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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 Battle of Memel was fought between the Samogitians and the Livonian Order in 1257 near Memel (now Klaipėda in Lithuania). When Mindaugas , King of Lithuania , transferred most of Samogitia to the Livonian Order in 1257, Duke Alminas was elected as the Samogitian leader and organized resistance.
The Battle of Memel was fought between the Samogitians and the Livonian branch of the Teutonic Knights in 1323. According to the chronicle of Peter of Dusburg , the Samogitians burned the city, but failed to take the Memel Castle .
Lithuanian Jews and a German Wehrmacht soldier during the Holocaust in Lithuania (June 24, 1941). The military occupation of Lithuania by Nazi Germany lasted from the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, to the end of the Battle of Memel on January 28, 1945.
Germany demanded that Lithuania give up the Klaipėda Region (also known as the Memel Territory) which had been detached from Germany after World War I, or the Wehrmacht would invade Lithuania and the de facto Lithuanian capital Kaunas would be bombed. The Lithuanians had been expecting the demand after years of rising tension between Lithuania ...
The resulting offensive, the Battle of Memel, was launched on October 5; Bagramyan's 1st Baltic Front shattered the Third Panzer Army, finally severing the land connection between the German Army Group Centre and Army Group North. Schoerner's forces around Riga and in Courland were now cut off.
By March 1945, the Panzer Grenadier Division Großdeutschland had been reduced to around 4,000 men after the Battle of Memel. [17] It had only 1 StuG III, 1 Panzer IV, 5 Panthers, and 6 Tiger I tanks by March 15, 1945. [18] By 25 April 1945, the division was engaged in heavy fighting in the battles around Pillau.
German citizens in Memel and other regions with proximity to East Prussia also took part in the evacuation, wishing to escape by sea, even though in their regions there was no official evacuation announced. The evacuation, which had been delayed for months, was initiated due to fear of the Red Army advances during the East Prussian Offensive.