Heiligenbeil Pocket - The Pocket Forms

The Pocket Forms

To save his units from encirclement, Hossbach started to pull the Fourth Army back to the west in direct contravention of orders, abandoning the prepared defences around Lötzen on 23 January. By this time, Rokossovsky's 2nd Belorussian Front had already broken through on Hossbach's right; the Soviet 5th Guards Tank Army headed for the Baltic coast, cutting off most of East Prussia. Through a series of forced marches in atrocious winter weather, and accompanied by thousands of civilians, the Fourth Army moved towards Elbing, still held by the German Second Army, but found its path blocked by Soviet forces of the 48th Army to the east of the town.

An attack beginning on the night of 26 January initially resulted in lead elements of the 28th Jäger Division breaking through to Elbing, where they linked up with the 7th Panzer Division; however German forces were driven back during the next four days after the 48th Army had regrouped. Hossbach's units now found themselves pushed into a Kessel with their backs to the Frisches Haff.

Hossbach was relieved of command on 29 January, and was replaced by Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller. His three corps were given an order to cease their breakout attempt on 30 January. Along with some units of Second Army, they found themselves encircled in the area of Heiligenbeil and Braunsberg; many of the civilians trapped with them attempted to escape across the frozen Haff to the Frische Nehrung and thence to Pillau or Danzig, reinforced paths marked by lamps having been constructed across the ice by Fourth Army's engineers.

As the Nazis had effectively forbidden their evacuation, East Prussia's civil population was in full numbers when the Red Army attacked on January 12, 1945. It resulted in a mass flight westwards, towards the coast. Many were killed, either by the Soviets or by the severe frost. At the coast, in particular in the harbour of Pillau, the German navy managed to evacuate tens of thousands of them over the Baltic sea. The German navy's efforts also help to explain the 'Wehrmacht's very fierce resistance on land: every hour delay for the Red Army meant an additional rescue of thousands of East Prussian aged, women and children.

Attempts to break through the German perimeter early in February were fought back, with the Fourth Army receiving heavy artillery support from the ships Admiral Scheer and Lützow, firing across the Haff from the Baltic towards the Frauenburg end of the pocket. Frauenburg itself was taken on February 9, in fierce fighting against elements of the 170th Infantry Division. During one Soviet attack 3rd Belorussian Front's commander, General Ivan Chernyakhovsky, was killed by a shell splinter near Mehlsack. His successor Marshal Aleksandr Vasilevsky, having effectively contained the remains of the Army Group, concentrated on assembling reinforcements over the next month: the Germans, under the supervision of Major-General Karl Henke, continued to attempt resupply and evacuations of wounded along the Frische Nehrung, often at night to avoid air attack. A long, narrow corridor through to the besieged garrison of Königsberg was also maintained through a joint effort by the garrison and the Großdeutschland Panzergrenadier Division against the attacks of the 11th Guards Army.

Though the German forces in East Prussia had no realistic hope of victory, and were severely short of manpower, ammunition, and fuel, they continued to offer strong resistance: the Red Army suffered extremely high casualties in the East Prussian Operation as a whole. Ad-hoc battle groups were often bolstered by civilians press-ganged into the Volkssturm, and many East Prussian villages and towns had been turned into fortified strongpoints, in addition to the substantial fortifications centred on Heilsberg. In part, the fighting was prolonged in order to keep open civilian escape routes; in any case, requests to evacuate the main body of the Fourth Army were refused by the Oberkommando des Heeres. The Soviet attack, however, came tragically late for the remaining inmates of the Heiligenbeil concentration camp, along with other camps in the area: even as Hossbach's forces were attempting to break out of East Prussia, the prisoners were driven to the coast and massacred.