Between Giants

by Prit Buttar

  This was no accident. At that time we were commanded by the future Field Marshal Ferdinand Schörner. His rigorous measures made him many enemies and caused bitterness. However, he always made sure that the rear-area services literally did everything to optimally supply the fighting troops. None of the staffs, right down to the battalion level, gave up a single position without good reason. There were no signs of deterioration on the front in Courland. All of that made it impossible for the enemy to conquer us.8

  On 29 January, Army Group Courland received a new commander: Generaloberst Heinrich von Vietinghoff. The son of a military family, he had finished the First World War with the rank of Hauptmann, and led 5th Panzer Division during the invasion of Poland. He was a corps commander in France and Barbarossa, before taking over command of 9th Army after Walter Model was wounded in June 1942. He had commanded 15th Army in the west, then 10th Army in Italy, and now found himself assigned to replace Carl Hilpert in Courland. As soon as he arrived, he ordered his staff to draw up a plan in cooperation with the Kriegsmarine for a complete seaborne evacuation of the army group. Codenamed Laura, the plan was presented to Hitler on 15 February by Guderian, Chief of Staff at OKH. By concentrating all its naval and transport assets, Guderian advised the Führer, it would be possible to evacuate the entire strength of 16th and 18th Armies, together with much of their equipment, in four weeks. Guderian commended the plan, but after two days, Hitler rejected it. There could be no question of a withdrawal from Courland, he insisted.

  How practical would it have been to evacuate Army Group Courland at this late stage of the war? In late January, the Kriegsmarine evacuated the personnel of its U-boat training formations from the eastern Baltic, and used surplus shipping capacity to take wounded soldiers and civilian refugees to the ports of northern Germany and Denmark. As the days passed, the operation, codenamed Hannibal, became predominantly an attempt to rescue the hundreds of thousands of refugees who had fled the advancing Red Amy and were now packed into the ports of Pillau, Gdansk and Gdynia. Any diversion of shipping to rescue Army Group Courland would have brought Hannibal to a complete halt. The consequences of this for the trapped civilians would have been considerable. The use of almost every available ship allowed Hannibal to complete the civilian evacuation only days before the end of the war, so its suspension for several weeks would have resulted in tens of thousands of refugees being left in the east Baltic ports when they fell; given that the ports became fiercely contested battlefields, many of the trapped refugees would probably have died. The evacuation of Courland would also have exposed the ships involved to an additional day at sea, under hostile skies with the constant threat of Soviet submarine attack. Although Soviet attempts to interdict Hannibal had only limited impact, it is likely that a greater effort would have been made if the shipping had been carrying almost exclusively military personnel. Consequently, not only would the men of Army Group Courland have suffered losses from aerial and submarine attack, but the ships damaged and lost in such attacks would then no longer have been available for any resumption of Hannibal at the end of the Courland evacuation. One can conclude, therefore, that Laura would have been a hazardous enterprise, with inevitable consequences for German naval operations elsewhere.

  Meanwhile, in Courland, fighting continued. A substantial number of Sherman tanks, supplied to the Red Army by the Americans, were delivered to the depleted Soviet armies in early February, allowing them to restore their combat strength. On 17 February, air operations against the ports of Ventspils and Liepāja intensified; it is possible that the Soviet High Command was aware to some extent of the plans for Laura.

  The withdrawal of 4th Panzer Division from Courland substantially reduced the armoured assets of the army group. In an attempt to improve the flexibility of the remaining forces, a new formation, named Panzer Brigade Kurland, was created. Commanded first by Oberst von Usedom, then Major Graf von Rittberg, the brigade was initially termed Panzer Aufklärungs-Gruppe Kurland (‘Armoured Reconnaissance Group Courland’), and consisted of the reconnaissance battalions of 12th and 14th Panzer Divisions. The group then received the personnel of Grenadier Sturmbataillon Kurland (‘Grenadier Assault Battalion Courland’), another improvised formation, and a battalion of combat engineers. Two battalions of tank destroyers provided additional firepower. These were predominantly equipped with the excellent Jagdpanzer Pz.38(t) or Hetzer, a low-slung assault gun armed with a powerful 75mm gun mounted on the chassis of the Pz.38. This chassis had started life as the Czech Pz.38 tank, and was used by the Wehrmacht in the early years of the war. Although it had an excellent reputation for reliability, its relatively thin armour and small turret – which prevented the fitting of a gun powerful enough to deal with modern enemy tanks – rendered it obsolete. In its new role as a tank destroyer, equipped with a similar gun to the Pz.IV and Sturmgeschütz III, it was a capable vehicle. In addition to several Hetzer tank destroyers, Panzer Brigade Kurland also had a company of ten captured T34s. The creation of the brigade weakened 12th and 14th Panzer Divisions; their reconnaissance battalions had a powerful mixture of half-tracks and armoured cars, and were often used as independent battlegroups. However, the new brigade, effectively functioning as another battlegroup, was able to remedy some of the problems caused by the withdrawal of 4th Panzer Division.

  On 20 February, the fifth battle of Courland commenced, with a heavy artillery bombardment of the German lines, using about 2,000 guns and mortars. There was little variation in either the tactics or objectives of the Soviet attack. As had been the case in previous bombardment, diagonal lanes were left clear during the preparatory bombardment, to allow the assault formations to move forward unobserved. The intention of this assault, as with previous attacks, was to separate the two armies of Army Group Courland, allowing for their destruction in detail. The attack, with about 21 rifle divisions with armoured support, fell either side of Priekule.9

  On this occasion, there appears to have been confusion in the Soviet attack plans; many of the infantry units assigned for the initial assault failed to move forward during the artillery bombardment, resulting at first in isolated groups of tanks attempting to penetrate the German positions with little support. The German 126th Infantry Division had plenty of warning of the coming attack. Soviet forces attempted to secure jumping-off positions prior to their main assault, and the German 426th Grenadier Regiment found itself involved in desperate fighting. The regiment had been reduced to a single battalion prior to the battle, and despite receiving reinforcements in the form of Sturmbataillon 18 (‘18th Assault Battalion’), an improvised formation made up of training units and rear area personnel, the remnants of the regiment, reduced to about 200 men, found themselves surrounded by the end of the first day. On 21 February, the regiment came under repeated attack, but was able to hold its position, not least due to excellent artillery support. The following day, Oberst Henning Daubert, the regiment commander, was given permission to break out and retreat; his regiment had bought valuable time for a new defensive line to be established. As the Germans prepared themselves for a breakout, Soviet tanks penetrated into their positions. Confused fighting followed, but the majority of Daubert’s men were able to escape to the new front line. Daubert was awarded the Knight’s Cross for his role in the fighting.10

  The town of Priekule was declared a fortress on 21 February, meaning that its garrison, 422nd Grenadier Regiment (part of 126th Infantry Division), was required to hold the town to the last man. Fortunately for the men of the regiment, they were ordered to fight their way back to the new front line, and abandoned Priekule in the early hours of 22 February. Led by a small group of assault guns, they succeeded in reaching German lines.

  After the loss of its reconnaissance battalion, 14th Panzer Division organised itself into a heavy armoured battlegroup and a light, infantry-strong battlegroup. This latter group had defended the German positions near Priekule prior to the Soviet assault of 20 February, and the single company of Panther tanks att
ached to the battlegroup, commanded by Hauptmann Herbert Zimmermann, found itself facing repeated Soviet armoured attacks. It seems that the Soviet tanks failed to concentrate their numbers sufficiently, and attacked in small groups; these proved easy prey for the powerful guns of the Panthers, which claimed 26 kills in a little more than a day for no losses of their own. It is interesting to note that similar lack of coordination of Soviet armour was reported by German troops in the fighting in East Prussia after the initial Soviet drive to the Baltic coast came to an end, and this may reflect increasing numbers of second-echelon units, lacking the experience of the elite tank armies, being thrown into the battlefield.11

  Brandner’s Sturmgeschütz-Brigade 912 was also thrown into the fighting in support of 11th Infantry Division. Despite having his personal assault gun knocked out – it was subsequently recovered and repaired, though hit at least twice more before the end of the fifth battle of Courland – Brandner’s vehicles succeeded in stopping the Soviet assault from breaking through the German lines. Brandner received the Oak Leaves to the Knight’s Cross for his brigade’s repeated interventions in the most critical sectors of fighting.12 Regardless of the achievements of Brandner and his brigade, his personal story highlights the perils of interpreting claims for the number of enemy vehicles knocked out. The two hits that forced him to abandon his assault gun were probably claimed as ‘kills’ by the Soviet unit involved – perhaps as two kills, given that two different Soviet tanks might have been involved – even though the assault gun was subsequently repaired and returned to action. The further hits it sustained may also have been claimed as ‘kills’, particularly if Brandner was forced to disengage from combat as a result, even if only temporarily.

  Whilst most of the ships arriving at the ports of Liepāja and Ventspils carried munitions and other supplies, some brought reinforcements. The replacement battalion of 290th Infantry Division was in Denmark, and was ordered to Stettin, where it embarked aboard the steamer Göttingen on 21 February. The ship was carrying a total of 5,000 personnel to Courland, and its captain would have been aware of the threat of Soviet attacks. Late on 22 February, he received a radio warning that a Soviet submarine had been spotted in the area, but he calculated that it was sufficiently far from his course not to pose a threat. At 0430hrs on 23 February, two torpedoes struck the Göttingen, when she was 18 miles short of her destination, Liepāja. The ship sank rapidly, but not before a distress signal was sent. Several small vessels rushed to the scene from Liepāja, and about 2,000 men were saved and taken to Courland. The rest drowned.

  At the beginning of March, the Red Army tried to force the lines of VI SS Corps. The weather had turned frosty, allowing for Soviet armour to manoeuvre with greater freedom on the frozen ground. By committing all available reserves to the fighting, including Panzer Brigade Kurland, the Germans were able to hold up the attack until a sudden thaw in the middle of the month brought major fighting to a halt again, and marked the end of the fifth battle of Courland. Casualties on both sides were heavy, but at least this time the Red Army had something to show for its assaults: the ruins of Priekule, in the west, and Dzukste, in the east, were in Soviet hands. At the end of the battle, Army Group Courland reported that since the isolation of the peninsula the previous October, the Red Army had lost 320,000 dead, wounded or taken prisoner, 2,388 tanks, 695 aircraft, and 906 heavy guns.13 These figures could be little more than guesses, and are probably hugely inflated.

  Von Vietinghoff’s command of Army Group Courland proved to be a short one. He was sent back to Italy, and after a brief period when the group was under the command of Lothar Rendulic, Carl Hilpert became the last commander of the Courland armies. He was replaced as commander of 16th Army by General Ernst-Anton von Krosigk, who was in post for less than a week before he was killed in an artillery bombardment. His replacement was Friedrich-Jobst Volckamer von Kirchensittenbach.

  Fighting did not exactly stop between the various Courland battles, but certainly reduced in intensity. The pause between the fifth and sixth battles was only a few days. On 18 March, 10th Guards Army attacked towards Saldus after another heavy artillery preparation. The depleted German infantry divisions of XXXVIII Corps struggled to hold the front line, and 14th Panzer Division was committed almost immediately to the fighting. Although 10th Guards Army was halted south of Saldus, the town remained under pressure, with the Soviet 42nd Army advancing from the east. A battlegroup of 24th Infantry Division held the railway station at Jostaji for four days while neighbouring units pulled back to relative safety. By the end of the month, the intensity of fighting died down again. Army Group Courland was still intact, though looking decidedly battered.

  The attrition of the fighting – as heavy as any during the long, bitter campaigns of the Eastern Front – had taken a heavy toll on the German divisions. Hilpert prepared a detailed analysis of his formations on 1 April. He reported that only five of his divisions – 11th, 24th, 81st, and 121st Infantry Divisions, and 12th Panzer Division – could be graded as still being at a high standard. Five further infantry divisions were rated as good, but the rest were barely ‘adequate’, on account of their losses, both in absolute terms and in terms of experienced officers. 14th Panzer Division, one of the bulwarks of the German defence, had only a handful of armoured vehicles left, and amounted to barely more than a battlegroup.14 However, the terrible losses of the Red Army during the fighting had greatly degraded the combat-worthiness of the Soviet formations that faced them. Here, in a corner of Latvia, the German and Soviet soldiers fought on in battles that were increasingly meaningless, neither able to prevail over the other, but neither willing to stop.

  On 13 April, Hilpert ordered naval and Luftwaffe units in Courland to provide more manpower for his front-line units. Remarkably, the Luftwaffe managed to release sufficient men to create 17 infantry battalions, but the lack of heavy weaponry, and total lack of combat training, meant that these formations would be of very limited use, should a seventh battle of Courland commence. But it became increasingly clear that the Red Army had finally tired of the pointless fighting. From east to west, its lines were held by 1st Shock Army, 22nd Army, 4th Shock Army, 6th Guards Army, and 51st Army. The rest of the major formations were withdrawn from the front line. A further indication of the irrelevance of the Courland fighting came on 3 May. All along the front line, Soviet guns suddenly opened fire, lighting up the sky with tracers and flares. At first, the Germans prepared for yet another onslaught, but it rapidly became clear that the firing was more of a celebration than a bombardment. A few minutes later, Soviet loudspeakers confirmed this suspicion: the Red Army was marking the fall of Berlin, hundreds of miles to the west.

  Of all the German forces still in the field, Army Group Courland was now perhaps the most coherent, and the one most capable of continued resistance, but there would be no further tests of its strength. Together with the German forces in the Vistula estuary and the Hela peninsula – Armee Oberkommando Ostpreussen, or ‘Army High Command East Prussia’ – the troops in Courland now became the focus of a last desperate effort to evacuate them to the west. Surrender to the Allies was inevitable, but, wherever possible, the Wehrmacht intended to surrender to the British or Americans rather than to the Red Army. The appalling treatment dealt out to Soviet prisoners of war by the Wehrmacht during the years of victory, and the long history of brutal atrocities by both sides, made the prospect of final surrender to the Soviet Union something to be avoided at all costs. Konteradmiral Conrad Engelhardt, who held the post of Seetransportchef der Wehrmacht (‘Sea Transport Chief of the Wehrmacht’), had overseen the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of Germans, civilians and soldiers alike, as part of Hannibal. Now, the last civilians – or at least, the last of those who wished to leave – had been taken to the relative safety of north Germany and Denmark, and it was time to consider an evacuation of the last troops in the east.

  Compared to previous proposals for the evacuation of Courland, such as Laura, the task was n
ow far simpler. There would be no need to provide shipping space for equipment; the only consideration was to transport as many men as possible to the west. It would be possible, therefore, to evacuate both Army Group Courland and AOK Ostpreussen in a far shorter period than had previously been imagined – provided sufficient shipping was available. And here, Engelhardt found himself at the end of his resources. Although Soviet submarine and air attacks had sunk only a relatively small number of ships (though the losses of the Goya and Wilhelm Gustloff were probably the two worst losses of life at sea in history), many of the freighters, former trans-Atlantic liners and coastal vessels that he had cobbled together for his rescue fleet had been damaged, either as a result of Soviet action or simply due to mechanical breakdown. In the last days of the Third Reich, repairs for any of these ships were almost impossible. To make matters worse, throughout the course of Hannibal, Engelhardt had struggled to secure sufficient fuel oil and coal to keep his fleet running, and fuel supplies were now almost exhausted.

  The negotiations that had begun with the Western Allies about a final surrender of the Reich were strongly influenced by the plight of the soldiers still fighting on the Eastern Front. Grossadmiral Karl von Dönitz, who had become leader of Germany after Hitler’s death, was desperate to secure a ceasefire in the west, while continuing to resist the Red Army in the east, and on 3 May, his headquarters sent a signal to General Dietrich von Saucken, who was now commander of AOK Ostpreussen:

  The changed military situation in the Reich requires the urgent evacuation of numerous troops from East and West Prussia as well as Courland.

  Combat operations by the army in East Prussia and Army Group Courland are to reflect this requirement.

  Personnel with light infantry weapons are to be embarked for return. All other materiel, including horses, is to be left behind and destroyed. Army Group Courland is given operational freedom to pull back the front line to the planned bridgeheads at the ports of Windau [Ventspils] and Libau [Liepāja].