WHEN HITLER’S WEHRMACHT, PANZER DIVISIONS, AND ELITE SS DIVISIONS WERE SENTREELING BACK TO BERLIN BY HISTORY’S GREATEST BLITZKRIEG, SOVIET STYLE
Reviewed and highly recommended by Don DeNevi
“THE SOVIET BALTIC OFFENSIVE, 1944-45 –German Defense of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania”,by Ian Baxter. CASEMATE Illustrated Series: 2022, 6” x 9”, 128 pages, sc; $28.95. Visit,www.casematepublishers.com.In the face of overwhelming Soviet offensives in the summer of 1944, German forceswithdrew into the Baltic states. Ordered by Hitler to stand and fight to the last drop of blood,units and divisions were to defend positions in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to the bitter end.In late 1943, planning began for a Soviet offensive against Army Group North to secureLeningrad and break through the Narva Isthmus. The battle for Narva was launched in February1944, then bogged down in the spring thaw. The launch of Operation Bagration saw Germanforces scramble to reinforce Army Group Center, enabling the Russian 1 st Baltic Front toadvance to the frontiers of Latvia and Lithuania. Further Soviet offensives drove Army GroupNorth across the Baltic from Leningrad, fighting isolated battles including the defense of Narva,Memel, and the Courland pocket.Exhausted and demoralized by the relentless Soviet assaults, Army Group North was cut offand fighting fanatically to hold the isolated capital cities of Tallinn, Vilnius, and Riga. Germanforces then fought to the death in the last few small pockets of land surrounding three ports:Libau in Courland, Pillau in East Prussia, and Danzig at the mouth of the River Vistula. In theCourland, the surrounded German divisions mounted a bitter defense that lasted until the end
of the war on May 3, 1945.
The great Operation Bagration is today described as the triumph of the Soviet theory of“operational art” because of the complete co-ordination of all the Strategic Front movementsand signals traffic to fool the enemy about the target of the offensives. The military tacticaloperations of the Red Army successfully avoided the mobile reserves of the Wehrmacht andcontinually “wrong-footed” the German forces. Despite the huge forces involved, Sovietcommanders left their adversaries completely confused about the main axis of attack until itwas too late. It should be noted that the number of troops involved, and especially personneland material losses inflicted on the Wehrmacht, was much bigger in Bagration than inNormandy. After these stunning victories on both the eastern and western fronts, supplyproblems rather than German resistance slowed the subsequent rapid Allied advance whicheventually ground to a temporary halt. However, the Germans were able to transfer armoredunits from the Italian Front, where they could afford to give up ground.Drawing on a host of rare and unpublished photographs, accompanied by in-depth captions andtexts, “THE SOVIET BALTIC OFFENSIVE, 1944-45 – German Defense of Estonia, Latvia, andLithuania”, by Ian Baxter, provides an absorbing read of the Red Army’s conquering of theBaltics. Baxter, by the way, a military historian, who specializes in 20 th Century history, hasauthored more than 60 similar books, among them the CASEMATE Illustrated titles “KURSK,1943”, “OPERATION Bagration”, “Defeat to Retreat: The Last Year of The German Army at War”,and most recently, “The Sixth Army and the Road to Stalingrad.” No question, Ian’s narrativeskill is brilliant, his meticulous research is extraordinary, and cogency beyond reproach. This
reviewer can hardly wait for his next CASEMATE Illustrated book.
