Trečiojo Reicho jūrų tvirtovė

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Karinė įgula; Klaipėdos įgula; Karinis jūrų laivynas; Kareivinės; Military garrison; Klaipėda garrison; German Navy; Barracks.

ENThe changes that took place in Klaipėda garrison in 1939 were not merely related to the change in the political regime, i.e. the annexation of Klaipėda Region by National-Socialist Germany. The character and the function of the garrison also changed, as its previous infantry units were substituted for by the units of German Navy (Germ. Kriegsmarine). After the withdrawal of the majority of the military units that had implemented the occupation of the region, and, moreover, had taken care of the visit of Führer Adolf Hitler to Klaipėda, for almost a month the base of Klaipėda garrison was the 5th Marine Artillery Division. When it left on 24 April 1939, the 7th Marine Artillery Division moved in, to stay in the city until August 23. Klaipėda was granted the status of a sea fortress. Most of the military units that would frequently change over the period of 1939 to 1945 were subordinate to the Commandant’s Office of the fortress (of Klaipėda sector in October 1943 - November 1944) which controlled almost all institutions of German Navy operating in Klaipėda. The strip of the coast controlled by the fortress covered the territory from the small town of Cranz (the present Zelenogradsk) on the Semba Peninsula to the former border line between Nimmersatt (Nemirseta) and Palanga. During the research, we failed to establish precisely what role was played by the old Klaipėda barracks in the military fortress in the period of 1939 to 1945. A new Wehrmacht camp is known to have been built in Klaipėda in that period, and the function of the barracks was fulfilled by the buildings of schools that emerged in the period of governance of the Republic of Lithuania.There, e.g., a company of elite naval infantry assault troops trained in the period of March to August 1939; it was the same company which was brought to Gdańsk by battleship Schleswig-Holstein and which attacked the Westerplatte Fort on 1 September 1939, thus giving a start to World War II. It is also known that the Wehrmacht units that stayed in Klaipėda for the longest period of time - the 24th Training U-boat Flotilla and the 217th Marine Flak-Artillery Division - were not stationed in the barracks; therefore, their function in the fortress is not totally clear. We have evidence of the School of Infantry Non-commissioned Officers having functioned there in July 1944. The garrison of German Army last left Klaipėda at the end of January 1945, after the Red Army launched an offensive on all fronts and took a large part of East Prussia. On 24 January, German land troops - the 28th Corps of the 3rd Tank Army - were ordered to withdraw from the so-called Klaipėda bridgehead {Brückenkopf Memel); at 6 o’clock on January 28, the Red Army marched into an empty Klaipėda, left not only without troops, but also without population. A new historical period started both for the barracks and for the city of Klaipėda. [From the publication]