Today in 1945, along the northern coast of East Prussia,

The German Kriegsmarine began the evacuation by sea of hundreds of thousands of civilian refugees from East Prussia and the Danzig area.

Desperate Wehrmacht troops evacuating Danzig.

The Soviet Red Army advance was virtually unstoppable, the German operation against the US and British in the West had failed, and East Prussia's land communications with the rest of the Reich had been completely severed.

By 1945, the Kriegsmarine was a shadow of its former self.

The Reich did not have much longer to survive.
[
January 23, 1945]