Between Giants

THE BATTLE FOR THE BALTICS IN WORLD WAR II

PRIT BUTTAR

DEDICATION

For Dan

BETWEEN PAGES
144 – 145

Molotov and Ribbentrop. (Bundesarchiv Bild)

Georg von Küchler. (Bundesarchiv Bild)

Alfred Rosenberg. (Bundesarchiv Bild)

Ernst Busch. (Bundesarchiv Bild)

Hoepner and von Leeb. (Bundesarchiv Bild)

Georg-Hans Reinhardt. (Bundesarchiv Bild)

Erich von Manstein. (Bundesarchiv Bild)

Hyazinth von Strachwitz. (Bundesarchiv Bild)

Otto Carius. (Bundesarchiv Bild)

Voldemars Veiss. (Bundesarchiv Bild)

Johannes Freissner. (Bundesarchiv Bild)

BETWEEN PAGES
272 – 273

Felix Steiner. (Bundesarchiv Bild)

Govorov and Bagramian. (Getty Images)

Lindemann. (Topfoto)

Yeremenko. (Topfoto)

Ants Kaljurand. (Estonian State Archives)

Latvian SS volunteers. (Bundesarchiv Bild)

Heavy-machine gun position in Courland. (Bundesarchiv Bild)

Russian soldiers near Riga. (Topfoto)

German soldiers in Estonia. (Topfoto)

Riga, post liberation. (Topfoto)

German retreat from Riga. (Topfoto)

Fighting in the Courland Pocket. (Topfoto)

Gateway to Latvia. (Topfoto)

Estonian recruitment posters. (Author’s Collection)

The Baltic States 1940

The Baltic Theatre 1941

The Advance to Daugavpils and Riga

Combat at Raseiniai

The German Invasion of Estonia, 1941

The Defence of Narva, February–April 1944

The Withdrawal from Narva, 25–26 July 1944

Operations
Doppelkopf
/
Cäsar
, August 1944

Soviet Reconquest of Estonia, 1944

The Drive to the Baltic, October 1944

The Courland Bridgehead

Courland Battles

Second Battle of Courland

Third Battle of Courland

Inevitably, a book such as this is only possible as a result of the generous help of many people.

My good friend David Clarke kindly loaned me several books, which I would otherwise have struggled to obtain. Indeed, David was responsible many years ago for first introducing me to Operations
Doppelkopf
and
Cäsar
, my first steps on the road that led to this book. Tom Houlihan, of
www.mapsatwar.us
, provided invaluable help and showed great patience when working with me on the maps. I am also hugely grateful to Irina Dovbush, who helped me find many of the Soviet sources that I used.

My agent, Robert Dudley, was as always a source of professional advice and personal encouragement. The staff at Osprey, particularly Kate Moore, Marcus Cowper and Emily Holmes, were as professional and as helpful as anyone could wish.

As usual, my family showed huge forbearance with me as I worked on this book, and I am eternally grateful to them.

Baltic States

Juozas Ambrazevičius
– appointed as acting prime minister of Lithuania after the German invasion in 1941.

Oskars Dankers
– appointed by the Germans in July 1941 as the leader of the future Latvian administration.

Augusts Kirhenšteins
– government leader in Latvia following the Soviet invasion in June 1940.

Petras Kubiliūnas
– appointed by the Germans in July 1941 as General Counsel in Lithuania, implementing German policies, particularly involved in recruiting Lithuanians for German forces.

Hjalmar Mäe
– appointed by the Germans in July 1941 to run a directorate in Estonia implementing German policies.

Antanas Merkys
– prime minister of Lithuania in 1939; removed in June 1940.

Vincas Mickevičius
– Lithuanian Foreign Minister following the 1940 Soviet invasion; he remained in post for less than a month.

Ladas Natkevičius
– Lithuanian ambassador to Moscow in 1939.

Justas Paleckis
– leader of Lithuania following the 1940 Soviet invasion.

Konstantin Päts
– Estonia’s head of state on the outbreak of war in 1939; he was forced to resign in mid-July 1940.

Karl Selter
– Estonian Foreign Minister in 1939.

Antanas Smetona
– leader of Lithuania on the outbreak of war in 1939; in June 1940 he fled to Germany, and onwards to the United States.

Kārlis Ulmanis
– Latvia’s head of state in 1939; he was forced to resign in mid-July 1940.

Juozas Urbšys
– Lithuanian Foreign Minister from 1938 to 1940.

Johannes Vares
– Estonian Prime Minister following the 1940 Soviet invasion.

German

General Clemens Betzel
– commander of IV Panzer Division during 1944; he and his division played a key part in operations
Doppelkopf
and
Cäsar
and in the fighting for Courland from October 1944 to January 1945.

Generalmajor Erich Brandenberger
– commander of 8th Panzer Division during Operation
Barbarossa
.

Generalfeldmarschall Walther von Brauchitsch
– commander of the German Army in 1941.

Generaloberst (from July 1940), later Generalfeldmarschall (from February 1943) Ernst Busch
– commander of 16th Army during Operation
Barbarossa
; commanded Army Group Centre during the fighting around Narva of January–April 1944.

Oberst Hans Christern
– commander of the 4th Panzer Division’s 35th Panzer Regiment; he took command of 4th Panzer Division during Betzel’s temporary absence in December 1944.

Generaloberst Johannes Friessner
– commander of Army Group North during July 1944, replacing Lindemann, but handing over to Schörner by the end of the month.

Generalmajor Rüdiger von der Goltz
– German commander in Latvia in 1918–19.

Generaloberst Heinz Guderian
– chief of staff at German Army High Command (OKH).

General Christian Hansen
– commander of 16th Army in 1944.

Reinhard Heydrich
– head of the
Reichssicherheitshauptamt
(‘Reich Main Security Administration’
or RSHA).

Generaloberst Erich Hoepner
– commander of 4th Panzer Group, Army Group North, during Operation
Barbarossa
.

Oberst Hermann Hoth
– commander of 3rd Panzer Group, Army Group Centre, during Operation
Barbarossa
.

SS-Standartenführer Karl Jäger
– commander of
Einsatzkommando 3
from summer 1941; he was appointed commander of the Security Police and
Sicherheitsdienst
(‘security department,’ or SD) in Lithuania at the same time, and remained in Lithuania for two years. He wrote the Jäger Report, a detailed account of the killings of the Jews in the Kaunas ghetto during the second half of 1941.

Generaloberst Georg von Küchler
– commander of 18th Army during Operation
Barbarossa
. He commanded Army Group North after the dismissal of Leeb in December 1941, but was dismissed in January 1944, and replaced by Model.

Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb
– commander of Army Group North, the main military command in the Baltic region, comprising 16th Army, 18th Army and 4th Panzer Group, at the start of Operation
Barbarossa.

Generaloberst Georg Lindemann
– commander of 18th Army from January 1942 to March 1944; from end March until July 1944 he led Army Group North.

General (from June 1940), later Generalfeldmarschall (from July 1942) Erich von Manstein
– commander of LVI Panzer Corps during Operation
Barbarossa
.
Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model
– commander of Army Group North from January 1944, when he succeeded Küchler; he was promoted to field marshal two months later. On 31 March 1944 he was moved to Army Group North Ukraine and replaced at Army Group North by Lindemann; in June, he assumed command of Army Group Centre following Operation
Bagration
. He was transferred to the Western Front in August 1944, and was followed as commander of Army Group Centre by Reinhardt.

General Georg-Hans Reinhardt
– commander of XLI Panzer Corps at the start of Operation
Barbarossa
. Promoted to
Generaloberst
, he commanded 3rd Panzer Army during the fighting around Vilnius in July 1944. In August 1944 he replaced Model as commander of Army Group Centre.

Joachim von Ribbentrop
– German Foreign Minister 1938–45; he negotiated the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with the Soviet Union.

Alfred Rosenberg
– a leading National Socialist, with a strong interest in racial theory; strongly anti-Semitic and anti-Bolshevik, he was highly influential in the development of Nazi racial ideology, and his ideas played a significant part in
Generalplan Ost
. From 1941 he was chief of the newly created
Reichsministerium für die besetzten Ostgebiete
(‘Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories’) or
Ostministerium
.

General Dietrich von Saucken
– commander of the newly reconstituted XXXIX Panzer Corps in summer 1944. He took command of
AOK Ostpreussen
in April 1945.

General Ferdinand Schörner
– Appointed commander of Army Group North in July 1944, replacing Friessner. He had a reputation for imposing iron discipline, and was popular with Hitler. He served with Army Group North until January 1945, when 16th and 18th Armies became part of the newly designated Army Group Courland, under the command of Vietinghoff.

Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg
– German ambassador to Moscow in 1939.

Franz Walter Stahlecker
– a lawyer who rose to high rank in the
Sicherheitsdienst
(‘Security Administration’ or SD); he commanded
Einsatzgruppe A
during Operation
Barbarossa
. He wrote a detailed report showing how his group operated in Lithuania following the German invasion.

SS-Obergruppenführer Felix Steiner
– commander of III (Germanische) SS Panzer Corps from May 1943 to October 1944.

Generaloberst Heinrich von Vietinghoff
– commander of the newly designated Army Group Courland from January to March 1945.

Soviet

Marshal of the Soviet Union Ivan Khristorovich Bagramian
– as deputy Chief of Staff of the South-western Front at the start of Operation
Barbarossa
, Bagramian survived the defeat of the front in the Western Ukraine. He later rose to command first 16th Army, then 11th Army, before being appointed commander of 1st Baltic Front, in which role he played a key part in Operation
Bagration
in 1944. He was heavily involved in the fighting for the Courland region, and later wrote a detailed account of his experiences
.

Lavrenti Beria
– head of the NKVD, or Russian secret police.

General Ivan Danilovich Cherniakhovsky
– commander of 28th Tank Division during Operation
Barbarossa
. He was promoted to command the 3rd Belarusian Front during 1944–45, and fought skilfully during Operation
Bagration
.