East Pomeranian offensive

• 1. Introduction

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  The East Pomeranian offensive was a Soviet Red Army campaign that changed the final shape of World War Two in Europe. From the 10th of February to the 4th of April 1945, Soviet forces fought through Pomerania and West Prussia against the German Wehrmacht. The campaign's outcome decided something far larger than the fate of one region: it determined when, and at what cost, the Red Army would reach Berlin.

  At the heart of the story is a strategic gamble. Marshal Georgy Zhukov had just driven his forces westward in the massive Vistula-Oder offensive, pushing deep into German-held territory. Berlin seemed within reach. Then everything stopped. A question rose that would be debated by Soviet generals and military historians for decades: did Joseph Stalin delay the final push on Berlin by necessity, or did he give up a chance to end the war faster and with fewer lives lost?

  The answer runs through the frozen fields and besieged port cities of Pomerania, through the decisions of commanders like Konstantin Rokossovsky, through the fate of hundreds of thousands of civilians trying to flee west by sea. Four separate phases would unfold before the campaign was declared complete. What drove each phase, what went wrong for German defenders, and what the battle cost on both sides is the story that follows.

• 2. The Flanks Problem

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  Rokossovsky's 2nd Belorussian Front had originally been assigned to advance westward north of the Vistula River, targeting Pomerania and the major port of Danzig. Its purpose was to shield the right flank of Zhukov's drive toward Berlin. Then orders changed. During the East Prussian offensive, Rokossovsky was directed to wheel sharply northward toward Elbing instead.

  That pivot left a dangerous gap. Substantial German forces remained intact across Pomerania, and they now sat directly on the exposed right flank of Zhukov's formations. German intelligence had already figured out what was coming. As early as the 13th of February, German services had concluded that the Soviets would clear Pomerania before advancing on the capital.

  The Germans in Pomerania acted on this window. In mid-February they launched a surprise counter-attack, Operation Solstice. The attack confirmed Soviet fears about the danger of pressing on Berlin with large enemy formations left behind on the flanks. A parallel problem existed to the south, where the Silesian offensives of Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front were partly designed to protect Zhukov's left flank in the same way.

  The 2nd Army, defending a large and exposed sector running from Pomerania eastward to the edge of East Prussia at Elbing, asked permission to withdraw. Adolf Hitler refused. The garrison at Graudenz, on the Vistula, was surrounded on the 18th of February, though the troops of the 83rd Infantry Division would hold out there until the following month.

• 3. The Breakthrough

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  Rokossovsky opened his main effort on the 24th of February, using the fresh troops of Kozlov's 19th Army. They advanced roughly 20 kilometres before intense German resistance stopped them. Two days later, on the 26th of February, Rokossovsky inserted the 3rd Guards Tank Corps east of Neustettin. That force drove 40 kilometres through German lines. Rokossovsky simultaneously relieved Kozlov of command.

  The 3rd Guards Tank Corps broke through at Baldenburg. Neustettin itself, on the Front's left flank, fell to the 3rd Guards Cavalry Corps on the 27th of February. General Weiß had hurriedly assembled the VII Panzer Corps, including remnants of the 7th Panzer Division, at Rummelsburg, hoping to threaten the flank of the Soviet 19th Army. The move came too late.

  On the 2nd of March, Soviet forces broke through at Köslin. The 2nd Army found itself completely cut off from the rest of Army Group Vistula. The German corps were already seriously understrength by this point, composed largely of fragmentary or improvised units. The 3rd Panzer Army itself had been rebuilt from the corps of the recently formed 11th SS Panzer Army, because the original formation had been largely destroyed in Lithuania and East Prussia.

  Zhukov's right wing joined the offensive on the 1st of March, striking northward with the main force concentrated at Reetz. Guderian refused a withdrawal request from General Raus, and the entire left wing of the 3rd Panzer Army was cut off. On the 4th of March, forward Soviet tank units reached the Baltic coast. German forces in Pomerania were now trapped in a series of encirclements, and the 2nd Army began falling back toward the Danzig fortified area.

• 4. Kolberg and Marienburg

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  Civilian refugees from across Pomerania had fled toward the coast as the Soviet advance accelerated. Many reached the coastal town of Kolberg, which Soviet forces surrounded by the 4th of March. Despite the encirclement, Kolberg held out until the 18th of March, by which time the evacuation of those trapped inside was nearly complete.

  Further east, Rokossovsky launched the second phase of his offensive on the 6th of March. The 2nd Shock Army moved against the fortress of Marienburg, threatening to cut off its defending forces. The garrison evacuated two days later. The defence of Marienburg had been conducted by a Kampfgruppe under the nominal control of the staff of the 7th Infantry Division, a mixed force including marine, SS, and other units.

  Elbing, the city that had been a focal point since Rokossovsky's earlier diversion northward during the East Prussian offensive, finally fell on the 10th of March. General Weiß had warned that the Elbing pocket could not be held. On the 9th of March, one day before Elbing fell, he was relieved of command and replaced by Dietrich von Saucken.

  With Weiß gone and the perimeter collapsing, the troops of the German 2nd Army withdrew in disarray into Danzig and Gdingen. Zhukov's forces cleared the remaining German units of the 3rd Panzer Army from the east bank of the lower Oder during this same period, driving them out of a bridgehead at Altdamm.

• 5. The Fall of Danzig

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  Danzig was more than a fortress. The Danzig-Gotenhafen Fortified Area also served as the main port for refugees fleeing East Prussia westward by sea. Saucken was ordered to hold the area for as long as possible to keep the evacuation routes open.

  Rokossovsky opened his final offensive on the 15th of March 1945. The main thrust ran toward the coast at Zoppot, a point between Gdingen and Danzig, with the 70th Army and the 49th Army advancing in parallel. By the 19th of March, Soviet spearheads had reached the heights above Zoppot, and the 4th Panzer Division had been pushed back to the outskirts of Danzig itself.

  On the 22nd of March, the 70th Army reached the sea, splitting the German defence in two. Gdingen was taken on the 26th of March, and its defenders, along with many civilians, retreated to the headland at Oxhöft. From there they were evacuated to the Hel Peninsula.

  Danzig fell on the 30th of March 1945. According to Soviet claims, the Battle of Danzig cost the Germans 39,000 soldiers killed and 10,000 captured. The remnants of the 2nd Army withdrew to the Vistula delta southeast of the city. Evacuation of civilians and military personnel continued from the delta and from the Hel Peninsula until the 10th of May 1945, more than a month after the city itself had fallen. The Soviets declared the East Pomeranian offensive complete one week after the fall of Danzig.

• 6. Stalin's Gamble Revisited

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  The delay of the Berlin offensive from February to April 1945 remains one of the more debated decisions of the final stage of the European war. Two positions emerged among Soviet generals and military historians. One held that the Red Army had a genuine chance to take Berlin faster and at significantly lower cost in February. The other argued that pressing on Berlin with large German formations intact on both flanks risked a successful German counter-attack that could have prolonged the war further.

  Operation Solstice, the German counter-attack in Pomerania in mid-February, gave the second camp concrete evidence. The threat was real, not hypothetical. The East Pomeranian offensive was the direct consequence of that threat: Pomerania had to be cleared before Berlin could be taken. Clearing it took from the 10th of February to the 4th of April.

  What the delay also produced, beyond the Pomeranian campaign itself, was time. The Soviets used the weeks gained to push significant forces into Austria, occupying substantial parts of the country in the Vienna offensive. The spring of 1945 in central Europe unfolded in the shape that Stalin's choice imposed on it, and the debate over whether a different choice was possible has never fully closed.