6th Guards Army

The 6th Guards Army was a Soviet Guards formation which fought against Nazi Germany during World War II under the command of General Ivan Chistyakov. The Army's chief of staff was General Valentin Antonovich Penkovskii.

The 6th Guards Army was formed on 16 April 1943 from the 21st Army and fought under command of the Voronezh, 1st Baltic, 2nd Baltic, and Leningrad Fronts from 1943 until the end of the war. In 1943, the army fought in the Battle of Kursk. During the summer of 1944, the army fought in Operation Bagration, the Polotsk Offensive, the Šiauliai Offensive and the Riga Offensive. During the Battle of Memel, the army helped drive German troops into what became the Courland Pocket. The 6th Guards Army was one of the Soviet formations committed to besieging German Army Group Kurland in the Courland Peninsula. This was a lengthy operation that continued until the Germans in Courland surrendered on May 12, 1945. Postwar, the army was stationed in the Baltic region until its disbandment in 1947.