Baltic Strategic Offensive Operation concluded

📅 On November 24, 1944, the Red Army completed its Baltic Strategic Offensive Operation aimed at defeating the Wehrmacht forces in the Baltic states and liberating the territories of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania from the German invaders. The operation lasted 71 days; the frontline was 1,000 kilometres long and 400 kilometres deep.

▪️ In 1941, the Baltic republics of the Soviet Union yielded to the onslaught of the Nazis; the aggression led to the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians and prisoners of war. The Nazis used those territories as a huge fortified area with powerful strongholds while at the same time creating concentration camps in Salaspils, Vaivara, Riga-Kaiserwald, and Kaunas. The Third Reich saw the Baltic states becoming part of the German Reichskommissariat Ostland in the future. The nefarious plan was to partly exterminate and partly expel the population to the eastern regions, Germanising those who would remain.

🕯 In 1941-1944, the Nazis and their accomplices – collaborators – killed 95 percent of the 220,000 Jews who lived in Lithuania before the war, as well as 70,000 Latvian Jews (90 percent of the pre-war Jewish population) and about 20,000 Jews brought in from other countries. In the autumn of 1942, two trains with Jews from the Czech Republic and Germany arrived in Tallinn, and 1,650 of them were shot by the Estonian security police at Kalevi-Liiva. In total, during the war years, the Nazis and their accomplices killed over 300,000 civilians and about the same number of POWs in Latvia, about 61,000 civilians and 64,000 captured Soviet soldiers in Estonia, and 150,000 civilians and 230,000 POWs in Lithuania.

Hitler placed great value on keeping the Baltic states because the region covered direct access to East Prussia, the citadel of German militarism, from the northeast. Controlling the Baltic states allowed the German fleet to operate in the eastern part of the Baltic Sea and maintain contact with the Nordic countries, which supplied Germany with strategic materials. The Germans also received a significant amount of agricultural products and food from the Baltic states. The wooded and swampy terrain also contributed to arranging an effective defence. These factors influenced the German command’s decision to deploy an impressive army group of 700,000 troops there.

❗️ By the end of the summer of 1944, against the backdrop of the Red Army triumphant advance, the Nazi troops were essentially pressed back against the Baltic Sea, with a real threat of being cut off from the main Wehrmacht forces.

The Baltic operation included the forces of the left wing of the Leningrad, 1st, 2nd and 3rd Baltic Fronts, part of the forces of the 3rd Belorussian Front, the Baltic Fleet and long-range aviation – a total of 900,000 fighters, about 17,500 guns and mortars, over 3,000 tanks and self-propelled artillery units, and more than 2,600 combat aircraft. Marshal Alexander Vasilevsky who coordinated the operation, wrote in his memoirs:

💬 “The general offensive was to begin on September 14. Our four fronts were confronted by over 700,000 enemy soldiers and officers (56 divisions and 3 brigades), 7,000 guns and mortars, 1,216 tanks and assault guns, and 400 combat aircraft in the area from the Neman to the Estonian coast. On the Russian side, the operation involved 900,000 men, up to 17,500 guns and mortars, more than 3,000 tanks and self-propelled guns, and over 2,600 aircraft (about 3,500 including long-range aviation and naval aviation). The Red Banner Baltic Fleet supported the operation from the sea. Before the start of the fighting, I visited the troops and was convinced of their readiness and high morale.”

⚔ On September 14, the troops of the Baltic fronts launched an offensive in the direction of Riga. Supported by dense artillery fire, the Soviet troops gained an advantage in specific sections of the frontline and broke through enemy defences. The Nazis stubbornly resisted, counterattacked, and deployed fresh forces to the most challenging areas, but they could not hold back the Red Army. Tallinn was liberated on September 22, and Riga, on October 13. In terms of its scope, the Baltic offensive operation was one of the largest strategic operations in the autumn of 1944, involving 12 armies deployed along a 500-kilometre frontline, which accounted for almost three quarters of the forces of the four Soviet Fronts. The elimination of the remaining Nazi troops was completed on November 24, 1944.

The true patriots of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania fought against Nazism and the occupation regime shoulder to shoulder with other peoples of the Soviet Union. Partisan and underground resistance groups operated all over the territory of the Baltic republics. The 8th Estonian and 130th Latvian rifle corps, and Lithuanian units, fought heroically as part of the Red Army and made a significant contribution to the liberation of the Baltic states.

❗️ As a result of the Red Army’s successful offensive, the Nazi invaders from Army Group North were expelled from almost the entire Baltic territory. Of the 59 divisions, 26 were defeated, and three were completely destroyed. The remaining forces of that group were pressed back to the sea in Courland and in the Memel region. The Baltic operation created the conditions for the Soviet troops to press forward with the offensive in East Prussia, which they did during the East Prussian Offensive Operation in 1945. With the loss of the Baltic States, Germany lost an important strategic region that gave the Kriegsmarine freedom to act in the eastern part of the Baltic Sea, as well as an important industrial, raw materials and food resource.

🎖 During the Baltic operation, 112 Soviet soldiers were awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union title, and three, the second Gold Star medal. Over 332,000 were decorated with orders and medals; 131 units were given the honorary titles of Riga, Tallinn, Valga and others, and 481 received state awards.

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