in 1939 Germany and the Soviet Union had
divided Eastern Europe into mutual
spheres of influence Estonia fell into
the Soviets pair and by meet 1940 the
country was occupied by the Red Army and
annexed into the Soviet Union by meet
1941 Germany was finishing preparations
to attack the Soviet Union the attack
would be launched by three army groups
Army Group North would advance in the
Baltic with the objective of capturing
Leningrad the attack was launched on the
22nd of June the Germans caught the Red
Army by surprise and after defeats near
the border the Soviet forces began the
retreat to form a new line behind the
dog of a river however the Germans had
already ceased the breach had over it
the Germans continued their advance
northwards now the Red Army attempted to
create another defensive line using the
fortifications on their 1939 border the
so called Stalin line while their other
units withdrew north into Estonia most
of the German troops were to make an
attempt to break this down in lyon near
scope while the smaller force would
follow the Soviet forces north into
Estonia Estonia hosts important Soviet
naval installations the coastline was
covered by an extensive network of
coastal artillery batteries while tens
of thousands of soldiers guarded the
coast against the potential and phoebius
assault after the loss of the Soviet
naval base of near payam Tallinn became
their only naval base near central
Baltic the main goal of the Germans in
Estonia was the capture of Tallinn many
Soviet policies were unpopular among
white swaths of estonian population and
just a week before the war the first
mass deportation was carried through by
the soviet state security services many
people had escaped to the forests to
avoid being deported and began an armed
struggle against the soviet authorities
they would become known as the forest
brothers the soviets
formed about twenty volunteer
destruction battalions from the local
communists and their supporters to
combat the insurrection and conduct
scorched earth policies the Germans
assumed that the Red Army had abandoned
Estonia and were unaware that it had
taken defensive positions in the central
part of the conch
as a result the Germans had allocated
only two divisions for the capture of
the country one division would advance
into Western and the other into central
Estonia the divisions main forces were
preceded by their forward detachments in
central Estonia the forward attachment
advanced and captured the town of
Finland a the raid Army was able to
contain its advance and successfully
retreat to the main line of resistance
the Red Army had abandoned the territory
south of its defenses which allowed the
forest brothers to organize their forces
they took over control in southern
Estonia and began skirmishing with the
Red Army in the town of Tartu in central
Estonia the main forces of the German
division joined combat they were able to
push the Red Army back somewhat but
could not break through their defense
the Germans had better luck in the West
where the forward attachment outmaneuver
the Red Army taking the town of Panama
they had outflanked the Soviet defense
and proceeded north towards Tallinn with
little opposition the Red Army pulled
the division off from coastal defense
duty and used it to block the German
advance at Maruyama
the main force of the German division
arrived there was heavy fighting for
several days the Germans were unable to
advance further the advance of both
German divisions had been stopped by the
Red Army the Germans realized that they
needed a different strategy and more
forces to conquer Estonia they decided
to create the point of main effort in
central Estonia and concentrated both of
their divisions there they deployed
three more divisions to Estonia one
would strengthen their forces in the
center another would cover the Western
and the third the eastern flank
while the Germans were reorganizing
their forces in Estonia their troops
further east were attempting to continue
the advance towards Leningrad by that
time the Red Army had recovered from
their early defeats and the German
forces had exhausted much of their
original offensive power the Germans
were unable to make large gains they
decided that the situation had become
too unfavorable to continue the
offensive they halted the operations for
two weeks to restore their combat
potential by that time the Germans had
finished deployment of their forces into
central Estonia the Red Army also
concentrated its forces in the region to
match them they were able to create the
continuous front and form the reserve
force its goal would be to cede off any
German breakthroughs with
counter-attacks as the Red Army expected
the Germans to continue the attack
toward Stalin their reserves were
deployed in the northern direction
however the first mission of the German
forces was to cut off the Soviet forces
in eastern Estonia and capture the
airfield at Tartu the Germans began the
offensive on the 22nd of July they
managed to achieve surprise and broke
through the Soviet lines at the same
time they launched pinning attacks north
in order to keep the Red Army's units
from moving east the Soviet reserves
were not in position to launch an
immediate counter-attack and began
redeploying the Germans were able to
continue the advance the Red Army
delayed the evacuation of the units in
the south and the Germans managed to
reach the lake Pepsi and cut them off
the Soviet forces were pushed into small
pockets near the coast the troops
attempted to break through the German
positions but only a small part of them
was able to exfiltrate to their own
lines the Soviet reserves finally
arrived launched a counter-attack
however the Germans had had some days to
reorganize their forces and prepare them
to move north into a gap in the Red
Army's lines the Germans were able to
start their attack before the Soviets
with Little Red Army forces in their way
they advanced quickly into the rear of
the counter-attacking Soviet units at
the same time the German units in the
south were able to hold back the Soviet
counter-attack other German forces
joined the attack from the west and the
radar miss counter at
can units found themselves encircled
with the two encirclements the raid army
had lost its strongest forces in Estonia
and the balance of power had shifted
decisively into Germany's favour as a
result the Red Army could now do little
to hamper German progress the Soviet
command decided to reinforce their
forces in Estonia with two divisions but
it would take a while for them to arrive
the Germans now made it their goal to
cut the Soviet forces in Estonia into
two soon they were able to sever the
railway communication between Tallinn
and Leningrad the Germans now had to
choose whether to proceed west and take
Tallinn or go east the main body of Army
Group North was to start its offensive
that was Leningrad and it was chosen to
support that attack and move east the
Germans reached the sea and fully caught
the Red Army's forces in Estonia into
two the Soviets attempted a desperate
counter-attack to reconnect their forces
but it did not have much success the
German advance continued on the 8th
focused
the Germans had launched their attack on
Leningrad the Red Army needed to deploy
all of its forces to stop this offensive
and its forces retreated out of Estonia
and joined the battles on the approaches
to Leningrad the German advance towards
the sea had caught off Soviet forces in
the Baltic which numbered at least
75,000 men the Germans and Finn's laid
several minefields in the Gulf of
Finland to hamper traffic between the
cutoff Soviet forces and Leningrad the
Soviet command decided not to
concentrate all of their forces into a
single formidable position and instead
it was decided to hold all of the areas
they controlled
this allowed the Germans to destroy the
positions one by one first target was
the thailand naval base the Red Army had
about 27,000 men for defense they had
mobilized the civilian population and
during the preceding weeks were able to
construct three defensive rings around
the city
the Germans finished the preparations
and launched the offensive on the 20th
of August their main axis of attack was
from the east along the highway the Red
Army was to overstretch to hold the
outer line and retreated to the second
which was
their main line of resistance here they
were supported by the naval artillery of
the Baltic Fleet and were able to slow
down the German advance however soon the
port came into the range of the German
artillery which made it unusable for
naval operations the Soviet command
decided to evacuate all in via the sea
civilians soldiers and men mobilized
into the Red Army were loaded onto ships
which left to the sea on the 28th of
August the Germans reached the port more
than 10,000 Red Army soldiers had been
left behind most of whom became
prisoners of war soviet navy and
transport ships attempt to break through
to leningrad the Finnish and the German
minefields and air and naval forces
caused heavy casualties to the convoys
most of the war ships reached Leningrad
but half of the transport ships were
sunk
now the Germans turned towards the
Western Estonian islands the remaining
part of the Soviet forces in the
mainland pulled back to the islands and
prepared for defence the Soviet command
was reluctant to evacuate the islands
one of the reasons was the use of the
airfields in saaremaa by Soviet Air
Force to bomb Berlin the Soviets had
fortified the island with many enable
artillery batteries but they were
directed towards the open sea and the
eastern direction was left uncovered the
island of forum C was the least
fortified and the Germans captured it
first the islands of Saruman mumu had a
garrison of 18,000 500 men but the
Soviets did not know where the Germans
would land and the defenders were
dispersed along the coastline the
Soviets were unable to stop the German
landings to the island of move and the
Germans who were ran it in some days
from there they moved on to Tsar Emma at
the same time the launched several
diversionary attacks which did not allow
the Red Army to concentrate all of their
forces against the main German offensive
the Germans pushed the soviets into the
western part of the island
the Soviets lacked enough naval
transport to evacuate their forces and
they pulled them
back to make last stand on the survey
Peninsula which was much more favorable
for defense here the German advance
slowed down significantly they slowly
pushed forward and after two weeks of
fighting they reached the tip of the
peninsula and captured the surviving
Soviet defenders witnessing the failure
of defense of saaremaa the Soviets
decided to evacuate the 5,000 strong
garrison of the island of humor however
before most of the evacuation could be
started the Germans launched an
amphibious assault on the island they
orchestrated several diversionary
attacks which fractured the defenders
forces they pushed the Soviets
northwards and soon held the southern
and eastern part of the island
the remaining Soviet forces retreated to
the north to be evacuated but they were
unable to stop the German advance and
soon the Germans reached the
northernmost point of the island by that
time the Soviets were in control of Hong
Kong naval base in Finland
with a garrison of 23,000 soldiers and
the island of Ausmus all in Estonia with
a garrison of 1,500 men as winter
approached the freezing of the sea
threatened to cut these bases completely
off from naval supply and the Soviet
command decided to evacuate them in the
beginning of December the last Soviet
soldiers left the basis for Leningrad
and with that all of Estonia was in
German hands meanwhile the Germans had
reached the approaches of Leningrad but
they lacked the strength to take the
city instead they attempted to cut off
the last railroad that enabled to supply
the city over the lake ladoga the
strength of the Red Army had the German
forces had become equal and the Soviets
repelled the offensive and retook the
railway the supply of Leningrad was
retained during the next two years most
of the fighting took place in the
southern and central parts of the front
and in the north the Red Army did not
advance much however by January of 1944
the balance of power was altered
significantly to the Red Army's favour
and the Soviet forces prepared to
undertake a massive attack on the
northern part of the front
we'll talk about that in the next part
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