Battle of Memel
| Battle of Memel | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Eastern Front of World War II | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
| Germany | Soviet Union | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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Erhard Raus (Third Panzer Army) Hans Gollnick (XXVIII Corps) |
Hovhannes Bagramyan (1st Baltic Front) | ||||||||
The Battle of Memel or the siege of Memel (German: Erste Kurlandschlacht) was a battle which took place on the Eastern Front during World War II. The battle began when the Red Army launched its Memel offensive operation (Russian: Мемельская наступательная операция) in late 1944. The offensive drove remaining German forces in the area that is now Lithuania and Latvia into a small bridgehead in Klaipėda (Memel) and its port, leading to a three-month siege of that position.
The bridgehead was finally crushed as part of the subsequent Soviet East Prussian offensive in early 1945.