Army Group Courland

Army Group Courland
Heeresgruppe Kurland
Country	Nazi Germany
Disbanded	8 May 1945
Commanders
Last commander	Carl Hilpert
Chief-of-Staff	Friedrich Foertsch
Notable commanders	Lothar Rendulic

Army Group Courland (German: Heeresgruppe Kurland) was a German Army Group on the Eastern Front which was created from remnants of the Army Group North, isolated in the Courland Peninsula by the advancing Soviet Army forces during the 1944 Baltic Offensive of the Second World War. The army group remained isolated until the end of World War II in Europe. All units of the Army Group were ordered to surrender by the capitulated Wehrmacht command on 8 May 1945.

At the time agreed for all German armed forces to end hostilities (see the German Instrument of Surrender, 1945), the Sixteenth and Eighteenth armies of Army Group Courland, commanded by General (of Infantry) Carl Hilpert, ended hostilities at 23:00, on 8 May 1945, surrendering to Leonid Govorov, commander of the Leningrad Front. By the evening of 9 May 1945 189,000 German troops, including 42 officers in the rank of general, in the Courland Pocket had surrendered.

The aggregation of troops that became named Army Group Courland was created when the Red Army reached the Baltic Sea near the Memel river on Tuesday, 10 October 1944.

As a result, what was then known as Army Group North was cut off in Latvia from the rest of the German Army, and was to stay cut off for the remainder of the war. Approximately 200,000 German troops in 26 divisions were in what was to become known as the Courland Pocket. Army Group Courland remained in existence until the end of the war in Europe.

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