Between Giants
Page 39
While bitter fighting raged north of Asīte, the German lines immediately east of Priekule came under fresh attack when a battalion from the Soviet 51st Guards Rifle Division, with supporting tanks, penetrated into the extended lines held by a battalion of 4th Panzer Division’s panzergrenadiers. The situation was finally restored by a counter-attack late in the day. As darkness fell, Betzel’s division reported that it had lost nearly 180 men dead, wounded or missing, but had accounted for 20 Soviet tanks, including a Josef Stalin, seven assault guns and eight anti-tank guns. The division’s positions could only continue to be held, the division reported, if sufficient artillery support remained available, which would not be possible with the existing ammunition supply. The arrival of elements of 121st Infantry Division to relieve the battered panzergrenadiers to the east of Priekule was therefore particularly welcome.
The fighting continued the next day. The two infantry divisions on the flanks of 4th Panzer Division – 121st Infantry Division to the south-west, 30th Infantry Division to the north-east – came under heavy pressure, requiring repeated counterattacks to restore the front line. Although the front line barely moved, the defence was at a heavy price. By the end of 30 October, the four panzergrenadier battalions of 4th Panzer Division had fallen from an aggregate strength of nearly 1,500 at the beginning of the battle to only 700. Betzel warned his corps commander that the ongoing shortage of artillery ammunition, losses from the constant Soviet artillery bombardment and a shortage of winter clothing were all combining to degrade the combat-worthiness of his division.9 Fortunately for the Germans, the Soviet forces facing them were also approaching exhaustion.
On 31 October, there were only limited attacks on the German lines held by 121st Infantry Division, with most of the effort coming further east, on the seam between 30th and 263rd Infantry Divisions. Here, the Red Army attacked with the 415th, 23rd, 356th and 212th Rifle Divisions, with 13th Guards Rifle Division in support as a second echelon. The two German infantry divisions were forced back about a mile, but again a decisive breakthrough eluded the Red Army. The constant presence of a battlegroup from 14th Panzer Division did much to hold the hard-pressed 30th Infantry Division together. As intelligence reports came of a fresh Soviet build-up, this time to the west of Priekule, 14th Panzer Division was extracted from the front line and ordered west. It was replaced by elements of 263rd Infantry Division, but Soviet observers spotted the withdrawal of the German armour and immediately attacked. 14th Panzer Division was immediately ordered back to its former sector, where it restored the front in further costly fighting. Fortunately for the Germans, the anticipated Soviet attack to the west of Priekule did not materialise.
Fighting continued for the next few days. The Soviet 3rd Guards Mechanised Corps remained uncommitted, to the constant concern of the Germans, who were aware of its presence. The Latvians of 19th SS Waffen-Grenadier Division were ordered to launch an attack on their western flank to improve the front line, but discovered at first hand the perils of using penal battalions. The attack was intended for 4 November, but two soldiers from a penal battalion, employed in construction of fortifications, deserted to the Red Army on 2 November, and presumably acting on information provided by them the Soviets launched a spoiling attack the following day. But the weather was deteriorating, and finally, on 6 November, Bagramian decided that he had had enough, even without committing his reserves, and his armies sat back to lick their wounds and await the next round of fighting:
In three days, our troops managed to penetrate only six kilometres into the enemy’s defences. The attack continued for a few more days, but every piece of ground in Courland could only be liberated after persistent and repeated attacks. Every farm, every height was contested bitterly. For the Fascists, this was a matter of life and death, while for the Soviet soldiers it was a military honour and duty to expel the Germans from the Homeland.10
Yeremenko, too, made almost no headway. His troops managed to gain perhaps a mile or two of ground, though again at a terrible cost. The price of stopping the Soviet attack had also been high. 215th Infantry Division, which bore the brunt of the onslaught of Yeremenko’s troops, found that its fusilier battalion – effectively the division’s reserve formation – was reduced to barely company strength. The three regiments of the division were in a similarly battered state.
Although Bagramian concluded from captured documents and prisoner interrogations that the Germans did not intend to evacuate Courland, Moscow remained concerned that even a piecemeal evacuation of Courland would release troops for the defence of the German homeland. Consequently, although Soviet troops were withdrawn from the area – 61st Army, 2nd Guards Army, and 5th Guards Tank Army from Bagramian’s front, and 3rd Shock Army from Yeremenko’s front – both Bagramian and Yeremenko were ordered to maintain pressure on the German lines, to prevent even a partial evacuation.
The failure of the Red Army in the first battle of Courland was due to several factors. Firstly, the assault was prepared in haste, assuming that the Germans were still reeling from Bagramian’s surge to the Baltic. The strength of German defences therefore came as an unpleasant surprise. Secondly, the terrain that had played such a large role in holding up the German attacks in Doppelkopf and Cäsar proved to be equally difficult for the Soviet attackers. Thirdly, the deteriorating weather rapidly made any cross-country movement almost impossible, allowing the Germans to concentrate their anti-tank firepower on the few roads that were still usable.
Some of the fighting during the first battle of Courland resulted in Latvians fighting each other for their foreign masters. 19th SS Waffen-Grenadier Division took prisoner several individuals who informed their captors that they had only recently been conscripted into the Red Army from the eastern parts of Latvia. The general deterioration of the German position on the Eastern Front could not fail to have an impact on the Latvians still fighting with the Wehrmacht:
During this time, there was an apparent morale crisis … which manifested itself in increased desertion … [This] was caused by several reasons. After the vital defeats suffered by the Germans since summer 1944, and mainly [following] the loss of the Baltic area, many regarded the war as lost. Therefore, it was not worth sacrificing lives for. Others deserted hoping that as deserters they would get better treatment when captured by the Communists. Several left their units [after] rumours that … [19th SS Waffen-Grenadier Division] would be moved to Germany … Unwilling to leave their homeland, these man joined the organisation ‘Kureli’.11
The Latvian General Jānis Kurelis had started preparing an organisation to fight against Soviet reoccupation of Latvia in the summer of 1944. Many of the Latvians who were most strongly opposed to a resumption of communist rule had exhorted their fellow Latvians not to flee the country – after all, they argued, a Latvia denuded of Latvians would be easy for the Soviet Union to colonise. Kurelis started to establish his first combat units around Riga in the late summer, and it seems that many of his officers believed that, as had been the case at the end of the First World War, the Western Powers would intervene to expel the Soviets from Latvia – therefore, keeping up some level of resistance against the Red Army was essential. Whilst this may seem a naïve point of view, it was a widespread one, with similar sentiments being expressed not only in the Baltic States but also by the Polish nationalist fighters of the AK. The eventual fate of the Kurelis Army is described later.
In damp conditions, occasionally broken by a night of frost, both sides continued low-level combat while preparing for the next major battle. These preparations took a variety of forms – raids, nuisance bombardments and, in the case of the Soviet forces, repeated air attacks against German shipping using the ports of Liepāja and Ventspils. In mid-November, another tactic was used in 4th Panzer Division’s sector:
During one of the nights, the enemy slipped two German soldiers, who had been prisoners for a while, into the front line. They brought with them letters from the notorious Nationalkomitee Freies Deutschla
nd [‘National Committee for a Free Germany’] to the commanders of the Army Group and the [18th] Army. Bearing the signatures of senior German officers, it called for immediate capitulation and promised excellent treatment and an immediate return home at the end of the war. For the soldiers of the division, the proposal was incomprehensible. What pressure could have compelled the signatures of the officers who had – really? – signed this? But even then! Or were the reports or rumours of betrayal by senior officers true, however unbelievable?12
As soon as German prisoners started to fall into Soviet hands in 1941, the Soviet authorities tried to create a pro-communist movement that could be used to undermine Hitler’s control over the Wehrmacht, and might one day provide a nucleus for a pro-Soviet administration, both military and civilian. At first, there was little success, as even those who were taken prisoner by the Soviet Union remained convinced of ultimate German victory, and it was not until the disaster that befell the German 6th Army at Stalingrad that the mood changed. A large number of senior officers were captured at the end of the battle, many of them deeply embittered at what they perceived as Hitler’s abandonment of their troops, and German communists who had fled to the Soviet Union to escape arrest in Germany began to promote the concept of patriotic German officers opposed to Hitler in much the same way that a previous generation of Prussian officers had refused to cooperate with Napoleon. At first, many senior German officers, from the ultra-conservative Prussian tradition, refused to be part of any organisation that included communists, and shunned the Nationalkomitee Freies Deutschland or NKFD. To improve recruitment, a parallel organisation, the Bund Deutscher Offiziere (‘League of German Officers’ or BDO) was therefore created, with General Walther von Seydlitz-Kurzbach as its first leader. Other senior officers, including Seydlitz’s former commander from Stalingrad, Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus, soon joined the BDO, which ultimately merged with the NKFD.
Propaganda material produced by the NKFD was often dropped on German positions, particularly when troops were isolated or cut off. Whilst some soldiers may have believed the promises of good treatment and a swift homeward journey at the end of the war, most men serving on the Eastern Front can have had few illusions about what awaited them if they were to surrender; neither side had shown any inclination to treat prisoners well during the bitter conflict, and there was nothing to suggest that Soviet attitudes would change as victory over Germany drew nearer. Some of the numerous groups of soldiers sent back to German lines bearing messages from the NKFD were arrested by the Germans, and on occasion executed; other groups simply rejoined their comrades and resumed the fight against the Red Army. The fate of the two soldiers who returned to 4th Panzer Division in November 1944 is not recorded.
As the intention of the Germans to continue to hold Courland became clear, it seems that the mood of Germany’s Latvian allies improved. The desertions of October came to an end, and many Latvians who had either fled to Courland as refugees, or were part of the local population, now volunteered for service. Included in their number were several who had previously deserted; in the main, they were allowed to rejoin their units without too many questions being asked. All along the front, Germans and Latvians laboured to improve their defences, creating a deep system of interlocking positions. The last line of defence, about three miles from the front line, was formed by fortified artillery positions, where the gunners deployed their weapons and prepared detailed fire plans. During the previous Soviet attack, a new artillery tactic had been used by the Red Army, with diagonal ‘free lanes’ left in the artillery barrage, allowing Soviet units to approach the German positions during the initial bombardment. To prevent any recurrence, German artillery planning now attempted to identify the probable locations of such ‘free lanes’, so that they could be subjected to a detailed counter-bombardment.
Bagramian’s first failed attempt to break into the Courland Bridgehead was an operation intended to precipitate the collapse of the German defences; the second attempt, which began on 19 November, was explicitly intended to ensure that the divisions of Army Group North remained tied to their defensive positions, and could not be moved elsewhere. The Germans, too, wished to bind their Soviet opponents to this battlefield:
An order of the day from the commander of the army group on the obligations of the soldiers in Courland was particularly effective: their mission in their remote positions was to bring relief to their hard-pressed comrades in East Prussia, to tie down the enemy with the utmost exertions and thus to help them overcome the Bolshevik assault against the Fatherland.13
On the eve of the second battle of Courland, the German High Command advised that a major Soviet attack was imminent, and would most likely be directed against X Corps, specifically 30th and 263rd Infantry Divisions. 4th Panzer Division was therefore ordered to prepare a powerful battlegroup behind the left flank of X Corps in preparation of the attack. On 19 November, the day dawned with frost, but temperatures rose rapidly during the day, reducing the roads and landscape to a swampy morass. In mid-morning, heavy artillery fire began to fall on the German lines, across a broad front. In addition to the positions of X Corps, shells also fell on the divisions of II Corps, further east. As the Soviet artillery attack lifted, the ground troops moved forward, across ground that was increasingly difficult to traverse. 103rd Rifle Division laboured through woodland in the sector held by the German 30th Infantry Division, to the east of Krote, and by dusk, 4th Panzer Division was ordered to dispatch a battlegroup to the area, consisting of one of its panzergrenadier regiments and a battalion of artillery. Overnight, the weather deteriorated further with more rain, greatly delaying the arrival of 4th Panzer Division’s battlegroup in 30th Infantry Division’s sector. Finally, in mid-morning, a counter-attack began, hindered as much by the terrain as by Soviet resistance. By the end of the day, most of the previous day’s Soviet gains had been reversed.
Betzel and his commanders grew increasingly unhappy about the state of 4th Panzer Division. Elements of the division had already been detached and assigned to other formations, or were being held as corps- or army-level reserves, and Betzel protested that he had been left with too small a remnant to be able to intervene meaningfully on the battlefield. He need not have worried. The roads remained little more than rivers of mud, and although seven Soviet rifle divisions from 54th and 11th Guards Rifle Corps managed to push into the lines of II Corps, somewhat to the east of the original Soviet assault of 19 November, these new attacks gained little ground. Counter-attacks rapidly restored the front, with 4th Panzer Division being inserted into the front line between 32nd Infantry Division and 31st Volksgrenadier Division. Tanks became bogged down in deep mud, often requiring the combined power of three tractor vehicles to pull them free. 14th Panzer Division was also committed to the battle, shoring up the western flank of II Corps, though as was the case with 4th Panzer Division, the division commander, Oskar Munzel, complained bitterly that too much of his division was subordinated to other formations, leaving him with inadequate forces for the division to function effectively. Nevertheless, 14th Panzer Division succeeded in holding a three-mile sector of the front, repeatedly beating back attacks by the Soviet 311th Rifle Division.
Fighting gradually died down on 26 November; although Bagramian’s divisions had made very little headway, they had succeeded in moving the front line forward just far enough to allow them to bring the vital railway line running east from Liepāja under artillery fire. Losses had been severe on both sides. The German 32nd Infantry Division reported that its 4th and 94th Grenadier Regiments could only muster 225 combatants between them.14 Even if a Soviet breakthrough had been prevented, the cost was high.
Martin Unrein, who had commanded 14th Panzer Division until he was forced to return to Germany due to illness, resumed command of his division in the last days of the battle. In the lull that followed, together with 4th Panzer Division’s Clemens Betzel, he made the opinions of the panzer officers about the fragmentation of their divisi
ons very clear to the commander of 18th Army, Ehrenfried Boege. There was clearly a conflict between the need to respond rapidly to Soviet attacks at different points of the front line, especially as the German infantry divisions were, by the standards of their enemies, relatively weak in anti-tank firepower, and the desire of the panzer commanders to retain sufficient striking power to be able to mount decisive counter-attacks. Given the terrain, which made any such attack en masse almost impossible, and the increasing frailty of unsupported German infantry in the face of combined attacks by Soviet tanks and infantry, the dispersal of German armoured forces was probably inevitable, though the unhappiness of the panzer commanders with this arrangement is understandable.
Throughout December, both sides attempted to reorganise their positions and rest their major units. Bagramian maintained pressure on the Germans by ordering constant air operations whenever the weather permitted. One of the heroes of the Soviet air effort was Nelson Gevorgi Stepanyan, an Armenian fighter-bomber pilot, whose 47th Fighter Division was in the forefront of the air effort. As was the case with leading personalities of all sides, his fame was enhanced by official propaganda efforts, and he was known as the ‘Storm Petrel of the Baltic’ by Soviet troops in the area. He had already been awarded the title ‘Hero of the Soviet Union’ when he flew his final mission on 14 December. His Il2 aircraft was hit by ground fire and badly damaged, and crashed into a ship in Liepāja harbour; the official Soviet report stated that he selflessly steered his plane into its target, but it is possible that the crippled plane merely continued along its attack path, and was unable to pull up due to damage. He was once more awarded the title of ‘Hero of the Soviet Union’ after his death. Unlike other air forces, the Soviet Air Force allowed women to fly combat missions, and another prominent figure in the air campaign over the Baltic was Lidia Shulaikina, who flew some 36 missions, mainly attacks against shipping. She was credited with sinking three transport ships, a patrol boat and a barge.