Word: riga
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Founded in 1158 as a storehouse for Bremen merchants, later a Hanseatic League port, Riga is less valuable as a harbor than Tallinn to the north or Memel to the south-because the Gulf of Riga freezes over for four months. But Riga was the last Baltic capital in Nazi hands, and therefore a great symbolic prize for the Russians...
...Nazi commander at Riga, a colonel general named Schemer, seemed bent on holding it all winter, ice or no ice. The town was girdled by a 25-mile belt of ferroconcrete pillboxes, tank traps and barbed wire. According to Soviet reporters, Schemer executed German troops who showed signs of wavering; eleven soldiers found skulking in a movie house were shot in the streets. Izvestia made the statement that 800 German tanks were hurled into the defense of Riga, that 500 of them were knocked out by Red fire...
...Russians claimed that they had 15 enemy divisions "on the verge" of entrapment between Memel and Riga. Allied observers took this with some salt, recalling that when Bagramian drove to the Gulf of Riga last summer, 20 to 30 German divisions were supposed to have been bottled up in the north. The net bag, when that region was finally cleaned up last month, was not much more than five divisions...
...Germans still held four Estonian islands blocking the mouth of the Gulf of Riga-the large islands of Dagö and Oesel, the smaller inshore islands of Vormsi and Muhu. Last week the Russians seized Vormsi and Muhu by amphibious assault, landed marines and tanks. Berlin claimed that German warships had tangled with the Red Fleet, now freely ranging the eastern Baltic, and had sunk many landing barges-but there was no claim of dislodging the Reds from their island footholds. Heavier naval action in the Baltic seemed likely soon...
Meanwhile, at week's end, the drive on Riga languished. Winter was coming on, but not even winter could hurry Stalin's hand...