Yep, common findings between Latvians. My family is Lativan and my great-grandfather was a sailor in the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Imperial Navy during the 1900s. When WW2 came he went back to Latvia. He came back a few years later, just after the war, and never spoke of what happened. Either he was a legionnaire, or he had another wife lol

That region is still attractive to people with metal detectors in their hands. The pocket was the official name that the Soviet propaganda used after the war. Now it is also locally called the fortress on account of it not being taken by the Soviets until it surrendered itself. This topic is of interest in Latvia mostly because among those German divisions was the 2nd Latvian division. So they kinda fought for their homeland.

@@Renuars i think he mentioned at the start, the soviets had the germans right where they wanted them (a self enforced POW camp) and didnt want to spend men and material on what would be a pointless fight.

@@declanmcnamara2223 that's just a soviet excuse for failing so badly

@@swagmasterOG the push into germany was more important

Rest in peace

Compliment? Oh complaint I see

Beeing a German myself, I am quite sure that they meant it as a complaint :) Criticism seams to be a national sport and if somebody does something in our opinion not exactly perfectly, we do complain. Even if it is the enemy :)

There's no glory to be won in fighting an incapable foe ;)

Sounds like the real goal was to pin them in place while Berlin was taken. That would make a lot is sense as the same was the objective for the Disastrous campaign in Italy.

@@Sabelzahnmowe The Red Army did not give us enough Abwer for our Slacht🤣🤣🤣

Actually quite a few Latvian SS soldiers managed to ''switch sides'' when Soviets came in. Maybe not a lot but these stories are out there, but guess a lot depended on what kind of a person the guy was and if he was really a volunteer and commie hater and huge nationalist, or just some enlisted guy who perhaps had decent Russian and got friendly with his captors

​@@lkrnpk Sure, in the company I work for, there was a welder, I've never met him myself, I only know this story from our foreman. That man served in the Legion as a gunner on MG 42, a good one, he got awarded for that, but then he walked across the front line with his weapon, and continued to serve as a gunner, but on the Soviet side, again he was awarded. After Latvia regained independence he used to joke about those awards and asked, so which day should he celebrate - 9th of May (Soviet Victory day) or 16th of March (commemoration day of Legionaries)? I'd say - both, and wear all medals at the same time just for giggles. Look, Latvia as a state did not participate in the WWII at all, it got invaded and occupied by Soviets, that was it. All that was left of the republic was the embassy in the USA. Neither Soviets, nor Nazis were our friends, there were, concentration camps, mass shootings, forced conscription and other crap on both sides, thus we were not obliged to be faithful to either side, just swear allegiance to any of them, which gives you a weapon to shoot at the other one. However, since we were betrayed by Soviets in 1940, at that time it seemed to make more sense to fight on the Axis side, to revenge that injustice., sort of what Finns did, except they still had their own country.

I hate how little we know about the ww2 and it was less than 100yrs ago. I live in Serbia and we still have huge problem with commie propaganda, in Balkans, as a whole. Like straight up fabrication or changing the events - that had live allied witnesses. To make things worse since Tito betrayed Stalin, in order to get US $, even West doesn't care anymore. And, I kid you not, ex-commie ruling families are still in charge, now funded by - EU grants. Complete circus. Anyway always great to read stories from not that well known fronts. Peace

I knew an elderly Latvian gentleman who had nearly the same story. He ended up as an instructor in a red army motor school, and met his future wife there.

It was probably a lot easier for 17/18 year old to switch sides. Even in 1945 it was understood that youth are naive and easily duped. Had he been a 30 year old officer it would certainly have been harder to switch sides.

Some 20 years ago when my family was making more farmland from overgrowth first potato harvests were gathered with 2 buckets: 1 for potatoes and second one for grenades. To this day every year shells are being brought up with ploughs.

Battle of Berlin!

@@JeanLucCaptain no.

Thank you. Sadly, very little information is out there. I assume that one or several supply hubs were in the pocket as well, e.g., like Königsberg in East Prussia ukposts.info/have/v-deo/aqCWhKevkZlnymw.html. At least in the report (although that was from the 2nd Battle so rather early) did not mention an issue about ammo. They did evacuate some units and civilians, I assume they brought in supplies during these runs. I will cover production in an upcoming video, but not how, but at least some numbers from 1945.

There's a couple of good books on the late war defence of Silesia and I can confirm from these that the coal mines remained working up until the day before the Germans believed they would be lost.

They have pretty well supply until March 1945. If (some of) you know Russian, i recommend videos with Miroslav Morozov "Мирослав Морозов. Бои на Балтике в начале 1945 г. Часть 1. Немецкая эвакуация морем", "...Часть 4. Неудачная блокада Курляндской группировки." etc. And they covered Red Fleet and Air forces of Red Army counteraction against supply and evacuation.

These kinds of questions also come to my mind! I would really like to hear more about these topics.

This might be a little useless if you don't speak German but the Mainstatearchive of Stuttgart has a digitalized file named "J170" which compiles the reports of south western German villages, towns and cities about the final days of the war. Some of these are simple reports, ending in less than a page but others are long narrative essays. Of course these should be taken with a grain of salt but they paint a very good picture of the final weeks before the German surrender. These files can be accessed online without any sort of registration or trouble. That being said they are of course in German. The roads were seemingly still mostly fine but very dangerous to drive on as even civilians would often be hit by allied airstrikes should they make use of them. That's why most tried to avoid them as much as possible. Factories were still running but the trucks that brought material in and transfered goods away were appearing less and less frequently before stopping altogether which ususally caused those factories to be abandoned. Eventually towns were entirely cut off from the rest of the Nation, not phsyically (yet) but simply because no official was present and the various communities weren't of any interest. That being said, a few officials still made their turns, trying to convince the people that they had to flee their town as Hitler would soon use his Wunderwaffe there to turn the tides, but these were simple death marshes and many villages had realized that by now and refused to participate in them. The German military at that point was utterly crushed but still refused to surrender. Lone 88s, Hitleryouth units with only 3 panzerfausts and shovels, not even a single rifle (yes this is not an exaggeration but actually what is told in one of the documents) left to defend a village against 2 American tank divisions. And the rare German regiment still in tact, responsible for covering far more frontline than it ever could. But still, the fighting continued as German soldiers refused to surrender, putting up fearsome resistance in almost every forrest and lone soldiers from scattered units sneaking through already occupied towns at night, using gardens and sheds for cover, trying to regroup, was an extremely common occurence. I suppose it can be almost described more as guerrilia warfare than anything else. Though do keep in mind that these are the stories of south western communities, where the Wehrmacht seized to exist as an organised military following what people even back then called a french "reverse ardennes" where they pushed their tanks through the German forests and flanked the major defensive line supposed to hold the region.

I bet those crops are growing real good now.

i do want to point out the soviets didnt use their best formations nor did they really want to desolve the pocket (500.000 man) because it was to much work and the focus was on Berlin and stopping the western powers as far as possible from it.. You may call Courland a strategical victory but in the grander scheme of things it was 500.000 men sitting idle doing nothing for Germany. I suggest TIK's video on the matter.

@@oohhboy-funhouse nothing wrong with the dude lol

@@oohhboy-funhouse his political views have no impact on his evidence based history views imo. But if you feel that way

@@oohhboy-funhouse You might not agree with his political opinions but that doesnt discredit any of his work related to ww2. And by reading your comment I can tell you dont even bother to watch his videos. I would suggest you watch them and maybe broaden your views on history and maybe even politics?

"why won't they run into our bullets and mortar bombardments?"

@@pnutz_2 Amusingly it was often more like "They almost defeated us here, our line was completely shattered, why would they pull back? They could have destroyed our entire division!"

@@Jan-rq8mo How is that complaining? They were just noting that the Soviets could have defeated them, but for some reason more easily lost heart. Sounds like an important thing to note for superiors and tactical planning.

@@uic505050 Kinda funny how that completely goes against the propaganda and misconceptions that are spread around about the Red Army that instead of a aggressive 'horde' as some misinformation says they were actually very cautious in some situations.

@@Christian-mt5jx by late 1944 Soviet infantry quality was quite low as noted in a bunch of reports even Soviet ones, so it isn't surprising a backwater area would get less aggressive infantry units/replacements

Pretty crazy how long they were able to hold out in there. The nazi ideology is shit, no need to discuss that one.. but some of the soldiers were badass. War is hell, it brings out the best and worst in people. Im glad your father not only survived but even escaped russian capture.

You guys were lucky that the Germans considered you kinda Germanic adjacent. The Ukrainians welcomed them as liberators too but they got utterly assraped by the Germans, being seen as nothing more then either cheap slave labor or squatters to be removed or killed from future German land. If the Germans had treated you like they did with the Poles and the Russians you can bet there would have been a lot of anti-German partisans in Latvia. And not 2 SS divisions full of Latvians.

@@chaptermasterpedrokantor1623 Oh , there was not much love against germans . But there was PLEANTY of hate against soviets. And yes , LV had it easy ( except jews ) when compared with other countries occupied by 3rd reich . But look at it like this - gemrans where hated in LV untill 1940. Then red army marched in and in a year managed to make locals greet germans in 1941 as liberators. So , it is less of germans being nice or something against LV , and more of soviets being utterly stupid. Also - Those where Waffen SS , not SS divission. And many in them where volentolds. 3k where excecuted in germany for anti german sentiments in late war.

There seems to be a correlation between language spoken and political affiliation. Are/were there many German speakers in the Baltic?

@@princeofcupspoc9073 before 1940 ? there was around 65k germans living in LV out of 2 millions. Most left whe red army rolled in.

@@princeofcupspoc9073 I don’t really know what is supposed to be implied here? But yes, there were (and still are, but very small community) Germans in the Baltic, they are called Baltendeutsche. They had a presence there since the 1100s. But I’m not so sure they had anything to do necessarily with native Baltic people siding with the Germans. Baltic people tended not to like the Russians very much, so they had to pick between the lesser of the two evils in their eyes.

then do it

@@EricToTheScionti I'm going to try, I've thought about it on and off for a while, trying to decide how to do it. I've started collecting militaria items and am seriously going to start trying to get more involved in it.. Just trying to find a good starting point

Get into historical reenacting with a good group and you can do it.

@@russbooth6766 I've got kit for re-enacting. But where I live its almost none existent for events. They've cancelled it since Covid and don't plan on doing anymore

Not quite so, Sir. Soviets attempted breakthroughs on about-monthly basis up to April 1945.

@@drEvilfromLV well no shit just becuase you have them in the corner you might as well should keep trying to make that corner smaller

You're missing the point. If the soviets goal was to contain them in place then why did they attack 6 times? Obviously the pocket was a frustration for them. The point is with a defensive force massively outnumbered and outgunned they fended off the strongest army int he world at that time. Tactically this is very impressive, irregardless of russia's plans on berlin.

@@PolishBehemoth I'd say they wanted to keep them occupied by forcing them on the defensive

@@user-vp9lc9up6v that makes no sense at all. What you'd say has no military or historical example. They were already on the defensive. Do you think before typing?

Yo

Thank you!

I concur.

I can't recommend Tik unless you are playing fallacy bingo.

@@princeofcupspoc9073 Imo it depends on what you watch: just stay clear of his political analysis stuff, his battlestorms are pretty sparse with that kind of claims.

@@princeofcupspoc9073 i watch for the history stuff, not his political stuff. I dont care where he is on the political spektrum.

@@princeofcupspoc9073 only watch battlestorms and qa if the question sounds interesting

means he was lucky or was imprisoned just because. Being releases before 1951 was not too common.

@@murderouskitten2577 He was 14 when He was imprisoned i think He was released because He was too Young

@Milk Guzzler A whole third of POWs were kept imprisoned half a decade after the War, which is another way of looking at it.

I was conscripted and ended up as a platoon leader in the FDF, which considers itself somewhat 'Prussianized', if such a word can be used. We were taught to use scale in our overviews of the area and positions. It really helps in communication. Curious that the Germans did not avail themselves of such. Although perhaps they did at the platoon level and it was not considered necessary on the regimental level?

Glad you enjoy it!

Aided heavily by terrain

Nothing mentioned in the report.

He was a cruel Nazi that shot at own troups but deserted himself.

The only "things" He executed have been his own soldiers if the Do not exactly followed his Orders ("fight to the death and never retreat")

That's the literal translation however the actual meaning is more along the lines of it went well one more time due to pure luck. It also usually is used to express relief after "surviving" a critical or dangerous situation and disaster was narrowly avoided.

Cant exactly translate this properly, as it is a tiny bit of an idiom (not really quite idiom, but a bit of a phrase anyway). Best way to translate this would probably a bit of a sarcastic/dark humour statement along the lines of: "we just about won the day, barely" or " almost lost this one/almost lost it"

The phrase "Es ist nochmal gut gegangen!" is basically a shot version of "Es ist gerade nochmal gut gegangen!", it is funny because I associate with it "that was close", so I was quite confused when I saw the literal translation and corrected it.

I think this section needed a non-literal translation since the current one doesn't capture the meaning of the phrase.

There's another place where something similar happens at the end. "kann nicht genug getan werden" is translated as "cannot be done enough" where a more colloquial translation of "no such thing as too much effort" would be a better fit to explain that every possible effort should be made.

It's not a map, it's a tactical sketch. Distances, positioning and layout had to be adapted to the realities in place by the frontline commanders.

@@paganshredhead599 If this isnt a map than a field isn't a field, its an adaptive landscape

“No scale was given”

The battle is well known

Its probably due to the shift in terms of weaponry and tactics. To fight infantry you have IFV´s and for AA you have SPAA´s, most threats that existed earlier have either vanished (low alt strafing runs) or have a potential to knock your tank out from 40km away. So basically as you said cost related and unnecessary. Besides that even if a tank comes into the need of having a coax there are cannister shots and or proximity HE rounds that do the job as well or the crew is ready to meet their maker depending who shoots first etc..

Possible yes, but rather uninteresting for me, also my language skills are wasted on that comparison.

@@MilitaryHistoryVisualized I see

as stated in the video, no information was given in that regard.

Infanterie Geschütz. J is often used for capital i at that time.

Nearly everyone else does it, more often than not the comparisons are superficial at best. Although there are some patterns that can be found, but that goes usually beyond stuff like "this is like X".

@@MilitaryHistoryVisualized Alright. An in-depth analysis, some time after the fighting ends, will still be "regarding current events". There should be more than one country doing maneuvers like recognition of LDR, and a historian's perspective may reveal what non-historians can't see. Either way, thanks for your attention.

actually very few if you look at the authorized strength

@@MilitaryHistoryVisualized What does that mean in this context?

should be 6 companies there, authorized numbers of LMGs 13 and 2 HMGs per company. Pretty sure there are not 78 LMGs shown.

@@MilitaryHistoryVisualized Thanks!

because the literal translation does not work here. > "Heute haben wir es knapp geschafft" technically correct, but we don't say that, we see "nochmal gut gegangen". We would say "das war knapp", but that is something one says in the situation.

Weiß ich leider nicht, 2 Möglichkeiten sind a) Grenadiere waren früher eher elitär, daher Aufwertung, b) Grenadiere waren eher schwere Infanterie, die leichte Infanterie in der Wehrmacht wurden dann ja Jäger genannt. Soweit ich weiß gilt in der Bundeswehr: Jäger leichte Infanterie, Grenadiere schwere Infanterie.