The Times | September 21, 1944 A NEW BALTIC OFFENSIVE. DOUBLE THRUST IN ESTONIA RUSSIANS ADVANCE 45 MILES
The following Order of the Day from Marshal'Stalin to Marshal Govorov was issued last night:- Troops.of the Leningrad front, having passed to the offensive from the area north of Tartu IDorpatJ, broke through powerful German defenses and, in four days' offensive operations, advanced about 45 miles over a front of 75 miles, liberating more than 1,500 inhabited places. These, included Mustve [45 miles south-east of Rakvere on the north-west shore of Lake Peipus] and Ayinurne [35 miles south- east of Rakverej. At the same time troops of the Leningrad front went over to the offensive west of Narva and, in three days' fighting, advanced to a depth of 37 miles. occupying more than 300 inhabited places, including Vaskanarva [25 miles south of Narva] and Sonda [a railway junction 18 miles east of Rakverej.
The Times | September 25, 1944
FLIGHT TO THE SEA GERMANS ATTACKED IN PORTS
FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT IN MOSCOW. Sept. 14 ... When Moscow's guns, followed by the playing of the Soviet and Estonian national anthems saluted Marshal Govorov and his men for the capture of Parnu on the Gulf of Riga, the Germans had been forced to relinquish all Estonia except the hinterland some 40 miles deep behind Haapsaiu port and two islands, Saaremaa (Oesel) and Hiiumaa (Dagol, the scene of a heroic Russian stand in the early months of' the war. The thrust made by tanks and infantry who covered more than 50 miles in a dark, far outpaced the enemy's futile attempts to organize resistance along the main road from the north-east, and many vehicles are reported to have fallen intact into the hands of the Russian,. who cutoff lengths of the highway in. a series of neat flanking moves.
The Times | September 26, 1944
LAST STAGE IN ESTONIA BATTLE FOR THE I ISLANDS RUSSIANS CLOSING ON RIGA
The. Russian High Command announced last night:- In west and south Estonia our troops developed their offensive to-day and captured more than 800 inhabited localities, including the port of Haapsalu. West of Rujiena 125 miles north-west of Velga] and Valmiera our troops captured the town and railway station of Nlasswate and more than 200 other places.
MOSCOW. SEPT. 25 The Red Army's whirlwind campaign in Estonia and Latvia, now in its second week has become a battle for the narrowing strip of the Estonian coastline, with the islands of Oesel, Dago, and Moon that: enclose the Gulf of Riga. and for Riga itself. In the north the time when the remnants of the German Sixteenth Army are driven into the sea may be very near. There are still strong forces to be disposed of on the approaches to Riga. Perhaps the most significant of the latest news is the passage of the Baltic Red Fleet through the Gulf of Finland, for the Germans laid many mines in these waters., the chief region of resistance inland is now in the low hills of the central Latvian plateau and on the north bank of the Dvina. The Russian successes in the Valmiera region have had their- effect on the fighting in progress on the main Pskov-Riga highway, which crosses the northern part of THE plateau. There is still a fairly large German force south of the Ptskov road on or about the Gutlbene railway, but it vas forced back across the Gauija yesterday and was last re- ported in retreat to the south-west. It will need to move quickly to avoid being squeezed between the closing jaws of the Russian advance, for SaturdayVs break-through cast of Riga was on a high scale, and there are no natural barriers between it and the Latvian capital. Meanwhile General Bagrarnyan's men, still holding the enemy from MitaLu on their left flank, stand on the lower Dvina outside Riga. a broad stream which is difficult to cross. As THE Russians objective is the (destruction of THE German armies it is unlikely that any attempt will be made to storm Riga until THE forces north of the river have come forward.
The Times | October 12, 1944
The Campaign in the North
Since the Russians took Tallinn by storm on September 22, their progress towards the complete reconquest of the Baltic republics has been both continuous and rapid. With a strategic caution none the less well judged because it disappointed the excessive hopes of some who expected the swift advance to Kovno in the summer to be followed by an immediate invasion of East Prussia, they refrained from stepping upon German soil while the group of hostile armies distributed between the Niemen and the Gulf of Finland still impended over their flank. The enemy, for his part, planned to use the threat of these armies to impose the greatest possible delay on the Russian advance, even at the cost of seeing them eventually cut off and prevented from taking part in the final campaign for the defence of the Reich. The defection of Finland from the German cause gravely weakened their position, by giving to the allies control of the northern shores of the gulf; and four days after the fall of Tallinn the German oversea news agency acknowledged that the Russians had occupied the whole of Estonia. The stage now in progress is the reduction of the German garrisons in the two southern republics of Latvia and Lithuania, the continued resistance of which has come more and more to depend on their capacity to hold the great port of Riga. Riga, protected by a heavily fortified zone, has been partially invested since the beginning of August; indeed at one time the Russians, by penetrating to the shores of the Gulf of Riga on the west of the city, cut the whole German force in two, until a counter-offensive in the third week cap- tured Tukkum and reopened a narrow corridor of communication with the armies to the north. The Russian armies, advanc- ing from the occupation of Estonia, have now closed in upon Riga until it is encircled on the landward side at distances ranging from about five to thirty-five miles. The enemy has ordered the town to be evacuated of civilians-presumably of Letts as well as of the large German colony. To complete the investment and make sure of preventing the escape of the garrison requires control of the approaches from the sea; and for this reason the Russians during the last fortnight have been fighting for the mastery of the two large islands that cover the mouth of the Gulf of Riga. They have cleared Dago the more northerly of the two, and most of the more southerly. Oesel: but on the latter a German force still clings tenaciously to the narrow peninsula of Soerwe, which juts out to within a few miles of their positions on the Latvian shore, and for the time being prevents Russian ships from entering the gulf. Meanwhile
The Times | October 17, 1944
EVOLUTION IN ESTONIA A SURVEY AFTER THE GERMAN WITHDRAWAL SOVIET SECURITY IN THE BALTIC
From Our Moscow Correspondent. (Who appears to be a Commie)
With their peculiar taste in bad jokes at the expense of weaker peoples, the German soldiers in the Lettland and Estland (Latvian and Estonian) garrisons referred to them as Fettland and Essenland, and, indeed, it was fattening and feeding they were up to there during their three years' occupation. These descendants of . the Knights of the Cross, who established themselves with methods no less cruel in Estonia 700 years ago, consumed the land's plenty, and when they had to leave they made the peasants drive their cattle before them, or scared them into flight. with tales of Russian frightfulness. They took the timber; they overworked the factories till the machines wore out, then blew them up. They brought nothing into Estonia except propaganda. Lacking thread as well as joy, the peasants stopped embroidering. A representative of the peasants of Harjumaa region, a burly, scowling fellow, who has come to Tallinn to report to the authorities, told how the occupation had affected his community of about 140 farm- steads. Jan Poeder was one of 50,000 Estonian farmers who received land under the 1940 reforms; his holding was in- creased to the extent of 30 acres, and that year for the first time he was able to discard homespun for a suit of manufactured cloth. The German occupation resulted in the revocation of both land reform acts of 1940 and 1919, though in their own in- terests the Germans dared not fully restore the feudal conditions in which the Baltic barons had farmed their Estonian estates. Instead, they were maintained through co- operatives or local authorities, with the vital difference that the State gave nothing in return, either in cash or in kind.
THE GUERRILLA MOVEMENT Thus Poeder, with his holding reduced to 10 acres, and with farming becoming increasingly unremunerative as the short- age of fertilizers, transport, and labour grew, was obliged to surrender half his rye crop, two thirds of his eggs, and 661b. of meat each year; for every pig in his sty half the meat, all the hide; most of the wool from every sheep slain; half the hide and a third of the meat from every ox slain. In return for this during three years he received one pair of wooden- soled boots. In addition he was obliged to meet the demands of German punitive forces frequently stationed in the village. Shortly before the Russian Baltic offensive the Germans ordered the peasants to assemble with their livestock for evacuation. In Poeder's village only 158 out of 1,400 peasants obeyed the order, the rest taking to the woods. In the confusion many lost their livestock. The 158 villagers who obeyed the German order disappeared. In effect, the German occupation re- established a class of poor peasants like that which had earlier existed in Estonia, but at the same time, by generally reducing the living standard of the entire farming community, it forfeited any political advantages that might have been gained by the return of land to richer peasants who had been one of the pillars of authoritarian government overthrown by the establishment of Soviet power in 1940.
The traditional anti-German feeling was revived in the country, and this appears to have prevailed decisively over certain anxieties about the possibility of collectivization resulting from a Russian victory. Evasion of German regulations became widespread. The guerrilla movement received general support, and the Germans' final measures aimed at stripping the country of its livestock were stubbornly resisted. Estonian officials conspired to cheat their masters in regard to deliveries, and German inspectors tended to turn a blind eye on sabotage if well-filled with bacon and schnapps. The Estonian guerrilla movement seems to have been as well led and effective as circumstances permitted. There were rarely fewer than 150.000 German troops in Estonia-at least one German for every seven Estonians. It was necessary for the guerrillas to work in bands of 50 to 80 men and for operative purposes in groups of five or six men. Various detachments were organized by a central command constantly in touch with the Red Army and with much the larger partisan forces in the Leningrad and Pskov regions. These guerrillas' activity was threefold. They played a kind of Robin Hood game in the countryside, protecting the poor and oppressed and exacting vengeance on local traitors; they spied on the land and passed information back to the Leningrad front: they carried out a series of daring, unnerving raids on important objectives. A young railway worker of the Petsere region described one characteristic operation thus:- We received the order to seize an important list of names from the German garrison. Wc made careful preparations and learned the password needed to get in and got hold of two German uniforms. Then we made a diversionary attack at another place in order to drain forces from the garrison. Eight of us in civilian dress with two others disguised as Germans then made for the objective. The password was given to the sentries, who thought it was more prisoners being brought in. We got past all the guards into a staff room, where we found six officers. We killed them quietly by stabbing them, searched them, got what we wanted, and left the way we came. But we had not gone far before our work was discovered. It was a question of ' Dai bog nogi " (with God's help, let's run for it), and all but two of us got away.
BARE CUPBOARDS Peasant resistance was matched by that of the workers. The Germans removed advantages which the poorer workers had gained in 1940, and went considerably farther than the Estonian Government of 1933, in suppressing workers' rights. Wages were reduced. A lack of consumers' goods caused severe hardships, especially among those elements of the population which had little in their cup- boards when invasion came. Without money or goods to barter. workers were unable to use the black market available to the more well,to-do townspeople and peasants. Tallinn workers resisted Ger- man attempts to wreck the power station and other public services on the eve of their departure. Contacts with the inhabitants of Tallinn during walks through the narrow medieval streets revealed that, if the peasants and workers entertain little doubt about the advantages of liberation, there are others whom the events of the past four years have left in a confused state of mind. I found none who expressed approval of the Nazi regime in Estonia, and it is doubtful if more than a very small proportion of those who fled to Germany and Sweden on the eve of liberation had any real sympathy for the Germans.
TALLINN A NAVAL BASE The Estonian Government. which has been in exile during the last three years, has restored the 1941 status quo. Dispossessed peasants have already taken over their former holdings. The law permits private enterprises where less than 10 persons are employed. No collectivization of land is envisaged, but voluntary cooperative movements are encouraged. Freedom of religion is guaranteed. and an organ for regulating the relations between the Church and the State has been created. An Estonian army, in wlhich most of the officers are Estonian, many of the former Estonian army, is being formed. Already a corps of several divisions, raised in the Soviet Union. larger, better equipped than any army Estonia has had in the past, is now increasing with the addition of many who deserted from the forces which the Germans raised during the occupation. The Government includes a number of Liberals and Socialists, and its program indicates that it is less conscious of the need for legislative hurry than during the feverish period before the war. The measure of popular support it gains will, however. probably depend more on THC methods used to carry out the program than on its contents. Russian spokesmen in Tallinn have made it clear that Tallinn is destined to become an important naval base for the Baltic Fleet and that Russia does not intend to permit anyone to interfere with plans for making Tallinn a bulwark of Soviet security.
The Times | October 25, 1944
TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES Sir,-I was very glad to sec your Moscow Correspondent pointing out once again the age-old anti-German feeling in Estonia: " the traditional anti-German feeling was revived in the country," he writes in your issue of October 17. It needs explaining, however, why this antipathy was less obvious in 1941, at the end of the Soviet occupation of the Baltic States. The reason, is that tens of thousands of Estonians escaped to Finland and to Sweden. It is that the Soviet occupation of 1940-41 was not so. beneficial as your Correspondent implies. Will two easily verified examples suffice ? During the so-called authoritarian period of Estonian independence (1934-38) the trade unions lost, true enough, their political rights, but only these. During the Soviet occupation they obtained the right, if a privilege it is, to be directed by the Communist Party spokesmen sent from abroad. And this direction applied in political as in all other matters of the trade unions. Secondly, as to the cloths made of " manufactured cloth," in independent Estonia a laborer had to toil for two weeks to be able to buy a suit. and these days to buy a pair of shoes: under Soviet occupation he had to labor over six weeks for a similar suit, and a fortnight for a pair of shoes. Yours faithfully. Mng's OLUcge,
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