Volkssturm members with panzerfausts awaiting Soviet onslaught. Konigsberg, East Prussia January 20, 1945
Stavka began planning the Red Army's 1945 winter campaign following the enormous success enjoyed during the 1944 summer and fall campaigns. The primary axis of advance would be through Poland toward Berlin and was designed to destroy the German defensive positions and army's along the Vistula River. At the same time, the German army's in East Prussia were to be eliminated while Soviet forces in Hungary and Slovakia continued what was largely a politically motivated advance as Stalin sought to cement Soviet gains in Central and Southeastern Europe. Commensurate with the focus on reaching Germany proper, the Red Army's greatest striking power was concentrated in eastern Poland and within Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front and to his south Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front. That said, just to Zhukov's north both the 2nd and 3rd Belorussian Front's, under Rokossovsky and Cherniakhovsky respectively, had also been amply reinforced for defeating the still dangerous German forces defending East Prussia early in January 1945.
On January 13, 1945 Zhukov and Konev's Fronts shattered the German defensive positions in Poland while Cherniakhovsky's Front battered its way toward Konigsberg and the 2nd Belorussian Front, led by the 5th Guards Tank Army, swept around the main German defensive positions in East Prussia. Though successful in cutting off a significant parts of Army Group Center within East Prussia the 2nd Belorussian Front failed to completely destroy German forces west of Konigsberg and near Danzig. Thus, with the help provided by the German army's located in eastern Pomerania, the German defenders of Konigsberg and its surrounding region would hold out from January until April 1945 in one of the bloodiest sieges in modern history. A siege featuring the deadliest maritime disaster in history when a Russian submarine torpedoed the 27,000-ton former German cruise ship Wilhelm Gustloff on the night of January 30th. The ship had mostly been carrying civilians fleeing the fighting and its sinking resulting in an estimated 7,000 people killed. In addition to the carnage at sea, the Red Army had inflicted a severe toll on the Wermacht. This picture shows clearly, as evidenced by the man in the foreground, that many of Konigsberg's defenders were far from a prime age for serving as frontline troops. Yet in spite of the advanced age of much of those drafted into the Wermacht in the war's final years quite a few fought suprisingly well.
The January-April 1945 battle for Konigsberg represented the fifth time that Russia and Germany had fought for control of the city, twice before in the Seven Years' War, in the winter of 1812-1813, and in 1914 early in the First World War. None of the previous battles came close to matching the intensity and destruction of the 1945 struggle for the region. In this final German-Russian battle for Konigsberg and East Prussia hundreds of thousands were killed on all sides; with Prussia's defenders virtually annihilated and an enormous percentage of the civilian population killed not just during the battle but afterward. For instance, when Konigsberg surrendered on April 9th the remaining civilian population was estimated at 110,000. By June, only 73,000 were left after months of murder, suicide and disease had swept through the city. That said the Red Army paid a fearful price in taking East Prussia. Between January and April 1945 alone, the Red Army suffered 584,778 casualties and lost 3,525 tanks and 1,450 planes in taking this single German province.
Picture Courtesy of Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive), Bild 183-R98401
