The Battle of Memel or the siege of Memel () was a battle which took place on the Eastern Front during World War II. The battle began when the Red Army launched its Memel offensive operation () in late 1944. The offensive drove remaining German forces in the area that is now Lithuania and Latvia into a small bridgehead in Klaipėda (Memel) and its port, leading to a three-month siege of that position. The bridgehead was finally crushed as part of a subsequent Soviet offensive, the East Prussian offensive, in early 1945. Prelude The Soviet Belorussian offensive of June–August 1944 (commonly known as Operation Bagration) had seen the German Army Group Centre nearly destroyed and driven from what is now Belarus, most of what is now Lithuania and much of Poland. During August and September of that year, a series of German counter-offensives – Operations Doppelkopf and Casar – succeeded in stalling the Soviet advance and maintaining the connection between the German Army Groups Centre and North; however, Stavka made preparations for an attack by the 1st Baltic Front against the positions of the Third Panzer Army and thence towards Memel, splitting the two Army Groups. Soviet General Bagramyan planned to make his main attack in a 19 km sector to the west of Šiauliai. He concentrated up to half of his entire force in this area, using concealment techniques to ensure there was not a corresponding build-up of German forces, and attempting to convince the German command that the main axis of attack would be towards Riga. Deployments Wehrmacht Various miscellaneous units of the Kriegsmarine. Northern wing of Third Panzer Army (General Erhard Raus) Remnants of the 551st Volksgrenadier Division XXVIII Corps (General Hans Gollnick) The corps was encircled in Memel bridgehead. Panzergrenadier Division Großdeutschland (2 regiments) 7th Panzer Division (part) 58th Infantry Division XL Panzer Corps (General Sigfrid Henrici) 5th Panzer Division 548th Volksgrenadier Division At the end of November Panzer-Grenadier-Division "GrossDeutschland" and 7th Panzer Division were withdrawn and replaced by: 95th Infantry Division Red Army 1st Baltic Front (General Hovhannes Bagramyan) 5th Guards Tank Army (General Vasily Volsky) 43rd Army (Lieutenant-General Afanasy Beloborodov) 51st Army (Lieutenant-General Yakov Kreizer) 4th Shock Army (Lieutenant-General Pyotr Malyshev) 6th Guards Army (Lieutenant-General Ivan Chistyakov) 3rd Belorussian Front 39th Army (Lieutenant-General Ivan Lyudnikov) The offensive On 5 October, Bagramyan opened the offensive against Raus's Third Panzer Army on a sixty-mile front, concentrating