Courland Pocket The Courland Pocket ( ) referred to the Red Army ' s blockade or encirclement of Axis forces on the Courland Peninsula during the closing months of World War II . The Soviet commander was General Bagramyan ( later Marshal Bagramyan ) . 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 . This action isolated the German Army Group North ( ) from the rest of the German forces between Tukums and Liepāja in Latvia . Renamed Army Group Courland ( ) 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 . Background . 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 . On 22 June 1944 , the Red Army launched the Belorussian Strategic Offensive , codenamed Operation Bagration . The goal of this offensive was to liberate the Belorussian SSR from the German occupation . Operation Bagration was extremely successful , resulting in the almost complete destruction of Army Group Centre , and ended on 29 August . In its final stages ( the Kaunas and Šiauliai Offensive s ) , Operation Bagration saw Soviet forces strike deep towards the Baltic coast , severing communications between the German Army Group North and the remnants of Army Group Centre . After Operation Bagration ended , the Soviets continued the clearing of the Baltic coast , despite German attempts to restore the front ( Operation Doppelkopf ) . The Red Army fought the Memel Offensive Operation with the goal of isolating Army Group North by capturing the city of Memel ( ) . Battles of the " Courland Bridgehead " . On 9 October 1944 , the Soviets reached the Baltic Sea near Memel after over - running headquarters of the 3rd Panzer Army . As a result , Army Group North was cut off from a route to East Prussia . Hitler ' s military advisors — notably Heinz Guderian , the Chief of the German General Staff — urged evacuation and utilisation of the troops to stabilise the front in central Europe . However , Hitler refused , and ordered the German forces in Courland and the ( Estonian ) islands Hiiumaa and Saaremaa to hold out , believing them necessary to protect German submarine bases along the Baltic coast . Hitler still believed the war could be won , and hoped that Dönitz ' s new Type XXI U - boat technology could bring victory to Germany in the Battle of the Atlantic , forcing the Allies out of Western Europe . This would allow German forces to focus on the Eastern Front , using the Courland Pocket as a springboard for a new offensive . Hitler ' s refusal to evacuate the Army Group resulted in the entrenchment of more than 200 , 000 German troops largely of the 16th Army and 18th Army , in what was to become known to the Germans as the " Courland Bridgehead " . Thirty - three divisions of the Army Group North — commanded by Ferdinand Schörner — were cut off from Prussia and spread out along a front reaching from Riga to Liepāja , retreating to the more defensible Courland position , abandoning Riga . The German two - phase withdrawals during the execution of the second stage of the Soviet Baltic Offensive ( 14 September - 24 November 1944 ) , subsequent to the pocket being formed in the Baltic Offensive ' s first stage , the Memel Offensive Operation . From 15 to 22 October 1944 — Soviets launched the Riga Offensive Operation on the 15th at 10 : 00 after conducting a heavy artillery barrage . Hitler permitted the Army Group Commander , Ferdinand Schoerner , to commence withdrawal from Riga on 11 October , and the city was taken by the 3rd Baltic Front on 13 October . The front stabilised with the main remnant of Army Group North isolated in the peninsula . On 15 January 1945 , Army Group North was renamed Army Group Courland ( " Heeresgruppe Kurland " ) under Colonel - General Dr Lothar Rendulic . In the middle of January Heinz Guderian got Hitler ’ s permission to withdraw 7 divisions from Courland , however , Hitler refused to consider a total withdrawal . On 8 May , Germany ' s Head of State ( " Staatsoberhaupt " ) and President ( " Reichspräsident " ) Karl Dönitz ordered Colonel - General Carl Hilpert — the Army Group ' s last commander — to surrender . Hilpert , his personal staff , and staffs of three Armies surrendered to Marshal Leonid Govorov , the commander of the Leningrad Front . At this time , the group still consisted of the remnants of 27 divisions and one brigade . On 8 May , General Rauser succeeded in obtaining better surrender terms from the Soviet command . On 9 May , the Soviet commission in Peilei started to interrogate the captive staff of Army Group Courland , and general collection of prisoners begun . By 12 May , approximately 135 , 000 German troops surrendered in the Courland Pocket . On 23 May , the Soviet collection of the German troops in the Courland Pocket was completed . A total of about 180 , 000 German troops were taken into captivity from the Baltic area . The bulk of the prisoners of war were initially held at the Valdai Hills camps . Order of Battle . German . See also Army Group Courland < br > Army Group North ( to 25 January 1945 ) < br > Army Group Courland ( 25 January 1945 to 8 May 1945 ) German 18th Army . Army Group Kurland included the 4th and 12th Panzer Divisions . The 4th Panzer Division was evacuated from the bridgehead in January 1945 . The Siege . The First Courland Battle was intended to destroy German forces . After that failure , official accounts ignore Courland , stating only that the Soviet goal was to prevent the Germans from escaping . In this account , the Soviet actions in Courland were defensive blockading operations . Hostilities consisted of containing German breakout attempts , and the Red Army made no concerted effort to capture the Courland Pocket , which was of little strategic importance after the isolation of Army Group North , whereas the main offensive effort was required for the Vistula - Oder and Berlin Offensive s . Soviet forces suffered correspondingly low casualties . While the modern research of Grigoriy Krivosheev offers a low account of Soviet casualties : 30 , 501 " irrecoverable " and 130 , 447 " medical " losses , for a total of 160 , 948 Soviet casualties between 16 February and 8 May 1945 , that period covers only the Fifth and Sixth ( and final ) Battles of Courland . According to Russian historian A . Isayev , Courland was a peripheral front for both the Soviets and Germans . The Soviet goal was to prevent the German troops there from being transported by sea to reinforce the defense of Berlin . Soviet operations intended to further isolate and also destroy the enemy , but the strength of the attacking troops was too low to make any significant progress in the difficult terrain . However , the Soviet commanders worked competently and as a result the casualties were low . Aftermath . On 9 May 1945 , General Hovhannes Bagramyan accepted the surrender of German forces at Ezere Manor in southwest Latvia . According to Russian records , 146 , 000 German and Latvian troops were taken prisoner , including 28 generals and 5 , 083 high - ranking officers , and taken to camps in the USSR interior and imprisoned for years . Current scholarship puts the count of those surrendering at more than 200 , 000 : 189 , 112 Germans including 42 generals — among them the German commander , Carl Hilpert , who subsequently died in a Soviet POW camp in 1947 — and approximately 14 , 000 Latvians . The Soviets detained all males between the ages of 16 and 60 , and conducted widespread deforestation campaigns , burning vast tracts of forest , to flush out resisters .