A total of 42 German generals, 8,038 officers, and 181,032 soldiers surrendered. Soviet troops captured 325 tanks and self-propelled guns, 2,000 guns and mortars, 6,000 vehicles, and 136 aircraft.
Soviet documents indicate that the Germans dug their tanks into the ground en masse, turning them into pillboxes because they lacked fuel. I don't think anyone dug them up for the surrender ceremony. Buried assault guns would have been of little use.
Beginning in October 1944, two German armies (the 16th and 18th) were pinned down and blocked on Latvia's Baltic coast (from Tukums to the port of Liepaja). This encircled the entire Army Group North, which contained even more troops than those encircled at Stalingrad—according to various sources, up to 400,000 soldiers and officers as of early October 1944.
The total area of the Courland Pocket covered approximately 15,000 square kilometers (about a quarter of Latvia's territory). For comparison, up to 400,000 German troops were trapped in the Ruhr Pocket in March 1945, 330,000 (including Italians) in the Tunisian Pocket in March 1943, and approximately 200,000 in Stalingrad in December 1942.
It's worth noting that, unlike most pockets (except the Tunisian Pocket), the Courland Pocket was not completely blockaded, allowing the encircled forces to maintain communication with Germany via the Baltic Sea, through the ports of Liepaja and Ventspils.
Thus, it was possible to supply the group with ammunition, food, and medicine, evacuate the wounded by sea, and even transfer entire divisions from the group directly to German territory.
According to other sources, the encircled German forces were somewhat fewer; in the fall of 1944, they numbered approximately 28-30 divisions, including three tank divisions. With an average of 7,000 men per division, the total strength of the army group was 210,000. Including special units, aviation, and logistics, the army group totaled approximately 250,000 men.
After 10 divisions were evacuated by sea to Germany beginning in early 1945, the size of the army group at the time of the capitulation, according to some researchers, was approximately 180,000 men.
All these German divisions defended only 200 kilometers of frontline. Such troop density is more typical for divisions preparing for an offensive. The Germans only achieved such a high troop density during the Battle of Berlin, at the Seelow Heights.
The Russians generally treated prisoners fairly well. As for those who surrendered at Stalingrad, they were simply unlucky. Most of them were already extremely exhausted and, for the most part, sick.
Following an examination of the prisoners, the following medical report was made:
"The condition of those captured:
Dystrophy – 70%.
Vitamin deficiency – 100%.
Frostbite – 60%.
Mental exhaustion – 100%.
Near-death condition – 10%."
Considering local logistics and the Russians' lack of sufficient transport to get them to the railway (the battle was still ongoing), they faced long marches on foot in the bitter cold. Many prisoners could not withstand the journey and died.
"During the Great Patriotic War and after the surrender of Nazi Germany, a huge number of Wehrmacht soldiers were captured by the Soviets. Modern German historians estimate the total at 3.2-3.6 million (including all those missing in action). Their Russian colleagues, citing Russian archives, give a more modest figure of 2.3-2.4 million soldiers, officers, and generals. Nearly 400,000 of them died in captivity.
By comparison, more than 5,730,000 Soviet soldiers were captured by the Germans. 3.3 million of them died, including hundreds of thousands executed."
goes to sea with the Terrain Mat.
