At the beginning of August, the German counterattack in front of
Warsaw had succeeded finally in halting the momentum of the Soviet
offensive, but not before the enemy had established bridgeheads
across the Vistula and in places reached the East Prussian border.
The bridgeheads over the Vistula south of Warsaw proved of most
immediate concern. The OKH feared that any Soviet breakout could be
exploited in a potentially decisive manner by either a turn north to
encircle Warsaw or a drive straight west in order to seize the vital
economic and industrial resources of Silesia, thus effectively
crippling the German war economy. Already, as we have seen, the
Germans had been forced to send units from the key tank battle at
Warsaw to the south to prevent any Soviet exploitation of the
bridgeheads and stabilize the situation. By mid-August, however, the
Russians shifted the Schwerpunkt of their attacks to the key area
just north of Warsaw where the Vistula, Narew, and Bug Rivers
converged. If they could force their way across these rivers, the
path to Danzig lay open, with the possibility of trapping German
forces in the Baltic and East Prussia. The Soviets opened a new
offensive on 18 August and over the next two months continued a
series of attacks along the Bug and Narew Rivers designed to achieve
a decisive breakthrough. Although the weight of these blows forced
the Germans back, and despite the fact that they managed to create a
few bridgeheads across the Narew, the Soviets proved unable to break
the German defense line. Having achieved rather small tactical gains
at a stiff cost in men and equipment, the Russians finally broke off
attacks at the end of October.
At the same time as the Soviets began winding down their efforts
near Warsaw, a new crisis erupted to the north in East Prussia.
Although the Red Army had reached the German border at Schirwindt in
mid-August, furious German counterattacks had thrown them back. In
mid-October, however, the Soviets launched a frontal assault on
Fourth Army positions with the intention, after breaking through, of
sending one force streaming toward Königsberg and another to seize
Danzig. If they succeeded, they would not only cut off Army Group
North in the Baltic but also open the way to Germany proper. The
assault began on 16 October with a three- to four-hour artillery and
air bombardment of an intensity not previously experienced on the
eastern front. By the eighteenth, Russian forces had again crossed
the East Prussian border on a broad front and in places were
advancing unhindered far to the west. On the twenty-first, they
seized an intact bridge across the Angerapp at Nemmersdorf and also
threatened to take the key railroad center of Gumbinnen even as
German tanks were being unloaded from freight cars. With the roads
full of refugees fleeing west in panic, concern rose at Führer
Headquarters, less than fifty miles away in Rastenburg and within
easy striking distance of enemy tank columns. Hitler, however,
worried about the impact on the troops if he evacuated, refused to
leave Wolf’s Lair, although some staff and files were sent away.
Once again, the Germans averted disaster through a bold
counterthrust. That same day, German panzer forces battled Soviet
tank units near Gumbinnen, while others assaulted the base of the
enemy breakthrough at Großwaltersdorf, managing the next day to cut
off advance units of the Soviet Second Guards Tank Corps and the
Eleventh Guards Army. Despite their numerical superiority, both
Russian commanders and soldiers seemed stunned by the sudden
turnabout in their situation. Lacking firm leadership, many men
simply threw away their weapons and equipment and fled in panic
eastward.
This initial foray into East Prussia had been fought with savage
intensity and resulted in unusually heavy losses for an operation
that lasted less than two weeks. German sources claimed to have
destroyed almost one thousand enemy tanks and assault guns, while the
Russians admitted to a casualty total of nearly 80,000 men of the
377,000 involved in the attack. Noteworthy, too, were the horrifying
scenes that greeted German troops as they retook Gumbinnen and
Nemmersdorf. In an explosion of violence, Soviet troops had exacted a
first, bloody revenge on German civilians, with scores of women raped
and murdered, often in the most gruesome fashion, stores plundered,
and houses burned. Having suffered a whole range of German atrocities
for three dreadful years, and having seen firsthand the awesome
destruction of the scorched-earth retreat, Soviet soldiers engaged in
an orgy of revenge that, although perhaps understandable, was,
nonetheless, deplorable. Goebbels, of course, immediately seized on
Nemmersdorf, that “place of horror,” as an example of what all
Germans could expect. In a theme that would continue until the end of
the war, he made clear that Soviet actions left Germans only one
choice—fanatic, suicidal resistance—since they were going to be
the victims of enemy cruelties in any case. Controversy still exists
as to whether Stalin encouraged such action or whether Soviet
commanders simply lost control of their troops, but one thing was
clear: the atrocities at Nemmersdorf generally sent a chill through
the German people and strengthened their will to resist. Although the
SD reported a few examples of Germans drawing comparisons between the
actions of their own government and soldiers against the Jews and
what had now happened on German territory, the overwhelming majority
simply feared that the Russians would do to them what they themselves
had already suffered at German hands.
At the same time that the reality of war was being brought home to
the German civilian population of East Prussia, an even more costly
military drama was playing out in the Baltic as the Soviets now
targeted Army Group North. Heretofore largely spared the full fury of
the enemy summer offensive, the army group had, nonetheless, seen its
strength dwindle as it had been forced to deliver more and more units
to the defense of other sectors, even as its southern front expanded
because of the disaster befalling Army Group South. By midsummer, it,
too, faced a debilitating enemy superiority of up to eight to one
across the board, yet Hitler forbade any withdrawal to shorter, more
defensible lines. In this case, the Führer’s decision reflected
less his typical hold-fast mentality than the key significance of
certain political, economic, and strategic considerations. Always
sensitive to the vital importance of Finnish nickel and Swedish iron
ore to the German war effort, Hitler was determined to hold the
Baltic as a guarantee of the continued deliveries of these ores. At
the same time, he clung to the hope that new weapons technologies,
both rockets and submarines, could produce a dramatic change in
Germany’s fortunes. In the case of the latter weapon, the German
navy was in the process of developing and testing two markedly
superior types of U-boats that offered a glimmer of hope that the
Battle of the Atlantic could yet be won. To complete sea testing,
however, Hitler believed it was essential to hold on to the eastern
Baltic coast, although his military (and even naval) advisers
regarded this as a luxury Germany could not afford.
By early July, Army Group North found its position increasingly
jeopardized by the collapse of its neighbor to the south. With Soviet
forces racing west through the “Baltic hole,” a
twenty-five-mile-wide gap between Army Groups North and Center, the
commander of the former army group, General Georg Lindemann, not only
had to defend more front with fewer troops but also faced the
prospect that the advancing enemy might cut off his forces entirely.
Lindemann, of course, reacted to the threat with the rational request
that Hitler allow him to withdraw his forces to safety. Just as
predictably, Hitler not only refused to give up territory but also
ordered Lindemann to launch a counterattack with his nonexistent
reserves. The latter responded by renewing his demand to be allowed
to evacuate his troops in order to escape encirclement as well as
halting the senseless counterattack. These actions left Hitler no
choice, and, on 4 July, he replaced Lindemann with General Johannes
Friessner, who, although initially determined to carry out Hitler’s
orders energetically, soon discovered the correctness of his
predecessor’s prescription. By mid-July, both Friessner and Model
pleaded with Hitler to allow a withdrawal of Army Group North, which,
as the most intact and battleworthy force on the eastern front, could
be used to build the operational reserve so desperately needed to
stabilize the front. These divisions, having been spared the brunt of
battle in 1942 and 1943, had a level of primary group cohesion and
combat effectiveness rare in German units at this point in the war
and, thus, would have been invaluable as a backstop. Their fighting
ability was on ample display in these weeks of summer fighting when,
despite its overwhelming superiority in strength, the Red Army had
been unable to achieve an operational breakthrough, instead being
forced at high cost to push Friessner’s units back. Despite his
dogged defensive success—in one month, his troops, mostly in close
combat with the lethal handheld Panzerfaust, destroyed almost eight
hundred enemy armored vehicles—Friessner met the same fate as
Lindemann. On 23 July, he was relieved of his command, although
formally he exchanged positions with the commander of Army Group
South Ukraine, General Ferdinand Schörner. The latter, although
given unusual command authority by Hitler, had no answer to the
problems of the “poor man’s war” that the Germans were now
fighting, and he too demanded withdrawal to sensible positions, which
the Führer ignored. By the end of the month, the Soviets finally
reached the Baltic coast just west of Riga, effectively trapping Army
Group North. Although a tenuous connection to Army Group Center was
reopened on 20 August, the position of Army Group North remained
highly precarious.
After a temporary respite in order to prepare its forces, the Red
Army on 14 September resumed its hammer blows against Army Group
North. With any attempt to hold its exposed position untenable,
Hitler finally relented two days later, following an impassioned
appeal by Schörner, and approved the evacuation of Estonia, which
commenced on the eighteenth. Still, he insisted on maintaining a
bridgehead around Riga as well as holding on to Courland. Since
Finland agreed to an armistice and left the war on 19 September,
Hitler’s decision seemed to be based on his desire to continue
testing the new-type U-boats. In any case, the Soviets continued
their pounding attacks along the northern front, their forces
increasingly augmented by units transferred from Finland, and, on 10
October, once again reached the Baltic coast. Although the Red Army
paid a high price, suffering over 280,000 casualties and losing over
five hundred armored vehicles, it had once more trapped Army Group
North, with 250,000 troops and over five hundred armored vehicles,
this time for good. Over the course of the next weeks and months,
neither rational arguments (these tough, battle-hardened units could
better be used as an operational reserve to defend Germany than
sitting in Courland) nor emotional appeals (since most of the troops
were from the eastern provinces, they would fight more fiercely than
a bunch of untrained boys and elderly men in the Volkssturm) altered
Hitler’s determination to hold on to Courland.
Nor, despite a series of battles until the end of the war that
cost the Red Army a ridiculously high number of casualties, were the
Soviets able to take it.
Of all Hitler’s controversial decisions in 1944, none has seemed
to demonstrate so well his irrational stand-fast mentality as the
decision voluntarily to entomb German troops and tanks sorely needed
to defend the Reich in a backwater place such as Courland. As an
illustration of his irrationality, however, it might be better to
seek explanations on the strategic rather than the tactical level,
with the key to the Courland puzzle lying in the Ardennes rather than
the Baltic. As is generally known, Hitler hoped with the Ardennes
offensive in December 1944 (originally scheduled for late November)
to achieve a sudden turnaround in the war through an operation
remarkably similar to Sickle Cut of May 1940. In this latest version,
Great Britain was to play the role of France, with the United States,
emulating the English, expected temporarily to withdraw from European
affairs. Having dealt a savage blow to his Western enemies, and at
the same time perhaps finally splitting the unnatural coalition
arrayed against him, Hitler could then mass his remaining forces in
the east to repel the Soviet invaders. In effect, he was clinging to
the strategy outlined in November 1943 for the coming year: seek a
turnaround in the war by striking in the west and holding on in the
east.
His forces had failed to achieve the desired results in both
areas, but, Hitler believed, one last opportunity beckoned. For this
plan to work, however, Courland had to be held as a springboard for a
new offensive deep into the Soviet rear, while at the same time the
new-model U-boats could be unleashed in the Atlantic. Although this
interpretation is clearly a flight of fantasy, much speaks in support
of it, not least the timing of Hitler’s final decisions to hold
Courland and launch the Ardennes offensive, made within two days of
each other in late October. Just as importantly, such a scheme fit
his all-or-nothing mentality, his conviction, as Speer noted, that
the war could be won only through offensive action. The Führer
yearned to throw off the “eternal defense” into which Germany had
been forced and again seize the initiative, but, when his “Blitzkrieg
without gasoline,” as Karl-Heinz Frieser termed the Ardennes
offensive, failed, he was left with the bankruptcy of his strategy.
Only now, in early 1945, did he permit some units to be evacuated
from Courland and sent back to Germany, although, even here, he could
not quite fully abandon the illusion of a miracle that would again
turn the war in his favor.
