Chapter 9.6: The Year 1944

In January of 1944 the Red Army began a major offensive on the Eastern Front. The shocked German troops, which were also in the minority in terms of numbers, started to quickly retreat towards Estonia. On the 2nd of February the Soviet forces established several bridgeheads across the Narva river.

At first the situation seemed catastrophic: the German forces had only enough men to cover the city of Narva, not the whole Narva river front. However the Red Army needed time to breathe and this time was used to bring backup to the front. The Estonian units in the German army were also relocated to Estonia.

On the 30th of January the Estonian Self-Governance declared a general mobilisation, which was this time also supported by pro-independence groups. The last lawful prime minister of Estonia, Jüri Uluots, declared on the radio that Estonians should pick up arms and stand up against the advancing Red Army. About 40 thousand men came up to fight after this speech, seeing the situation as the second war of independence and believing that they were going to war for Estonia. Some of the mobilised were sent to the front immediately, others were put into the border defence regiments that were still forming.

In the middle of February the Red Army began its offensive on the Narva River. In addition a large force crossed the frozen Lämmijärv, endangering Southern Estonia. Thanks to the new Estonian forces however the advance was halted everywhere. Fighting near Narva continued until the end of April, however neither side was able to achieve success.

During the battles at Narva the Soviet Airforce conducted bombing raids against Estonian cities. On the 6th of March the entire historic city of Narva was wiped out. Fortunately all civilians had been evacuated, so the number of victims was small. On the 9th of March 250 Soviet bombers bombed Tallinn. More than 500 civilians were killed, about 40% of all residential buildings were destroyed, more than 25 thousand Tallinners were left homeless. Parts of the Old Town, the Saint Nicholas church, the National Opera, the Synagogue and many other notable buildings were destroyed. On the 25th of March an attack was conducted on Tartu as well, which also suffered great losses.



The ruins of Narva. All of the Old Town was bulldozed, save for the town hall and replaced by typical Soviet housing post war. The original inhabitants were not allowed to return either, instead the city would be repopulated by Russians. In 1938 the city was 63% Estonian and 31% Russian, in 1970 it was 7% Estonian and 83% Russian.





Some streets in the Old Town of Tallinn after the March bombing. After the war the rubble would be cleaned up by the inhabitants in “voluntary”, unpaid work sessions that would generally take place on the weekend.




The remains of St. Nicholas.



The Estonian National Opera building. It would be rebuilt after the war with much propaganda fanfare. The destruction of it, and the rest of the city, was blamed on the Germans.



A couple of residential districts after the bombing.

In the summer of 1944 a big portion of German forces stationed in Estonia were taken to other fronts. The Red Army used the weakening of its enemy for a new great offensive in July. On the 26th of July the abandoned and destroyed Narva was conquered. However the hoped breakthrough did not occur, the Red Army got stuck in the hill range of Sinimäed, where one of the bloodiest of battles in Estonian history took place. Roughly 10 thousand men fell on the German side and more than 35 thousand men on the Soviet side.

The Soviet plans were more successful in South-Eastern Estonia, which had been entirely captured by the second half of August. Petseri, Võru and Tartu fell one by one. The Estonian Rifle Corps of the Red Army was part of the Soviet forces in this front. For some time the German forces managed to put a stop to the Red Army advance along the Suur- and Väike-Emajõgi rivers, but by the beginning of September the situation was so dire that it was decided to pull German forces out of mainland Estonia completely. On the 22nd of September the Red Army captured Tallinn. By the end of September all of mainland Estonia was captured, by mid-October the islands as well. Only on the Sõrve peninsula did fighting continue until the end of November.


Red army soldiers in Tartu.


The ruins of Endla theatre in Pärnu, the building with the balcony on which the independence of Estonia had been declared. It was demolished post war.



Pärnu suursild in 1944.




Destroyed mediaeval St. Nicholas church in Pärnu. Was demolished.

The disgruntlement against the German occupation had created a movement of resistance amongst Estonians. It was a nonviolent movement, it was against a violent fight against the German occupation and instead sought to re-establish Estonian independence with the help of the West.

In Spring 1944 several of those resistance groups established a united National Committee of the Republic of Estonia. It started to prepare steps to restore independence, amongst other things also getting in contact with the Estonian diplomats abroad. Together they waited for a good time to make a move, hoping for a 1918 type of situation where one occupation power had left but the other had not yet arrived. On the 18th of September, immediately after the notice of the abandonment of mainland Estonia by the German forces arrived, the prime minister in charge of the affairs of the president Jüri Uluots nominated a new government, which was led by Otto Tief.



Otto Tief (1889-1976), died in exile.

The government of Tief immediately declared Estonia to be neutral in the ongoing war and tried to organise a defence of the capital. Whilst the Germans had also sought to evacuate Estonian units from Estonia, the majority of the units refused to leave the homeland and sought to fight until the last drop of blood. The soomepoisid also returned to Estonia from Finland at this point. Some battalions were created out of those units which would have skirmishes with the overwhelming Red Army on the outskirts of Tallinn. However the fight was futile and those units were crushed. Some hours before the Red Army entered Tallinn the government fled the city, whilst the Estonian tricolour still waved above the capital. Most of the government members were captured by Soviet security organs and executed, a few managed to escape to the West where they established a government-in-exile.





Red Army units entering Tallinn.




The red banner raised above conquered Tallinn.

As the war progressed in 1944, tens of thousands of people left their homes to escape battles and moved to the West. In September-October 1944 about 80 thousand people escaped abroad, mostly to Germany and Sweden, to save themselves from the returning communist dictatorship. Both ships and barely usable boats were used to cross the sea. Larger ships filled with refugees were endangered by Soviet bombers and submarines, smaller boats by storms. The refugees themselves hoped it would be temporary. It was hoped that after Germany lost the war the West would force the Soviet Union to restore independent Estonia and they would return. However that was not to be, and the vast majority of those people never saw their homeland ever again. They would go on to establish tightly knit expat communities in first Germany and Sweden, and later in Canada, the US and Australia. This event is referred to as the “Great Escape”.


One of many ships filled with Estonian refugees that escaped to Sweden.

The Estonian SS units in the German army that were evacuated would surrender themselves to the allies in 1945. They would be reformed into 9 companies in the allied forces and one of them would go on to guard the high ranking Nazis at the Nuremberg trials. This irony was justified by the fact that the Estonian SS members had received no ideological brainwashing and had not been complicit in large scale crimes, as well as they had been conscripts. As such they were not the typical SS volunteers.

Altogether the Second World War was extremely devastating for Estonia. Whilst in 1938 there had been about 1 133 000 people living in the country, by 1945 it had fallen to 879 000, by roughly a quarter. Narva had been completely destroyed, Tallinn, Tartu, Pärnu and many other smaller towns had suffered great destruction. About 50% of industry was destroyed, ports, railways and roads were ruined. The agricultural produce had more than halved. The attempt to restore independence had failed and Estonia fell under the Soviet occupation once more, for more than half a century this time.

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