Memel Offensive Operation
| Battle of Memel | |||||||
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| Part of the Eastern Front of World War II | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 Germany
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 Soviet Union
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
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Erhard Raus (Third Panzer Army) Hans Gollnick(XXVIII Corps) |
Hovhannes Bagramyan (1st Baltic Front) |
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The Battle of Memel or the Siege of Memel (German: Erste Kurlandschlacht) took place on the European Eastern Front during World War II when the Soviets launched their Memel Offensive Operation (Russian: Мемельская наступательная операция) in late 1944. The offensive drove surviving German forces in the area that is now Latvia and Lithuania into a small bridgehead in Klaipėda (Memel) and its port and led to a three-month siege of that position.
The bridgehead was finally crushed as part of a subsequent Soviet offensive, the East Prussian Offensive of early 1945.
The Soviet Belorussian Offensive of June–August 1944 (commonly known as Operation Bagration) had seen the German Army Group Centre nearly destroyed and driven from what is now Belarus, most of what is now Lithuania and much of Poland. During August and September of that year, a series of German counter-offensives - Operations Doppelkopf and Casar - succeeded in stalling the Soviet advance and maintaining the connection between the German Army Groups Centre and North; however, Stavka made preparations for an attack by the 1st Baltic Front against the positions of the Third Panzer Army and thence towards Memel, splitting the two Army Groups.
Soviet General Bagramyan planned to make his main attack in a 19 km sector to the west of Šiauliai. He concentrated up to half of his entire force in this area, using concealment techniques to ensure there was not a corresponding build-up of German forces, and attempting to convince the German command that the main axis of attack would be towards Riga.
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