rd and 12th mechanized corps) with 379,000 men, 4938 artillery pieces and mortars, 1,274 tanks and 1,078 combat aircraft . Only 206 tanks were of the newer type ( T-34 and KW-1 ), the majority of which were lighter tanks of the BT-7 and T-26 types .

Northwest Front (Red Army)

8th Army (Major General PP Sobennikow )

Pyotr Petrovich Sobennikov

10th Rifle Corps (Major General IF Nikolayev )

10th, 48th, and 90th Rifle Divisions

11th Rifle Corps (Colonel MS Schumilow )

11th and 125th Rifle Divisions, Reserve: 22nd Rifle Division

12th Mechanized Corps (Major General NM Schestopalow )

23rd Panzer Division with 381 tanks (including 362 T-26s)
28th Panzer Division with 314 tanks (including 236 BT and 69 T-26)
202nd motorized rifle division with 105 tanks (including 66 T-26s)

27th Army (Major General NJ Bersarin )

22nd Rifle Corps (Major General AS Ksenofontow )

180th and 182nd Rifle Divisions

24th Rifle Corps (Major General KM Katschanow )

181st and 183rd rifle divisions

Baltic coastal group

16th and 67th Rifle Divisions and 3rd Rifle Brigade

5th Airborne Corps (Major General IS Besugly)

9th, 10th and 214th Airborne Brigades

11th Army (Lieutenant General WI Morosow )

Vasily Ivanovich Morozov

16th Rifle Corps (Major General MM Ivanov )

5th, 33rd and 188th Rifle Divisions

29th Rifle Corps (Major General AG Samochin )

179th and 184th Rifle Divisions

41st Rifle Corps (Major General IS Kosobutzki )

23rd, 121st, 126th and 128th Rifle Divisions

3rd Mechanized Corps (Major General AW Kurkin )

2nd Panzer Division with 252 tanks (including 32 KW-1, 19 KW-2, 27 T-28, 116 BT-7 and 19 T-26)
5th Panzer Division with 268 tanks (including 50 T-34, 30 T-28, 170 BT-7 and 18 T-26)
84th Motorized Rifle Division with 149 tanks (including 145 BT-7 and 4 T-26)

Army Group North (Wehrmacht)

Georg von Küchler

18th Army (Colonel General Georg von Küchler )

XXVI. Army Corps (Artillery General Albert Wodrig )

XXXVIII. Army Corps (General of the Infantry Friedrich-Wilhelm von Chappuis )

I. Army Corps (General of the Infantry Kuno von Both )

Reserves: 93rd and 254th Infantry Divisions

Panzer Group 4 (Colonel General Erich Hoepner )

Colonel-General Hoepner in conversation with the commander of the 6th Panzer Division, General Landgraf

XXXXI. Army Corps (motorized) (General of the armored forces Georg-Hans Reinhardt )

LVI. Army Corps (motorized) (General of the Panzer Troops Erich von Manstein )

16th Army (Colonel General Ernst Busch )

Field Marshal General Ernst Busch

X. Army Corps (General of the Artillery Christian Hansen )

XXVIII. Army Corps (General of the Infantry Mauritz von Wiktorin )

II Army Corps (General of the Infantry Walter Graf von Brockdorff-Ahlefeldt )

course

On the first day of the war, on June 22, 1941, German troops were able to break through the defense of the Northwest Front. At 3.40 a.m. the fighting began with German air strikes and artillery preparations. The Air Force 1 under Colonel General Alfred Keller supported the attack of Army Group North with 450 aircraft, including 271 combat aircraft and 203 fighters. The attack by the 18th Army was immediately successful against the Soviet 8th Army . The main German strike hit the left flank of the 8th Army, at the seam between the 90th and 125th Rifle Divisions, while the right flank was hit by troops of the German XXVI. and I. Army Corps was attacked and bound. On the left wing, the 61st Infantry Division took the bridge over the Memel and advanced on Garsden , while the 291st Infantry Division advanced on the Curonian Lagoon via Klaipeda to Crottingen . The 90th Rifle Division began to move northeast to Schaulen, while the 125th Rifle Division after stubborn border fighting with the XXXXI. Army Corps (motorized) Tauroggen had to give up. Battles were fought over Polangen , the defenses of the Soviet 10th Rifle Division were broken and they had to withdraw to the north. The German LVI. Army corps (mot.) Acted in the area east of Ragnit to Haselberg as a top formation to attack over the Memel. The 8th Panzer Division (General Brandenberger ) covered to the left by the 290th Infantry Division took Georgenburg , followed by the 3rd Infantry Division (motorized) to Dubissa , where a bridgehead was formed at Ariogala in the afternoon . The LVI. Army Corps reached the Ukmerge area on June 24th . The German 16th Army had the II Army Corps (General Brockdorff) attack south of Schloßberg across the Lithuanian border. The 121st Infantry Division attacked in the Wirballen area and was quickly fighting house-to-house in Kibarten . The XXVIII. Army corps attacked with the 122nd and 123rd Infantry Divisions near Neustadt and northwest of Sintautai . Together with VI attacking south of it from the Gumbinnen area . Army Corps ( 6th and 26th Infantry Divisions ) the breakthrough between Mariampol and Kalvarya was forced. In the diary of Army Group North it was found that the Soviet resistance at the border was very low, the enemy was quickly overcome and all important river crossings could be brought into secure possession.

On the right wing of Army Group North, following Army Group Center , the troops of Panzer Group 3 strove to secure important bridges over the Memel. After conquering the second bridge over the Memel south of Alytus , the advance of the Soviet 11th Army (Lieutenant General WI Morosow) was stopped. Parts of the 128th and 184th Rifle Divisions and the Soviet 5th Panzer Division offered strong resistance on the east bank of the Memel. On the evening of June 22nd, the German 7th Panzer Division (Major General Hans von Funck ) got into a major tank battle east of Olita . The Soviet division commander Colonel FF Fedorov was able to use the artillery of the 5th motorized rifle regiment and the 2nd battalion of the 9th tank regiment for reinforcement, but was thrown back. The 5th Panzer Division of the 3rd Mechanized Corps flooded back in disarray. 70 Soviet tanks and 20 aircraft (on the airfields) were destroyed in this fight, the German XXXIX. motorized corps lost 11 tanks by their own account. Parts of the Soviet combat group (3 tanks, 12 armored vehicles and 40 trucks) were pushed to the neighboring western front . In this section the Soviet troops had suffered heavy losses, and the further advance of the German XXXIX. motorized corps (right wing of Panzer Group Hoth) on Vilna could not be stopped.

A large gap in the front formed between the northwest and the western front in the 11th Army, which the Red Army could no longer close. The bulk of the 11th Army was also trapped between the pincers of Panzer Groups 3 and 4. The main forces of 8th Army, however, withdrew from the armored front of the enemy relatively intact to the north. The supply of ammunition and fuel was almost completely cut off. The situation required decisive measures to stop the German breakthrough. On the evening of June 22nd, General Kuznetsov received Guideline No. 3 from the Stawka: “The coast of the Baltic Sea is to be held, a powerful counterattack from the Kaunas area against the flank against the enemy group near Suwalki is to be launched, in cooperation with the right wing of the western front should be brought under their own control again by the evening of June 24th. ”This Stawka directive could not be carried out, without reserves one could not prevent further retreat, let alone restore the situation.

Tank battle near Raseiniai (Schaulen)

Sketch for the tank battle near Raseinai

A destroyed KW-1 near Kaunas

Another KW-1 with the tower blown up

While the foremost rifle formations of the 8th Army retreated under the attack of the German troops, the divisions of the 12th mechanized corps were still spread over a 90-kilometer section. Before the counterattack directive was issued on June 23, General Kuznetsov ordered a counterattack by the 3rd Mechanized Corps (General Kurkin with around 31,970 men and 650 tanks) against the broken German group from the Tilsit area. Six divisions should be the German XXXXI. Hold up Army Corps (mot.) And fight back along the border. The commander of the 11th Army tried to restore the situation by leaving the 84th Motorized Rifle Division (General Pyotr I. Fomenko) standing as support at Jonava . Despite the superiority of tanks, the Soviet forces were mainly at the mercy of enemy aircraft. During this time the Soviet 2nd Panzer Division (Major General JN Soljankin) had advanced through Kedainiai towards Tauroggen and began to fight with the motorized forces of the enemy at Skaudvilė . Of the 12th mechanized corps (General NM Schestopalow ) only the 28th Panzer Division (Colonel ID Tschernjachowski ) had reached the starting position on June 23 at 10 a.m. After a long march, the formations entered the fight mostly in non-concentrated groups. Only small parts of the 23rd Panzer Division (Colonel TS Orlenko) reached the battlefield; the majority remained concentrated in the forests north of Laukuva. About 56,000 men and 300 tanks were used. The field artillery also provided insufficient support for the tanks due to an acute shortage of ammunition. The aim of the German combat groups " Raus " (6th Panzer Brigade) and " Seckendorff " (Panzergrenadier Regiment 114) of the 6th Panzer Division was to occupy the Lithuanian city of Raseiniai and then to take the two road bridges east of the city over the Dubissa . To the left of this the 1st Panzer Division advanced on Kelme and then swung to the Lyduvėnai railway bridge to protect the northern flank of the beleaguered 6th Panzer Division (General Landgraf ). The front parts of the Soviet 28th Panzer Division were wedged in and lost 14 tanks and 20 guns; it left the battlefield on the night of June 24th. The 48th Rifle Division lost its headquarters and 70% of its personnel. The commander, Major General PV Bogdanov, was captured. At 6 p.m. the High Command of Panzer Group 4 reported to Army Group North headquarters that Soviet attacks with heavy tanks and infantry had hit the right wing of the XXXXI. motorized corps for defense. The 3rd Mechanized Corps and the 125th Rifle Division lost up to 40 tanks on the first day at Raseiniai, 30 guns were destroyed. At dawn on June 24th the fighting broke out with renewed vigor. On both sides together around 900 tanks and 175,000 soldiers were now involved in the fighting. The deputy commander of the 55th Panzer Regiment, Major BP Popov, destroyed several German anti-tank guns with his fire. Soldiers of the 9th Artillery Anti-Tank Brigade under Colonel PI Polyanski were able to destroy 30 tanks by the evening of June 24th, but then had to go back together with the 202nd Motorized Division. The 23rd Panzer Division was still covering the retreat of the 10th Rifle Corps.

The heavy losses of the Soviet troops during the counterattacks and the lack of fuel and ammunition led to the fall of Kaunas and Vilnius on June 24 and the loss of Schaulen on June 25 . The exhausted divisions of the 12th Mechanized Corps began to withdraw on June 26th to the newly assigned concentration area 15-20 km north of Schaulen. The German troops succeeded in surrounding the headquarters in the Boriseli area. Major General Shestopalov was seriously wounded and taken prisoner, the Chief of Staff of PS Lebedev Corps and Colonel PI Kalinichenko were killed in the battle. The 2nd Panzer Division of the 3rd Mechanized Corps also withdrew to the area north of Schaulen. The division commander, General EN Soljankin and other staff officers had died in the battle. In both divisions of the 12th Mechanized Corps, only 35 tanks were still operational. According to German sources, 186 tanks, 77 guns, 23 anti-tank guns and several hundred trucks and cars were destroyed or captured on the second day.

Battle of the Daugava

The commander of the 8th Panzer Division, General Brandenberger (left) with Erich von Manstein

German Panzer IV on a destroyed railway bridge

The positions of the northwestern front could no longer be held after the tank battle southeast of Schaulen, and the Soviet troops withdrew to the northeast. The Military Council of the Northwestern Front ordered the withdrawal of the troops between the 8th and 11th Armies along the Venta , Shushwa and Wilija rivers . On the night of June 25th, the Stawka made a new decision: the 16th Rifle Corps under General MM Ivanov was ordered to counterattack the German II Army Corps in the area north of Mariampol to secure Kaunas, although the events required a retreat to the river Wilija . Initially the assigned corps was successful, but soon it was forced to return the 5th and 33rd Rifle Divisions to their starting positions. Along with the retreating troops, nearly 60,000 construction workers who had recently arrived moved back to the east to reinforce the fortified area near the border. The streets were crammed with masses of refugees from the border positions, German air strikes caused panic in the columns and destroyed telecommunications. In a three-day battle, the Northwest Front lost 921 aircraft, and there were also heavy losses in the artillery and especially in the tanks.

While the armored wedges of the German XXXXI. and LVI. Motorized Corps were advancing towards Schaulen, the flanks of the Soviet 2nd Panzer Division were bypassed and surrounded. On the night of June 25th, General Sobennikov ordered the general retreat to a new line of defense in a relatively well-organized manner: the 10th Rifle Corps moved to the Mazeikiai- Kurtuvenai line and the 11th to the Kanalas- Radviliškis line . The front of the Soviet 8th Army now extended to 110 kilometers: on the right there was an additional 85 kilometers long gap as far as Libau, where the 67th Rifle Division (General Dedajew ) defended, and on the left the gap with the 11th Army widened as a result of the progress of the Panzer Group 4 day by day. South of Kaunas the situation had been decided, and scattered units of the Soviet 11th Army withdrew to the east. The Soviet 11th Army was in a difficult situation. The People's Commissar for Defense reported on June 26th that the 11th Army headquarters and military council had been captured or killed. The condition of the cut-off 5th, 33rd, 188th, 128th Rifle Divisions was unknown, the remnants of the units standing outside tried to escape in the direction of the Daugavpils.

Together with the XXVIII introduced into the front on the left wing . Army Corps , the German II Army Corps crossed the Memel near Kovno on June 25th . By June 25, the German offensive in Courland had developed as follows: The 291st Infantry Division (General Herzog ), operating independently on the coast, fought for the important port of Libau and advanced with parts on Windau. The bulk of the infantry of the 18th Army advanced via Jelgava (Mitau) to Riga . Parts of the Soviet 8th Army already had orders to return to the northern bank of the Daugava , to occupy the line between Auce - Vashkai - Krūminš and then to build a line of defense along the Daugava to Riga. In order to stabilize the situation, the troops on the northwest front should regain a foothold at the turn of the western Daugava. The German XXXXI. Motorized corps meanwhile advanced via Panevėžys to Jakobstadt and the LVI. motorized corps, which far overtook the units of the 16th Army on the right, stormed further on Dünaburg. In order to strengthen the defense of the Daugava line, the 5th Airborne Corps and the 21st Mechanized Corps (42nd and 46th Armored Divisions) under General Lelyushenko were also called in from a Stawka reserve . The 27th Army of General Bersain had to concentrate in the Gulbene area to ensure the defense of the Daugava line between Lievenhof and Daugavpils. The deputy commander of the Northwest Front, General SD Akimow , received orders to lead the troops in the Daugavpils area. The 21st Mechanized Corps, which was supposed to defend here, had not yet reached the sector.

On the morning of June 26th, the 8th Panzer Division (General Brandenberger ) and the 3rd motorized division (General Jahn ) reached the Daugava took Daunaburg and secured a bridgehead on the right bank of the river. This was also achieved through the deployment of subordinate forces of the Brandenburg Division , at that time still a regiment, to secure the operationally important Düna bridges near Dünaburg on June 28, 1941, when members of the 8th Company crossed the bridge on Soviet loot trucks. and defeated the guards in a coup and then held this position for two hours against Soviet counterattacks. The company commander, Oberleutnant Hans-Wolfram Knaak , who was posthumously promoted to captain and was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, fell.

In the meantime the headquarters of the Stawka had a defensive front set up on the western Daugava, for which the 27th Army on the left wing of the withdrawing units of the 8th Army was called in from the reserve.

On June 27, the units of the 8th Army withdrew because of the danger of encirclement across the Daugava . The remnants of the 11th Army (28th, 188th and 126th Rifle Divisions) gathered in the Opotschka area until the reorganization. General Lelyushenko's corps did not arrive in the Daugavpils area until the afternoon of June 27. The 42nd Panzer Division took up combat with units from the German 121st Infantry Division. Two hours after the fighting began, the 46th Panzer Division and the 5th Airborne Corps were engaged in heavy fighting near Daugavpils. The situation called for the immediate deployment of the 42nd and 185th Rifle Divisions. However, their intervention was prevented by the German air force. After the loss of Daugavpils, the headquarters of the defeated 27th Army moved to Rēzekne on the evening of June 28th , where it was secured by the 5th Airborne Corps and the 21st Mechanized Corps. On June 28, a belated order was received from the Northwest Front: "The 27th Army (5th Airborne Corps, 21st Mechanized Corps, 110th Artillery Regiment and parts of the 16th Rifle Corps) defended the northern bank of the Daugava River between Livani , Dünaburg and Krāslava . " On the morning of June 29th, Soviet troops returned to the new line of defense between Vyrochno and Luknas.

On the night of June 29th, the advance section of the XXXXI crossed southeast of Riga. motorized corps of General Reinhardt the western Daugava near Jakobstadt and Lievenhof . At the end of June, the German 1st Army Corps with the 1st, 11th and 21st Infantry Divisions concentrated in the Friedrichstadt area on the Daugava. To the east of Daugavpils near Krāslava , the Daugava crossing of the already open-minded infantry of the German II Army Corps took place on July 3rd . On the right wing of the Soviet 27th Army, German troops broke through the defense and captured Rezekne. The 18th Rifle Division and the 46th Panzer Division withdrew, the failures of the 42nd Panzer Division were particularly severe. The enemy tried to surround and destroy the 21st Mechanized Corps. The Soviet 42nd Panzer Division, which had been pushed off, remained in the Dagda district until the evening of July 3rd. Of the 107 tanks and 129 guns that were available to General Lelyushenko at the beginning of the fighting, only 28 tanks were operational the following day. General Lelyuschenko received orders with the rest of his troops to hold a new line of defense between Ludza-Laudery until the end of the day on July 4th. The German 8th Panzer Division, 3rd Motorized SS Division "Totenkopf" and the 290th and 121st Infantry Divisions began to attack the Soviet positions that could not hold up. The attack by the German armed forces forced the corps to leave the Ludza- Lauderi line and retreat to Sebesch and Opotschka . The following day General Bersarin ordered the withdrawal of his army units across the old state border of the USSR .

Fight for Libau and Riga

General Dmitri D. Lelyushenko, commander of the 21st Mechanized Corps

After the general withdrawal of the troops from the Northwest Front, the German troops encountered stubborn resistance in front of Libau . The German command planned to capture the city no later than the second day. But it was not until June 24 that the Germans blocked the city from land and sea. Against the small crew, consisting of parts of the 67th Rifle Division (General NA Dedajew ), the German 291st Infantry Division, supported by tanks and the Navy, began the attack. On the order of the High Command of the Northwest Front on the night of June 27-28, the last defenders left Libau and began to move east. On June 28th, Libau was occupied without any particular resistance; on July 1st, Ventspils (Windau) was taken.

While the main forces of Army Group North carried out their military operations on the Daugava, the flank formations (291st Infantry Division) of the 18th Army took over the cleaning of the southern region of the Baltic States. The main remaining forces of the 8th Army went to the right bank of the Daugava River on the evening of June 29 , where they organized the defense of Riga. The German troops did not allow the Soviet troops to gain a foothold. In some places the German troops reached the Daugava before the Soviet troops: the XXXXI. motorized corps reached the river at Krustpils on June 26th . On June 29th, Jelgava (Mitau) was occupied by the German 18th Army. The order was given to repel the German troops who had penetrated across the Daugava into Riga. At 7:40 a.m. on June 29, German tanks crossed a bridge over the western Daugava river, and five German tanks broke through to the right bank. On June 29th, the advance guard of the German XXVI. Army Corps (61st and 217th Infantry Divisions) entered Riga and took the bridges over the river. At 12 noon the infantry of the German 185 Infantry Regiment broke into the city over the Riga Bridge, the 18th Army broke the opposing resistance. On July 1, the Soviet 8th Army was further withdrawn on the Gulbene - Lubana Sea line. The planned counterattack by the Soviet 10th Rifle Corps (now General II Fadejew) was postponed, but this ensured the orderly retreat of the 8th Army through the city. The 22nd motorized rifle division, which was operationally subordinate to the 10th rifle corps, stood out in the fighting around Riga.

On June 30th, Colonel General FI Kuznetsov ordered his troops to withdraw from the western Daugava and occupy the fortified line of Ostrov, Pskov and Sebesch. Stalin immediately dismissed the general from office as soon as he was informed of this step by the commander. The new commander-in-chief, Major General PP Sobennikov, was given Stalin's order: "Restore the previous position: return to the line on the western Daugava." The army troops were ordered to stop the retreat and go on the counter-offensive to restore the defense on the Daugava. The following tasks were assigned to the formations of the 8th Army: the 10th Rifle Corps was ordered to retake Riga; to the left of this the 11th Rifle Corps was to occupy the area from Ogre to Koknese ; the 12th Mechanized Corps, in cooperation with the troops of the 27th Army, had smashed the enemy group at Krustpils. In order to accomplish the latter task, the 27th Army called in the 24th Rifle Corps (Major General KM Kachanow with the 181st and 183rd Rifle Divisions) as reinforcement. To strengthen the 41st Rifle Corps in the Sebesch area, the 1st Mechanized Corps (General ML Tschernjawski ), withdrawn from the Karelian Front, and the 234th Rifle Division from the reserve were brought into the fighting.

Advance via Ostrow and Pskow to Luga

Georg-Hans Reinhardt, commander of the German XXXXI. Army Corps (mot.)

The situation on the Soviet northwest front remained difficult. The remnants of the troops of the 8th Army cut off in Estonia, now led by General FS Ivanov , had to withdraw to the north. The defense on the right bank of the western Daugava had collapsed. In this situation the 1st Mechanized Corps appeared from Karelia on June 30th , went over to the Northwest Front and was transferred to the section of the 27th Army the next day with the following 163rd Motorized Division. On June 30th, General Kuznetsov ordered a retreat along the Daugava to organize the defense of the Pskov, Sebezh and Ostrov lines. On the evening of July 3rd, German troops occupied Gulbene. On the morning of July 2, the connection between the 8th and 27th Armies in the Ostrow and Pskow area was broken, and the German tank units infiltrated into the gap in the front. The 1st Mechanized Corps, the 3rd Panzer Division and the 163rd Motorized Division marched accelerated into the Pskov area. Colonel-General Kuznetsov had been removed from his post; the same fate befell PA Dibrow, member of the Military Council and the Chief of Staff of the Front, Major General PS Klenow. On July 4, the commander of the 8th Army, General Sobennikov, took up command at the front. Corps Commissioner WN Bogatkin was appointed a member of the Military Council, and General NF Watutin , Deputy Chief of the General Staff, became Chief of Staff of the Northwest Front. On the morning of July 4th, the XXXXI penetrated. Motorized Corps with the 1st Panzer Division in Ostrow, where parts of the 41st Rifle Corps were defending. Due to inadequacies, all officers and 1,445 men of the 24th Rifle Corps had to be withdrawn without exception by July 7th. This happened due to the fact that the 22nd, 24th and 29th Rifle Corps mainly fought soldiers of Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian nationalities. The 21st Mechanized Corps was retreating into the fortified area of Sebezh. Units of the German LVI. motorized corps occupied Rezekne on July 4th and then met fierce Soviet resistance.

The new commander of the Northwest Front, Major General PP Sobennikow, had orders to restore the position of parts of the 41st Rifle Corps and the 1st Mechanized Corps. In order to solve this task, the 3rd Panzer Division was assigned to the 1st Mechanical Corps. The first squadrons of the 235th Rifle Division provided active support, but the German troops could not be stopped. On July 5th, the Soviet units (111th Rifle Division and 3rd Panzer Division) attacked and temporarily drove the German troops from Ostrow, but on July 6th the city fell back into German hands. The formations of the 41st Rifle Corps were forced to retreat to Pskov, but the pursuing German units were faster and broke through the lines of the Soviet rearguard. On the afternoon of July 6th, the German troops continued the offensive, the 1st Panzer Division advanced on Pskov and the 6th Panzer Division on Porchow.

On the morning of July 8th, the German troops succeeded in taking the weakened Soviet units across the north bank of the Tscherechi River near Kresty and penetrated the southern suburb of Pskov. The commander of the 118th Rifle Division, Major-General NM Glowatzki, asked the commander of the 41st Corps, his division to allow, on the Velikaya go. During the night of July 7th to 8th, the Germans managed to penetrate the southern outskirts of Pskov. Faced with the hopeless situation, the Soviet units began to retreat into the city, but no longer managed to cross the blown bridges. On July 8, the German troops threw the remains of the 41st Rifle Corps back over this river and occupied the western part of Pskov. The premature explosion of the Pskov Bridge over the Velikaya led to an irregular retreat of the 118th, 111th Rifle Division, troops of the 25th fortified area remained on the west bank of the river until the end. The abandonment of Pskov led to the withdrawal of the 41st Rifle Corps to Gdow (118th Rifle Division) and to the Luga section (111th, 235th and 90th Rifle Division). The commander of the 118th Rifle Division, General Glowatzki, was sentenced on July 6th by the Military College of the Supreme Court "for having left the city of Pskov to the Germans".

After the German troops approached Leningrad, two strong lines of defense had to be quickly formed. The first was on the right bank of the Luga, the second line ran along the Luga to Lake Ilmen. The danger of an enemy breakthrough via Pskov to Leningrad forced the Stavka to set up the Luga Operational Group , whose commander, General KP Pyadyshev, was to cover the south-western approaches to the Neva . On July 7th, the 10th Mechanized Corps from the northern front, in addition to the 24th Panzer Division (Colonel M. Tschesnokow), arrived at the Luga. The next morning the German 1st Panzer Division penetrated the southern outskirts of Ostrow and crossed the Velikaya sector.

Meanwhile, the German XXVI started on the left bank of the western Daugava. Army Corps of the 18th Army launched the offensive to conquer Estonia and reached the Dorpat- Pernau line on July 10th . Parts of the 8th Army were in retreat from July 4th, the German forces reached the Pernau line, the north bank of Lake Võrtsjärvi and Dorpat on July 7th . The 11th Rifle Corps (remnants of the 48th and 125th Rifle Divisions and the battalion of the 11th Rifle Division) took up defensive positions on the north bank of the Emajõgi via Võrtsjärv to Lake Peipus . The German 217th Infantry Division took Pernau with the support of the Navy on July 9 without a fight and hurried on to Tallinn via Maryamaa. Counter-attacks by the 8th Army were repulsed between July 9 and 15. The arrival of the 235th Rifle Division from Ivanovo was delayed (the first squadrons did not arrive until July 5). At the same time the 28th Panzer Division withdrew from Estonia with 1,500 men and 10 tanks. Until July 8, the troops of the 8th Army defended the following sections: the 10th Rifle Corps (remnants of the 10th Rifle Division, 22nd Motorized Rifle Division and an NKVD regiment of the 11th Rifle Division) defended themselves from Pernau towards Tallinn as far as Lake Vyrtsjärv. The defense of the Estonian coast in the Paldiski , Haapsalu and Pernau sectors was carried out by the 16th Rifle Division, the 3rd Infantry Brigade was in charge of the defense of the Baltic Islands.

On July 10th, the attack by Panzer Group 4 began with the aim of breaking through the Luga Front in the direction of Leningrad. On the right wing, the 8th Panzer Division advanced from the Opochka area towards the Porchow - Novgorod line . On July 11th, the 3rd Motorized Division took Porchow and the 8th Panzer Division was to move to Solzy to force the passage between the Mschaga River and the Ilmen Lake . The XXXXI attacked the left wing. motorized corps with the 1st and 6th Panzer Divisions north of Pskov and forced the advance through Gdow towards Luga . The Germans crossed the Pljussa river near the place of the same name and opened the battle of the Luga with the forces of the Soviet Einsatzgruppe Luga under General Pyadyshev . While the main forces of Army Group North carried out the specified military operations, newly supplied formations (Gen. Kdo. XXXXII. AK ) took over the cleaning of the southern region of the Baltic States.

Follow-up operations in Estonia

The coast of the Gulf of Finland

The major defense operation on the Northwest Front had failed. During three weeks of military operations, the Soviet troops withdrew nearly 450 kilometers and lost control of almost the entire Baltic coast. The front has lost more than 90,000 men, more than 1,000 tanks, 3,500 guns and mortars, and almost 950 aircraft.

The German 61st and 217th infantry divisions fighting in Estonia had been reinforced in the Fellin area by the middle of July by the 254th and by the 291st infantry divisions, which were followed via Riga to Pernau. As of July 17, several fortification belts around Tallinn ( Reval ) had been reactivated under the direction of the technical department of the Baltic Fleet . The defensive belt was built at a distance of 9-12 km from the city and comprised 39 kilometers of field and armored trenches, which were reinforced by about 900 concrete, 500 steel and 600 wooden bunkers. XXXXII , which has been in the rear of the 18th Army since July 22nd . Army Corps took the lead in the struggle for complete possession of the Estonian coast. The city of Tallinn was not prepared for land defense, although there were some underground fortifications that had been built before World War I. On August 5th, the commanding officer of the Baltic Fleet established the Defense Headquarters in Tallinn.

On August 5th the German units reached Tallinn and on August 7th the coast of the Gulf of Finland was reached at Kunda . The formations of the Soviet 8th Army were now finally split - the 10th Rifle Corps began to withdraw to Tallinn, the 11th Rifle Corps withdrew to Narva . The total number of Soviet troops in the Tallinn area was still about 25,000 men, who stubbornly defended the ground. On August 14th, the leadership of the defense of Tallinn was transferred to the Military Council of the Baltic Fleet (Commander - Vice Admiral WF Tributz ; the Commander of the 10th Rifle Corps, Major General IF Nikolayev) was appointed. On August 19, the German troops advanced through the first belt of the Tallinn Defense and on August 20, he continued the offensive with new forces on the entire front. The Germans carried out the main attack from the east on the coastal zone, where the defense was considerably weaker. On August 25, the Soviet troops withdrew from the main line of defense in Tallinn.

On August 27, Admiral WF Tributz issued the evacuation order for his navy troops, on that day the German troops entered Tallinn, where stubborn street fighting was still taking place. German troops were able to occupy the city and the port. Around 15,000 tons of technical material, 17,000 women and children and 9,000 wounded were successfully evacuated by the evacuation commission under Major General MI Moskalenko. According to German sources, 11,432 soldiers, 97 field, 52 anti-tank and 144 anti-aircraft guns, 91 armored vehicles, 2 armored trains, 304 machine guns, 4,000 mines and 3,500 torpedoes were captured in Tallinn. The evacuation by the Baltic Sea fleet (around 100 ships and 67 transport and supply ships with a crew of 20,500) was carried out from August 28 to 30 to Kronstadt.

literature

Илья Борисович Мощанский : Запад - Восток , Часть I Сражения на Западе , https://www.e-reading.club/book.php?book=1004952
Алексей Валерьевич Исаев: Иной 1941 - От границы до Ленинграда 1 , Moscow 2012, ISBN 978-5-699-57663-0 .
Nikolai G. Kislizyn / Wassili J. Subakow: Leningrad does not surrender , Progress Verlag Moscow 1984, pp. 14-25.
General Swiss Military Magazine Volume 118 (1952), Issue 1

Web links

http://wwii-soldat.narod.ru/OPER/ARTICLES/003-pribalt.htm

^ Schramm : OKW war diary volume 1, divisions p. 1135 and 1141
↑ https://military.wikireading.ru/4251
↑ https://military.wikireading.ru/4253
↑ https://military.wikireading.ru/4252
^ Helmuth Spaeter: Die Brandenburger - Eine deutsche Kommandotruppe , Munich 1982, pp. 144–150.
↑ https://military.wikireading.ru/4254
↑ https://military.wikireading.ru/4257

[1] Schramm : OKW war diary volume 1, divisions p. 1135 and 1141

[2] ttps://military.wikireading.ru/4251

[3] ttps://military.wikireading.ru/4253

[4] ttps://military.wikireading.ru/4252

[5] Helmuth Spaeter: Die Brandenburger - Eine deutsche Kommandotruppe , Munich 1982, pp. 144–150.

[6] ttps://military.wikireading.ru/4254

[7] ttps://military.wikireading.ru/4257