Bolting for the Baltic
How a Canadian battalion’s mad dash to northern Germany at the end of the war stopped Soviet advances toward the West
Wismar, located on Germany’s Baltic coast, holds a fascinating but little-known place in Canadian Second World War history. It’s where Canadian troops first encountered the Red Army—and effectively blocked a Soviet advance into Denmark.
Until Germany’s reunification in 1990, travel to Wismar was difficult for foreigners. It was located about 40 kilo-
metres behind the Iron Curtain, in what was then known as the Bezirk Rostock region of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik—or East Germany as it was known in the West. After the war, Wismar became one of the East’s largest ports with a well-developed shipbuilding industry. It was also a garrison town and home to two...
