Battle of Hamburg (1945) siege by the Soviet Red Army, refused to send reinforcements. The Germans managed to resist the British in Bremen for a week; the surviving troops retreated to the Jutland peninsula. The last remaining defence was the city of Hamburg and the Germans sought to make a final stand there. After capturing Soltau, the British 7th Armoured Division of the VIII Corps was poised to assault the city. The British advance towards Hamburg was spearheaded by the 7th Armoured Division, attacking Harburg and advancing to the River Elbe across from Hamburg, with the 15th (Scottish) Infantry Division assaulting the town of
Accession of Hamburg to the German Customs Union (Zollverein) proposal on 14 June, which was carried by nine votes to six. The three Hanseatic cities, through their joint envoy Friedrich Krüger, voted against the Austrian proposal and made a declaration (formulated by Lübeck) that the events in Holstein did not justify Federal mobilisation, because the danger of immediate military collision had passed. Then on 16 June, Emil von Richthofen, the Prussian envoy to the Hanseatic states, presented to the Hamburg Senate and other German governments an "identical note" asking for an alliance on the basis of Prussia's reform proposal placed before the Diet and requesting that its troops be