ABSTRACT
The Baltic shore swings north-east and north from the Gulf of Danzig in a sequence of sandy coastlands, river mouths and the long narrow sandspits which enclose the great lagoons called the Haffs. Pomerania in the west was ancient Germanic territory. West Prussia with Danzig and Gotenhafen formed a land bridge to East Prussia, which was the home of some of the proudest military families of the Reich. Further along the coast the Germans at the outset of 1945 still held the bridgehead of Memel at the outermost tip of East Prussia, and a much larger coastal enclave in Kurland (Western Latvia).
