1.
Eastern Front (World War II)
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The battles on the Eastern Front constituted the largest military confrontation in history. They were characterized by unprecedented ferocity, wholesale destruction, mass deportations, and immense loss of life due to combat, starvation, exposure, disease, and massacres. The Eastern Front, as the site of nearly all extermination camps, death marches, ghettos, of the estimated 70 million deaths attributed to World War II, over 30 million, many of them civilian, occurred on the Eastern Front. The Eastern Front was decisive in determining the outcome of the European portion of World War II and it resulted in the destruction of the Third Reich, the partition of Germany for nearly half a century and the rise of the Soviet Union as a military and industrial superpower. The two principal belligerent powers were Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, along with their respective allies. Though never engaged in action in the Eastern Front, the United Kingdom. The joint German–Finnish operations across the northernmost Finnish–Soviet border and in the Murmansk region are considered part of the Eastern Front, in addition, the Soviet–Finnish Continuation War may also be considered the northern flank of the Eastern Front. Despite their ideological antipathy, both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union shared a dislike for the outcome of World War I. The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact signed in August 1939 was an agreement between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. It contained a secret protocol aiming to return Central Europe to the pre–World War I status quo by dividing it between Germany and the Soviet Union, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania would return to Soviet control, while Poland and Romania would be divided. I need the Ukraine so that they cant starve us out, the two powers invaded and partitioned Poland in 1939. The annexations were never recognized by most Western states, the annexed Romanian territory was divided between the Ukrainian and Moldavian Soviet republics. Adolf Hitler had argued in his autobiography Mein Kampf for the necessity of Lebensraum, acquiring new territory for Germans in Eastern Europe, Wehrmacht officers told their troops to target people who were described as Jewish Bolshevik subhumans, the Mongol hordes, the Asiatic flood and the red beast. The vast majority of German soldiers viewed the war in Nazi terms, Hitler referred to the war in unique terms, calling it a war of annihilation which was both an ideological and racial war. In addition, the Nazis also sought to wipe out the large Jewish population of Central, after Germanys initial success at the Battle of Kiev in 1941, Hitler saw the Soviet Union as militarily weak and ripe for immediate conquest. On 3 October 1941, he announced, We have only to kick in the door, thus, Germany expected another short Blitzkrieg and made no serious preparations for prolonged warfare. Throughout the 1930s the Soviet Union underwent massive industrialization and economic growth under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, Stalins central tenet, Socialism in one country, manifested itself as a series of nationwide centralized Five-Year Plans from 1929 onwards. It served as a testing ground for both the Wehrmacht and the Red Army to experiment with equipment and tactics that they would later employ on a wider scale in the Second World War
2.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
3.
Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
4.
Belarus
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Its capital and most populous city is Minsk. Over 40% of its 207,600 square kilometres is forested and its strongest economic sectors are service industries and manufacturing. In the aftermath of the 1917 Russian Revolution, Belarus declared independence as the Belarusian Peoples Republic, the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia became a founding constituent republic of the Soviet Union in 1922 and was renamed as the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. Belarus lost almost half of its territory to Poland after the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1921, during WWII, military operations devastated Belarus, which lost about a third of its population and more than half of its economic resources. The republic was redeveloped in the post-war years, in 1945 the Byelorussian SSR became a founding member of the United Nations, along with the Soviet Union and the Ukrainian SSR. The parliament of the declared the sovereignty of Belarus on 27 July 1990. Alexander Lukashenko has served as the president since 1994. Belarus has been labeled Europes last dictatorship by some Western journalists, Lukashenko continued a number of Soviet-era policies, such as state ownership of large sections of the economy. Though not directly espousing communism like the five remaining communist countries of China, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and North Korea, in 2000 Belarus and Russia signed a treaty for greater cooperation, with some hints of forming a Union State. Over 70% of Belaruss population of 9.49 million resides in urban areas, more than 80% of the population is ethnic Belarusian, with sizable minorities of Russians, Poles and Ukrainians. Since a referendum in 1995, the country has had two official languages, Belarusian and Russian, the Constitution of Belarus does not declare any official religion, although the primary religion in the country is Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Belarus is the only European country to retain capital punishment in both law and practice, the name Belarus is closely related with the term Belaya Rus, i. e. White Rus. There are several claims to the origin of the name White Rus, an alternate explanation for the name comments on the white clothing worn by the local Slavic population. A third theory suggests that the old Rus lands that were not conquered by the Tatars had been referred to as white, other sources claim that, before 1267, the land not conquered by the Mongols was considered White Rus. The name Rus is often conflated with its Latin forms Russia and Ruthenia, in some languages, including German and Dutch, the country is generally called White Russia to this day. The Latin term Alba Russia was used again by Pope Pius VI in 1783 to recognize the Society of Jesus there, exclaiming Approbo Societatem Jesu in Alba Russia degentem, approbo, approbo. The first known use of White Russia to refer to Belarus was in the century by Englishman Sir Jerome Horsey. During the 17th century, the Russian tsars used White Rus to describe the lands added from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
5.
Baltic states
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The Baltic states cooperate on a regional level in several intergovernmental organizations. While the native populations of Latvia and Lithuania are known as Baltic people, another Baltic identity, Baltic German, began to develop during the Middle Ages after the Livonian Crusade. After the collapse of Livonia, parts of Latvia and Estonia came under influence of the Commonwealth and this lasted until the 18th century, when the lands of all three modern countries were gradually absorbed into the Russian Empire. The Baltic states gained independence after World War I, but were occupied by the Soviet Union during World War II, all three countries are members of the European Union, NATO and the Eurozone. They are classified as high-income economies by the World Bank and maintain high Human Development Index, Estonia and Latvia are also members of the OECD, while Lithuania is a prospective candidate. The term Baltic stems from the name of the Baltic Sea – a hydronym dating back to the 11th century, although there are several theories about its origin, most ultimately trace it to Indo-European root *bhel meaning white, fair. This meaning is retained in modern Baltic languages, where baltas, however the modern names of the region and the sea, that originate from this root, were not used in either of the two languages prior to the 19th century. In English Ost is East, and in fact, the Baltic Sea mostly lies to the east of Germany, Denmark, Norway, in the 13th century pagan Baltic and Finnic peoples in the region became a target of the Northern Crusades. In the aftermath of the Livonian crusade, a crusader state officially named Terra Mariana and it was divided into four autonomous bishoprics and lands of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword. After the Brothers of the Sword suffered defeat at the Battle of Saule, Northern Estonia initially became a Danish dominion, but it was purchased by the Teutonic Order in the mid-14th century. The Lithuanians were also targeted by the crusaders, however they were able to resist and it allied with the Kingdom of Poland. After the Union of Krewo in 1385 created a union between the two countries, they became ever more closely integrated and finally merged into the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1569. After victory in the Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War, the Polish–Lithuanian union became a political power in the region. In 1558 Livonia was attacked by the Tsardom of Russia and the Livonian war broke out, the rulers of different regions within Livonia sought to ally with foreign powers, which resulted in Polish–Lithuanian, Swedish and Danish involvement. In the aftermath of conflicts of the 17th century, much of the Duchy of Livonia. These newly acquired Swedish territories, as well as Ingria and Kexholm, at the beginning of the 18th century the Swedish Empire was attacked by a coalition of several European powers in the Great Northern War. Among these powers was Russia, seeking to restore its access to the Baltic Sea, during the course of the war it conquered all of the Swedish provinces on the Eastern Baltic coast. This acquisition was legalized by the Treaty of Nystad in which the Baltic Dominions were ceded to Russia, under Russian rule these territories came to be known as Ostsee Governorates
6.
Poland
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Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe, situated between the Baltic Sea in the north and two mountain ranges in the south. Bordered by Germany to the west, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine and Belarus to the east, the total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres, making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. With a population of over 38.5 million people, Poland is the 34th most populous country in the world, the 8th most populous country in Europe, Poland is a unitary state divided into 16 administrative subdivisions, and its capital and largest city is Warsaw. Other metropolises include Kraków, Wrocław, Poznań, Gdańsk and Szczecin, the establishment of a Polish state can be traced back to 966, when Mieszko I, ruler of a territory roughly coextensive with that of present-day Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin. This union formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th and 17th century Europe, Poland regained its independence in 1918 at the end of World War I, reconstituting much of its historical territory as the Second Polish Republic. In September 1939, World War II started with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, followed thereafter by invasion by the Soviet Union. More than six million Polish citizens died in the war, after the war, Polands borders were shifted westwards under the terms of the Potsdam Conference. With the backing of the Soviet Union, a communist puppet government was formed, and after a referendum in 1946. During the Revolutions of 1989 Polands Communist government was overthrown and Poland adopted a new constitution establishing itself as a democracy, informally called the Third Polish Republic. Since the early 1990s, when the transition to a primarily market-based economy began, Poland has achieved a high ranking on the Human Development Index. Poland is a country, which was categorised by the World Bank as having a high-income economy. Furthermore, it is visited by approximately 16 million tourists every year, Poland is the eighth largest economy in the European Union and was the 6th fastest growing economy on the continent between 2010 and 2015. According to the Global Peace Index for 2014, Poland is ranked 19th in the list of the safest countries in the world to live in. The origin of the name Poland derives from a West Slavic tribe of Polans that inhabited the Warta River basin of the historic Greater Poland region in the 8th century, the origin of the name Polanie itself derives from the western Slavic word pole. In some foreign languages such as Hungarian, Lithuanian, Persian and Turkish the exonym for Poland is Lechites, historians have postulated that throughout Late Antiquity, many distinct ethnic groups populated the regions of what is now Poland. The most famous archaeological find from the prehistory and protohistory of Poland is the Biskupin fortified settlement, dating from the Lusatian culture of the early Iron Age, the Slavic groups who would form Poland migrated to these areas in the second half of the 5th century AD. With the Baptism of Poland the Polish rulers accepted Christianity and the authority of the Roman Church
7.
Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic
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To the west it bordered Poland. Within the Soviet Union, it bordered Lithuania and Latvian to the north, the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia was declared by the Bolsheviks on 1 January 1919 following the declaration of independence by the Belarusian Democratic Republic in March 1918. In 1922, the BSSR was one of the four founding members of the Soviet Union, together with the Ukrainian SSR, the Transcaucasian SFSR, Byelorussia was one of several Soviet republics occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II. This non-sovereign country of several million was a UN-founding-member, towards the final years of the Soviet Republics existence, the Supreme Soviet of Byelorussian SSR adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty on 27 July 1990. On 15 August 1991, Stanislau Shushkevich was elected as the countrys first president, ten days later on 25 August 1991, Byelorussian SSR declared its independence and renamed to the Republic of Belarus. The Soviet Union was dissolved four months later on December 26,1991 and this asserted that the territories are all Russian and all the peoples are also Russian, in the case of the Belarusians, they were variants of the Russian people. Following the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, the term White Russia caused some confusion as it was also the name of the force that opposed the red Bolsheviks. During the period of the Byelorussian SSR, the term Byelorussia was embraced as part of a national consciousness, in western Belarus under Polish control, Byelorussia became commonly used in the regions of Białystok and Grodno during the interwar period. Upon the establishment of the Byelorussian Socialist Soviet Republic in 1920, in 1936, with the proclamation of the 1936 Soviet Constitution, the republic was renamed to the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic transposing the second and third words. On August 25,1991 the Supreme Soviet of the Byelorussian SSR renamed the Soviet republic to the Republic of Belarus, conservative forces in the newly independent Belarus did not support the name change and opposed its inclusion in the 1991 draft of the Constitution of Belarus. Prior to the First World War, Belarusian lands were part of the Russian Empire, during the War, the Russian Western Fronts Great retreat in August/September 1915 ended with the lands of Grodno and most of Vilno guberniyas occupied by Germany. The abdication of the Tsar in light of the February Revolution in Russia in early 1917, as central authority waned, different political and ethnic groups strived for greater self-determination and even secession from the increasingly ineffective Russian Provisional Government. The momentum picked up after the incompetent actions of the 10th Army during the ill-fated Kerensky Offensive during the summer. On 26 November, the committee of workers, peasants and soldiers deputies for the Western Oblast was merged with the Western fronts executive committee. During the autumn 1917/winter of 1918, the Western Oblast was headed by Aleksandr Myasnikyan as head of the Western Oblasts Military Revolutionary Committee, Myasnikyan took over as chair of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Partys committee for Western Oblast and Moisey Kalmanovich as chair of the Obliskomzap. As a result, on 7th of December, when the first All-Belarusian congress convened, a cease-fire was quickly agreed and proper peace negotiations began in December. The German Operation Faustschlag was of immediate success and within 11 days, they were able to make a serious advance eastward, taking over Ukraine, Baltic states and this forced the Obliskomzap to evacuate to Smolensk. The Smolensk guberniya was passed to the Western Oblast, faced with the German demands, the Bolsheviks accepted their terms at the final Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which was signed on 3 March 1918
8.
Nazi Germany
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Nazi Germany is the common English name for the period in German history from 1933 to 1945, when Germany was governed by a dictatorship under the control of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Under Hitlers rule, Germany was transformed into a fascist state in which the Nazi Party took totalitarian control over all aspects of life. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich from 1933 to 1943, the period is also known under the names the Third Reich and the National Socialist Period. The Nazi regime came to an end after the Allied Powers defeated Germany in May 1945, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933. The Nazi Party then began to eliminate all opposition and consolidate its power. Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, and Hitler became dictator of Germany by merging the powers and offices of the Chancellery, a national referendum held 19 August 1934 confirmed Hitler as sole Führer of Germany. All power was centralised in Hitlers person, and his word became above all laws, the government was not a coordinated, co-operating body, but a collection of factions struggling for power and Hitlers favour. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending, extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of Autobahnen. The return to economic stability boosted the regimes popularity, racism, especially antisemitism, was a central feature of the regime. The Germanic peoples were considered by the Nazis to be the purest branch of the Aryan race, millions of Jews and other peoples deemed undesirable by the state were murdered in the Holocaust. Opposition to Hitlers rule was ruthlessly suppressed, members of the liberal, socialist, and communist opposition were killed, imprisoned, or exiled. The Christian churches were also oppressed, with many leaders imprisoned, education focused on racial biology, population policy, and fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed, recreation and tourism were organised via the Strength Through Joy program, and the 1936 Summer Olympics showcased the Third Reich on the international stage. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels made effective use of film, mass rallies, the government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others. Beginning in the late 1930s, Nazi Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands and it seized Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939. Hitler made a pact with Joseph Stalin and invaded Poland in September 1939. In alliance with Italy and smaller Axis powers, Germany conquered most of Europe by 1940, reichskommissariats took control of conquered areas, and a German administration was established in what was left of Poland. Jews and others deemed undesirable were imprisoned, murdered in Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the tide gradually turned against the Nazis, who suffered major military defeats in 1943
9.
Polish Armed Forces in the East
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Broadly speaking, there were two such formations. In 1944, the Polish Peoples Army was reorganised to become the military of the communist-ruled Peoples Republic of Poland. After the Soviet invasion and occupation of eastern Poland at the start of the Second World War in 1939, diplomatic relations were re-established in 1941 after the German invasion of the Soviet Union forced Soviet premier Joseph Stalin to look for allies. The new formation known as the Anders Army and started to organise in the Buzuluk area. By the end of 194125,000 soldiers had been recruited, in the spring of 1942, the unit was moved to the area of Tashkent. The 8th and 9th divisions were formed that year. About 77,000 combatants and 41,000 civilians - former Polish citizens - left the USSR, increasing numbers of volunteers were denied the opportunity to enlist in Polish formations, instead they were declared Soviet citizens and assigned to the Red Army. Activities of organisations and people loyal to the Polish government-in-exile, particularly the Polish embassy in Moscow, were curtailed, finally, diplomatic relations between the Soviets and the Polish government-in-exile were severed again as news of the Katyn massacre emerged in 1943. In 1943 the Soviet Union created the Union of Polish Patriots in Moscow as a future communist puppet government of Poland, the ZPP was led by the pro-Soviet Polish communist Wanda Wasilewska. At the same time a new army was created - the Ludowe Wojsko Polskie and its first unit, the 1 Polish Infantry Division, was created in summer 1943, reaching operational readiness by June/July. In August, the Division was enlarged to a corps, becoming the Polish I Corps and it would be commanded by General Zygmunt Berling, other notable commanders included General Karol Świerczewski and Col. Włodzimierz Sokorski. The division with its elements was sent to the Eastern Front in September 1943. By March 1944 the Corps had been strengthened with increasing armoured and mechanical support, in mid-March 1944 the Corps was reorganized into the Polish First Army. Plans for a Polish Front were considered but dropped, and the Polish First Army was integrated into the 1st Belorussian Front and these units were led by Soviet commanders, and fought under Soviet general command. In the Polish First Army approximately 40% of officers and engineers were Soviet, special political officers, almost exclusively made up of Soviets, oversaw the Polish soldiers. The Soviets also created political military police, which became the Main Directorate of Information of the Polish Army. In April–May 1945 the First Army took part in the Soviet invasion of Germany, the Second Army reached operational readiness in January 1945. Formations as of May 1,1945 Second Army Headquarters 5th Infantry Division Saxonian 7th Infantry Division Postwar 2nd War Mechanised Division, 8th Infantry Division 9th Infantry Division Postwar 9th Mechanised Division. k. a
10.
Ernst Busch (field marshal)
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Ernst Bernhard Wilhelm Busch was a German field marshal during World War II who commanded the 16th Army. He was a recipient of the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, born in 1885, Busch entered the Prussian Army in 1904 and served during World War I. He was awarded the Pour le Mérite in 1918, after the war, Busch remained in the army reaching divisional level command. Busch served under Wilhelm List during the Invasion of Poland of 1939, and he was awarded the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross by Hitler. During Operation Barbarossa in September 1941, the 16th Army captured Demyansk before taking part in the siege of Leningrad in positions near from Staraya Russa to Ostashkov, promoted to field marshal, Busch commanded Army Group Centre in 1943 and 1944. Busch was recalled in March 1945 when he became head of Army Group Northwest, along with Kurt Student and his 1st Parachute Army, Busch had the task of trying to halt the advance of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomerys forces into Germany. Busch surrendered to Montgomery on 3 May 1945, and died of heart failure in a prisoner of war camp in England, armee Oak Leaves on 21 August 1943 as Generalfeldmarschall and Commander-in-chief of 16
11.
Walter Model
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Otto Moritz Walter Model was a German field marshal during World War II. He is noted for his battles in the latter half of the war, mostly on the Eastern Front. He has been called the Third Reichs best defensive tactical commander, although he was a hard-driving, aggressive panzer commander early in the war, Model became best known as a practitioner of defensive warfare. His success at the head of the Ninth Army in the battles of 1941–42 determined his future career path. Model first came to Hitlers attention before World War II, however, their relationship had broken down by the end of the war after Model was defeated at the Battle of the Bulge. In April 1945, with the Third Reichs defeat imminent, Model committed suicide rather than be captured, Models decision to burn all his personal papers at the end of World War II means relatively little is known about his early years. Born to a teacher in Genthin, Saxony, he belonged to a lower-middle class. Following schooling at the Bürgerschule in Genthin, he graduated with his Abitur from the Domgymnasium Naumburg and he entered the army officer cadet school in Neisse in 1909, where he was an unexceptional student, and was commissioned a lieutenant in the 52nd Infantry Regiment von Alvensleben in 1910. He made few friends among his officers and soon became known for his ambition, drive. These were characteristics that would mark his entire career, in World War I, the 52nd Infantry Regiment formed part of the 5th Division which fought on the Western Front. Model served as the adjutant of his regiments 1st Battalion, in May 1915, he was severely wounded near Arras, and in October he won the Iron Cross, First Class. His deeds brought him to the attention of his divisional commander who, despite misgivings about his uncomfortable subordinate, recommended Model for a posting on the German General Staff. He was promoted to captain in November 1917, and in 1918 was assigned to the staff of the Guard Ersatz Division and he ended the war with the 36th Reserve Division. By the end of the war, Model had gained a reputation as an officer with great potential. Early on in his career, Model had written a book on the Prussian general August Neidhardt von Gneisenau. It was thus no surprise that he was one of the 4,000 officers retained in the Reichswehr, the next year he married Herta Huyssen, they would in time have three children, Christa, Hella, and Hansgeorg. Model hated war stories and never discussed politics or the war with his wife, in 1925, Model was posted to the 3rd Infantry Division, an elite formation of the Reichswehr and one that was heavily involved in testing the technical innovations of that era. From 1928, he lectured in tactics and war studies for the basic General Staff training course and he became known both for his enthusiastic support of military modernisation and for his complete lack of tact
12.
Hans Jordan
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Hans Jordan was a German general during World War II. He was a recipient of the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Jordan was given command of the 9th Army on 20 May 1944. The Soviet offensive Operation Bagration began on 22 June 1944, the city was encircled on 27 June 1944, Jordan was relieved of command on 26 June. Iron Cross 2nd Class & 1st Class German Cross in Gold on 23 December 1943 as General der Infanterie and commanding general of the VI
13.
Georg-Hans Reinhardt
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Georg-Hans Reinhardt was a German general and war criminal during World War II. He commanded Third Panzer Army from 1941 to 1944, and Army Group Centre in 1944 and 1945, following the war, Reinhardt was tried in the High Command Trial, as part of the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials. He was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, born in 1887, Reinhardt fought during World War I. He commanded the 4th Panzer Division during the Invasion of Poland in September 1939, afterwards, Reinhardt was awarded the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross. In the 1940 Battle of France, Reinhardt commanded the XXXXI Panzer Corps, in 1941, Reinhardt and XXXXI Panzer Corps were deployed on the Eastern Front for Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union in June. His force led the advance of Army Group North to the outskirts of Leningrad in October, as all German corps on the Eastern Front, Reinhardts corps implemented the criminal Commissar Order. According to reports from subordinate units, the order was carried out on a widespread basis, on October 5 Reinhardt was given command of the 3rd Panzer Army in Army Group Centre and took park in the advance towards Moscow, Operation Typhoon. After the German defeat in the Battle of Moscow, his army was back by Soviet counter-attack during the winter of 1941−42. From early 1942 until June 1944, the 3rd Panzer Army operated around Vitebsk and Smolensk, in the course of anti-partisan operations in the area, troops under Reinhardt destroyed entire communities. A report of February 1943 stated, In order to keep bands from resettling in this territory, the army engaged in deportation of civilians to concentration camps. Between September and December 1943, nearly 4,000 civilians were evacuated from Vitebsk and surrounding areas, on 26 May 1944, Reinhardt was awarded Swords to his Knights Cross. In June 1944, Third Panzer and the rest of Army Group Centre were shattered in the Soviet Operation Bagration and driven back into Poland, on 16 August 1944, Reinhardt was given command of Army Group Centre. In December, renewed Soviet attacks drove Army Group Centre out of Poland into northern Prussia, Reinhardt was retired from active duty in January 1945. In June 1945, Reinhardt was arrested by the United States Army and he was tried in the High Command Trial, as part of the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials. He was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment, and served time in the Landsberg Prison and his sentence was reviewed in January 1951, with no changes. Reinhardt was released in 1952 on compassionate grounds, Reinhardt served as president of the Gesellschaft für Wehrkunde, present-day Gesellschaft für Sicherheitspolitik. He was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1962, panzer-Division Oak Leaves on 17 February 1942 as General der Panzertruppe and commander of 3. Panzergruppe Swords on 26 May 1944 as Generaloberst and commander of 3, panzer-Armee Great Cross of Merit US Military Tribunal Nuremberg
14.
Kurt von Tippelskirch
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Kurt von Tippelskirch was a general in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany during World War II who commanded several armies and Army Group Vistula. He surrendered to the United States Army on 2 May 1945, Tippelskirch wrote several books, such as the History of the Second World War,1951. Infanterie-Division 539th Oak Leaves on 30 July 1944 as General der Infanterie and deputy commander-in-chief of the 4
15.
Georgy Zhukov
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Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov, was a career officer in the Red Army of the Soviet Union who became Chief of General Staff, Deputy Commander-in-Chief, Minister of Defence and a member of the Politburo. During World War II he participated in battles, ultimately commanding the 1st Belorussian Front in the Battle of Berlin. In recognition of Zhukovs role in World War II, he was allowed to participate in signing the German Instrument of Surrender, born into a poverty-stricken peasant family in Strelkovka, Maloyaroslavsky Uyezd, Kaluga Governorate, Zhukov became an apprentice furrier in Moscow. In 1915 the Army of the Russian Empire conscripted him, he served first in the 106th Reserve Cavalry Regiment, during World War I, Zhukov was awarded the Cross of St. George twice, and promoted to the rank of non-commissioned officer for his bravery in battle. He joined the Bolshevik Party after the 1917 October Revolution, in Party circles his background of poverty became a significant asset. After recovering from a case of typhus he fought in the Russian Civil War over the period 1918 to 1921, serving with the 1st Cavalry Army. He received the decoration of the Order of the Red Banner for his part in subduing the Tambov Rebellion in 1921, at the end of May 1923, Zhukov became a commander of the 39th Cavalry Regiment. In 1924, he entered the Higher School of Cavalry, from which he graduated the next year, in May 1930, Zhukov became commander of the 2nd Cavalry Brigade of the 7th Cavalry Division. In February 1931, he was appointed the Assistant Inspector of Cavalry of the Red Army, in May 1933, Zhukov was appointed a commander in the 4th Cavalry Division. In 1937, he became a commander of the 3rd Cavalry Corps, in 1938, he became a deputy commander of the Belorussian Military District for cavalry. This campaign was a war that lasted from 1938 to 1939. These events led to the strategically decisive Battle of Khalkhin Gol, Zhukov requested major reinforcements, and on 20 August 1939, his Soviet Offensive commenced. After a massive artillery barrage, nearly 500 BT-5 and BT-7 tanks advanced, supported by over 500 fighters and bombers and this was the Soviet Air Forces first fighter-bomber operation. The offensive first appeared to be a typical conventional frontal attack, however, two tank brigades were initially held back and then ordered to advance around on both flanks, supported by motorized artillery, infantry, and other tanks. This daring and successful manoeuvre encircled the Japanese 6th Army and captured the enemys vulnerable rear supply areas, by 31 August 1939, the Japanese had been cleared from the disputed border, leaving the Soviets clearly victorious. This campaign had significance beyond the immediate tactical and local outcome, Zhukov demonstrated and tested the techniques later used against the Germans in the Eastern Front of the Second World War. After this campaign, Nomonhan veterans were transferred to units that had not seen action, for his victory, Zhukov was declared a Hero of the Soviet Union. However, the campaign – and especially Zhukovs pioneering use of tanks – remained little known outside of the Soviet Union itself, Zhukov considered Nomonhan invaluable preparation for conducting operations during the Second World War
16.
Aleksandr Vasilevsky
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Aleksandr Mikhaylovich Vasilevsky was a Russian career officer in the Red Army who was promoted to the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1943. He was the Chief of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces and Deputy Minister of Defense during World War II, Vasilevsky began his military career during World War I, earning the rank of captain by 1917. At the start of the October Revolution and the Civil War he was conscripted into the Red Army, after the war, he quickly rose through the ranks, becoming a regimental commander by 1930. In this position, he showed skill in organizing and training his troops. Vasilevskys talent was noticed, and in 1931 he was appointed a member of the Directorate of Military Training, in 1937, following Stalins Great Purge, he was promoted to General Staff officer. In July 1945, he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of Soviet forces in the Far East, executing the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation, after the war, he became the Soviet Defense Minister, a position he held until Stalins death in 1953. With Nikita Khrushchevs rise, Vasilevsky began losing power and was pensioned off. After his death, he was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in recognition of his past service, Vasilevsky was born on September 30,1895 in Novaya Golchikha in the Kineshma Uyezd in a family of Russian ethnicity. Vasilevsky was the fourth of eight children and his father, Mikhail Aleksandrovich Vasilevsky, was a priest to the nearby St. Nicholas Church. His mother, Nadezhda Ivanovna Sokolova, was the daughter of a priest in the village of Ugletz. Vasilevsky reportedly broke off all contact with his parents after 1926 because of his Communist Party membership and his duties in the Red Army. However, the family resumed relations in 1940, following Joseph Stalins suggestion that they do so, according to Vasilevsky, his family was extremely poor. His father spent most of his working to earn money. In 1897, the moved to Novopokrovskoe, where his father became a priest to the newly built Ascension Church. In 1909, he entered Kostroma seminary, which required considerable financial sacrifice on the part of his parents, the same year, a ministerial directive preventing former seminarists from starting university studies initiated a nationwide seminarist movement, with classes stopping in most Russian seminaries. Vasilevsky, among others, was expelled from Kostroma, and only returned several months later, after the demands had been satisfied. According to his own words, he was overwhelmed with patriotic feelings, Vasilevsky took his exams in January 1915 and entered the Alexander Military Law Academy in February. As he recalls, I did not decide to become an officer to start a military career, I still wanted to be an agronomist and work in some remote corner of Russia after the war
17.
Ivan Bagramyan
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Ivan Khristoforovich Bagramyan, also known as Hovhannes Khachaturi Baghramyan, was a Soviet military commander and Marshal of the Soviet Union of Armenian origin. During World War II, Bagramyan was the first non-Slavic military officer to become a commander of a Front and he was among several Armenians in the Soviet Army who held the highest proportion of high-ranking officers in the Soviet military during the war. Bagramyans experience in planning as a chief of staff allowed him to distinguish himself as a capable commander in the early stages of the Soviet counter-offensives against Nazi Germany. He was given his first command of a unit in 1942, as commander of the Baltic Front, he participated in the offensives which pushed German forces out of the Baltic republics. He did not immediately join the Communist Party after the consolidation of the October Revolution, becoming a member only in 1941, a move atypical for a Soviet military officer. After the war, he served as a deputy member of the Supreme Soviets of the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, in 1952, he became a candidate for entry into the Central Committee and, in 1961, was inducted as a full member. For his contributions during the war, he was regarded as a national hero in the Soviet Union. Ivan Bagramyan was born to Armenian parents in the village of Chardakhlu, near Yelizavetpol, hamazasp Babadzhanian, a fellow Armenian who was to become the chief marshal of the Soviet Armor corps, was born in the same village. While Bagramyans father, Khachatur, went to all day at the railway station in Yelizavetpol, his mother, Mariam. Because his parents could not afford to send him to the local gymnasium and he graduated with honors and was slated to become a railway engineer within a few years when events in the First World War changed his life. Bagramyan was well aware of the situation at the Caucasus front during the first months of the world war. In the winter of 1914–15, the Imperial Russian Army was able to withstand and repel the Ottoman Empires offensive at Sarikamish and he desperately attempted to join the military effort but because he was only seventeen and a railway mechanic, he was not liable to be drafted. This did not dissuade him from trying, as he later remarked and his opportunity came on 16 September 1915, when he was accepted by the Russian Army as a volunteer. He was placed in the 116th Reserve Battalion and sent to Akhaltsikhe for basic training, with his training complete in December, he joined the Second Caucasus Frontier Regiment of the Russian Expeditionary Corps, which was sent to dislodge the Ottoman Turks in Persia. Bagramyan participated in battles in Asadabad, Hamedan and Kermanshah. But in order to attend the school, Bagramyan needed to satisfy the requirement of having completed school at a gymnasium. This did not deter him and, after preparing for the courses in Armavir, he passed his exams and he graduated in June 1917 and was assigned to the Third Armenian Infantry Regiment stationed near Lake Urmia. But with the overthrow of the Russian Provisional Government in the midst of the October Revolution of 1917, however, with the creation of the newly established First Republic of Armenia in 1918, Bagramyan enlisted in the Third Armenian Regiment of that countrys armed forces
18.
Konstantin Rokossovsky
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Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovsky was a Soviet officer of Polish origin who became Marshal of the Soviet Union, Marshal of Poland and served as Polands Defence Minister. Rokossovsky was born in Warsaw, then part of Congress Poland under Russian rule and his family had moved to Warsaw following the appointment of his father as the inspector of the Warsaw Railways. The Rokossovsky family were members of the Polish nobility, and over generations had produced many cavalry officers, however, Konstantins father, Ksawery Wojciech Rokossowski, was a railway official in the Russian empire and his Belarusian mother Antonina Ovsyannikova was a teacher. Orphaned at 14, Rokossovsky earned a living by working in a stocking factory, in 1911, he became an apprentice stonemason. Much later in his life, the government of Peoples Republic of Poland used this fact for propaganda and he was wounded twice during the war and awarded the Cross of St George. In 1917, he joined the Bolshevik Party and soon thereafter, Rokossovsky received Soviet Russias highest military decoration at the time, the Order of the Red Banner. In 1921 he commanded the 35th Independent Cavalry Regiment stationed in Irkutsk and played an important role in bringing Damdin Sükhbaatar, Rokossovsky was again wounded, this time in the leg. The combined Mongol and Soviet forces soon thereafter captured Ulaanbaatar and it was in Mongolia that he met his wife Julia Barminan, a high school teacher who was fluent in four languages and who had studied Greek mythology, whom he married in 1923. Their daughter Ariadna was born in 1925, in 1924 and 1925 he attended the Leningrad Higher Cavalry School, where he first met Georgy Zhukov. He returned to Mongolia, where he was a trainer for the Mongolian Peoples Army, both became principal actors in his life during World War II, where he served directly under both at different times. Often demonstrates initiative and skillfully applies it, demanding and persistent in his demands. A somewhat ungracious and not sufficiently sympathetic person, broadly experienced as a military leader. Absolutely cannot be used in staff or teaching jobs because constitutionally he hates them, Rokossovsky was among the first to realize the potential of armoured assault. He was a supporter of the creation of a strong armoured corps for the Red Army. Rokossovsky held senior commands until August 1937 when he caught up in Joseph Stalins Great Purge. Tchaikovsky who, like Rokossovsky, served in the far east in the early 1930s and he described Rokossovskys refusal to sign a false confession, Those who refused to sign a false statement were beaten up, as long as the false statement was not signed. There were steadfast people who stubbornly did not sign, K. K. Rokossovsky, as he sat with me in the same cell did not sign a false statement. But he was a brave and strong man, tall and broad-shouldered, but my grandfather knew very well that Yushkevich died in Perekop
19.
Ivan Chernyakhovsky
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Ivan Danilovich Chernyakhovsky, also Cherniakhovsky, was the youngest ever Soviet general of the army, twice Hero of the Soviet Union and commander of the 3rd Belorussian Front. He died from wounds received outside Königsberg at age 38, ivan Chernyakhovsky was born in 1906. His father was a railwayman who died of typhus when his son was nine and he was a railway worker until joining the Red Army in 1924. In 1928 he finished the school in Kiev. Due to the rapid expansion of the RKKA and 1937–1938 military purges. In 1938 he became commander of the 9th Light Tank Brigade, in March 1941 he became the commander of the 28th Tank Division in the Baltic Military District. In July 1942 promoted to the commander of the 18th Tank Corps defending Voronezh, operation Bagration was launched after a four-month break in activities because of the spring thaw. The Soviets launched their attack on June 22 on four fronts with 146 infantry and 43 armored divisions, General Bagramyans 1st Baltic Front and General Chernyakhovskys 3rd Belorussian Front struck to the north and south of Vitebsk and took the city on June 27. Chernyakhovskys left wing then took Orsha – this meant that the Moscow–Minsk highway could now be used to threaten the German rear, to the south, General Zakharovs 2nd Belorussian Front, north of the Pripet Marshes, destroyed a force of 33,000 at Babruysk on that day. Chernyakhovskys army now headed for Minsk, on July 2 his mobile forces reached Stolbtsy,40 miles away. General Rotmistrovs tanks entered Minsk on 3 July and 50,000 Germans were trapped, the offensive pressed on to Baranavichy and to Hrodna. In the south Rokossovsky cleared the Pripet Marshes taking Pinsk and Kovel on 5 July, in the north Bagramyan turned to the Baltic States and took Vilnius in Lithuania and Daugavpils in Latvia on 13 July. This split the Army Group North in two, the Soviets arrived on the Polish border within 24 days and claimed to had taken 158,000 men,2,000 tanks,10,000 guns, and 57,000 motor vehicles. They also claimed to have killed 38,000 Germans and it was a resounding defeat for the Germans and Hitler dismissed Busch from the command of Army Group Centre, replacing him with Model. The Soviets had swept the Germans from Belorussia by mid-July 1944, in the north Generals Chernyakhovsky and Zakharov joined to take Białystok on 18 July. Under the false pretenses of discussing the fight against the Nazis. The meeting was attended by Polish resistance officers Lt. Col. Aleksander Krzyżanowski, nom de guerre Wolf, both were immediately disarmed and arrested. However the briefing ended with the disarming and arrest of the Polish officers by the NKVD, in this period, up to 8,000 Polish resistance fighters were arrested
20.
4th Army (Wehrmacht)
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The 4th Army was a field army of the Wehrmacht during World War II. The 4th Army was activated on 1 August 1939 with General Günther von Kluge in command and it took part in the Invasion of Poland of September 1939 as part of Army Group North, which was under Field Marshal Feodor von Bock. The 4th Army contained the II Corps and III Corps, each with two divisions, the XIX Corps with two motorized and one panzer divisions, and three other divisions, including two in reserve. Its objective was to capture the Polish Corridor, thus linking mainland Germany with East Prussia, during the attack on the Low Countries and France, the 4th Army, as part of Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedts Army Group A, invaded Belgium from the Rhineland. Along with other German armies, the 4th Army penetrated the Dyle Line, the then Major-General Erwin Rommel, who was under Kluge, contributed immensely to his victories. Kluge, who had been General of the Artillery, was promoted to Field Marshal along with others on 19 July 1940. The 4th Army took part in Operation Barbarossa in 1941 as part of Bocks Army Group Center and took part in the Battle of Minsk, on 19 December 1941, Kluge resigned along Bock and Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch. Kluge was replaced by General Ludwig Kübler, after the launching of Operation Blue, the 4th Army and the entire Army Group Center did not see much action, as troops were concentrated to the south. However, from 1943 on, as Army Group Center was in full retreat, the Red Armys campaign of autumn 1943, Operation Suvorov, saw the 4th Army pushed back towards Orsha. Between October and the first week of December, West Front had tried four times to take Orsha and had beaten off in furious battles by Fourth Army. In 1944 the 4th Army was holding defensive positions east of Orsha and Mogilev in the Belorussian SSR, occupying a bulging, the Soviet summer offensive of that year, Operation Bagration, commencing on 22 June, proved disastrous for the Wehrmacht, including the 4th Army. It was encircled east of Minsk and lost 130,000 men in 12 days since the start of Bagration, few units were able to escape westwards, after the battles in the rest of the summer, the army required complete rebuilding. During late 1944–45 the 4th Army, now under the command of Friedrich Hoßbach, was tasked with holding the borders of East Prussia. On the first week in November in Gumbinnen Operation, the 4th Army pushed back the Soviet forces in the Gumbinnen sector off all but a fifteen-mile by fifty-mile strip of East Prussian territory. The Soviet East Prussian Offensive, commencing on 13 January, saw the 2nd Army driven steadily backwards towards the Baltic coast over a period of two weeks and 4th Army threatened with encirclement, for defying their orders, both Hoßbach and Reinhardt are relieved of command. By 13 February, 3rd Belorussian Front had pushed 4th Army out of the Heilsberg triangle, meanwhile, the Headquarters, 4th Army became Headquarters, 21st Army
21.
2nd Army (Wehrmacht)
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The 2nd Army was a World War II field army. The 2nd Army was activated on 20 October 1939, with General Maximilian Reichsfreiherr von Weichs in command, first seeing service in France, the army was involved in the invasion of the Balkans, before offensive operations in Ukraine as part of Operation Barbarossa. Armee covered the northern wing of opération Fall Blau operating in the surroundings of Voronezh, in 1945 the army was redisgnated AOK Ostpreußen and was pivotal in the defence of East and West Prussia before finally surrendering on 9 May 1945
22.
2nd Belorussian Front
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The 2nd Belorussian Front was a military formation of Army group size of the Soviet Army during the Second World War. Soviet army groups were known as Fronts, the 2nd Belorussian Front was created in February 1944 as the Soviets pushed the Germans back towards Byelorussia. General Colonel Pavel Kurochkin became its first commander, in hiatus in April 1944, its headquarters was reformed from the army headquarters of the disbanding 10th Army. On 2 January 1944 2BF entered the former Polish territories, on 26 June 1944 the Fronts forces captured Mogilev in the Mogilev Offensive. On 9 July The 2BF attacks northwest from Vitebsk as part of a major Soviet offensive east of Riga towards Rezekne in order to cut off the German Army Group North, on 29 July Soviets reach the coast cutting Army Group North off in Estonia and Eastern Latvia. On 13 September 2BF captured Łomża, west of Białystok, in November 1944 Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky was appointed commander of 2BF just in time for its last two great offensives of World War II. As part of a attack by four Fronts on 14 January 1945 2BF attacked East Prussia. 10 January 2BF attacked towards Neustett but was halted by German counterattacks,14 January 2BF attacks East Prussia. 24 January 1st and 2nd Belorussian Fronts attack in Pomerania,27 February Elements of the 2BF enter Pomerania 28 February 2BF captured Neustettin. 30 March Soviet troops finally capture Danzig,20 April 2BF offensive across the lower Oder towards Neubrandenburg, Stralsund,25 April 2BF, seized a large bridgehead on the Oder River south of Stettin forcing the centre of the III Panzer Army back to Prenzlau. 27 April 2BF captures Prenzlau and Angermünde 70 km northwest of Berlin 5 May elements of the 2BF entered Peenemunde, on 9 April 1945 Königsberg in East Prussia finally fell to the Red Army. This freed up 2BF to move west to the east bank of the Oder river, during the first two weeks of April the Soviets performed their fastest Front redeployment of the war. General Georgy Zhukov concentrated his 1st Belorussian Front which had been deployed along the Oder river from Frankfurt in the south to the Baltic, the 2BF moved into the positions being vacated by the 1BF north of the Seelow Heights. While this redeployment was in progress gaps were left in the lines, on 20 April the 2BF join in the attack. The Headquarters of the 2nd Byelorussian Front become the Headquarters of the Northern Group of Forces, most of the NGFs forces were drawn from 2nd Belorussian Front, along with some elements of the 1st Byelorussian and 1st Ukrainian Fronts. Battle for Berlin, April – May 1945, http, //www. historyofwar. org/articles/battles_berlin. html
23.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
24.
Red Army
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The Workers and Peasants Red Army was the army and the air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, and after 1922 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The army was established immediately after the 1917 October Revolution, the Bolsheviks raised an army to oppose the military confederations of their adversaries during the Russian Civil War. The Red Army is credited as being the land force in the Allied victory in the European theatre of World War II. During operations on the Eastern Front, it fought 75%–80% of the German land forces deployed in the war, inflicting the vast majority of all German losses and ultimately capturing the German capital. In September 1917, Vladimir Lenin wrote, There is only one way to prevent the restoration of the police, at the time, the Imperial Russian Army had started to collapse. The Tsarist general Nikolay Dukhonin estimated that there had been 2 million deserters,1.8 million dead,5 million wounded and 2 million prisoners and he estimated the remaining troops as numbering 10 million. Therefore, the Council of Peoples Commissars decided to form the Red Army on 28 January 1918 and they envisioned a body formed from the class-conscious and best elements of the working classes. All citizens of the Russian republic aged 18 or older were eligible, in the event of an entire unit wanting to join the Red Army, a collective guarantee and the affirmative vote of all its members would be necessary. Because the Red Army was composed mainly of peasants, the families of those who served were guaranteed rations, some peasants who remained at home yearned to join the Army, men, along with some women, flooded the recruitment centres. If they were turned away they would collect scrap metal and prepare care-packages, in some cases the money they earned would go towards tanks for the Army. Nikolai Krylenko was the supreme commander-in-chief, with Aleksandr Myasnikyan as deputy, Nikolai Podvoisky became the commissar for war, Pavel Dybenko, commissar for the fleet. Proshyan, Samoisky, Steinberg were also specified as peoples commissars as well as Vladimir Bonch-Bruyevich from the Bureau of Commissars, at a joint meeting of Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, held on 22 February 1918, Krylenko remarked, We have no army. The Red Guard units are brushed aside like flies and we have no power to stay the enemy, only an immediate signing of the peace treaty will save us from destruction. This provoked the insurrection of General Alexey Maximovich Kaledins Volunteer Army in the River Don region, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk aggravated Russian internal politics. The situation encouraged direct Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, a series of engagements resulted, involving, amongst others, the Czechoslovak Legion, the Polish 5th Rifle Division, and the pro-Bolshevik Red Latvian Riflemen. The Whites defeated the Red Army on each front, Leon Trotsky reformed and counterattacked, the Red Army repelled Admiral Kolchaks army in June, and the armies of General Denikin and General Yudenich in October. By mid-November the White armies were all almost completely exhausted, in January 1920, Budennys First Cavalry Army entered Rostov-on-Don. 1919 to 1923 At the wars start, the Red Army consisted of 299 infantry regiments, Civil war intensified after Lenin dissolved the Russian Constituent Assembly and the Soviet government signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, removing Russia from the Great War
25.
Minsk
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Minsk (Belarusian, Мінск pronounced, is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Belarus, situated on the Svislach and Nyamiha rivers. It is the centre of the Commonwealth of Independent States. As the national capital, Minsk has an administrative status in Belarus and is the administrative centre of Minsk Region. In 2013, it had a population of 2,002,600, the earliest historical references to Minsk date to the 11th century, when it was noted as a provincial city within the principality of Polotsk. The settlement developed on the rivers, in 1242, Minsk became a part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It received town privileges in 1499, from 1569, it was a capital of the Minsk Voivodeship in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was part of a region annexed by the Russian Empire in 1793, from 1919 to 1991, after the Russian Revolution, Minsk was the capital of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic within the Soviet Union. Minsk will host the 2019 European Games, Minsk is located on the southeastern slope of the Minsk Hills, a region of rolling hills running from the southwest to the northeast – that is, to Lukomskaye Lake in northwestern Belarus. The average altitude above sea level is 220 metres, the physical geography of Minsk was shaped over the two most recent ice ages. There are six smaller rivers within the city limits, all part of the Black Sea basin, Minsk is in the area of mixed forests typical of most of Belarus. Pinewood and mixed forests border the edge of the city, especially in the north, some of the forests were preserved as parks as the city grew. The city was built on the hills, which allowed for defensive fortifications. Minsk has a warm summer humid continental climate, owing to its location between the strong influence of the moist air of the Atlantic Ocean and the dry air of the Eurasian landmass. Its weather is unstable and tends to change often, the average January temperature is −4.5 °C, while the average July temperature is 18.5 °C. The lowest temperature was recorded on 17 January 1940, at −40 °C and the warmest on 29 July 1936 at 35 °C and this results in frequent fogs, common in the autumn and spring. Minsk receives annual precipitation of 690 millimetres, of one third falls during the cold period. Throughout the year, most winds are westerly and northwesterly, bringing cool, similar climatic regimes are found in Stockholm, Sweden and in Halifax, Canada. The ecological situation is monitored by Republican Centre of Radioactive and Environmental Control, during 2003–2008 the overall weight of contaminants increased from 186,000 to 247,400 tons
26.
Minsk Offensive
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The Minsk Offensive was part of the second phase of the Belorussian Strategic Offensive of the Red Army in summer 1944, commonly known as Operation Bagration. The Red Army encircled the German Fourth Army in the city of Minsk, hitler ordered the Fourth Army to hold fast, declaring the city a Fester Platz. The Soviet 5th Guards Tank Army attacked from the north-east, while the 2nd Guards Tank Corps moved in from the east, and the 65th Army advanced from the south. About 100,000 Axis soldiers from the Fourth and Ninth Armies were encircled, of whom some 40,000 were killed and most of the rest captured. The result was a victory for the Red Army, the liberation of Minsk. The role of the 3rd Belorussian Front in the first phase of Operation Bagration was essentially complete by 28 June, the same day, with the initial objectives fulfilled, Stavka issued a new order, No.220124. The 5th Guards Tank Army, under General Pavel Rotmistrov was however criticized for its slowness in attaining its objectives, German planning largely involved damage limitation. The immediate effects of the Vitebsk–Orsha Offensive and Bobruysk Offensive made it clear that Soviet forces had the objective of the city of Minsk. Authorisation was therefore given on 26 June to shift the 5th Panzer Division from Army Group South Ukraine to assist in the citys defence, by the time the operation had commenced, the entire Fourth Army had been bypassed on both its northern and southern flanks. Despite this, it was ordered to hold fast and its central corps, the XXXIX Panzer Corps, had largely disintegrated under Soviet air attack whilst attempting to reach the Berezina crossings, having lost two corps commanders in as many days. By 26 June, OKH had finally realised that the developing Operation Bagration was the main Soviet offensive, in the south, Ninth Army had lost all cohesion, its remaining troops being pounded by artillery and air bombardment. 5th Panzers main tank regiments, which unlike many German armoured units at the time were at full strength, were concentrated to the north, screening the rail lines being used for evacuation. The road itself was held by a rearguard of infantry, while Heavy Tank Battalion 505, equipped with Tiger Is, there were few manpower reserves in the area from which a defence could be organised. Some further reinforcements were provided by Gruppe von Gottberg, the rear-area security units of the Dirlewanger, 5th Guards Tank Army was now bearing down on Minsk from the north-east, while the Soviet 2nd Guards Tank Corps approached from the east. 5th Panzers engineers blew the bridges over the Berezina on 30 June in an attempt to deny the Soviet forces entry into Borisov. The overstretched main elements of Gruppe von Saucken now attempted to screen Minsk from the north-west, where the 5th Guards Tank Army threatened to sever the railway lines. In the meantime, the four divisions of XXXIX Panzer Corps had begun to back and make for the crossings at Berezino, south of Borisov. A column of vehicles stretched back for many kilometres, under constant air attack, the replacement corps commander, Lieutenant-General Otto Schünemann, was himself killed on 29 June, and the entire corps began to disintegrate
27.
Lithuania
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Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in Northern Europe. One of the three Baltic states, it is situated along the shore of the Baltic Sea, to the east of Sweden. It is bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, Lithuania has an estimated population of 2.9 million people as of 2015, and its capital and largest city is Vilnius. The official language, Lithuanian, along with Latvian, is one of two living languages in the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family. For centuries, the shores of the Baltic Sea were inhabited by various Baltic tribes. In the 1230s, the Lithuanian lands were united by Mindaugas, the King of Lithuania, and the first unified Lithuanian state, with the Lublin Union of 1569, Lithuania and Poland formed a voluntary two-state union, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Commonwealth lasted more than two centuries, until neighboring countries systematically dismantled it from 1772–95, with the Russian Empire annexing most of Lithuanias territory. As World War I neared its end, Lithuanias Act of Independence was signed on 16 February 1918, in the midst of the Second World War, Lithuania was first occupied by the Soviet Union and then by Nazi Germany. As World War II neared its end and the Germans retreated, Lithuania is a member of the European Union, the Council of Europe, a full member of the Eurozone, Schengen Agreement and NATO. It is also a member of the Nordic Investment Bank, the United Nations Human Development Index lists Lithuania as a very high human development country. Lithuania has been among the fastest growing economies in the European Union and is ranked 21st in the world in the Ease of Doing Business Index, the first people settled in the territory of Lithuania after the last glacial period in the 10th millennium BC. Over a millennium, the Indo-Europeans, who arrived in the 3rd – 2nd millennium BC, mixed with the local population, the first written mention of Lithuania is found in a medieval German manuscript, the Annals of Quedlinburg, in an entry dated 9 March 1009. Initially inhabited by fragmented Baltic tribes, in the 1230s the Lithuanian lands were united by Mindaugas, after his assassination in 1263, pagan Lithuania was a target of the Christian crusades of the Teutonic Knights and the Livonian Order. Despite the devastating century-long struggle with the Orders, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania expanded rapidly, by the end of the 14th century, Lithuania was one of the largest countries in Europe and included present-day Belarus, Ukraine, and parts of Poland and Russia. The geopolitical situation between the west and the east determined the multicultural and multi-confessional character of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the ruling elite practised religious tolerance and Chancery Slavonic language was used as an auxiliary language to the Latin for official documents. In 1385, the Grand Duke Jogaila accepted Polands offer to become its king, Jogaila embarked on gradual Christianization of Lithuania and established a personal union between Poland and Lithuania. It implied that Lithuania, the fiercely independent land, was one of the last pagan areas of Europe to adopt Christianity, after two civil wars, Vytautas the Great became the Grand Duke of Lithuania in 1392. During his reign, Lithuania reached the peak of its expansion, centralization of the state began
28.
Kingdom of Romania
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The Kingdom of Romania was a constitutional monarchy which existed between 13 March 1881 and 30 December 1947, specified by the first three Constitutions of Romania. As such, it is distinct from the Romanian Old Kingdom. From 1859 to 1877, Romania evolved from a union of two vassal principalities under a single prince to a full-fledged independent kingdom with a Hohenzollern monarchy. During 1918-20, at the end of World War I, Transylvania, Eastern Moldavia, in 1947 King Michael was compelled to abdicate and a socialist republic ruled by the Romanian Communist Party replaced the monarchy. The 1859 ascendancy of Alexandru Ioan Cuza as prince of both Moldavia and Wallachia under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire united an identifiably Romanian nation under a single ruler. On 5 February 1862 the two principalities were united to form the Principality of Romania, with Bucharest as its capital. On 23 February 1866 a so-called Monstrous coalition, composed of Conservatives and radical Liberals, the German prince Charles of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was appointed as Prince of Romania, in a move to assure German backing to unity and future independence. He immediately adopted the Romanian spelling of his name, Carol, on 15 March 1881, as an assertion of full sovereignty, the Romanian parliament raised the country to the status of a kingdom, and Carol was crowned as king on 10 May. Abstaining from the Initial Balkan War against the Ottoman Empire, the Kingdom of Romania entered the Second Balkan War in June 1913 against the Tsardom of Bulgaria,330,000 Romanian troops moved across the Danube and into Bulgaria. One army occupied Southern Dobrudja and another moved into northern Bulgaria to threaten Sofia, Romania thus acquired the ethnically-mixed territory of Southern Dobrudja, which it had desired for years. In 1916 Romania entered World War I on the Entente side, the term came into use after World War I, when the Old Kingdom was opposed to Greater Romania, which included Transylvania, Banat, Bessarabia, and Bukovina. Nowadays, the term mainly has a historical relevance, and is used as a common term for all regions in Romania included in both the Old Kingdom and present-day borders. Romania delayed in entering World War I, but ultimately declared war on the Central Powers in 1916, War with the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919 resulted in the occupation of Budapest by Romanian troops and the end of Béla Kuns Bolshevik regime. At the Paris Peace Conference, Romania received territories of Transylvania, part of Banat, Bessarabia, thus, Romania in 1920 was more than twice the size it had been in 1914. Although the country was satisfied and had no territorial claims, it aroused the enmity of Bulgaria, and especially Hungary. Greater Romania now encompassed a significant minority population, especially of Hungarians, by contrast, the prewar Romanian state had only one real minority, Jews, but nonetheless anti-Semitism was widespread. Transylvania had significant Hungarian and German population, and with a contemptuous attitude towards Romanians. Both groups were excluded from politics as the postwar Romanian regime passed an edict stating that all personnel employed by the state had to speak Romanian
29.
Deep operation
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The concept of deep operations was a national strategy, tailored to the economic, cultural and geopolitical position of the Soviet Union. In the aftermath of several failures or defeats in the Russo-Japanese War, First World War and Polish–Soviet War and this new approach considered military strategy and tactics, but also introduced a new intermediate level of military art, operations. The Soviet Union was one of the first countries to officially distinguish the level of military thinking which occupied the position between strategy and tactics. Using these templates, the Soviets developed the concept of deep battle, Deep operations had two phases, the tactical deep battle, followed by the exploitation of tactical success, known as the conduct of deep battle operations. The goal of an operation was to inflict a decisive strategic defeat on the enemys logistical abilities and render the defence of their front more difficult, impossible—or, indeed. Unlike most other doctrines, deep battle stressed combined arms cooperation at all levels, strategic, operational, Russian military thinking had changed little over the course of three centuries prior to the 1920s. The Russian Empire had kept pace with its enemies and allies, after the Russian Revolution, the new Bolshevik regime sought to create an entirely new military system that reflected the Bolshevik revolutionary spirit. The new Red Army combined the old and new methods, once this had been achieved, the Soviets turned their attention to solving the problem of military operational mobility. Primary advocates of this development included Alexander Andreyevich Svechin, Mikhail Frunze and they promoted the development of military scientific societies and they identified groups of talented officers. Many of these entered the Soviet Military Academy during Tukhachevskys tenure as its commandant in 1921–1922. Others came later, including particularly Nikolai Efimovich Varfolomeev and Vladimir Triandafillov, in the aftermath of the wars with Japan and Poland several senior Soviet Commanders called for a unified military doctrine. The most prominent was Mikhail Frunze, the call prompted opposition by Leon Trotsky. Frunze position eventually found favour with the elements that had experienced the poor command. This turn of events prompted Trotskys replacement by Frunze in January 1925, the nature of this new doctrine was to be political. The Soviets were to fuse the military with the Bolshevik ideal and this would define the nature of war for the Soviet Union. The Soviets believed their most likely enemy would be the capitalist states of the west they had to defend themselves against before and that such a conflict was unavoidable. The nature of war raised four major questions, Would the next war be won in one decisive campaign or would it be a long struggle of attrition. Should the Red Army be primarily offensive or defensive, would the nature of battle be fluid or static
30.
Russian military deception
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Russian military deception, sometimes known as Maskirovka, is a military doctrine developed from the start of the twentieth century. The doctrine covers a range of measures for military deception, ranging from camouflage to denial. Deceptive measures include concealment, imitation with decoys and dummies, manoeuvres intended to deceive, denial, and disinformation. The doctrine has also put into practice in peacetime, with denial and deception operations in events such as the Cuban missile crisis, the Prague Spring. The Russian doctrine of deception has evolved with time. The Russian term маскировка literally means masking, an early military meaning was camouflage, soon extended to battlefield masking using smoke and other methods of screening. From there it came to have the meaning of military deception, widening to include denial. The practice of military deception predates Russia, early in Russias history, in the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380, Prince Dmitry Donskoy defeated the armies of the Mongol Golden Horde using a surprise attack from a regiment hidden in forest. The tactics of that battle are still cited in Russian cadet schools, the Russian Army had a deception school, active in 1904, disbanded in 1929. Meanwhile, military deception was developed as a doctrine in the 1920s. The 1929 Field Regulations of the Red Army stated that surprise has an effect on the enemy. For this reason all troop operations must be accomplished with the greatest concealment, Concealment was to be attained by confusing the enemy with movements, camouflage and use of terrain, speed, use of night and fog, and secrecy. Thus in Soviet military art during the 1920s the theory of operational maskirovka was developed as one of the most important means of achieving surprise in operations, the 1935 Instructions on Deep Battle and then the 1936 Field Regulations place increasing stress on battlefield deception. In the 1939 Russian invasion of Finland, white winter camouflage was worn by Soviet troops and it asserts that it contributes to achieving surprise, preserving combat readiness and the survivability of objectives. In these spheres, as war is but an extension of politics, it includes political, Russian military deception is broadly equated with maskirovka, but other terms are also used in the area, including the fog of war, tuman voyny. The goal of military deception is however surprise, vnezapnost, so the two are naturally studied together, however, the military analyst William Connor cautioned that in the Soviet sense, the doctrine covered much more than camouflage and deception. It had, he suggested, the connotation of active control of the enemy, by the time of Operation Bagration in 1944, Connor argues, the Russian doctrine of military deception already included all these aspects. The meaning evolved in Soviet practice and doctrine to include strategic, political and this differs from Western doctrines on deception, and from information warfare doctrines, by its emphasis on pragmatic aspects
31.
Lublin
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Lublin is the ninth largest city in Poland and the second largest city of Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the center of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 349,103, Lublin is the largest Polish city east of the Vistula River, and is located approximately 170 kilometres to the southeast of Warsaw by road. One of the events that contributed to the citys development was the Polish-Lithuanian Union of Krewo in 1385. In 1474, Lublin, which was part of the Sandomierz region. Lublin also witnessed the early stages of Reformation in the 16th century, a Calvinist congregation was founded and certain groups of radical Arians also appeared in the city, making it an important national centre of Arianism. Until the partitions at the end of the 18th century, Lublin was a city of the Crown Kingdom of Poland. Its delegates and nobles had the right to participate in the Royal Election, although Lublin was not spared from severe destruction during World War II, its picturesque and historical Old Town has been preserved. The district is one of Polands official national Historic Monuments, as designated May 16,2007, the city is viewed as an attractive location for foreign investment and the analytical Financial Times Group has found Lublin to be one of the best cities for business in Poland. The Foreign direct investment ranking placed Lublin second among larger Polish cities in the Cost-effectiveness category, Lublin is also noted for its green spaces and a high standard of living. Archaeological finds indicate a presence of cultures in the area. A complex of settlements started to develop on the site of Lublin and in its environs in the 6th-7th centuries. Remains of settlements dating back to the 6th century were discovered in the center of todays Lublin on Czwartek Hill, the next period of the early Middle Ages was marked by intensification of habitation, particularly in the areas along river valleys. The settlements at the time were centered around the stronghold on Old Town Hill, when the tribal stronghold was destroyed in the 10th century, the center shifted to the north-east, to a new stronghold above Czechówka valley, and after the mid-12th century to Castle Hill. At least two churches are presumed to have existed in Lublin in the medieval period. One of them was most probably erected on Czwartek Hill during the rule of Casimir the Restorer in the 11th century. The castle became the seat of a Castellan, first mentioned in sources from 1224. The oldest historical document mentioning Lublin dates from 1198, so the name must have come into use some time earlier. The location of Lublin at the borders of the Polish lands gave it military significance
32.
Brest, Belarus
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Brest formerly also Brześć nad Bugiem Brest-on-the-Bug and Brest-Litovsk, is a city in Belarus at the border with Poland opposite the Polish city of Terespol, where the Bug and Mukhavets rivers meet. It is the city of the Brest voblast. The city of Brest is a site of many cultures. It was the location of important historical events such as the Union of Brest, the Brest Fortress was recognized by the Soviet Union as the Hero Fortress in honor of the defense of Brest Fortress in June 1941. During medieval times, the city was part of the Kingdom of Poland from 1020 until 1319 when it was taken by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and it became part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1569. As a result of the Partitions of Poland, it was incorporated into the Russian Empire in 1795, after World War I, the city returned to Second Polish Republic. In 1941 it was again by the Nazis during Operation Barbarossa. After the war, once the new boundaries between the USSR and Poland were ratified, the city part of the Soviet BSSR until the breakup of the country in 1991. It is part of sovereign Belarus of today, several theories attempt to account for the origin of the citys name. It might have come from the Slavic root beresta meaning birch, the name of the city could also originate from the Slavic root berest meaning elm. And finally, the name of the city could have come from the Lithuanian word brasta meaning ford, once a center of Jewish scholarship, the city has the Yiddish name בריסק, hence the term Brisker used to describe followers of the influential Soloveitchik family of rabbis. The traditional Belarusian name for the city is Берасце, Brest became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1319. In the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth formed in 1569 the town was known in Polish as Brześć, after World War I, and the rebirth of Poland, the government of the Second Polish Republic renamed the city as Brześć nad Bugiem on March 20,1923. After World War II the city part of Soviet Belarus with the name simplified as Brest. Brests coat of arms features an arrow pointed upwards and a bow on a sky-blue shield and it was adopted on January 26,1991. An alternative coat of arms has a red shield, Sigismund II Augustus, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, first granted Brest a coat of arms in 1554. The city was founded by the Slavs, as a town, Brest – Berestye in Kievan Rus – was first mentioned in the Primary Chronicle in 1019 when the Kievan Rus took the stronghold from the Poles. It is one of the oldest cities in Belarus and it was hotly contested between the Polish rulers and Kievan Rus princes, laid waste by the Mongols in 1241, and was not rebuilt until 1275
33.
Lviv
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Lviv, the largest city in western Ukraine and the seventh largest city in the country overall, is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine. Named in honor of the Leo, the eldest son of Rus King Daniel of Galicia. It was the capital of the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia from 1272 to 1349, from 1434, it was the regional capital of the Ruthenian Voivodeship in the Kingdom of Poland and was known as Lwów. In 1772, after the First partition of Poland, the city became the capital of the Habsburg Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria and was renamed to Lemberg, in 1918 in a short time was the capital of the West Ukrainian Peoples Republic. Between the wars, the city was again as Lwów and was the centre of the Lwów Voivodeship in the Second Polish Republic. After World War II, it part of the Soviet Union. Administratively, Lviv serves as the center of Lviv Oblast and has the status of city of oblast significance. Lviv was the centre of the region of Galicia. The historical heart of the city, with its old buildings and cobblestone streets, survived Soviet, the city has many industries and institutions of higher education such as Lviv University and Lviv Polytechnic. Lviv is also the home of many cultural institutions, including a philharmonic orchestra. The historic city centre is on the UNESCO World Heritage List, Lviv celebrated its 750th anniversary with a son et lumière in the center of the city in September 2006. Lviv is located on the edge of the Roztochia Upland, approximately 70 kilometers from the Polish border and 160 kilometers from the eastern Carpathian Mountains, the average altitude of Lviv is 296 meters above sea level. Its highest point is the Vysokyi Zamok,409 meters above sea level and this castle has a commanding view of the historic city centre with its distinctive green-domed churches and intricate architecture. The old walled city was at the foothills of the High Castle on the banks of the River Poltva, in the 13th century, the river was used to transport goods. Lvivs climate is continental with cold winters and mild summers. The average temperatures are −3.1 °C in January and 18.3 °C in July, the average annual rainfall is 745 mm with the maximum being in summer. Lviv approximately receives 1,804 hours of sunshine annually, archaeologists have demonstrated that the Lviv area was settled by the 5th century. The area between the Castle Hill and the river Poltva was continuously settled since the 9th century, in 1977 it was discovered that the Orthodox church of St. Nicholas had been built on a previously functioning cemetery
34.
Sandomierz
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Sandomierz is a town in south-eastern Poland with 25,714 inhabitants, situated in the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship. It is the capital of Sandomierz County, Sandomierz is known for its Old Town, which is a major tourist attraction. In the past, Sandomierz used to be one of the most important urban centers not only of Lesser Poland, but also of the whole country. The name of the city might have originated from the Old Polish Sędomir, composed of Sędzi- and mir, or more likely from the given name Sędzimir. Sandomierz is known in German, Sandomir, Latin, Sandomiria, Yiddish, צויזמיר, Hungarian, Szandomir, Ukrainian, Сандомир or Судомир, Russian, Сандомир, Sandomierz is one of the oldest and historically most significant cities in Poland. Archeological finds around the city indicate that humans have inhabited the area since neolithic times, the city came into existence in the early Middle Ages, taking advantage of an excellent location at the junction of Vistula and San rivers, and on the path of important trade routes. The first known mention of the city comes from the early 12th-century. The testament of Bolesław III Wrymouth, in which he divided Poland among his sons, designated Sandomierz as the capital of one of the resulting principalities, in the course of the 13th century the city suffered grievous damage during raids by Tatars in 1241,1259 and 1287. The old wooden buildings of the town were completely destroyed, as a result, in 1286 the High Duke of Poland Leszek II the Black, effectively refounded the city under Magdeburg Law. The city archives preserve the founding document, after the re-unification of the Polish lands in the 14th century, the former principality became the Sandomierz Voivodeship, incorporating large areas of southeastern Poland. Until 1474, it was one of two voivodeships of Lesser Poland, together with Krakow Voivodeship, in 1474, Lublin Voivodeship was created from eastern part of Sandomierz Voivodeship. At this time Sandomierz had about 3,000 inhabitants and was one of the largest Polish cities, in the middle of the 14th century the city was burned again during a raid by the Lithuanians. It was rebuilt during the rule of king Casimir III of Poland, the layout of the city has survived practically unchanged since that time until the present day. The following three hundred years, running until the middle of the 17th century, were prosperous for the city. The most important historical buildings were built during this period and this golden age came to an end in 1655 when Swedish forces captured the city in the course of the Deluge. After briefly holding out in the city, the withdrawing Swedes blew up the castle, in the next 100 years the economy of Poland suffered a decline, which also affected the city. A great fire in 1757 and the First Partition of Poland in 1772, as a result, Sandomierz lost its role as an administrative capital. In 1809, during the Napoleonic Wars, fighting between the forces of Austria and of the Duchy of Warsaw caused damage to the city, after 1815 it found itself in the Russian Empire
35.
Vistula
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The Vistula is the longest and largest river in Poland, at 1,047 kilometres in length. The drainage basin area of the Vistula is 194,424 km2, the remainder is in Belarus, Ukraine and Slovakia. The Vistula rises at Barania Góra in the south of Poland,1,220 meters above sea level in the Silesian Beskids, where it begins with the White Little Vistula and the Black Little Vistula. It empties into the Vistula Lagoon or directly into the Gdańsk Bay of the Baltic Sea with a delta, the name was first recorded by Pomponius Mela in AD40 and by Pliny in AD77 in his Natural History. Mela names the river Vistula, Pliny uses Vistla, the root of the name Vistula is Indo-European *u̯eis- to ooze, flow slowly and is found in many European rivernames. The diminutive endings -ila, -ula, were used in many Indo-European languages, in writing about the Vistula River and its peoples, Ptolemy uses the Greek spelling Ouistoula. Other ancient sources spell it Istula, ammianus Marcellinus refers to the Bisula, note the absence of the -t-. Jordanes uses Viscla, while the Anglo-Saxon poem Widsith refers to it as the Wistla, the Vistula river basin covers 194,424 square kilometres, its average altitude rising to 270 metres above sea level. In addition, the majority of its basin is located at heights of 100 to 200 m above sea level. The highest point of the basin lies at 2,655 metres. The asymmetry of the basin is 73–27%. The most recent glaciation of the Pleistocene epoch, which ended around 10,000 BC, is called the Vistulian glaciation or Weichselian glaciation in regard to north-central Europe. The river forms a delta called the Żuławy Wiślane around the town of Biała Góra near Sztum, about 50 km from the mouth. In the city of Gdańsk the Head of the Leniwka branch separates again into the Szkarpawa branch, the so-called Dead Wisła divides again into the Przegalinie branch flowing into Gdańsk Bay. Until the 14th century the Vistula was divided into an eastern branch, the Elbląg Vistula, and the smaller western branch. Since 1371 the Vistula of Gdańsk is the main artery. After the flood in 1840 an additional branch formed called the Śmiała Wisła, in 1890 through 1895, additional waterworks were carried out up the Świbna. The history of the River Vistula and her valley spans over 2 million years, the river is connected to the geological period called the Quaternary, in which distinct cooling of the climate took place
36.
Warsaw
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Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It stands on the Vistula River in east-central Poland, roughly 260 kilometres from the Baltic Sea and 300 kilometres from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population is estimated at 1.750 million residents within a metropolitan area of 3.101 million residents. The city limits cover 516.9 square kilometres, while the area covers 6,100.43 square kilometres. Once described as Paris of the East, Warsaw was believed to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world until World War II. On 9 November 1939, the city was awarded Polands highest military decoration for heroism, Warsaw is one of Europe’s most dynamic metropolitan cities. In 2012 the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked Warsaw as the 32nd most liveable city in the world, in 2017 the city came 4th in the “Business-friendly” category and 8th in the “Human capital and life style”. It was also ranked as one of the most liveable cities in Central, Warsaw is considered an Alpha– global city, a major international tourist destination and a significant cultural, political and economic hub. The city is a significant centre of research and development, BPO, ITO, the Warsaw Stock Exchange is the largest and most important in Central and Eastern Europe. Frontex, the European Union agency for external security, has its headquarters in Warsaw. Together with Frankfurt, London and Paris, Warsaw is also one of the cities with the highest number of skyscrapers in the European Union, the city is the seat of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra and the University of Warsaw. The historic city-centre of Warsaw with its picturesque Old Town in 1980 was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, buildings represent examples of nearly every European architectural style and historical period. Warsaw provides many examples of architecture from the gothic, renaissance, baroque, neoclassical and modern periods, furthermore, the city is positioning itself as Europes chic cultural capital with thriving art and club scenes and renowned restaurants. Folk etymology attributes the city name to a fisherman, Wars, according to legend, Sawa was a mermaid living in the Vistula River with whom Wars fell in love. In actuality, Warsz was a 12th/13th-century nobleman who owned a village located at the site of Mariensztat neighbourhood. See also the Vršovci family which had escaped to Poland, the official city name in full is miasto stołeczne Warszawa. A native or resident of Warsaw is known as a Varsovian – in Polish warszawiak, warszawianin, warszawianka, warszawiacy, other names for Warsaw include Varsovia and Varsóvia, Varsovie, Varsavia, Warschau, װאַרשע /Varshe, Варшава /Varšava /Varshava, Varšuva, Varsó. The first fortified settlements on the site of todays Warsaw were located in Bródno, after Jazdów was raided by nearby clans and dukes, a new similar settlement was established on the site of a small fishing village called Warszowa
37.
Berlin
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Berlin is the capital and the largest city of Germany as well as one of its constituent 16 states. With a population of approximately 3.5 million, Berlin is the second most populous city proper, due to its location in the European Plain, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. Around one-third of the area is composed of forests, parks, gardens, rivers. Berlin in the 1920s was the third largest municipality in the world, following German reunification in 1990, Berlin once again became the capital of all-Germany. Berlin is a city of culture, politics, media. Its economy is based on high-tech firms and the sector, encompassing a diverse range of creative industries, research facilities, media corporations. Berlin serves as a hub for air and rail traffic and has a highly complex public transportation network. The metropolis is a popular tourist destination, significant industries also include IT, pharmaceuticals, biomedical engineering, clean tech, biotechnology, construction and electronics. Modern Berlin is home to world renowned universities, orchestras, museums and its urban setting has made it a sought-after location for international film productions. The city is known for its festivals, diverse architecture, nightlife, contemporary arts. Since 2000 Berlin has seen the emergence of a cosmopolitan entrepreneurial scene, the name Berlin has its roots in the language of West Slavic inhabitants of the area of todays Berlin, and may be related to the Old Polabian stem berl-/birl-. All German place names ending on -ow, -itz and -in, since the Ber- at the beginning sounds like the German word Bär, a bear appears in the coat of arms of the city. It is therefore a canting arm, the first written records of towns in the area of present-day Berlin date from the late 12th century. Spandau is first mentioned in 1197 and Köpenick in 1209, although these areas did not join Berlin until 1920, the central part of Berlin can be traced back to two towns. Cölln on the Fischerinsel is first mentioned in a 1237 document,1237 is considered the founding date of the city. The two towns over time formed close economic and social ties, and profited from the right on the two important trade routes Via Imperii and from Bruges to Novgorod. In 1307, they formed an alliance with a common external policy, in 1415 Frederick I became the elector of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, which he ruled until 1440. In 1443 Frederick II Irontooth started the construction of a new palace in the twin city Berlin-Cölln
Germany
Soviet Union
Poland
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Media related to Operation Bagration at Wikimedia Commons
