Heiligenbeil Pocket

Heiligenbeil Pocket
Part of the East Prussian Offensive in the Eastern Front of World War II
Soviet troops enter Frauenburg, 9 February (?) 1945
Date 26 January – 29 March 1945 Location East Prussia Result Soviet victory
Belligerents
Germany	Soviet Union
Commanders and leaders
Friedrich Hossbach (4th Army until January 29) Friedrich Müller (4th Army from January 29)	Konstantin Rokossovsky (2nd Belorussian Front) Ivan Chernyakhovsky (3rd Belorussian Front until February 18 – KIA that day) Aleksandr Vasilevsky (3rd Belorussian Front from February 19)
Strength
?150,000	?
Casualties and losses
80,000 killed 50,000 captured 605 tanks 128 planes (According to Soviet information) [1]	unknown

The Heiligenbeil Pocket or Heiligenbeil Cauldron (German: Kessel von Heiligenbeil) was the site of a major encirclement battle on the Eastern Front during the closing weeks of World War II, in which the Wehrmacht's 4th Army was almost entirely destroyed during the Soviet Braunsberg Offensive Operation (13–22 March 1945). The pocket was located near Heiligenbeil in East Prussia in eastern Germany (now Mamonovo, Kaliningrad Oblast), and the battle, part of a broader Soviet offensive into the region of East Prussia, lasted from 26 January until 29 March 1945.