The Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, along with the rest of the Baltic eastern coast and islands, was overrun by the German Army Group North during 1941.

Operation Bagration was extremely successful, resulting in the almost complete destruction of Army Group Centre, and ended on 29 August.

On 9 October 1944, the Soviet forces reached the Baltic Sea near Memel after overrunning the headquarters of the 3rd Panzer Army.

Hitler's military advisors—notably Heinz Guderian, the Chief of the German General Staff—urged evacuation and utilisation of the troops to stabilise the front in central Europe.

Hitler still believed the war could be won, and hoped that Dönitz's new Type XXI U-boat technology could bring victory to Germany in the Battle of the Atlantic, forcing the Allies out of Western Europe.

From 27 October to 25 November – Soviets launched an offensive trying to break through the front toward Skrunda and Saldus including at one point initiating a simultaneous attack by 52 divisions.

[10][page needed] The third phase of the fighting (also known as "the other Christmas Battle") started on 21 December with a Soviet attack on Germans near Saldus.

On 8 May, Germany's Head of State and President Karl Dönitz ordered Colonel-General Carl Hilpert – the Army Group's last commander – to surrender.

[12] On 9 May, the Soviet commission in Peilei started to interrogate the captive staff of Army Group Courland, and general collection of prisoners began.

Hostilities consisted of containing German breakout attempts, and the Red Army made no concerted effort to capture the Courland Pocket,[citation needed] which was of little strategic importance after the isolation of Army Group North, whereas the main offensive effort was required for the Vistula-Oder and Berlin Offensives.

The modern research of Grigoriy Krivosheev indicates a total of 160,948 Soviet casualties between 16 February and 8 May 1945": 30,501 "irrecoverable" and 130,447 "medical" losses.

Soviet operations intended to further isolate and also destroy the enemy, but the strength of the attacking troops was too low to make any significant progress in the difficult terrain.

[8][15] Throughout the campaign against the Courland pocket, Soviet forces did not advance more than 25 miles anywhere along the front, ending no more than a few kilometers forward of their original positions after seven months of conflict.

[citation needed] According to Russian records, 146,000 German and Latvian troops were taken prisoner, including 28 generals and 5,083 officers,[8] and taken to camps in the USSR interior and imprisoned for years.

Current scholarship puts the count of those surrendering at about 190,000:[15] 189,112 Germans including 42 generals—among them Hilpert, who was executed for war crimes after trial in Soviet captivity in 1947[15]—and approximately 14,000 Latvians.

[19] The Soviets detained all males between the ages of 16 and 60, and conducted widespread deforestation campaigns, burning tracts of forest to flush out resisters.