East Prussian offensive

East Prussian offensive
Part of the Eastern Front of World War II
Soviet offensive in East Prussia
Date 13 January – 25 April 1945 Location East Prussia Result Soviet victory Territorial changes Most of East Prussia is annexed by Poland and the Soviet Union annexes Königsberg, Memel and their surrounding areas.
Belligerents
Soviet Union Kampfgruppen[1]	Germany  Italian Social Republic
Commanders and leaders
Konstantin Rokossovsky Aleksandr Vasilevsky Ivan Bagramyan	Georg-Hans Reinhardt Lothar Rendulic Friedrich Hossbach Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller Erhard Raus Walter Weiß Dietrich von Saucken
Units involved
Red Army 2nd Belorussian Front 3rd Belorussian Front 43rd Army 1st Baltic Front Soviet Navy Baltic Fleet	Wehrmacht Army Group Centre (renamed the Army Group North) 3rd Panzer Army 4th Army 2nd Army Volkssturm IX Settembre Battalion[2]
Strength
1,669,100 men,[3] 3,000 tanks, 25,000 guns, 3,000 aircraft	580,000 men, 200,000 Volkssturm troopers, 700 tanks, 8200 guns and 700 aircraft
Casualties and losses
126,464 dead or missing 458,314 wounded and sick[4]	Unknown killed or wounded 220,000 captured[5]

The East Prussian offensive^[6] was a strategic offensive by the Soviet Red Army against the German Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front (World War II). It lasted from 13 January to 25 April 1945, though some German units did not surrender until 9 May. The Battle of Königsberg was a major part of the offensive, which ended in victory for the Red Army.

The East Prussian offensive is known to German historians as the second East Prussian offensive. The first East Prussian offensive (also known as the Gumbinnen Operation), took place from 16 to 27 October 1944, and was carried out by the 3rd Belorussian Front under General I.D. Chernyakhovsky as part of the Memel offensive^[7] of the 1st Baltic Front. The Soviet forces took heavy casualties while penetrating 30–60 km (19–37 mi) into east-northern part of Poland, and the offensive was postponed until greater reserves could be gathered.