| Gumbinnen Operation | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part ofEastern Front of World War II | |||||||
.jpg) GermanPanther tank inGoldap, November 1944 | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Germany |  Soviet Union | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Units involved | |||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 318 tanks, assault guns and tank destroyers[1] | 377,300 men[2] | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
16,236 men[2]
| 79,527 men[2]
| ||||||
TheGumbinnen Operation,[3] also known as theGoldap Operation (orGoldap-Gumbinnen Operation,Russian:Гумбиннен-Гольдапская наступательная операция), was aSoviet offensive on theEastern Front late in 1944, in which forces of the3rd Belorussian Front attempted to penetrate the borders ofEast Prussia.
The operation was planned as a result of the success of theMemel Offensive Operation to the north. The troops of the 1st Baltic and 3rd Belorussian Fronts had succeeded in pushing theThird Panzer Army back to the East Prussian border, surrounding the city ofMemel and reaching the shore of theCuronian Lagoon.Stavka permitted Chernyakhovsky to further exploit this success by attacking along theGumbinnen –Insterburg –Königsberg (nowKaliningrad) axis deep intoEast Prussia.
Chernyakhovsky's plan involved using the11th Guards and5th Armies to break open the German defensive lines, before pushing through exploitation forces from the2nd Guards Tank Corps and28th Army. The31st and39th Armies would advance on the flanks of the main force.
The opposing German forces, from the Third Panzer andFourth Armies, were aided by the presence of substantial fortifications, and had been heavily reinforced.
On 16 October, the 5th and 11th Guards Armies went onto the offensive and initially penetrated some 11 km into the German defensive belt. The flanking armies commenced operations the next day, when units of the 11th Guards Army had already crossed the East Prussian border.
The Soviet troops ran into extremely strong resistance. It took them four days to penetrate the initial tactical defenses, and the second defense line was so strong that Chernyakhovsky was compelled to commit the 2nd Guards Tank Corps to break it. Casualties were extremely heavy.
On 20 October, the second line was ruptured by the 11th Guards Army and 2nd Guards Tank Corps east of Gumbinnen, defended by the guns of the18th Anti-Aircraft Division and theFallschirm-Panzerdivision Hermann Göring, which had been redeployed in the area to counter the Soviet advance. On 21 October, the Soviet reserve, the 28th Army, was committed, but the offensive in the north was fought to a standstill in the region ofEbenrode because of effective German counterattacks.
Gumbinnen was taken by 22 October but was retaken by German forces on 24 October after the Germans had committed the5th Panzer Division, andHeavy Panzer Detachment 505 (equipped withTiger IIs). Also,Nemmersdorf, on the banks of theAngrapa River, was taken by units of the 2nd Guards Tank Corps on 21 October but was retaken by German forces on 23 October.
Units of 11th Guards Army found themselves cut off in the area of Großwaltersdorf and were involved in intense fighting. In the meantime, the Germans had pressed more reserves, including the102nd Panzer andFührer Grenadier Brigades into counterattacks atGoldap, on the southern sector of the Soviet penetration. The town was retaken on 25 October.
The Soviet attacks continued until 27 October, as the flanking armies sought to close up to the 11th Guards Army.
There was more fighting in the operation's immediate aftermath: on 28 October, the 31st Army retook Gołdap in a surprise attack. The town was again taken by the 5th Panzer Division, which was redeployed from the Gumbinnen area on 3 November.
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