Hitler, Donitz, and the Baltic Sea (7 page)

Standing Fast in the North

S
EVERAL CONCLUSIONS EMERGE
from an analysis of events on the northern sector of the Eastern Front. From the very beginning of the campaign in Russia the German navy had attempted to influence the conduct of army operations. The Skl repeatedly called for the capture of Leningrad, the Oranienbaum Bridgehead, and the islands of Lavansaari and Seiskaari. Army Group North showed little desire to wipe out the Oranienbaum Bridgehead, although this would have been to its own benefit, and none at all in seizing the islands in the Gulf of Finland. After Dönitz became the navy’s commander the pleas for the seizure of these areas became more insistent, even though by this time Germany had lost the initiative. Dönitz nevertheless persisted in his demands that the army eliminate once and for all the threat that the Soviet Baltic Fleet posed to Germany’s U-boat training areas.

The army generally hoped to give up its positions around Leningrad and retreat to the Panther Position. For Zeitzler, the withdrawal would have released divisions urgently needed for other sectors of the Russian front. For Küchler the retreat would have reduced the army group’s land front by nearly half, provided his forces with shorter divisional sectors in a more defensible line, and created reserves—which the army group did not possess in its positions around Leningrad. Model did not question Hitler’s preoccupation with the Narva sector, and he seemed more cognizant of the potential threat posed by the Soviet fleet than Küchler. The attention
Model devoted to coastal defense and his request that Assmann forward a copy of Dönitz’s report on the importance of the Narva area to the army group suggest an appreciation of naval interests in the area. Lindemann, however, was not as sympathetic to the navy’s wishes, as evidenced by the dispute concerning Reval.

Hitler recognized the importance of clinging to the Leningrad area for military, diplomatic, and economic reasons, as well as for prestige. To end the siege of Leningrad voluntarily would hand the Soviets a great propaganda victory and diminish Germany’s standing among its already uneasy allies. At times Hitler appeared willing to accept Zeitzler’s advice in favor of the retreat, but he never gave the order. Falling back on arguments in consideration of Finland and the navy, Hitler insisted that the army group maintain its hold on Leningrad. Once Model’s forces were thrown back to the Narva area, Finland’s peace feelers and Dönitz’s protests strengthened Hitler’s determination to stand fast in the north.

The navy’s position was clear from the beginning. Dönitz repeatedly reminded Hitler of the vital importance of the Baltic to German grand strategy, effectively drawing Hitler’s attention to the withdrawal’s repercussions on Finland, the war economy, and the anticipated revival of the U-boat war with new classes of submarines. As the army group fell back under the weight of the Soviet offensive, Dönitz suddenly clamored for a hold-at-all-costs policy at Narva. Dönitz believed that the retention of the Narva front was indispensable not only to the navy but to Germany’s entire conduct of the war. His willingness to send heavy surface vessels from the training fleet into action after an entire year of virtual inactivity
⁸⁷
and uncertainty about the mine situation in the Gulf of Finland
⁸⁸
demonstrates his anxiety; his vow to send all operational submarines from training flotillas against the Soviet fleet suggests sheer desperation. In addition, his decision to hold back the fleet in the event of an Anglo-American invasion of the continent, but to send it immediately against Soviet naval forces in the Baltic, reveals the critical importance he attributed to German domination of the Baltic. Moreover, Dönitz’s determination to retain the bulk of the fleet in the Baltic in case the Soviet navy set sail impaired Germany’s ability to disrupt the Arctic convoys from Britain to Russia. Following the disastrous loss of the battle cruiser
Scharnhorst,
the Skl had planned to send the cruiser
Prinz Eugen
to strengthen naval forces in northern Norway, but Dönitz decreed that the threat in the Baltic was more pressing.
⁸⁹
In fact, Dönitz planned to send virtually every warship the German navy possessed against the Soviet fleet.
⁹⁰
He had stripped other theaters bare in order to provide the might to engage the Soviet fleet if it put to sea.

Army Group North, however, managed to hold along the Panther Position throughout the spring of 1944, and Dönitz’s fears subsided. Events in Italy and the West required his attention, although the Skl always kept an eye on the situation in the Baltic. Yet with the arrival of summer Germany once again faced disaster in Russia. Although Army Group North’s front held firm, the Soviets had prepared crushing blows against Axis forces on its flanks, Finland and Army Group Center.

C
HAPTER
2

I
N THE SUMMER OF
1944 Germany suffered catastrophic defeats on virtually every front. In June Allied forces in Italy captured Rome, and by the end of the summer they had liberated Pisa and Florence, pushing the Nazis back to the Gothic Line. Stalin’s long-awaited Second Front became reality on 6 June, as thousands of Anglo-American soldiers stormed the beaches of Normandy. By mid-September Allied forces had burst out of Normandy, landed in southern France, and liberated Paris, Brussels, and Antwerp, clearing German troops from most of France and Belgium. Desperately short of men, from this point on Germany had to juggle its meager reserves between East and West.

At the end of June the Soviets launched a devastating attack against Army Group Center, and in this assault, more so than at Stalingrad, inflicted
the
crippling blow against the German army in the East, as Hitler lost more than 350,000 men in this operation.
¹
After tearing a huge gap in the heart of the Eastern Front, on 17 August Russian troops entered German territory, crossing the frontier into East Prussia. Largely as a result of the defeat in the East, Germany’s allies defected one after another. Romania came to terms with the Soviets on 23 August and declared war on Germany two days later. Bulgaria followed suit within two weeks. By the end of August, Soviet offensives in the Ukraine, coupled with Romania’s surrender, had brought the Red Army into Bucharest and Lvov, across the Vistula, and to the Yugoslav border. The annihilation of most of Army Group South Ukraine in Romania at the end of the summer meant the loss of over 400,000 German and Romanian troops.
²
In the North, the Finnish army barely survived a Russian attack in June, and in September the Finns sought an armistice with the Soviet Union, withdrawing from the war and unhinging Germany’s northern
flank. By mid-September Hungary was the only major ally still fighting with Germany, and in that country signs of discontent increased.

The events of the summer had dire consequences for Army Group North as well. At the beginning of June the army group still held along the Panther Position, with a strength of nearly 700,000 men. Although German intelligence predicted that the Soviet summer offensive would come against the Baltic States or, more likely, the Ukraine, Stavka (the Soviet High Command) decided to strike Army Group Center in Belorussia, opting for the most direct route to Germany, and assembled powerful forces for the attack.
³
On the third anniversary of Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, 22 June 1944, the Red Army began its assault against Army Group Center. On the army group’s northern flank, the Soviets struck Third Panzer Army northwest of Vitebsk, and by the next day Army Group North had already lost contact with its neighbor to the south. By the morning of 25 June the Russians had seized bridgeheads over the Düna (Daugava) River and had begun to pour forces into the Germans’ rear area. Soviet armies rolled over Nazi units in their path. Army Group Center reported on 28 June that Ninth Army had been virtually destroyed and that Third Panzer Army was so battered it could scarcely continue to fight.
⁴
The Soviets launched holding attacks against Army Group North’s Sixteenth Army, but Lindemann’s main concern was to contain the Soviet forces streaming through the gap between the army groups.

On 29 June Lindemann apprised Hitler of the offensive’s consequences for Army Group North. He stated that his right flank was hanging in the air and that he would not be able to reestablish contact with Third Panzer Army if it continued to retreat. Lindemann also warned that the Soviets could isolate his army group if they launched a thrust toward Riga. Claiming that he had to send all available forces to cover his open southern flank, he requested permission to gain reserves by withdrawing Army Detachment Narva to a shorter line along the Narva Isthmus and, in the south, to give up Polozk on Sixteenth Army’s right flank. Lindemann complained that the army group had given up three divisions since mid-June and that he would have to send four or five more to protect his southern flank. As the army group had only thirty-two divisions, this weakened his forces so seriously that he could no longer guarantee that his troops could hold if the Soviets attacked.
⁵

Hitler approved a limited withdrawal for Sixteenth Army but ordered that Polozk remain in German hands. He ignored Lindemann’s request for Army Detachment Narva to retreat. Furthermore, he commanded Lindemann immediately to attack to the south with all available forces to close the gap to Third Panzer Army. Lindemann protested that he could assemble only
two divisions for the assault, which by no means could reach Third Panzer Army, then sixty kilometers away. But his efforts to reverse Hitler’s decision were futile. On 2 July Lindemann reported that he had attempted the attack but with no success, and he again requested the evacuation of Polozk, now under heavy Soviet pressure. This time Hitler agreed but, convinced that Lindemann had lost his nerve, replaced him with Gen. Hans Friessner on 4 July.
⁶

From Hitler’s headquarters, Friessner commanded the army group to strike the Soviet flank and restore contact with Third Panzer Army. As usual, conditions did not look as promising at the front as they had from Hitler’s headquarters, and Friessner’s optimism did not last twenty-four hours. The next day he begged for permission to withdraw his entire southern wing in order to gain forces to transfer to Army Group Center and reported that the attack could not be carried out. Hitler angrily refused but suggested a withdrawal of his own design to shorten the front by ninety kilometers.
⁷

On 9 July Friessner flew to East Prussia to meet with Hitler. Model, now commander of Army Group Center, was also was present and pleaded with Hitler to permit Army Group North to evacuate Estonia and withdraw behind the Düna River to a line Dünaburg–Riga, claiming that his army group had already lost twenty-nine divisions, totaling 300,000 men. Hitler insisted that this would lead to Army Group North’s destruction. Army Group Center’s experience had demonstrated that Soviet motorized units would push through gaps between retreating columns and split up and destroy Friessner’s forces. In reply to Model’s objection that Army Group North’s withdrawal was the fastest way to provide urgently needed reinforcements near Kovno, Hitler countered that troops on the Narva front would have to retreat four hundred kilometers, which would require at least a month. Hitler commanded Friessner to maintain his positions in Estonia, although by 9 July Army Group North’s eastern front had been weakened by ten divisions. The army group had dispatched one division to Finland, four to Army Group Center, and five to cover its southern flank.
⁸

As Army Group Center disintegrated, Stavka prepared an operation against German forces in the Baltic States. The offensive called for the combined assault of four Soviet fronts; its goal was to isolate and destroy Army Group North. First Baltic Front, which would deliver the main blow, was to seize the key rail centers of Dünaburg, Schaulen, and Kovno. Second Baltic Front’s task was to break through German lines, capture Rositten, and, in cooperation with First Baltic Front, thrust toward Riga and the coast in order to sever the army group’s land contact with the rest of the front. Third Baltic Front was to smash German forces in the Pleskau-Ostrov sector, then turn
north and attack toward Dorpat and Pernau to cut off German troops on the Narva sector. Leningrad Front would then annihilate Army Detachment Narva and assist Third Baltic Front in clearing German troops from Estonia. To support this operation, Third Belorussian Front would capture the Lithuanian capital of Vilna and threaten East Prussia.
⁹

Second Baltic Front began its offensive on 10 July, striking Sixteenth Army’s right flank and forcing Friessner to break off an attack to regain contact with Third Panzer Army. Hitler, however, insisted that the operation to close the gap between the two army groups continue. On 12 July Friessner again attempted to convince Hitler of the gravity of the situation. He reported that Army Group Center’s collapse had forced his army group to extend its front by two hundred kilometers to protect its southern flank and prevent encirclement. The transfer of several divisions to Army Group Center and to his southern flank, Friessner explained, had stretched his forces to such an extent that neither his eastern nor southern front could withstand a determined assault. Warning that Soviet forces were closing in on Dünaburg and Kovno, he insisted that to save his army group he had to pull Sixteenth and Eighteenth armies back to a line Kovno–Riga and withdraw Army Detachment Narva to Reval for evacuation by sea. Declaring that this was the last chance to avoid the encirclement, if not the destruction, of Army Group North, Friessner concluded his report by demanding either freedom of action or his dismissal. But Hitler again succeeded in stiffening Friessner’s resolve. Upon his return from a meeting with Hitler on 14 July, Friessner emphasized the importance of holding the present line. The next day he met with some of his senior commanders and informed them that Hitler was determined not to give up the Baltic States and that a counterattack by powerful armored forces to close the gap between the army groups would begin within a week.
¹⁰