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The Soviet re-occupation of Latvia in 1944 refers to the re-occupation of Latvia by the Soviet Union from 1944 to 1991.〔(Country Profiles: Latvia ) at UK Foreign Office〕 During World War II Latvia was first occupied by the Soviet Union in June 1940 and then was occupied by Nazi Germany in 1941–1944 after which it was re-occupied by the Soviet Union. == Battle of the Baltic == (詳細はArmy Group Centre was in tatters, and the northern edge of the Soviet assault threatened to trap Army Group North in a pocket in the Courland region. Panzers of Hyazinth Graf Strachwitz von Gross-Zauche und Camminetz had been sent back to the capital of Ostland, Riga and in ferocious defensive battles had halted the Soviet advance in late April 1944. Strachwitz had been needed elsewhere, and was soon back to acting as the Army Group's fire brigade. Strachwitz's Panzerverband was broken up in late July. By early August, the Soviets were again ready to attempt to cut off Army Group North from Army Group Centre. A massive Soviet assault sliced through the German lines and Army Group North was completely isolated from its neighbour. Strachwitz was trapped outside the pocket, and ''Panzerverband von Strachwitz'' was reformed, this time from elements of the 101st Panzer Brigade of panzer-ace Oberst Meinrad von Lauchert and the newly formed SS Panzer Brigade Gross under SS-Sturmbannführer Gross. Inside the trapped pocket, the remaining panzers and StuG IIIs of the ''Hermann von Salza'' and the last of Jähde's Tigers were formed into another Kampfgruppe to attack from the inside of the trap. On 19 August 1944, the assault, which had been dubbed ''Unternehmen Doppelkopf'' (Operation Doppelkopf) got underway. It was preceded by a bombardment by the cruiser Prinz Eugen's 203mm guns, which destroyed forty-eight T-34s assembling in the square at Tukums. Strachwitz and the ''Nordland'' remnants meet on the 21st, and contact was restored between the army groups. The 101.Panzerbrigade was now assigned to the army detachment "Narwa active at the Emajõgi River Front, bolstering the defenders' armour strength. Disaster had been averted, but the warning was clear. Army Group North was extremely vulnerable to being cut off. In 1944, the Red Army lifted the siege of Leningrad and re-conquered the Baltic area along with much of Ukraine and Belarus. However, some 200,000 German troops held out in Courland along with Latvian forces resisting Soviet reoccupation. They were besieged with their backs to the Baltic Sea. The Red Army mounted numerous offensives at massive losses but failed to take the Courland Pocket. Colonel-General Heinz Guderian, the Chief of the German General Staff insisted to Adolf Hitler that the troops in Courland should be evacuated by sea and used for the defence of the Third Reich; however, Hitler refused and ordered the German forces in Courland to hold out. He believed them necessary to protect German submarine bases along the Baltic coast. On January 15, 1945, Army Group Courland (''Heeresgruppe Kurland'') was formed under Colonel-General Dr. Lothar Rendulic. Until the end of the war, Army Group Courland (including divisions such as the Latvian Freiwiliger SS Legion) successfully defended the Latvian peninsula. It held out until May 8, 1945, when it surrendered under Colonel-General Carl Hilpert, the army group's last commander. He surrendered to Marshal Leonid Govorov, the commander of opposing Soviet forces on the Courland perimeter. At this time the group still consisted of some 31 divisions of varying strength. After May 9, 1945 approximately 203,000 troops of Army Group Courland began moving to Soviet prison camps in the East. The Soviet Union reoccupied Latvia as part of the Baltic Offensive in 1944, a twofold military-political operation to rout German forces and the "liberation of the Soviet Baltic peoples"〔Д. Муриев, ''Описание подготовки и проведения балтийской операции 1944 года'', Военно-исторический журнал, сентябрь 1984. Translation available, D. Muriyev, ''Preparations, Conduct of 1944 Baltic Operation Described'', ''Military History Journal'' (USSR Report, Military affairs), 1984–9, pp. 22–28〕 beginning in summer-autumn 1944, lasting until the capitulation of German and Latvian forces in Courland pocket in May 1945, and they were gradually absorbed into Soviet Union. After World War II, as part of the goal to more fully integrate Baltic countries into the Soviet Union, mass deportations were concluded in the Baltic countries and the policy of encouraging Soviet immigration to Latvia continued.〔( Background Note: Latvia ) at US Department of State〕 On January 12, 1949 the Soviet Council of Ministers issued a decree "on the expulsion and deportation" from Latvia of "all kulaks and their families, the families of bandits and nationalists", and others. More than 200,000 people are estimated to have been deported from the Baltic in 1940–1953. In addition, at least 75,000 were sent to Gulag. 10 percent of the entire adult Baltic population was deported or sent to labor camps. Many soldiers evaded capture and joined the Latvian national partisans' resistance that waged unsuccessful guerilla warfare for several years. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Soviet re-occupation of Latvia in 1944」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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