Samland offensive
| Zemland Offensive Operation | |||||||
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| Part of Eastern Front of World War II | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
.svg){kind=small} Nazi Germany |
 Soviet Union | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
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Hans Gollnick (Army Detachment Samland) Dietrich von Saucken (Armee Ostpreußen) |
Hovhannes Bagramyan (Zemland Army Group) | ||||||
The Zemland Offensive Operation was a Soviet offensive on the Eastern Front in the final stages of World War II. It took place in Sambia (German: Samland); ([земланд, Zemland] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help)).
Role in the conflict
The East Prussian Offensive, which commenced on January 13 1945, had seen the Red Army clear German forces from much of East Prussia. The defenders had been driven into a series of pockets on the Baltic coast and in the city of Königsberg, in which they were besieged.
Soviet Planning
Marshal Aleksandr Vasilevsky, who had taken over command of the 3rd Belorussian Front in February, incorporated General Hovhannes Bagramyan's 1st Baltic Front into his command from February 22, redesignating it as the Zemland Army Group (or Samland Front).[1] Bagramyan's forces initially laid siege to Königsberg; the city was eventually stormed on April 9. They were then given the task of overcoming the substantial German force still remaining in Sambia.
German planning
German defence efforts had largely focused on the port of Pillau at the tip of the peninsula, which was the main evacuation point for casualties and East Prussian civilians. Throughout the siege of Königsberg, Sambia had been defended by (Army Detachment Samland) under the command of General Hans Gollnick, who had tried to maintain a corridor between Königsberg and Pillau.
On April 7, the remnants of Second and Fourth Armies, which had been destroyed in encirclements at Danzig and Heiligenbeil respectively, were combined as Armee Ostpreußen with the task of defending Sambia, the Vistula delta and the Hel Peninsula; Gollnick's troops were incorporated in it.
Deployments
Red Army
- Zemland Army Group (General Hovhannes Bagramyan)
- 2nd Guards Army (Lieutenant-General Porfirii Chanchibadze)
- 11th Guards Army (General Kuzma Galitsky)
- 5th Army
- 49th Army
- 43rd Army (General Afanasii Beloborodov)
Wehrmacht
- Elements of Armee Ostpreußen (General Dietrich von Saucken)
- XXVI Corps (General Gerhard Matzky) (remnants of 58th, 1st, and 21st Infantry Divisions, 5th Panzer Division, 28th Jäger Division, and 561st Volksgrenadier Division)
- LV Corps / 'Fortress Pillau' (Lieutenant-General Kurt Chill) (remnants of 50th and 286th Infantry Divisions and 558th Volksgrenadier Division)
- IX Corps (General Rolf Wuthmann to 20 April, then Lieutenant-General Hermann Hohn) (remnants of 95th, 93rd, and 14th Infantry Divisions, 551st Volksgrenadier Division and Panzergrenadier Division Großdeutschland)
The offensive
The offensive plan called for the 5th and 39th Armies to break through towards Fischhausen as the main strike force, with the 11th Guards Army in reserve.[2] The 2nd Guards Army would attack in the north, with the 43rd Army breaking through on the southern flank. There would also be amphibious landings in the south of Sambia.
The initial attack scattered many of the remaining German forces, some falling back towards Pillau. The Soviet 115th Rifle Division broke through and cleared the 551st Volksgrenadier Division from Rauschen on the north-western tip of Sambia; the German forces in the north of the peninsula were driven southwards into Palmnicken and destroyed.
By 16 April, Soviet forces broke through near Fischhausen; parts of XXVI Corps, including the 5th Panzer and 28th Jäger Divisions became cut off on the peninsula at Peyse, and were lost.[3] A defence line, the Tenkitten-Riegel, had been improvised across the narrow strip of land leading to Pillau; to break German resistance, the 11th Guards Army was committed on April 20. Fighting intensified at Tenkitten, where the commander of the 16th Guards Rifle Corps, Major-General S S Gur'ev, was killed by a shell fragment on April 22.[4]
The German defensive perimeter was pushed back towards Pillau, which was defended by the 1st Infantry Division and elements of other units, while remaining German troops were evacuated to the Frische Nehrung. Pillau was eventually stormed by units of 11th Guards Army, including the 31st Guards Rifle Division, on 25 April, the town being cleared in around 12 hours.[5] The last German position to fall being a battery commanded by Major-General Karl Henke.
Aftermath
The remnants of IX Corps resisted on the Frische Nehrung to the end of the war, though the corps staff was removed to Bornholm.
References
- Bagramyan, H. Thus we went to victory, Moscow, 1977.
- Duffy. C. Red Storm on the Reich, Routledge, 2000, ISBN 978-0415228299
- Krylov, N. Разгром земландской группировки противника, ВИЖ, 1972, 4.
- Maslov, A. Fallen Soviet Generals, Frank Cass, 1998, ISBN 978-0714643465