Battle of Courland
| Battles of the Courland Bridgehead | |||||||
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| Part of the Eastern Front of World War II | |||||||
 Soviet advances on the Eastern Front, 1 September 1943 – 31 December 1944 |
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 Germany
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 Soviet Union
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
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Ferdinand Schörner Lothar Rendulic Heinrich von Vietinghoff Carl Hilpert |
Ivan Bagramyan Andrey Yeryomenko Leonid Govorov |
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| Units involved | |||||||
| Army Group Courland |
1st Baltic Front 2nd Baltic Front |
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| Casualties and losses | |||||||
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October 1944–May 1945
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2nd Baltic Front only: 16 Feb.–8 May 1945 160,948 men |
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October 1944–May 1945
306,983 men
The Courland Pocket (German: Kurland-Kessel) refers to the Red Army's isolation of Axis forces on the Courland Peninsula from July 1944 through May 1945.
The pocket was created during the Red Army's Baltic Strategic Offensive Operation, when forces of the 1st Baltic Front reached the Baltic Sea near Memel during its lesser Memel Offensive Operation phases. The Soviet commander was General Ivan Bagramyan (later Marshal). This action isolated the German Army Group North (German: Heeresgruppe Nord) from the rest of the German forces between Tukums and Libau in Latvia. Renamed Army Group Courland (German: Heeresgruppe Kurland) on 25 January, the Army Group remained isolated until the end of the war. When they were ordered to surrender to the Soviet command on 8 May, they were in "blackout" and did not get the official order before 10 May, two days after the capitulation of Germany. It was one of the last German groups to surrender in Europe.
Courland, along with the rest of the Baltic eastern coast and islands, was overrun by Army Group North during 1941. Army Group North spent most of the next two years attempting to take Leningrad, without success. In January 1944, the Soviet Army lifted the siege of Leningrad.
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