Martínez, Eduardo M. Gil Kolberg 1945

Victoria en la derrota, derrota en la victoria

Volume 67 of the "Imágenes de Guerra" series. The beginning of 1945 boded ill for the Third Reich, as the Red Army stood practically at its borders. When the Soviets launched the Vistula-Oder Offensive on January 25, the Reich's easternmost territories fell rapidly, one after another. In this book, the author focuses on events in Kolberga quiet coastal town in Eastern Pomeraniawhich, for various reasons, became a focal point of German resistance against the enemy after the troops stationed there received orders to transform the town into a fortress. Kolbergs motley garrisoncomprising remnants of Waffen-SS veterans alongside newly recruited *Volkssturm* civilians with no combat experiencewithstood the Soviet onslaught and the assault of the Polish People's Army. They fought a slow, fighting retreat that ultimately achieved a remarkable objective: the almost complete evacuation of a vast number of civilians and combatants by seaall while under constant field artillery fire and subjected to air raids both day and night. Who truly won the Battle of Kolberg? Readers can form their own opinions by carefully reading the book's chapters, which guide them through the bitter fighting of this phase of the warstreet by streetto the once-peaceful port in Eastern Pomerania. All of this is complemented, among other features, by a selection of previously unpublished photographs provided by the Military History Museum of modern-day Kolobrzeg.