The first Battle of Smolensk was a battle during the second phase of Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, in World War II. It was fought around the city of Smolensk between 10
German and Soviet movements near Smolensk, 10 July – 4 August
German vehicle column near Vitebsk in July 1941
German soldiers on horseback in a burning village near Mogilev at the Dnieper. The Red Army has been driven out by German artillery fire.
Collective farmer Savely Stepanchenko and his grandson, residents of a village near Dorogobuzh, in a shelter that they used to hide from German soldiers
Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and several of its European Axis allies starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. More than 3.8 million Axis troo
Battle of Smolensk (1941)
…The first Battle of Smolensk (German: Kesselschlacht bei Smolensk, lit. 'Cauldron-battle at Smolensk') was a battle during the second phase of Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, in World War II. It was fought around the city of Smolensk between 10 July and 10 September 1941, about 400 km…
Clockwise from top-left: German soldiers advance through northern Russia German flamethrower crew burns down a house in the background German Panzer IV stuck in the snow with white camouflage paint Soviet Ilyushin Il-2s over German positions near Moscow Soviet POWs on the way to prison camps Soviet soldiers fire artillery
1939 German Diplomatic passport with its holder returning after the outbreak of war two years later and being evacuated on a special train out of the USSR.
Semyon Timoshenko and Georgy Zhukov in 1940
Army general (later Marshal) Zhukov speaking at a military conference in Moscow, September 1941