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
Eastern Front (World War II)
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German infantry in June 1943
Eastern Front (World War II)
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Clockwise from top left: Soviet
Il-2 ground attack aircraft in Berlin sky; German
Tiger I tanks during the
Battle of Kursk; German
Stuka dive bombers on the Eastern Front, winter 1943–1944; Killings of Jews by German
Einsatzgruppen in Ukraine;
Wilhelm Keitel signing the
German Instrument of Surrender; Soviet troops in the
Battle of Stalingrad
Eastern Front (World War II)
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Map of
South Western Front (Ukrainian) at 22 June 1941
Eastern Front (World War II)
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The corpses of victims of Stalin's
NKVD murdered in the last few days of June 1941, just after the outbreak of 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
World War II
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Clockwise from top left: Chinese forces in the
Battle of Wanjialing, Australian
25-pounder guns during the
First Battle of El Alamein, German
Stuka dive bombers on the
Eastern Front in December 1943, a U.S. naval force in the
Lingayen Gulf,
Wilhelm Keitel signing the
German Instrument of Surrender, Soviet troops in the
Battle of Stalingrad
World War II
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The
League of Nations assembly, held in
Geneva,
Switzerland, 1930
World War II
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Adolf Hitler at a German
National Socialist political rally in
Weimar, October 1930
World War II
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Italian soldiers recruited in 1935, on their way to fight the
Second Italo-Abyssinian War
3.
Nevsky Prospect
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Nevsky Prospect is the main street in the city of St. Petersburg, Russia. The feverish life of the avenue was described by Nikolai Gogol in his story Nevsky Prospekt, fyodor Dostoevsky often employed the Nevksy Prospekt as a setting within his works, such as Crime and Punishment and The Double, A Petersburg Poem. During the early Soviet years the name of Nevsky Prospect was changed, following the demise of Proletkult the name was changed again, this time to Avenue of the 25th of October, alluding to the day of the October Revolution. The Nevsky today functions as the main thoroughfare in Saint Petersburg, the majority of the citys shopping and nightlife are located on or right off the Nevsky Prospekt. The street is served by the stations Admiralteyskaya, Nevsky Prospekt, Gostiny Dvor, Mayakovskaya, Ploshchad Vosstaniya, list of upscale shopping districts Media related to Nevsky Prospekt at Wikimedia Commons
Nevsky Prospect
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Nevsky Prospect in January 2010
Nevsky Prospect
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The avenue near the
Gostiny Dvor, 1799
Nevsky Prospect
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The avenue near the
Nicholas Station, 1890s
4.
Saint Petersburg
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Saint Petersburg is Russias second-largest city after Moscow, with five million inhabitants in 2012, and an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea. It is politically incorporated as a federal subject, situated on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea, it was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on May 271703. In 1914, the name was changed from Saint Petersburg to Petrograd, in 1924 to Leningrad, between 1713 and 1728 and 1732–1918, Saint Petersburg was the capital of imperial Russia. In 1918, the government bodies moved to Moscow. Saint Petersburg is one of the cities of Russia, as well as its cultural capital. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Saint Petersburg is home to The Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world. A large number of consulates, international corporations, banks. Swedish colonists built Nyenskans, a fortress, at the mouth of the Neva River in 1611, in a then called Ingermanland. A small town called Nyen grew up around it, Peter the Great was interested in seafaring and maritime affairs, and he intended to have Russia gain a seaport in order to be able to trade with other maritime nations. He needed a better seaport than Arkhangelsk, which was on the White Sea to the north, on May 1703121703, during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured Nyenskans, and soon replaced the fortress. On May 271703, closer to the estuary 5 km inland from the gulf), on Zayachy Island, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. The city was built by conscripted peasants from all over Russia, tens of thousands of serfs died building the city. Later, the city became the centre of the Saint Petersburg Governorate, Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712,9 years before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war, he referred to Saint Petersburg as the capital as early as 1704. During its first few years, the city developed around Trinity Square on the bank of the Neva, near the Peter. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to be built out according to a plan, by 1716 the Swiss Italian Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be located on Vasilyevsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed, but is evident in the layout of the streets, in 1716, Peter the Great appointed French Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond as the chief architect of Saint Petersburg. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences, University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great, in 1725, Peter died at the age of fifty-two. His endeavours to modernize Russia had met opposition from the Russian nobility—resulting in several attempts on his life
Saint Petersburg
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Top left to bottom right:
Peter and Paul Fortress on
Zayachy Island,
Smolny Cathedral,
Moyka river with the
General Staff Building,
Trinity Cathedral,
Bronze Horseman on
Senate Square, and the
Winter Palace.
Saint Petersburg
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The
Bronze Horseman, monument to Peter the Great
Saint Petersburg
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Palace Square backed by the General Staff arch and building, as the main square of the Russian Empire it was the setting of many events of historic significance
Saint Petersburg
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Map of Saint Petersburg, 1903
5.
Russian SFSR
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The Republic comprised sixteen autonomous republics, five autonomous oblasts, ten autonomous okrugs, six krais, and forty oblasts. Russians formed the largest ethnic group, the capital of the Russian SFSR was Moscow and the other major urban centers included Leningrad, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Samara. The Russian Soviet Republic was proclaimed on November 7,1917 as a sovereign state, the first Constitution was adopted in 1918. In 1922 the Russian SFSR signed the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR, the economy of Russia became heavily industrialized, accounting for about two-thirds of the electricity produced in the USSR. It was, by 1961, the third largest producer of petroleum due to new discoveries in the Volga-Urals region and Siberia, trailing only the United States and Saudi Arabia. In 1974, there were 475 institutes of education in the republic providing education in 47 languages to some 23,941,000 students. A network of territorially organized public-health services provided health care, the effects of market policies led to the failure of many enterprises and total instability by 1990. On June 12,1990, the Congress of Peoples Deputies adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty, on June 12,1991, Boris Yeltsin was elected the first President. On December 8,1991, heads of Russia, Ukraine, the agreement declared dissolution of the USSR by its founder states and established the Commonwealth of Independent States. On December 12, the agreement was ratified by the Russian Parliament, therefore Russian SFSR denounced the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and de facto declared Russias independence from the USSR. On December 25,1991, following the resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev as president of the Soviet Union, on December 26,1991, the USSR was self-dissolved by the Soviet of Nationalities, which by that time was the only functioning house of the Supreme Soviet. After dissolution of the USSR, Russia declared that it assumed the rights and obligations of the dissolved central Soviet government, the new Russian constitution, adopted on December 12,1993 after a constitutional crisis, abolished the Soviet system of government in its entirety. Initially, the state did not have a name and wasnt recognized by neighboring countries for five months. Meanwhile, anti-Bolsheviks coined the mocking label Sovdepia for the nascent state of the Soviets of Workers, on January 25,1918 the third meeting of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets renamed the unrecognized state the Soviet Russian Republic. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed on March 3,1918, on July 10,1918, the Russian Constitution of 1918 renamed the country the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic. By 1918, during the Russian Civil War, several states within the former Russian Empire seceded, internationally, in 1920, the RSFSR was recognized as an independent state only by Estonia, Finland, Latvia and Lithuania in the Treaty of Tartu and by the short-lived Irish Republic. On December 30,1922, with the creation of the Soviet Union, the final Soviet name for the republic, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, was adopted in the Soviet Constitution of 1936. By that time, Soviet Russia had gained roughly the same borders of the old Tsardom of Russia before the Great Northern War of 1700
Russian SFSR
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Flag (1954–1991)
6.
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
Soviet Union
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Vladimir Lenin addressing a crowd with Trotsky, 1920
Soviet Union
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Flag
Soviet Union
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Stalin and
Nikolai Yezhov, head of the
NKVD. After Yezhov was executed, he was
edited out of the image.
Soviet Union
7.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
Geographic coordinate system
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Longitude lines are perpendicular and latitude lines are parallel to the equator.
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
Nazi Germany
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Hitler became Germany's head of state, with the title of
Führer und Reichskanzler, in 1934.
Nazi Germany
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Flag
Nazi Germany
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Joseph Goebbels,
Reich Minister of Propaganda
Nazi Germany
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Ethnic Germans in
Saaz, Czechoslovakia, greet German soldiers with the
Nazi salute, 1938
9.
Finland
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Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a sovereign state in Northern Europe. A peninsula with the Gulf of Finland to the south and the Gulf of Bothnia to the west, the country has borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north. Estonia is south of the country across the Gulf of Finland, Finland is a Nordic country situated in the geographical region of Fennoscandia, which also includes Scandinavia. Finlands population is 5.5 million, and the majority of the population is concentrated in the southern region,88. 7% of the population is Finnish people who speak Finnish, a Uralic language unrelated to the Scandinavian languages, the second major group are the Finland-Swedes. In terms of area, it is the eighth largest country in Europe, Finland is a parliamentary republic with a central government based in the capital Helsinki, local governments in 311 municipalities, and an autonomous region, the Åland Islands. Over 1.4 million people live in the Greater Helsinki metropolitan area, from the late 12th century, Finland was an integral part of Sweden, a legacy reflected in the prevalence of the Swedish language and its official status. In the spirit of the notion of Adolf Ivar Arwidsson, we are not Swedes, we do not want to become Russians, let us therefore be Finns, nevertheless, in 1809, Finland was incorporated into the Russian Empire as the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland. In 1906, Finland became the nation in the world to give the right to vote to all adult citizens. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, Finland declared itself independent, in 1918, the fledgling state was divided by civil war, with the Bolshevik-leaning Reds supported by the equally new Soviet Russia, fighting the Whites, supported by the German Empire. After a brief attempt to establish a kingdom, the became a republic. During World War II, the Soviet Union sought repeatedly to occupy Finland, with Finland losing parts of Karelia, Salla and Kuusamo, Petsamo and some islands, Finland joined the United Nations in 1955 and established an official policy of neutrality. The Finno-Soviet Treaty of 1948 gave the Soviet Union some leverage in Finnish domestic politics during the Cold War era, Finland was a relative latecomer to industrialization, remaining a largely agrarian country until the 1950s. It rapidly developed an advanced economy while building an extensive Nordic-style welfare state, resulting in widespread prosperity, however, Finnish GDP growth has been negative in 2012–2014, with a preceding nadir of −8% in 2009. Finland is a top performer in numerous metrics of national performance, including education, economic competitiveness, civil liberties, quality of life, a large majority of Finns are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, though freedom of religion is guaranteed under the Finnish Constitution. The first known appearance of the name Finland is thought to be on three rune-stones. Two were found in the Swedish province of Uppland and have the inscription finlonti, the third was found in Gotland, in the Baltic Sea. It has the inscription finlandi and dates from the 13th century, the name can be assumed to be related to the tribe name Finns, which is mentioned first known time AD98. The name Suomi has uncertain origins, but a candidate for a source is the Proto-Baltic word *źemē, in addition to the close relatives of Finnish, this name is also used in the Baltic languages Latvian and Lithuanian
Finland
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Hakkapeliitta featured on a 1940 Finnish stamp
Finland
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Flag
Finland
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Now lying within Helsinki,
Suomenlinna is a
UNESCO World Heritage Site consisting of an inhabited 18th century sea fortress built on six islands. It is one of Finland's most popular tourist attractions.
Finland
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Pioneers in Karelia (1900) by
Eero Järnefelt
10.
Kingdom of Italy
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The state was founded as a result of the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which can be considered its legal predecessor state. Italy declared war on Austria in alliance with Prussia in 1866, Italian troops entered Rome in 1870, ending more than one thousand years of Papal temporal power. Italy entered into a Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1882, victory in the war gave Italy a permanent seat in the Council of the League of Nations. Fascist Italy is the era of National Fascist Party rule from 1922 to 1943 with Benito Mussolini as head of government, according to Payne, Fascist regime passed through several relatively distinct phases. The first phase was nominally a continuation of the parliamentary system, then came the second phase, the construction of the Fascist dictatorship proper from 1925 to 1929. The third phase, with activism, was 1929–34. The war itself was the phase with its disasters and defeats. Italy was allied with Nazi Germany in World War II until 1943 and it switched sides to the Allies after ousting Mussolini and shutting down the Fascist party in areas controlled by the Allied invaders. Shortly after the war, civil discontent led to the referendum of 1946 on whether Italy would remain a monarchy or become a republic. Italians decided to abandon the monarchy and form the Italian Republic, the Kingdom of Italy claimed all of the territory which is modern-day Italy. The development of the Kingdoms territory progressed under Italian re-unification until 1870, the state for a long period of time did not include Trieste or Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, which are in Italy today, and only annexed them in 1919. After the Second World War, the borders of present-day Italy were founded, the Kingdom of Italy was theoretically a constitutional monarchy. Executive power belonged to the monarch, as executed through appointed ministers, two chambers of parliament restricted the monarchs power—an appointive Senate and an elective Chamber of Deputies. The kingdoms constitution was the Statuto Albertino, the governing document of the Kingdom of Sardinia. In theory, ministers were responsible to the king. However, in practice, it was impossible for an Italian government to stay in office without the support of Parliament, members of the Chamber of Deputies were elected by plurality voting system elections in uninominal districts. A candidate needed the support of 50% of those voting, and of 25% of all enrolled voters, if not all seats were filled on the first ballot, a runoff was held shortly afterwards for the remaining vacancies. After a brief multinominal experimentation in 1882, proportional representation into large, regional, Socialists became the major party, but they were unable to form a government in a parliament split into three different factions, with Christian Populists and classical liberals
Kingdom of Italy
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Italian unification process.
Kingdom of Italy
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Flag
Kingdom of Italy
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Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, the first Prime Minister of the unified Italy.
Kingdom of Italy
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Victor Emmanuel II, the first King of the united Italy.
11.
Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb
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Wilhelm Josef Franz Ritter von Leeb was a German field marshal and a war criminal during World War II. Following the war, Leeb was tried in the High Command Trial and he was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to three years. Born in 1876, Wilhelm Leeb joined the Bavarian Army in 1895, between 1907 and 1913, he attended the Bavarian War Academy and served on the General Staff. At the outbreak of World War I, Leeb joined the Bavarian army and he distinguished himself at the battle of Gorlice-Tarnow, the capture of the fortress Przemyśl and during the campaign in Serbia, and in 1915 was awarded the Military Order of Max Joseph. As receipt of the order conferred a title of nobility, Leebs surname changed to Ritter von Leeb, after the war, Leeb remained in the Reichswehr, the army of the Weimar Republic. Before the rise of Adolf Hitler to power, Leeb commanded the district covering Bavaria. In July 1938 Leeb was given command of the 12th Army, in the summer of 1939, Leeb was given command of Army Group C and promoted to Generaloberst on 1 November 1939. He opposed the plans for the 1940 offensive through the neutral Low Countries, writing, The whole world will turn against Germany, Germany, whose government solemnly vouched for and promised the preservation of and respect for this neutrality only a few weeks ago. During that battle, his troops broke through the Maginot Line, Leeb was promoted to the rank of Field Marshal during the 1940 Field Marshal Ceremony and was also awarded the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross. Leeb was given command of Army Group North and responsibility for the sector in Operation Barbarossa. In late June-early July 1941, Leeb had witnessed the massacres of Jews by the Einsatzgruppen, Lithuanian auxiliaries, Leeb was described as being moderately disturbed after seeing the killing fields of Kaunas, and sent in mildly critical reports about the massacres. In response, Hitlers aide General Rudolf Schmundt told Leeb that he was out of line, Leeb never again protested about the massacres, and duly received 250,000 Reichsmark in September 1941. Units under Leebs command killed Romani people and handed them to the units of the SD, by the end of September, Leebs army group had advanced 900 kilometres into the Soviet Union and surrounded Leningrad. He was ordered to halt his advance, and transfer 4th Panzer Group, Leeb issued orders for the artillery to open fire at any civilians attempting to break out from the encircled city, so that they would be killed out of view of the frontline infantry. In mid-November, the groups war diary noted that the artillery was successfully preventing civilians from approaching the German lines. At the same time, these operations lead the command to ponder if shooting down unarmed civilians would lead to the loss of inner balance, senior officers were also concerned about false compassion that may impact the fighting qualities of their men. Units under Leebs command were involved in the murder of mental patients. In December 1941, with the consent of Georg von Küchler, commander of the 18th Army
Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb
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Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb
Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb
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Von Leeb in October 1937
Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb
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Leeb and
Georg von Küchler at an observation post, 11 October 1941
Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb
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Grave at the Sollner Waldfriedhof (Nr. 17-W-2)
12.
Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim
–
Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim was a Finnish military leader and statesman. Mannerheim made a career in the Imperial Russian Army, rising to the rank of lieutenant general and he also had a prominent place in the ceremonies for Tsar Nicholas IIs coronation and later had several private meetings with the Russian Tsar. After the Bolshevik revolution, Finland declared its independence but was embroiled in civil war between the pro-Bolshevik Reds and the Whites, who were the troops of the Senate of Finland. Mannerheim was appointed the chief of the Whites. In 1944, when the prospect of Germanys defeat in World War II became clear, Mannerheim was elected President of Finland and oversaw peace negotiations with the Soviet Union and he resigned the presidency in 1946 and died in 1951. In a Finnish survey 53 years after his death, Mannerheim was voted the greatest Finn of all time, the Mannerheim family descends from a German businessman, Heinrich Marhein, who emigrated to the Swedish Empire. His son Augustin Marhein changed his surname to Mannerheim and was raised to the nobility by King Charles XI in 1693, Augustin Mannerheims son, Johan Augustin Mannerheim, was raised to the status of Baron in 1768. The Mannerheim family came to Finland, then a part of Sweden. Mannerheims great-grandfather, Count Carl Erik Mannerheim served as the first Prime Minister of Finland, in 1825, he was promoted to the rank of Count. Mannerheims grandfather, Count Carl Gustaf Mannerheim, was an entomologist, Mannerheims father, Carl Robert, Count Mannerheim, was a playwright who held liberal and radical political ideas, but he was also an industrialist whose success varied. Mannerheims mother, Hedvig Charlotta Helena von Julin, was the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, as the third child of the family, Mannerheim inherited the title of Baron. His father went bankrupt in 1880, he was forced to sell the home and his other landed estates to his sister. Mannerheims father left his wife, Countess Hélène, and moved to Paris with his mistress and he returned to Helsinki and founded the Systema company in 1887, and was its manager until his death. Countess Hélène, shaken by the bankruptcy and her husbands desertion, Hélène died the following year from a heart attack. Her death left the children to be brought up by relatives, making Mannerheims maternal uncle, Albert von Julin, because of the worsened family finances and Mannerheims serious discipline problems in school, Julin decided to send him to the school of the Hamina Cadet School in 1882. The Cadet Corps was a military school educating boys of aristocratic families for careers in the Military of the Grand Duchy of Finland. Besides his mother tongue, Swedish, Mannerheim learned to speak Finnish, Russian, French, German, Mannerheim heartily disliked the school and the narrow social circles in Hamina. He rebelled by going on leave without permission in 1886, for which he was expelled from the Finnish Cadet Corps, Mannerheim next attended the Helsinki Private Lyceum, and passed his university entrance examinations in June 1887
Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim
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Gustaf Mannerheim's route across Asia from St. Petersburg to Peking, 1906–1908.
Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim
–
Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim
Marshal of Finland
Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim
–
Mannerheim as Regent (seated), with his adjutants (left) Lt. Col.
Lilius, Capt. Kekoni, Lt.
Gallen-Kallela, Ensign
Rosenbröijer.
Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim
–
Mannerheim in 1940
13.
Kliment Voroshilov
–
Kliment Yefremovich Voroshilov, popularly known as Klim Voroshilov, was a prominent Soviet military officer and politician during the Stalin era. Voroshilov was born in the settlement of Verkhnye, Bakhmut district, Yekaterinoslav Governorate, in the Russian Empire, however, according to the Soviet Major General Pyotr Grigorenko, Voroshilov himself alluded to his Ukrainian heritage and to the previous family name of Voroshilo. Voroshilov joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1905, following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Voroshilov became a member of the Ukrainian Council of Peoples Commissars and Commissar for Internal Affairs along with Vasiliy Averin. He was well known for aiding Joseph Stalin in the Military Council, Voroshilov was active as a commander of the Southern Front during the Russian Civil War and the Polish–Soviet War while with the 1st Cavalry Army. As Political Commissar serving co-equally with Stalin, Voroshilov was responsible for the morale of the 1st Cavalry Army, Voroshilovs efforts as Commissar did not prevent a resounding Polish victory at the Battle of Komarów or regular outbreaks of murderous anti-Semitic violence within the Cavalry armys ranks. Voroshilov headed the Petrograd Police during 1917 and 1918, Voroshilov served as a member of the Central Committee from his election in 1921 until 1961. Frunzes political position adhered to that of the Troika, but Stalin preferred to have a close, Frunze was urged by a group of Stalins hand-picked doctors to have surgery to treat an old stomach ulcer, despite previous doctors recommendations to avoid surgery and Frunzes own unwillingness. He died on the table of a massive overdose of chloroform. Voroshilov became a member of the newly formed Politburo in 1926. Voroshilov was appointed Peoples Commissar for Defence in 1934 and a Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1935 and he played a central role in Stalins Great Purge of the 1930s, denouncing many of his own military colleagues and subordinates when asked to do so by Stalin. Voroshilov personally signed 185 documented execution lists, fourth among the Soviet leadership after Molotov, Stalin, during World War II, Voroshilov was a member of the State Defense Committee. Voroshilov followed this retort by smashing a platter of roast suckling pig on the table, nikita Khrushchev said it was the only time he ever witnessed such an outburst. Voroshilov was nonetheless made the scapegoat for the failures in Finland. He was later replaced as Defense Commissar by Semyon Timoshenko, Voroshilov was then made Deputy Premier responsible for cultural matters. Voroshilov initially argued that thousands of Polish army officers captured in September 1939 should be released, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Voroshilov became commander of the short-lived Northwestern Direction, controlling several fronts. In September 1941 he commanded the Leningrad Front, Stalin had a political need for popular wartime leaders, however, and Voroshilov remained as an important figurehead. In 1945–1947 Voroshilov supervised the establishment of the communist regime in postwar Hungary, in 1952, Voroshilov was appointed a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee. Stalins death on 5 March 1953 prompted major changes in the Soviet leadership, Voroshilov, Malenkov, and Khrushchev brought about the 26 June 1953 arrest of Lavrenty Beria after Stalins death
Kliment Voroshilov
–
Voroshilov in his cabinet. Portrait by
Isaak Brodsky.
Kliment Voroshilov
–
From left to right Kaganovich, Stalin,
Postyshev, Voroshilov.
Kliment Voroshilov
–
With the
Turkish leader
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk at the celebration ceremony for the tenth anniversary of the Turkish Republic in 1933
Kliment Voroshilov
–
President Voroshilov with
J.K. Paasikivi in
Helsinki
14.
Georgy Zhukov
–
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
Georgy Zhukov
–
Zhukov in 1944
Georgy Zhukov
–
General Georgy Zhukov speaking on 1 September 1941.
Georgy Zhukov
–
Georgy Zhukov, commander of the 39th Buzuluk Cavalry Regiment, 7th Cavalry Division Samara (1923)
Georgy Zhukov
–
The Supreme Commanders in Berlin on 5 June 1945; from left to right:
Bernard Montgomery (Great Britain),
Dwight D. Eisenhower (US), Zhukov and
Jean de Lattre de Tassigny (France)
15.
Ivan Fedyuninsky
–
Ivan Ivanovich Fedyuninsky was a Soviet military leader and Hero of the Soviet Union. Fedyuninsky was born into a peasant family near Tugulym in the Urals and he finished the village school in 1913 and was apprenticed to a painter and decorator. He joined the Red Army in 1919 and he fought on the Western Front in the Russian Civil war and was wounded twice. He studied at the Vladivostok Infantry School between 1923–24 and was appointed to an infantry regiment and he was promoted to divisional commander in 1940, taking over the 82nd Rifle Division, later motorised rifle division. He was commanding 15th Rifle Corps in 5th Army on 22 June 1941, after several other army commands, including 54th and 42nd Army in the Leningrad area, took over 2nd Shock Army just before the Battle of Narva. From 1946 to 1951 he commanded 7th Guards Army, after the war Fedyuninsky was deputy commander of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, commander the Transcaucasian and Turkestan Military Districts. He was promoted to the rank of General of the Army in 1955 and was an inspector and advisor to the Soviet Ministry of Defence from 1965 until his death and he was also a deputy in the Supreme Soviet. John Erickson, The Road to Stalingrad, & The Road to Berlin
Ivan Fedyuninsky
–
Medal "In Commemoration of the 250th Anniversary of Leningrad"
Ivan Fedyuninsky
–
Four Orders of Lenin
16.
Leonid Govorov
–
Leonid Aleksandrovich Govorov was a Soviet military commander. An artillery officer, he joined the Red Army in 1920 and he graduated from several Soviet military academies, including the Military Academy of Red Army General Staff. He participated in the Winter War as an artillery officer. In World War II, Govorov rose to command an army in November 1941 during the Battle of Moscow and he commanded the Leningrad Front from April 1942 to the end of the war. He reached the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1944, was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, leonid Aleksandrovich Govorov was born into a peasant family of Russian ethnicity in the village of Butyrki in Vyatka Governorate. He attended a high school in Yelabuga and enrolled in the shipbuilding department of Petrograd Polytechnical Institute. In December 1916, however, he was mobilized and was sent to the Konstantinovskye Artillery School and he became an artillery officer with the rank of podporuchik. When the Russian Revolution broke out and the Russian Army disintegrated, Govorov returned home and he deserted in late 1919 and joined the Red Army in early 1920. In the Russian Civil War he served in the 51st Rifle Division and he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner in 1921. Govorov obtained further education, graduating from the Artillery course in 1926, the Higher Academy course in 1930. In 1936, Govorov was among the first officers who attended the newly founded Military Academy of Red Army General Staff, from 1936, he was head of artillery in the Kiev Military District. In 1938 he was appointed as lecturer in tactics at the Dzerzhinsky Artillery Academy, in 1939, he finished his first research publication. This was the period of Joseph Stalins Great Purge, Govorov was close to being arrested, but in the end survived thanks to the intervention of Mikhail Kalinin and continued to rise in rank. He commanded the artillery assault that allowed the Soviet breakthrough along the Mannerheim Line in 1940. For this he was awarded the Order of the Red Star and he was then appointed Deputy Inspector-General of Artillery of the Red Army. After Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Govorov commanded the Artillery on the Western Front in Belarus from August to October 1941. During the Battle of Moscow, he was appointed Chief of Artillery of the 5th Army, after Lelyushenko was wounded on 18 October Govorov assumed command of the army. During the Soviet counter-offensives in the winter of 1941–42, his army liberated Mozhaisk, as a result, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general of artillery
Leonid Govorov
–
Leonid Aleksandrovich Govorov
Leonid Govorov
–
Govorov with his wife, 1923
Leonid Govorov
–
Operation Iskra, January 1943
17.
Arctic naval operations of World War II
–
The Arctic Circle defining the midnight sun encompasses the Atlantic Ocean from the northern edge of Iceland to the Bering Strait. The area is considered part of the Battle of the Atlantic or the European Theatre of World War II. Pre-war navigation focused on fishing and the ore trade from Narvik. Soviet settlements along the coast and rivers of the Barents Sea, the Soviet Union extended the Northern Sea Route past the Taymyr Peninsula to the Bering Strait in 1935. The Winter War opened the northern flank of the front of World War II. Arctic naval presence was initially dominated by the Soviet Northern Fleet of a few destroyers with larger numbers of submarines, minesweepers, the success of the German invasion of Norway provided the Kriegsmarine with naval bases from which capital ships might challenge units of the Royal Navy Home Fleet. Soviet convoys hugged the coast to avoid ice while German convoys used fjords to evade Royal Navy patrols, both sides devoted continuing efforts to minelaying and minesweeping of these shallow, confined routes vulnerable to mine warfare and submarine ambushes. German convoys were typically screened by minesweepers and submarine chasers while Soviet convoys were protected by minesweeping trawlers. A branch of the Pacific Route began carrying Lend-Lease goods through the Bering Strait to the Soviet Arctic coast in June,1942. The number of cargo ship voyages along this route was 23 in 1942,32 in 1943,34 in 1944. Total westbound tonnage through the Bering Strait was 452,393 in comparison to 3,964,231 tons of North American wartime goods sent across the Atlantic to Soviet Arctic ports. A large portion of the Arctic route tonnage was fuel for Siberian airfields on the Alaska-Siberia air route,6 September 1939, Bremen was the first of 18 German merchant ships to take refuge in Murmansk after avoiding British naval patrols in the Atlantic. 30 November 1939, The Winter War offensive against Petsamo was supported by Soviet Northern Fleet destroyers Kuibishev, Karl Liebknecht, April 1940, Operation Weserübung included an invasion of Narvik by troops embarked aboard ten Kriegsmarine destroyers. 4 May 1940, The Polish destroyer Grom was sunk off Narvik by a KG100 bomber,21 May 1940, HMS Effingham was scuttled after grounding on a shallow pinnacle off Narvik. 9 July 1940, Raider Komet sailed north from Bergen and waited near Novaya Zemlya until 13 August 1940 for ice conditions to allow passage through the Matochkin Strait into the Kara Sea. Komet proceeded east with the assistance of three Soviet icebreakers to enter the Pacific Ocean through the Bering Strait on 5 September 1940, Soviet submarine Shch-423 made a similar trip from Murmansk to Vladivostok from 5 August to 17 October. 25 July 1940, Admiral Hipper sailed for a two-week Arctic patrol,25 August 1940, HMS Norfolk and HMAS Australia sailed for a five-day patrol to Bear Island. 16 October 1940, HMS Furious launched an airstrike against the Tromsø seaplane base,4 March 1941, HMS Edinburgh and Nigeria covered the Operation Claymore raid on Lofoten
Arctic naval operations of World War II
–
Soviet Northern Fleet destroyer Grozny.
Arctic naval operations of World War II
–
Map of the area of greatest naval activity.
Arctic naval operations of World War II
–
Destroyers
Diether von Roeder and
Wolfgang Zenker landing troops at Narvik.
Arctic naval operations of World War II
–
HMS Warspite supporting Allied troops at Narvik.
18.
Operation Barbarossa
–
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Nazi Germanys invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II, which was launched on Sunday 22 June 1941. In the two leading up to the invasion, the two countries signed political and economic pacts for strategic purposes. Nevertheless, the German High Command began planning an invasion of the Soviet Union in July 1940, over the course of the operation, about four million Axis personnel invaded the western Soviet Union along a 2, 900-kilometer front, the largest invasion force in the history of warfare. In addition to troops, the Wehrmacht employed some 600,000 motor vehicles, the offensive marked an escalation of the war, both geographically and in the formation of the Allied coalition. Despite their successes, the German offensive stalled in the Battle of Moscow and was pushed back by the Soviet winter counteroffensive. The Red Army repelled the Wehrmachts strongest blows and forced the unprepared Germans into a war of attrition, the Wehrmacht would never again mount a simultaneous offensive along the entire strategic Soviet–Axis front. The failure of the operation drove Hitler to demand further operations of limited scope inside the Soviet Union, such as Case Blue. The failure of Operation Barbarossa proved a point in the fortunes of the Third Reich. Most importantly, the operation opened up the Eastern Front, in more forces were committed than in any other theater of war in world history. The German armies captured 5,000,000 Soviet prisoners of war who were not granted protections stipulated in the Geneva Conventions, a majority of them never returned alive. The Nazis deliberately starved 3.1 million of the prisoners to death as part of a Hunger Plan that aimed to reduce the population of Eastern Europe, over a million Soviet Jews were murdered by Einsatzgruppen death squads and gassing as part of the Holocaust. On 10 February 1939, Hitler told his commanders that the next war would be purely a war of Weltanschauungen. Totally a peoples war, a racial war, on 23 November, once World War II had already started, Hitler declared that racial war has broken out and this war shall determine who shall govern Europe, and with it, the world. The racial policy of Nazi Germany viewed the Soviet Union as populated by non-Aryan Untermenschen, Hitler claimed in Mein Kampf that Germanys destiny was to turn to the East as it did six hundred years ago. Accordingly, it was stated Nazi policy to kill, deport, or enslave the majority of Russian and other Slavic populations and repopulate the land with Germanic peoples, under the Generalplan Ost. Likening the Soviets to the forces of Genghis Khan, Hitler told Croatian military leader Slavko Kvaternik that the Mongolian race threatened Europe. Following the invasion, Wehrmacht officers told their soldiers to target people who were described as Jewish Bolshevik subhumans, the Mongol hordes, the Asiatic flood, German army commanders cast the Jews as the major cause behind the partisan struggle. The main guideline policy for German troops was Where theres a partisan, theres a Jew, many German troops viewed the war in Nazi terms and regarded their Soviet enemies as sub-human
Operation Barbarossa
–
Clockwise from top left: German soldiers advance through Northern Russia, German flamethrower team in the
Soviet Union, Soviet planes flying over German positions near
Moscow, Soviet POW's on the way to German prison camps, Soviet soldiers fire at German positions.
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa
–
German soldiers (Flamethrower team) in the Soviet Union, June 1941
Operation Barbarossa
–
Marshal Zhukov speaking at a military conference in Moscow, September 1941
19.
Defense of Brest Fortress
–
The defence of Brest Fortress took place 22–29 June 1941. The Brest Fortress, defended by the Red Army against the Wehrmacht, held out longer than expected and, after the Second World War had finished, in 1965 the fortress received the title of Hero Fortress for the 1941 defense. The area around the nineteenth-century Brest Fortress was the site of the 1939 Battle of Brześć Litewski, however, according to the terms of the 1939 German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact the territory around Brest as well as 52% of the then Poland was assigned to the Soviet Union. Thus, in the summer of 1941, the Germans had to capture the fortress yet again - this time from the Soviets, the Germans planned to seize Brest and the Brest Fortress which was located in the path of Army Group Centre during the first day of Operation Barbarossa. The fortress and the city controlled the crossings over the Bug River, the garrison in the fortress comprised approximately 9,000 Soviet soldiers, including regular soldiers, border guards and NKVD operatives. There were also 300 families of the servicemen inside the fortress as well, the 45th Infantry Division had the task to take the fortress during the first day. For the first five minutes of the shelling it was supported by parts of the artillery of the 31st, the fortress had no warning when the Axis invaded on 22 June 1941, and became the site of the first major fighting between Soviet forces and the Wehrmacht. The attack started with a 29-minute shelling with artillery and Nebelwerfers by the German Wehrmacht, the initial artillery fire took the unprepared fortress by surprise, inflicting heavy material and personnel casualties. Some managed to escape the fortress, most were trapped inside by the encircling German forces, heavy fighting continued two more days. In the evening of June 24,1941, some 368 Germans were dead, on June 25 and June 26,1941, local fighting continued mainly in the citadel. Till the evening of June 26,1941, most of the northern Kobrin fortification, the Germans deployed various powerful guns, rocket mortars 15 cm Nebelwerfer 41 and resorted to flame throwers. The civilians inside the fortress tended the wounded, reloaded the machine-gun discs and belts with cartridges, children brought ammunition and food supplies from half-destroyed supply depots, scavenged weapons and watched enemy movements. On 26 June small Soviet forces tried to break out from the siege but were unsuccessful, the same day Zubachyov and Fomin were captured. Zubachyov was sent to a POW camp in Hammelburg where he died along with about 3.2 million of his countrymen, Yefim Fomin was executed on spot for being a commissar and a Jew. R. Gschöpf wrote, The total German losses in the battle for the Brest fortress were about 629 killed, the Soviet losses numbered about 6,800 POWs and about 2,000 dead. The magnitude of losses can be weighed by the fact that total German losses on the Eastern Front up to 30 June 1941 amounted to 8,886 killed. The fighting at Brest therefore accounted for over 5 percent of all German fatalities, after eight days of fierce fighting the Germans had captured the whole fortress. Because of the high German losses the German High Command demanded General Fritz Schlieper to present a report regarding combat at Brest 22–29 June 1941
Defense of Brest Fortress
–
the layout of the Brest Fortress in June 1941. 1. Kobrin Fortification, 2. Volynskoye Fortification, 3. Terespol Fortification
Defense of Brest Fortress
–
The eastern front at the time of the Battle of Brest. (click to enlarge)
Defense of Brest Fortress
–
Copy of the inscription found inside the citadel: "I'm dying, but I won't surrender! Farewell Motherland"
Defense of Brest Fortress
–
German soldiers in the Citadel in June 1941
20.
Battle of Raseiniai
–
The Battle of Raseiniai was a large tank battle that took place in the early stages of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union. The battle was fought between the elements of the German 4th Panzer Group and the Soviet 3rd Mechanized Corps with the 12th Mechanised Corps, Army Group North controlled the 18th Army and the 16th Army, along with the 4th Panzer Group. The Germans had 20 infantry divisions, three Panzer and three motorized infantry divisions, Air support was provided by Luftflotte 1. The front had the 8th and 11th Armies with the 27th Armies in its second echelon, the 4th Panzer Group advanced in two spearheads, led by the XLI Panzer Corps and LVI Panzer Corps. Their objective was to cross the Neman and Daugava, the most difficult obstacles in front of the Army Group North. German bombers destroyed many of the signals and communications centers, naval bases, Šiauliai, Vilnius and Kaunas were also bombed. Soviet aircraft had been on alert but were held on their airfields after the first wave of German bombers passed. By noon, the Soviet divisions began to back and the German columns then began to swing towards Raseiniai. By the evening, Soviet formations had fallen back to the Dubysa, north-west of Kaunas, forward elements of LVI Panzer Corps reached the Dubysa and seized the vital Ariogala road viaduct across it. By the end of 22 June, the German armoured spearheads over the Niemen had penetrated 80 km, the next day, Kuznetsov committed his armoured forces to battle. Near Raseiniai, the XLI Panzer Corps was counter-attacked by the Soviet 3rd, the concentration of Soviet armour was detected by the Luftwaffe, which immediately attacked tank columns of the 12th Mechanised Corps south-west of Šiauliai. German forces encountered a unit equipped with the Soviet KV heavy tanks for the first time, the Germans fired at the tracks of the KVs, bombarded them with artillery, anti-aircraft guns or sticky bombs. A report of the 1st Panzer Division described the engagement, The KV-1 and KV-2 and our companies opened fire at about 800 yards, but it remained ineffective. We moved closer and closer to the enemy, who for his continued to approach us unconcerned. Very soon we were facing each other at 50 to 100 yards, a fantastic exchange of fire took place without any visible German success. The Russian tanks continued to advance, and all armour-piercing shells simply bounced off them, thus we were presently faced with the alarming situation of the Russian tanks driving through the ranks of 1st Panzer Regiment towards our own infantry and our hinterland. Our Panzer Regiment therefore about turned and rumbled back with the KV-1s and KV-2s, in the course of that operation we succeeded in immobilizing some of them with special purpose shells at very close range 30 to 60 yards. A counter attack was launched and the Russians were thrown back, a protective front established and defensive fighting continued
Battle of Raseiniai
–
A
KV-2 tank; a single tank of this type held for one day the entire
6th Panzer Division
21.
Battle of Brody (1941)
–
It is known in Soviet historiography as a part of the border defensive battles. Although the Red Army formations inflicted heavy losses on the German forces, 1st Panzer Group, led by Generaloberst Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist, was ordered to secure the Bug River crossings and advance to Rovno and Korosten with the strategic objective of Kiev. It deployed two Corps forward and advanced between Lviv and Rovno in an attempt to cut the Lviv–Kiev railway line, thus driving a wedge along junction point between the Soviet 5th and 6th Armies. The Southwestern Front, under the command of General Mikhail Kirponos, had received intelligence on the size. They were surprised when Stavka ordered a general counter-attack under the title of Directive No.3 on the authority of Chief of General Staff Georgy Zhukov, most of the headquarters staff were convinced that the strategy would be to remain in a defensive posture until the situation clarified. The general orders of Directive No, six Soviet mechanized corps, with over 2,500 tanks, were massed to take part in a concentric counter-attack through the flanks of Panzer Group 1. To achieve this, the 8th Mechanized Corps was transferred from the command of the 26th Army, positioned to the south of the 6th Army and this essentially brought all the mobile assets of the Southwestern Front to bear against the base of von Kleists thrust toward Kiev. The primary German infantry formation operating on this sector of the front, at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, German armor was composed of a mix of Czech and German tanks, as well as small numbers of captured French and British tanks. Furthermore, nearly 50% of the tanks deployed by the Wehrmacht were the virtually obsolete Panzer I, of the 4000 armored vehicles available to the Wehrmacht, only 1400 were the new Panzer III and Panzer IV. In the first few hours of the invasion, German commanders were shocked to find that some Soviet tanks were immune to all anti tank weapons in use by the Wehrmacht, during pre-war exercises, Heinz Guderian noted that on their own, tanks were very vulnerable to infantry. While dispersing tanks among infantry formations solved many of the tanks weaknesses, at the beginning of June, the Red Army included over 19,000 tanks in their inventory, most of them light tanks such as the T-26 or BT-7. The front armor of the T-26 was just 15mm thick, furthermore, the poor design of Soviet shells meant that most rounds shattered on contact, rather than detonating. During the interwar years, far sighted military theorists such as Mikhail Tukhachevsky came to conclusions as Heinz Guderian regarding tanks in modern warfare. However, during the Great Purge Tukhachevsky was executed, Red Army tanks were dispersed widely throughout infantry divisions in the 1930s. Then came the shock of the Fall of France, however, by June 1941 this process was barely half complete, so many of the 10,000 tanks in the Red Army arsenal were still dispersed among infantry divisions on the eve of the invasion. This ensured that if the Red Army had a unified command. At full strength, a German Panzer Division was a formation with between 150 and 200 tanks, motorized infantry, motorized artillery, and motorized engineers. To support its logistical needs, each division included 2000 trucks
Battle of Brody (1941)
–
Drive of
11 Pz Div during the Battle of Brody
22.
Battle of Smolensk (1941)
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The First Battle of Smolensk was a battle during the opening stage of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, in World War II. It took place around the city of Smolensk between 10 July and 10 September 1941, about 400 km west of Moscow, the Wehrmacht had advanced 500 km into the USSR in the 18 days after the invasion on 22 June 1941. During the battle the German army encountered unexpected resistance, leading to a delay in their advance on Moscow. Three Soviet armies were encircled and destroyed just to the south of Smolensk, on 22 June 1941, the Axis nations invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. At first, the met with spectacular success, as the surprised Soviet troops were not able to offer coordinated resistance. After three weeks of fighting, the Germans had reached the Dvina and Dnieper rivers and planned for a resumption of the offensive, the main attack aimed at Moscow, was carried out by Army Group Centre. Its next target on the way to the Soviet capital was the town of Smolensk, the German plan called for the 2nd Panzer Group to cross the Dnieper, closing on Smolensk from the south, while the 3rd Panzer Group was to encircle the town from the north. After their initial defeats, the Red Army began to recover and took measures to ensure a more determined resistance, Stalin placed Field Marshal Semyon Timoshenko in command and transferred five armies out of the strategic reserve to Timoshenko. These armies had to conduct counter-offensives to blunt the German drive, the German high command was not aware of the Soviet build-up until they encountered them on the battlefield. Facing the Germans along the Dnieper and Dvina rivers were stretches of the Stalin Line fortifications, the defenders were the 13th Army of the Western Front and the 20th Army, 21st Army and the 22nd Army of the Soviet Supreme Command Reserve. The 19th Army, was forming up at Vitebsk, while the 16th Army was arriving at Smolensk, the result was a disaster, as the offensive ran directly into the anti-tank defenses of the German 7th Panzer Division and the two Soviet mechanized corps were virtually wiped out. On 10 July, Guderians 2nd Panzer Group began an attack over the Dnieper, his forces overran the weak 13th Army and by 13 July, Guderian had passed Mogilev. His spearhead unit, the 29th Motorised Division, was already within 18 km of Smolensk, the 3rd Panzer Group had attacked, with the 20th Panzer Division establishing a bridgehead on the eastern bank of the Dvina river, threatening Vitebsk. As both German panzer groups drove east, the 16th, 19th and 20th armies faced the prospect of encirclement around Smolensk, from 11 July, the Soviets tried a series of concerted counter-attacks. The Soviet 19th Army and 20th Army struck at Vitebsk, while the 21st, several other Soviet armies also attempted to counter-attack in the sectors of the German Army Group North and Army Group South. This effort was part of an attempt to implement the Soviet prewar general defense plan. The Soviet attacks managed to slow the Germans but the results were so marginal that the Germans barely noticed them as a large coordinated defensive effort, Hoths 3rd Panzer Group drove north and then east, parallel to Guderians forces, taking Polotsk and Vitebsk. The 7th Panzer Division and 20th Panzer Division reached the area east of Smolensk at Yartsevo on July 15 and this advanced bridgehead became the center of the Yelnya Offensive, one of the first big coordinated Soviet counter-offensives of the war
Battle of Smolensk (1941)
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Battle of Smolensk Diagram
Battle of Smolensk (1941)
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The Eastern front at the time of the Battle of Smolensk.
Battle of Smolensk (1941)
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German troops in a town near
Mogilev at the Dnieper
23.
Battle of Uman
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The Battle of Uman was the German and allied encirclement of the 6th and 12th Soviet Armies—under the command of Lieutenant General I. N. Muzyrchenko and Major General P. G. The Soviet forces were under command of the Southwestern Direction, commanded by Marshal Semyon Budyonny. This was among the large Axis encirclements that were executed against the Red Army, in mid July the Soviet 22nd and 15th Mechanized Corps engaged the German 3rd Motorized Corps near Kiev, and was decimated. The 1st Panzerarmee bypassed much of the forces, leaving the German 6th Armys 297th Infantry Division to defeat the remnants with anti-tank. On June 26th, the Soviets launched a second counter-attack on the 1st Panzerarmee from the north and south, the attack comprised elements of the Red 8th, 9th and 19th Mechanized Corps, altogether fielding about 1600 tanks. An intense battle took place four days, ending in a Soviet defeat. All action by Soviet forces failed as advance guard elements of the German 17th Field Army were reinforced by the 16th Panzer Division, in mid-July German troops cut the rail road at Talnoye and captured bridges over the Gorniy Tikich, and Sinucha rivers. As the Axis victory at Uman was secured, 1st Panzerarmee turned north to assist the 2nd Panzerarmee in operations at Kiev in September, Budyonny had 1.5 million troops under his command in two strategic sectors of the front to defend, at Kiev, and Vinnytsia-Uman. General Karl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel’s 17th Field Army advanced to the South of Uman, Budyonny was under strict orders from Joseph Stalin, who micromanaged the war early on, not to retreat under any circumstances. On 28 July, an order was given to the Southwestern and Southern Fronts to stop the Germans from crossing the Dnieper, as a result, an opportunity to avoid the danger of encirclement by retreating in the Southeastern direction was lost. The effect of the closing Axis forces was to force the concentration of the two Soviet Armies in an ever reduced area, with the combined HQs of the armies located in the town of Podvisokoye. On 2 August, the encirclement was closed by the meeting of Panzer Group 1 and this encirclement was reinforced the next day by a second joining formed when the German 16th Panzer Division met with the Hungarian Mechanized Corps. By 8 August, the Soviet resistance had generally stopped, remnants of 20 divisions from the 6th Army and the 12th Army were trapped. German sources after the war reported about 103,000 troops were taken prisoner, included among officers taken prisoner were commanders of both the 6th and 12th armies, four corps commanders, and 11 division commanders. As the pocket was eliminated, the tanks of 1st Panzerarmee turned north, the Crimean objective was for a time left to the field armies, the first of many times when Hitler would change his mind about strategic objectives of the Army Groups
Battle of Uman
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The eastern front at the time of the Battle of Uman.
24.
Siege of Odessa (1941)
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Odessa was a port on the Black Sea in the Ukrainian SSR. On 22 June 1941, the Axis powers invaded the Soviet Union, in August, Odessa became a target of the Romanian 4th Army and elements of the German 11th Army. Romanian forces suffered 93,000 casualties, against Red Army casualties estimated to be between 41,000 and 60,000. On 27 July 1941, Hitler sent a letter to General Ion Antonescu in which he recognised the Romanian administration of the territory between the Dniester and the Bug rivers, the Romanian Third Army had already crossed the Dniester on 17 July. On 8 August, the Romanian General Staff issued the Operative Directive No.31 instructing the 4th Army to occupy Odessa off the march and it was thought that the city garrison, which was heavily outnumbered, would surrender quickly. Odessa was heavily fortified by three lines and, thanks to the presence of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet, could not be completely surrounded. The first line was 80 km long and situated 25–30 km from the city, the second and main line of defense was situated 6–8 km from the city and was about 30 km long. The third and last line of defense was organized inside the city itself, the Red Army had 34,500 men and 240 artillery pieces in the area. Air support was provided by the 69 IAP, two squadrons and one bomber squadron. Later, other fighters joined the defenders, as did an Il-2 squadron, the defense of Odessa lasted 73 days from 5 August to 16 October 1941. On 10 August, in the sector of the 3rd Corps, in the sector of the 5th Corps, the 1st Armored Division broke through Odessas first line of defense. That evening, the Romanian division reached the line of defense. The 1st Cavalry Brigade took Severinovka and joined the 1st Armored Division, at the same time, the 10th Dorobanţi Regiment overran the Soviet forces at Lozovaya. The 4th Army gradually closed the circle around Odessa, but the offensive was stopped by Antonescu on 13 August to strengthen the line west of the Hadjibey bank. The offensive resumed on 16 August, as Romanian troops attacked along the entire line, the Soviet forces put up a stubborn resistance, launching repeated counter-attacks, inflicting and taking heavy casualties. The Royal Romanian Air Force actively supported the troops, disrupting Soviet naval traffic to and from Odessa. In support of the offensive, the Romanian Navy dispatched motor torpedo boats to the recently occupied port of Ochakiv. During the night of 18 August, the torpedo boats NMS Viscolul and NMS Vijelia attacked a Soviet supply convoy South of Odessa
Siege of Odessa (1941)
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Abandoned Soviet vehicles and barricades on Lanzheronovskaya street, after the fall of Odessa, October 1941
Siege of Odessa (1941)
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A Soviet gun crew during the siege.
Siege of Odessa (1941)
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Postage stamp of the USSR 1965 “
Hero City Odessa 1941-1945”
Siege of Odessa (1941)
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Reverse of the
Medal "For the Defence of Odessa"
25.
Battle of Kiev (1941)
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The First Battle of Kiev was the German name for the operation that resulted in a very large encirclement of Soviet troops in the vicinity of Kiev during World War II. This encirclement is considered the largest encirclement in the history of warfare, the operation ran from 7 August to 26 September 1941 as part of Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union. In Soviet military history, it is referred to as the Kiev Strategic Defensive Operation, kirponos was trapped behind German lines and killed while trying to break out. The battle was a defeat for the Red Army, exceeding even the Battle of Białystok–Minsk of June–July 1941. The encirclement trapped 452,700 soldiers,2,642 guns and mortars and 64 tanks, the Southwestern Front suffered 700,544 casualties, including 616,304 killed, captured or missing during the battle. The 5th, 37th, 26th, 21st and the 38th armies, consisting of 43 divisions, were almost annihilated, like the Western Front before it, the Southwestern Front had to be recreated almost from scratch. After the rapid progress of Army Group Centre through the sector of the Eastern front. A substantial Soviet force, nearly the entire Southwestern Front, positioned in, on 3 August, Hitler temporarily cancelled the drive on Moscow in favor of driving south and attacking Kiev in Ukraine. However, on 12 August 1941, Supplement to Directive No, then the three Panzer Groups, under the control of Army Group Center, will lead the advance on Moscow. On 18 August, OKH submitted a survey to Hitler regarding the continuation of operations in the East. The paper made the case for the drive to Moscow, arguing again that Army Groups North and South were strong enough to accomplish their objectives without any assistance from Army Group Center. Pointing out that there was enough time left before winter to conduct a single decisive operation against Moscow. On 20 August, Hitler rejected the proposal based on the idea that the most important objective was to deprive the Soviets of their industrial areas, on 21 August Jodl of OKW issued a directive, which summarized Hitlers instructions, to Brauchitsch commander of the Army. The paper reiterated that the capture of Moscow before the onset of winter was not a primary objective, Hitler referred to the Soviet forces in the salient collectively as the Russian 5th Army. Engel in his diary for 21 August 1941, simply summarized it as, Halder offered his own resignation and advised Brauchitsch to do the same. However, Brauchitsch declined, stating Hitler would not accept the gesture, Halder withdrew his offer of resignation. On 23 August, Halder convened with Bock and Guderian in Borisov, during a meeting between Guderian and Hitler, with neither Halder nor Brauchitsch present, Hitler allowed Guderian to make the case for driving on to Moscow, and then rejected his argument. In point of fact Hitler had already issued the orders for the shift of Guderians panzer group to the south, Guderian returned to his panzer group and began the southern thrust in an effort to encircle the Soviet forces in the salient
Battle of Kiev (1941)
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Guderian at a forward command post for one of his panzer regiments near Kiev, 1941
Battle of Kiev (1941)
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The eastern front at the time of the Battle of Kiev. (click to enlarge)
Battle of Kiev (1941)
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107,540 Soviet personnel were awarded the medal for the defence of Kiev from 21 June 1941.
26.
Soviet evacuation of Tallinn
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Soviet forces had occupied Estonia in June 1940. In expectation of a Soviet breakout, the Kriegsmarine and the Finnish Navy had started on 8 August 1941 to lay minefields off Cape Juminda on the Lahemaa coast, at the same time the German 3. Schnellbootflottille with E-boats S-26, S-27, S-39, S-40 and S-101 was concentrated at Suomenlinna outside Helsinki, German Junkers Ju 88 bombers from Kampfgruppe 806 based on airfields in Estonia were put on alert. On 19 August the final German assault on Tallinn began, during the night of 27/28 August 1941 the Soviet 10th Rifle Corps disengaged from the enemy and boarded transports in Tallinn. This, together with heavy German shelling and aerial bombardment killed at least 1,000 of the evacuees in the harbor. On 28 August KG77 and KGr 806 sank the 2,026 grt steamer Vironia, the 2,317 grt Lucerne, the 1,423 grt Atis Kronvalds, the rest of the Soviet fleet were forced to change course. This took them through a mined area. As a result,21 Soviet warships, including five destroyers, struck mines, on 29 August, the Luftwaffe, now reinforced with KG76, KG4 and KG1, accounted for the transport ships Vtoraya Pyatiletka, Kalpaks and Leningradsovet sunk. In addition, the ships Ivan Papanin, Saule, Kazakhstan and the Serp i Molot were damaged by I. /KG4, later that evening the armada was attacked by Finnish and German torpedo boats, and the chaotic situation made organized mine sweeping impossible. Darkness fell at 22,00 and the Soviet armada stopped and anchored at midnight in the heavily mined water, early on 29 August Ju 88 bombers attacked the remains of the convoys off Suursaari, sinking two transports. Meanwhile, the ships made best speed to reach the safety of the Kronstadt batteries. The heavily damaged merchant ship Kazakhstan disembarked 2300 men of the 5000 on board before steaming on to Kronstadt, in the following days ships operating from Suursaari rescued 12,160 survivors. The Soviet evacuation of Tallinn succeeded in evacuating 165 ships,28,000 passengers and 66,000 tons of equipment, at least 12,400 are thought to have drowned in circumstances little known outside the former Soviet Union. The event was long downplayed by the Communist regime after the war, the evacuation may have been the bloodiest naval disaster since the battle of Lepanto. On the sixtieth anniversary a memorial was unveiled at Juminda,71 -28 August 1941, off Cape Juminda Minesweeper No. Also, mines heavily damaged destroyer leader Minsk, destroyers Gordy and Slavnyi, minesweeper T-205, list of shipwrecks in August 1941 Bergstrom, Christer. Barbarossa - The Air Battle, July–December 1941
Soviet evacuation of Tallinn
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Soviet cruiser Kirov protected by smoke during evacuation of Tallinn in August 1941.
Soviet evacuation of Tallinn
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The Port of Tallinn on 1 September 1941 after having been seized by Germans
Soviet evacuation of Tallinn
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Juminda monument
Soviet evacuation of Tallinn
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Graves of men lost on
Eestirand on
Prangli Island where it was beached
27.
Battle of Rostov (1941)
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After concluding the Battle of Kiev in September 1941, the German Army Group South advanced from the Dniepr to the Sea of Azov coast. Walther von Reichenaus 6th Army captured Kharkov, carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagels 17th Army marched through Poltava towards Voroshilovgrad. Erich von Mansteins 11th Army moved into the Crimea and had control of all of the peninsula by autumn. To replace him, General of Infantry von Manstein was ordered to travel from the Leningrad sector of the front to the southern sector. He would also support from the 4th Luftwaffe Air Fleet. Therefore, initially von Manstein replaced the LIV Corps with the smaller XXXth Army Corps and XLIXth Mountain Corps, and ordered the LIV Corps into the first echelon in the advance to Rostov. Late in September the 3rd Romanian Army joined the 11th Army in its advance towards Rostov, but was severely depleted by the attacks of the Soviet 9th and 18th Armies on 26 September. This forced a halt to the Armys advance to safeguard its flank, and forced von Manstein to use his only reserve unit. Smirnov, was killed by fire on his command post in the village of Popovka during the breakout attempt between 5 and 10 October 1941. This was interpreted by Hitler as such a success that he declared The battle of the Sea of Azov is over, on 11 October before the troops had even reached their objective. As a commemorative gesture, Hitler issued the order to redesignate the Leibstandarte Brigade as 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, the German 11th Army was ordered back to Crimea to effect the breakthrough of the Isthmus of Perekop. During the subsequent reorganisation of Axis forces the 3rd Panzer Corps and 14th Panzer Corps took the lead, supported by the XLIX Mountain Corps recently arrived from Crimea. However the Red Army was at this stage fortunate in that the Autumn rains had begun, and this meant that the leading German units did not reach the outskirts of Rostov until mid-November, having lost contact with the Red Army in the meantime. The assault on Rostov began on 17 November, and on 21 November the Germans took Rostov, however, the German lines were over-extended, and von Kleists warnings that his left flank was vulnerable and that his tanks were ineffective in the freezing weather were ignored. When von Rundstedt refused to obey, Hitler sacked him, and it was the first significant German withdrawal of the war. Battle of Rostov – the German 17th Army captured the city, Battle of Rostov – the Soviet Union recaptured the city. Haupt, Werner, Army Group South, The Wehrmacht in Russia 1941-1945, Schiffer Military History, Atglen,1998
Battle of Rostov (1941)
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The eastern front at the time of the Battle of Rostov.
28.
Battle of Moscow
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The Battle of Moscow is the name given by Soviet historians to two periods of strategically significant fighting on a 600 km sector of the Eastern Front during World War II. It took place between October 1941 and January 1942, the Soviet defensive effort frustrated Hitlers attack on Moscow, capital of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the largest Soviet city. Moscow was one of the military and political objectives for Axis forces in their invasion of the Soviet Union. Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion plan, called for the capture of Moscow within four months, the German Army Group North moved towards Leningrad, Army Group South took control of Ukraine, and Army Group Center advanced towards Moscow. By July 1941, Army Group Center crossed the Dnieper River, in August 1941, German forces captured Smolensk, an important stronghold on the road to Moscow. At this stage, although Moscow was vulnerable, an offensive against the city would have exposed the German flanks. In part to address these risks, in part to attempt to secure Ukraines food and mineral resources, Hitler ordered the attack to turn north and south and eliminate Soviet forces at Leningrad and this delayed the German advance on Moscow. When that advance resumed on 2 October 1941, German forces had been weakened, for Hitler, the Soviet capital was secondary, and he believed the only way to bring the Soviet Union to its knees was to defeat it economically. He felt this could be accomplished by seizing the economic resources of Ukraine east of Kiev, when Walther von Brauchitsch, Commander-in-Chief of the Army, supported a direct thrust to Moscow, he was told that only ossified brains could think of such an idea. Franz Halder, head of the Army General Staff, was convinced that a drive to seize Moscow would be victorious after the German Army inflicted enough damage on the Soviet forces. This view was shared by most within the German high command, but Hitler overruled his generals in favor of pocketing the Soviet forces around Kiev in the south, followed by the seizure of Ukraine. The move was successful, resulting in the loss of 660,000 Red Army personnel by 26 September, with the end of summer, Hitler redirected his attention to Moscow and assigned Army Group Center to this task. The forces committed to Operation Typhoon included three infantry armies supported by three Panzer Groups and by the Luftwaffes Luftflotte 2, up to two million German troops were committed to the operation, along with 1,000 tanks and 14,000 guns. German aerial strength, however, had severely reduced over the summers campaign. Luftflotte 2 had only 549 serviceable machines, including 158 medium and dive-bombers and 172 fighters, the attack relied on standard blitzkrieg tactics, using Panzer groups rushing deep into Soviet formations and executing double-pincer movements, pocketing Red Army divisions and destroying them. Facing the Wehrmacht were three Soviet fronts forming a line between the cities of Vyazma and Bryansk, which barred the way to Moscow. The armies comprising these fronts had also involved in heavy fighting. Still, it was a formidable concentration consisting of 1,250,000 men,1,000 tanks and 7,600 guns, the Soviet Air Force had suffered appalling losses of some 7,500 or 21,200 aircraft
Battle of Moscow
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December 1941. Fresh forces going to the front from Moscow.
Battle of Moscow
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With all the men at the Front, Moscow women dig anti-tank trenches around Moscow in 1941
Battle of Moscow
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The German offensives during operation Typhoon
Battle of Moscow
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The mud of the
rasputitsa before Moscow, November 1941
29.
Continuation War
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The Continuation War consisted of hostilities between Finland and the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1944. The Continuation War began shortly after the end of the Winter War, in the Soviet Union, the war was considered part of the Great Patriotic War. Germany regarded its operations in the region as part of its war efforts on the Eastern Front. Acts of war between the Soviet Union and Finland recommenced on 22 June 1941, the day Germany launched its invasion of the Soviet Union, open warfare began with a Soviet air offensive on 25 June. Subsequent Finnish operations undid its post-Winter War concessions to the Soviet Union on the Karelian Isthmus and Ladoga Karelia, on the Karelian Isthmus, the Finns halted their offensive 30 km from Leningrad, at the pre-World War II border between the Soviet Union and Finland. Finnish forces did not participate in the siege of Leningrad directly, in 1944, Soviet air forces conducted air raids on Helsinki and other major Finnish cities. A ceasefire ended hostilities on 5 September and was followed by the Moscow Armistice on 19 September, the 1947 Paris peace treaty concluded the war formally. Finland ceded Pechengsky District to the Soviets, leased Porkkala peninsula to them, shortly afterward, Germany invaded Poland and as a result the United Kingdom and France declared war against Germany. The Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland on 17 September, next, Moscow demanded that the Baltic states allow the establishment of Soviet military bases and the stationing of troops on their soil. The Baltic governments accepted these ultimatums, signing corresponding agreements in September and October 1939, the Finnish government refused, and the Red Army attacked Finland on 30 November 1939. Condemnation of the Soviets by the League of Nations and by all over the world had no effect on Soviet policy. International help for Finland was planned, but very little actual help materialized, the Moscow Peace Treaty, which was signed on 12 March 1940, ended the Winter War. By the terms of the treaty, Finland lost one eleventh of its national territory, however, Finland had avoided having the Soviet Union annex the whole country. Finlands foreign policy had been based on multilateral guarantees for support from the League of Nations, Finnish public opinion favored the reconquest of Finnish Karelia. Finlands government declared the countrys defense to be its first priority, Finland purchased and received donations of war material during and immediately after the Winter War. On Finlands southern frontier the Soviet Union had acquired a base in Hanko near the capital Helsinki. Finland also had to resettle some 420,000 evacuees from the lost territories, to ensure the supply of food, it was necessary to clear new land for the evacuees to cultivate. This was facilitated by the Rapid Settlement Act, the Finnish leadership wanted to preserve the spirit of unanimity that was commonly felt throughout the country during the Winter War
Continuation War
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Finnish
StuG III Ausf. G
assault guns on parade. The swastika in front of the tank was a longstanding emblem of the Finnish military, and was used independently of Nazi German forces.
Continuation War
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Finnish ski troops in Northern Finland on 12 January 1940
Continuation War
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Finnish flags are at
half-mast after the publication of the peace terms
Continuation War
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German
Joachim von Ribbentrop bidding farewell to Soviet
Vyacheslav Molotov in Berlin on 14 November 1940.
30.
Lyuban Offensive Operation
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Lyuban Operation was an offensive operation conducted by the Volkhov Front of the Red Army with the goal of relieving Leningrad. The offensive used no tanks because of the terrain, therefore it was down to the infantry, the Soviets attacked but they were under intense fire from formidable German defensive positions, and the Soviets lacked proper artillery support on the German positions. The offensive had stalled and the Soviets were up to the defensive. Field Marshal Georg von Küchler, counterattacked with an operation called Wild Beast and it was destroyed in June 1942 and its commander Andrey Vlasov was taken captive
Lyuban Offensive Operation
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Lyuban Operation
31.
Battles of Rzhev
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The operations took place in the general area of Rzhev, Sychyovka and Vyazma against German forces. As a result, a salient was formed along the front line in the direction of the capital and it was strategically important for the German Army Group Centre due to the threat it posed to Moscow, and was therefore heavily fortified and strongly defended. The intent was for the 22nd Army, 29th Army and 39th Armies supported by the 11th Cavalry Corps to attack West of Rzhev, and penetrate deep into the western flank of Army Group Centres 9th Army. This was achieved in January, and by the end of the month the cavalry corps found itself 110 km in the depth of the German flank. To eliminate this threat to the rear of the Army Group Centres 9th Army, the cutting of a major highway to Rzhev by the cavalry signalled the commencement of the Toropets–Kholm Offensive. The offensive was conducted in late 1942 and this offensive was conducted by the Western Front against the Wehrmachts 4th Panzer Army and the 4th Army. A Soviet airborne operation, conducted by the 4th Airborne Corps in seven separate landing zones, five of them intended to cut major road, in the aftermath of the Soviet winter counteroffensive of 1941–42, substantial Soviet forces remained in the rear of the German Ninth Army. These forces maintained a hold on the forested swamp region between Rzhev and Bely. On July 2,1942, Ninth Army under General Model launched Operation Seydlitz to clear the Soviet forces out, the Germans first blocked the natural breakout route through the Obsha valley and then split the Soviet forces into two isolated pockets. The battle lasted eleven days and ended with the elimination of the encircled Soviet forces, the next Rzhev-Sychyovka Offensive codenamed Operation Mars. An NKVD double agent known as Heine provided information about the offensive to the OKH as part of the plan to divert German forces from any relief of those trapped at Stalingrad. German forces in the salient were eventually withdrawn by Hitler during Operation Büffel to provide greater force for the German offensive operation at Kursk, fighting in the area remained mostly static for 14 months. Losses and setbacks elsewhere along the front finally compelled the Germans to abandon the salient in order to free up reserves for the front as a whole, defending the salient required 29 divisions. Its abandonment freed up 22 of those divisions and created a reserve which allowed the Germans to stabilize the front. The retreat of the Germans in Operation Büffel was tactically and militarily successful, the Soviet Army paid a high price for their defeat at Rzhev, but with the Germans were forced to withdraw from an important bridgehead which enabled the Germans to threaten Moscow. Losses for the series of operations around the Rzhev salient from 1941 to 1943 are difficult to calculate. These operations cover a series of battles and defensive operations over a wide area involving many formations on both sides. For the whole series of Rzhev battles, the numbers are not clear yet, but, since the mobilized manpower of both sides were enormous and the fighting is violent, casualties should be very high
Battles of Rzhev
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Rzhev Battles
Battles of Rzhev
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A Soviet BT-7 light tank carrying men forward
Battles of Rzhev
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German soldiers march through the mud, March 1942
Battles of Rzhev
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Panzer III carrying infantry in March, 1942
32.
Demyansk Pocket
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The Demyansk Pocket was the name given to the pocket of German troops encircled by the Red Army around Demyansk, south of Leningrad, during World War II on the Eastern Front. The pocket existed mainly from 8 February to 21 April 1942, a much smaller force was surrounded in the Kholm Pocket at the town of Kholm, about 100 km to the southwest. Both resulted from the German retreat following their defeat during the Battle of Moscow, the successful defence of Demyansk, achieved through the use of an airbridge, was a significant development in modern warfare. Its success was a contributor to the decision by the Wehrmacht command to try the same tactic during the Battle of Stalingrad. The intention was to sever the link between the German Demyansk positions, and the Staraya Russa railway that formed the lines of communication of the German 16th Army. However, owing to the very difficult wooded and swampy terrain, and heavy snow cover, on 8 January, a new offensive called the Rzhev–Vyazma Strategic Offensive Operation started. Their commander was General der Infanterie Walter Graf von Brockdorff-Ahlefeldt, commander of the II Army Corps, the first thrust was made by the 11th Army, 1st Shock Army and the 1st and 2nd Guards Rifle Corps released for the operation from Stavka reserve. The front soon settled as the Soviet offensive petered out due to difficult terrain, the pocket contained two viable airfields at Demyansk and Peski capable of receiving transport aircraft. However the operation did use up all of Luftflotte 1s transport capability, on 21 March 1942, German forces under the command of Generalleutnant Walther von Seydlitz-Kurzbach attempted to manoevre through the Ramushevo corridor. Soviet resistance on the Lovat River delayed II Corps attack until April 14, over the next several weeks, this corridor was widened. A battle group was able to break the siege on 22 April, out of the approximately 100,000 men trapped, there were 3,335 lost and over 10,000 wounded. The supplies were delivered through over 100 flights of whitewashed Junkers Ju 52 transport aircraft per day, the Luftwaffe lost 265 aircraft, including 106 Junkers Ju 52,17 Heinkel He 111 and two Junkers Ju 86 aircraft. In addition,387 airmen were lost, fighting in the area continued until 28 February 1943. The Soviets did not liberate Demyansk until 1 March 1943, with the retreat of the German troops, the success of the Luftwaffe convinced Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring and Hitler that they could conduct effective airlift operations on the Eastern front. Furthermore, it determined Hitler in his belief that encircled troops should automatically hold on to their territory, despite the Stalingrad airlift, the Germans suffered a devastating defeat nonetheless. Stalingrad, The Air Battle, 1942-January 1943, «Наука»,1969 Институт военной истории Министерства Обороны СССР, под редакцией и с предисловием члена-корреспондента АН СССР генерал-лейтенанта П. Жилина, cоставил и подготовил сборник кандидат военных наук, доцент, Утенков, научно-техническая работа проведена подполковником В. The Ghosts of Demiansk, In Memory of the Soldiers of the Soviet 1st Airborne Corps, the Soviet-German War 1941-1945, Myths and Realities, A Survey Essay
Demyansk Pocket
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Demyansk Pocket
Demyansk Pocket
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German forces near Demyansk, 21 March 1942.
33.
Kholm Pocket
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A much larger pocket was simultaneously surrounded in Demyansk, about 100 km to the northeast. These were the results of German retreat following their defeat during the Battle of Moscow, at the small Kholm pocket,5,500 German soldiers held it for 105 days. The pocket was supplied by air, but was too small for planes to land, therefore, supplies had to be dropped in, among the airdropped supplies were 35 of the first 50 prototype MKb 42 rifles. The German units in the pocket were mainly part of, 218th Infantry Division Reserve-Polizei-Bataillon 65 Infanterie-Regiment 553 Parts of the 123rd Infantry Division Jagdkommando 8 III, bataillon of the Luftwaffenfeldregiment 1 German forces made three attempts to relieve the pocket, in January, March and May 1942. While the first two failed the third one was successful, with the German forces in the pocket reduced in number to 1,200 by then. In July 1942, the Cholm Shield was awarded to the German defenders of the pocket, upon the suggestion of Generalmajor Theodor Scherer, Scherer was personally awarded the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves by Adolf Hitler for the command of the defense of Kholm. Kholm was eventually liberated by the Red Army on 21 February 1944, the unit was found to have taken part in a minimum of 5,000 executions and a large number of deportations to concentration camps. Among them was also the hanging of a girl in Kholm during the siege. Germany at War,400 Years of Military History, the Second World War in the Air, The Story of Air Combat in Every Theatre of World War Two. Media related to Battle of Kholm at Wikimedia Commons
Kholm Pocket
–
Soldiers in the Kholm Pocket, 1942
Kholm Pocket
–
Kholm Pocket
Kholm Pocket
–
Soldiers preparing to board a
Gotha Go 242 glider, Kholm
Kholm Pocket
–
Sergeant gives soldier food, right: wounded with head and arm injuries, the end of January - beginning of May 1942
34.
Second Battle of Kharkov
–
Its objective was to eliminate the Izium bridgehead over Seversky Donets or the Barvenkovo bulge which was one of the Soviet offensives staging areas. On 12 May 1942, Soviet forces under the command of Marshal Semyon Timoshenko launched an offensive against the German 6th Army from a salient established during the winter counter-offensive, after initial promising signs, the offensive was stopped by German counterattacks. The operation caused almost 300,000 Soviet casualties compared to just 20,000 for the Germans, by late February 1942, the Soviet winter counter-offensive, had pushed German forces from Moscow on a broad front and then ended in mutual exhaustion. Stalin was convinced that the Germans were finished and would collapse by the spring or summer 1942, Stalin decided to exploit this perceived weakness on the Eastern Front by launching a new offensive in the spring. Vasilevsky wrote Yes, we were hoping for, but the reality was more harsh than that, despite the caution urged by his generals, Stalin decided to try to keep the German forces off-balance through local offensives. Although Stavka believed that the Germans had been defeated before Moscow, Stalin, most generals and front commanders believed that the principal effort would be a German offensive towards Moscow. Stalin had agreed to prepare the Red Army for a strategic defence but later gave orders for the planning of seven local offensives. One area was Kharkov, where action was ordered for March. The forces of Marshal Semyon Timoshenko and Lieutenant General Kirill Moskalenko penetrated German positions along the northern Donets River, fighting continued into April, with Moskalenko crossing the river and establishing a tenuous bridgehead at Izium. In the south, the Soviet 6th Army had limited success defending against German forces, catching the attention of Stalin, it set the pace for the prelude to the eventual offensive intended to reach Pavlohrad and Sinelnikovo and eventually Kharkov and Poltava. By 15 March, Soviet commanders introduced preliminary plans for an offensive towards Kharkov, the build-up of Soviet forces in the region of Barvenkovo and Vovchansk continued well into the beginning of May. By 11 May 1942, the Red Army was able to allocate six armies under two fronts, amongst other units, the Soviet Southwestern Front had the 21st Army, 28th Army, 38th Army and the 6th Army. By 11 May, the 21st Tank Corps had been moved into the region with the 23rd Tank Corps, there were also three independent rifle divisions and a rifle regiment from the 270th Rifle Division, concentrated in the area, supported by the 2nd Cavalry Corps in Bogdanovka. The Soviet Southern Front had the 57th and 9th armies, along with thirty rifle divisions, a brigade and the 24th Tank Corps. At its height, the Southern Front could operate eleven guns or mortars per kilometer of front, forces regrouping in the sector ran into the rasputitsa, which turned much of the soil into mud. This caused severe delays in the preparations and made reinforcing the Southern and Southwestern Front take longer than expected, senior Soviet representatives criticized the front commanders for poor management of forces, an inability to stage offensives and for their armchair generalship. Because the regrouping was done so haphazardly, the Germans received some warning of Soviet preparations, Moskalenko, the commander of the 38th Army, placed the blame on the fact that the fronts did not plan in advance to regroup and showed a poor display of front management. The primary Soviet leader was Marshal Semyon Timoshenko, a veteran of World War I, Timoshenko had achieved some success at the Battle of Smolensk in 1941 but was eventually defeated
Second Battle of Kharkov
–
Semyon Timoshenko, commander-in-chief of the
Southwestern Front, who led the Second Battle of Kharkov.
Second Battle of Kharkov
–
The
Eastern Front at the time of the Second Battle of Kharkov, the operation is the small orange area with two arrows in the area of
Ukraine.
Second Battle of Kharkov
–
Soviet prisoners of war (David M. Glantz, Kharkov 1942)
35.
Case Blue
–
Case Blue, later renamed Operation Braunschweig, was the German Armed Forces name for its plan for the 1942 strategic summer offensive in southern Russia between 28 June and 24 November 1942. Initially, the offensive saw gains, with an advance into the Caucasus capturing large areas of land, however, the Red Army defeated the Germans at Stalingrad, following Operations Uranus and Little Saturn. This defeat forced the Axis to retreat from the Caucasus, only the city of Kursk and the Kuban region remained tentatively occupied by Axis troops. On 22 June 1941 the Wehrmacht had launched Operation Barbarossa with the intention of defeating the Soviets in a Blitzkrieg lasting only months, the Axis offensive had met with initial success and the Red Army had suffered some major defeats before halting the Axis units at Moscow. Although the Germans had captured vast areas of land and important industrial centers, in the winter of 1941–42 the Soviets struck back in a series of successful counteroffensives, pushing back the German threat to Moscow. Despite these setbacks, Hitler wanted a solution, for which he required the oil resources of the Caucasus. By February 1942 the German Army High Command had begun to develop plans for a campaign to the aborted Barbarossa offensive – with the Caucasus as its principal objective. On 5 April 1942, Hitler laid out the elements of the now known as Case Blue in Führer Directive No.41. The main focus was to be at the capture of Caucasus region, the Caucasus, a large, culturally diverse region traversed by its eponymous mountains, is bounded by the Black Sea to the west and the Caspian Sea to the east. South of the lay the densely populated region of Transcaucasia, comprising Georgia, Azerbaijan. This heavily industrialized and densely populated area contained some of the largest oilfields in the world, Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, was one of the richest, producing 80 percent of the Soviet Unions oil—about 24 million tons in 1942 alone. The Caucasus also possessed plentiful coal and peat, as well as nonferrous, manganese deposits at Chiaturi, in Transcaucasia, formed the richest single source in the world, yielding 1.5 million tons of manganese ore annually, half of the Soviet Unions total production. The Kuban region of the Caucasus also produced large amounts of wheat, corn, sunflower seeds and these resources were of immense importance to Hitler and the German war effort. Of the three tons of oil Germany consumed per year,85 percent was imported, mainly from the United States, Venezuela. An indication of German reliance on Romania is evident from its oil consumption, in 1938, in late 1941, the Romanians warned Hitler that their stocks were exhausted and they were unable to meet German demands. Whereas in 1941 most units fought on the central front supporting Army Group Centre,1,610 aircraft, initially commanded by Löhr, on 20 July 1942, Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen took command of Luftflotte 4. Blau II, Sixth Army, commanded by Friedrich Paulus, would attack from Kharkiv and move in parallel with Fourth Panzer Army, to reach the Volga at Stalingrad. Blau III, First Panzer Army would then strike south towards the lower Don River, with Seventeenth Army on the western flank, the strategic objectives of the operation were the oilfields at Maykop, Grozny and Baku
Case Blue
–
German troops take cover behind a knocked out
T-70 light tank, summer 1942
Case Blue
–
Waffen-SS infantry and armour advancing, Summer 1942
Case Blue
–
German troops and a
Sd.Kfz. 251 armored half-track on the Russian steppe, August 1942
Case Blue
–
German Gebirgsjäger in the Caucasus
36.
Battle of the Caucasus
–
The Battle of the Caucasus is a name given to a series of Axis and Soviet operations in the Caucasus area on the Eastern Front of World War II. The operation was authorised by Hitler on 23 July 1942, the main forces included Army Group A commanded by Wilhelm List, 1st Panzer Army, 4th Panzer Army, 17th Army, part of the Luftflotte 4 and the 3rd Romanian Army. Army Group A was supported to the east by Army Group B commanded by Fedor von Bock, the land forces, accompanied by 15,000 oil industry workers, included 167,000 troopers,4,540 guns and 1,130 tanks. Several oil firms such as German Oil on Caucasus, Ost-Öl and Karpaten-Öl had been established in Germany and they were awarded an exclusive 99-year lease to exploit the Caucasian oil fields. For this purpose, a number of pipes—which later proved useful to Soviet oil industry workers—were delivered. A special economic inspection A, headed by Lieutenant-General Nidenfuhr was created, bombing of the oil fields was forbidden. To defend them from destruction by Soviet units under the command of Nikolai Baibakov and Semyon Budyonny, an SS guard regiment, the head of the Abwehr developed Operation Schamil, which called for landing in the Grozny, Malgobek and Maikop regions. They would be supported by the fifth column. After neutralizing the Soviet counter-attack in the Izyum-Barvenkovsk direction the German Army Group A rapidly attacked towards the Caucasus, when Rostov-on-Don, nicknamed The Gates of Caucasus, fell on 23 July 1942 the tank units of Ewald von Kleist moved across the Caucasian Mountain Range. The units of the 4th German Mountain Division, manned with Tyroleans, were active in this thrust and they succeeded in advancing 30 km toward Sukhumi. To attack from the Kuban region, capture the passes that led to Elbrus, and cover the Edelweiss flank, from the Old Karachay through the Khurzuk aul and the Ullu-kam Gorge the detachment reached the Khotyu-tau Pass, which had not been defended by the Soviet troops. Khotyu-tau gained a new name — The Pass of General Konrad, the starting point of the operation on the Krasnodar-Pyatigorsk-Maikop line was reached on 10 August 1942. On 16 August the battalion commanded by von Hirschfeld made a feint, on 21 August troops from the 1st Mountain Division planted the flag of Nazi Germany on the summit of Mount Elbrus, the highest peak in the Caucasus and Europe. But the region was affected by warfare elsewhere in the Soviet Union, the Caucasus area became a new area of industry when 226 factories were evacuated there during the industrial evacuations undertaken by the Soviet Union in 1941. In 1942, the German Army launched Operation Edelweiss which was aimed at advancing to the oil field of Azerbaijan, the German offensive slowed as it entered the mountains in the southern Caucasus and did not reach all of its 1942 objectives. After the Soviet breakthroughs in the region around Stalingrad, the German forces in the Caucasus were put on the defensive and they established a defensive line in the Taman Peninsula from which they hoped to eventually launch new operations in the Caucasus. The fighting remained reasonably static until September 1943 when the Germans ordered fresh withdrawals which effectively ended the period of fighting in the Caucasus, Soviet Operations in 1943 consisted of the following. 648-651 Ivan Tyulenev, Cherez Tri Voyny, Moscow,1960, P.176. Battle of Caucasus, Case for Georgian Alpinists, Translated by Michael P. Willis,2017, World War 2 Battles, The Battle of The Caucasus Ясен Дьяченко
Battle of the Caucasus
–
c870,000 Soviet personnel were awarded this
Medal "For the Defence of the Caucasus" from 1 May 1944.
Battle of the Caucasus
–
German advances in summer of 1942.
37.
Battle for Velikiye Luki
–
A new attack was launched in late August by both the LVII and XXXX Panzer Corps, and the city was recaptured on Aug.26. After its capture and with the German offensive running out of steam for the winter, marshy terrain extended to Lake Peipus from just north of the city defended by the German 16th Field Army, making operations in the region around the city difficult for both sides. Rather than maintaining a solid front in the area, the Germans established a series of thinly held outposts to the north and south of the city. Soviet counterattacks during the Winter Campaign of 1941–1942, especially the Battles of Rzhev just to the south, Velikiye Luki lay just on the western edge of the original advance, and was just as strategic for the Soviets as the German. In view of its significance, the Germans heavily fortified the city over the course of 1942. The Soviets often raided into German-held territory around the town and the town could only be supplied by armoured trains. The Soviet offensive to retake the city was developed in mid-November 1942 using troops from the 3rd and 4th Shock armies, the city itself was provided with extensive prepared defenses and garrisoned by a full regiment of the 83rd Division and other troops, totaling around 7,000. Rather than attacking the town directly, the Soviet forces advanced into the terrain to the north and south of the town. Spearheaded by four divisions to the south and one to the north. Army Group Centres commander asked the OKH for permission to conduct an operation while the situation was still relatively fluid by pulling the German lines back by around ten miles. The garrison were ordered to hold the city at all costs, the remainder of the 83rd Infantry and 3rd Mountain Divisions, encircled south of Velikiye Luki, fought their way west to meet the relieving troops. Due to Army Group Centres commitments at Rzhev, the only immediately available to man the lines opposite Velikiye Luki were those already in the area. In the meantime, Soviet attempts to take their main objective, an attempt by the Germans to reach Velikiye Luki in late December, ran into stubborn Soviet defence and halted, heavily damaged. Operation Totila, the attempt to break through to Velikiye Luki, was launched on 4 January. The two German spearheads advanced to five miles of the city, but stalled due to pressure on their flanks. The former group broke out on during the night of the 14th, the German garrison surrendered on 16 January. A military tribunal held a trial and convicted them for war crimes related to anti-partisan warfare. Nine were sentenced to death and publicly hanged in the square of Velikiye Luki in January 1946
Battle for Velikiye Luki
–
Situation after the initial Soviet advance.
Battle for Velikiye Luki
–
Velikiye Luki (red, upper left) and the nearby rail trunks, in the context of the Soviet 1942–1943 offensives. (click to enlarge)
38.
Battle of Stalingrad
–
Marked by fierce close quarters combat and direct assaults on civilians by air raids, it is often regarded as one of the single largest and bloodiest battles in the history of warfare. German forces never regained the initiative in the East and withdrew a vast military force from the West to replace their losses, the German offensive to capture Stalingrad began in August 1942, using the German 6th Army and elements of the 4th Panzer Army. The attack was supported by intensive Luftwaffe bombing that reduced much of the city to rubble, the fighting degenerated into house-to-house fighting, and both sides poured reinforcements into the city. By mid-November 1942, the Germans had pushed the Soviet defenders back at great cost into narrow zones along the west bank of the Volga River. On 19 November 1942, the Red Army launched Operation Uranus, the Axis forces on the flanks were overrun and the 6th Army was cut off and surrounded in the Stalingrad area. Adolf Hitler ordered that the stay in Stalingrad and make no attempt to break out, instead, attempts were made to supply the army by air. Heavy fighting continued for two months. By the beginning of February 1943, the Axis forces in Stalingrad had exhausted their ammunition, the remaining units of the 6th Army surrendered. The battle lasted five months, one week, and three days, elsewhere, the war had been progressing well, the U-boat offensive in the Atlantic had been very successful and Rommel had just captured Tobruk. In the east, they had stabilized their front in a running from Leningrad in the north to Rostov in the south. There were a number of salients, but these were not particularly threatening, neither Army Group North nor Army Group South had been particularly hard pressed over the winter. Stalin was expecting the main thrust of the German summer attacks to be directed against Moscow again, with the initial operations being very successful, the Germans decided that their summer campaign in 1942 would be directed at the southern parts of the Soviet Union. The initial objectives in the region around Stalingrad were the destruction of the capacity of the city. The river was a key route from the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea to central Russia and its capture would disrupt commercial river traffic. The Germans cut the pipeline from the oilfields when they captured Rostov on 23 July, the capture of Stalingrad would make the delivery of Lend Lease supplies via the Persian Corridor much more difficult. On 23 July 1942, Hitler personally rewrote the operational objectives for the 1942 campaign, both sides began to attach propaganda value to the city based on it bearing the name of the leader of the Soviet Union. The expansion of objectives was a significant factor in Germanys failure at Stalingrad, caused by German overconfidence, the Soviets realized that they were under tremendous constraints of time and resources and ordered that anyone strong enough to hold a rifle be sent to fight. If I do not get the oil of Maikop and Grozny then I must finish this war, Army Group South was selected for a sprint forward through the southern Russian steppes into the Caucasus to capture the vital Soviet oil fields there
Battle of Stalingrad
–
Soviet soldier waving the Red Banner over the central plaza of Stalingrad in 1943.
Battle of Stalingrad
–
Infantry and a supporting
StuG III assault gun advance towards the city center.
Battle of Stalingrad
–
October 1942: German officer with a Russian
PPSh-41 submachine gun in Barrikady factory rubble. Many German soldiers took up Russian weapons when found, as they were more effective than their own in
close quarter combat.
Battle of Stalingrad
–
German soldiers on their way in Stalingrad
39.
Operation Uranus
–
The operation formed part of the ongoing Battle of Stalingrad, and was aimed at destroying German forces in and around Stalingrad. Planning for Operation Uranus had commenced in September 1942, and was developed simultaneously with plans to envelop and destroy German Army Group Center and these Axis armies lacked heavy equipment to deal with Soviet armor. The situation was exacerbated by the German decision to relocate several mechanized divisions from the Soviet Union to Western Europe, furthermore, units in the area were depleted after months of fighting, especially those which took part in the fighting in Stalingrad. In comparison, the Red Army deployed over one million personnel for the purpose of beginning the offensive in, Soviet troop movements were not without problems, due to the difficulties of concealing their build-up, and to Soviet units commonly arriving late due to logistical issues. Operation Uranus was first postponed from 8 to 17 November, then to 19 November, at 07,20 Moscow time on 19 November, Soviet forces on the northern flank of the Axis forces at Stalingrad began their offensive, forces in the south began on 20 November. By late 22 November Soviet forces linked up at the town of Kalach, instead of attempting to break out of the encirclement, German dictator Adolf Hitler decided to keep Axis forces in Stalingrad and resupply them by air. In the meantime, Soviet and German commanders began to plan their next movements, on 28 June 1942, the Wehrmacht began its offensive against Soviet forces opposite of Army Group South, codenamed Case Blue. After breaking through Red Army forces by 13 July, German forces encircled and captured the city of Rostov. The responsibility to take Stalingrad was given to the Sixth Army, the following day, the Battle of Stalingrad began when vanguards of the Sixth Army penetrated the suburbs of the city. By November the Sixth Army had occupied most of Stalingrad, pushing the defending Red Army to the banks of the Volga River, however, the German command was intent upon finalizing its capture of Stalingrad. Ultimately, command of Soviet efforts to relieve Stalingrad was put under the leadership of General Aleksandr Vasilevsky, Operation Uranus involved the use of large Soviet mechanized and infantry forces to encircle German and other Axis forces directly around Stalingrad. For example, in early July the Sixth Army was defending a 160-kilometer line, Army Group B had the 48th Panzer Corps, which had the strength of a weakened panzer division, and a single infantry division as reserves. For the most part the German flanks were held by arriving non-German Axis armies, while German forces were used to spearhead continued operations in Stalingrad, similarly, their 37-millimeter PaK anti-tank guns were also antiquated and they were largely short of ammunition. Only after repeated requests did the Germans send the Romanian units 75-millimeter PaK guns, the Italians and Hungarians were positioned at the Don west of the Third Romanian Army, but the German commanders did not hold in high regard the capability of those units to fight. The Sixth Army had also suffered casualties during the fighting in the city of Stalingrad proper. In some cases, such as that of the 22nd Panzer Division, German formations were also overextended along large stretches of front, the XI Army Corps, for example, had to defend a front around 100 kilometers long. The Red Army allocated an estimated 1,100,000 personnel,804 tanks,13,400 artillery pieces and over 1,000 aircraft for the upcoming offensive. Across the Third Romanian Army, the Soviets placed the redeployed 5th Tank Army, as well as the 21st and 65th Armies, in order to penetrate, in total, the Soviets had amassed 11 armies and various independent tank brigades and corps
Operation Uranus
–
German troops advancing in the Soviet Union, June 1942
Operation Uranus
–
Operation Uranus
Operation Uranus
–
General
Friedrich Paulus, commander of the German Sixth Army
Operation Uranus
–
Romanian soldier on the front
40.
Operation Mars
–
Operation Mars, also known as the Second Rzhev-Sychevka Offensive Operation, was the codename for an offensive launched by Soviet forces against German forces during World War II. It took place between 25 November and 20 December 1942 around the Rzhev salient in the vicinity of Moscow, the offensive was a joint operation of the Soviet Western Front and Kalinin Front coordinated by Georgy Zhukov. The battles became known as the Rzhev meat grinder for their huge losses, for many years they were relegated to a footnote in Soviet military history. In Operation Mars, planned to commence in late October, forces of the Kalinin and Western Fronts would encircle, the basic plan of the offensive was to launch multiple, coordinated thrusts from all sides of the salient, resulting in the destruction of the Ninth Army. The offensive would also tie down German units and prevent them from being moved south, the Kalinin and Western Fronts were directed by Stalin and Zhukov to crush the Rzhev-Sychovka-Olenino-Bely enemy grouping. The Western Front was to take Sychovka no later than the 15th December, once resistance around Vyazma was neutralized, the 9th and 10th Tank Corps and the 3rd Tank Army would then penetrate deeper into the rear of Army Group Centre. The offensive was launched in the hours of 25 November 1942. It got off to a bad start, as fog and snowy weather grounded the planned air support. It also greatly reduced the effect of the artillery barrages preceding the main attacks, as it made it impossible for the forward artillery observers to adjust fire. The northern thrust made little progress, the eastern attack across the frozen Vazuza river slowly ground forward. The two western thrusts made deeper penetrations, especially around the key town of Belyi, still, the progress was nowhere near what the Soviets expected. The German defenders fought stubbornly, clinging to their strong-points, which were centered on many of the small villages dotting the area. In some cases, the German strong-points remained manned for a time after the Soviets advanced past them, despite repeated, persistent Soviet attacks, small-arms fire and pre-planned artillery concentrations cut down the attacking infantry. Soviet tanks were picked off by guns, the few German tanks. The relative lack of initial success compounded the Soviet problems, the Germans reacted by shifting units within the salient against the points of the Soviet advance and pinching off their spearheads. With limited reserves and reinforcement unlikely due to Soviet offensives elsewhere, eventually the shifting of German forces, coupled with Soviet losses and supply difficulties, allowed the German forces to gain the upper hand. Their lines held, and much of the lost ground was retaken, the counterattacks against the Belyi and the Vazuza thrusts resulted in several thousand soldiers being trapped behind German lines. A few of these would manage to break through to Soviet lines, almost all vehicles and heavy weapons had to be left behind
Operation Mars
–
Operation Mars
Operation Mars
–
Soviet collective farmers hand over KV-1 tanks to their crews
41.
Operation Winter Storm
–
In late November 1942, the Red Army completed Operation Uranus, encircling some 300,000 Axis personnel in and around the city of Stalingrad. German forces within the Stalingrad pocket and directly outside were reorganized under Army Group Don, to remedy the situation, the Luftwaffe attempted to supply German forces in Stalingrad through an air bridge. Originally, Manstein was promised four panzer divisions, due to German reluctance to weaken certain sectors by redeploying German units, the task of opening a corridor to the German 6th Army fell to the 4th Panzer Army. The German force was pitted against several Soviet armies tasked with the destruction of the encircled German forces, the German offensive caught the Red Army by surprise and made large gains on the first day. The spearhead forces enjoyed air support and were able to defeat counterattacks by Soviet troops, by 13 December, Soviet resistance slowed the German advance considerably. Although German forces took the area surrounding Verkhne-Kumskiy, the Red Army launched Operation Little Saturn on 16 December, Operation Little Saturn crushed the Italian 8th Army on Army Group Dons left flank, threatening the survival of Mansteins entire group of forces. The 4th Panzer Army continued its attempt to open a corridor to the 6th Army on 18–19 December, Manstein was forced to call off the assault on 23 December and by Christmas Eve the 4th Panzer Army began to withdraw to its starting position. Due to the failure of the 6th Army to breakout and the attempt to break the Soviet encirclement, on 23 November 1942, the Red Army closed its encirclement of Axis forces in Stalingrad. Nearly 300,000 German and Romanian soldiers, as well as Russian volunteers for the Wehrmacht, were trapped in, amidst the impending disaster, German chancellor Adolf Hitler appointed Field Marshal Erich von Manstein as commander of the newly created Army Group Don. Composed of the German 4th Panzer and 6th Armies, as well as the Third and Fourth Romanian Armies, instead of attempting an immediate breakout, German high command decided that the trapped forces would remain in Stalingrad in a bid to hold out. The encircled German forces were to be resupplied by air, requiring roughly 680 t of supplies per day, however, the assembled fleet of 500 transport aircraft were insufficient for the task. Many of the aircraft were serviceable in the rough Soviet winter, in early December. The German 6th Army, for example, was getting less than 20% of its daily needs, furthermore, the Germans were still threatened by Soviet forces which still held portions of the Volga Rivers west bank in Stalingrad. Given the unexpected size of German forces closed off in Stalingrad, on 23 November Stavka decided to strengthen the outer encirclement preparing to destroy Axis forces in, on 24 November, several Soviet formations began to entrench themselves to defend against possible German incursions originating from the West. The Soviets also reinforced the forces in order to prevent a successful breakout operation by the German 6th Army. However, this tied down over ½ of the Red Armys strength in the area, meanwhile, planning also began for Operation Koltso, which aimed at reducing German forces in the Stalingrad pocket. As Operation Uranus concluded, German forces inside the encirclement were too weak to attempt a breakout on their own, Manstein proposed a counterstrike to break the Soviet encirclement of Stalingrad, codenamed Operation Winter Storm. Manstein believed that—due to the inability of the Luftwaffe to supply the Stalingrad pocket—it was becoming important to relieve them at the earliest possible date
Operation Winter Storm
–
A German
Tiger tank and knocked-out Soviet
T-34 tank during the fighting in the southern Soviet Union.
Operation Winter Storm
–
Field Marshal
Erich von Manstein, commander of Army Group Don at the time of the battle
Operation Winter Storm
–
A battalion of Tiger I tanks was deployed to Army Group Don in an effort to strengthen the German drive to Stalingrad.
Operation Winter Storm
–
German
Panzer III fighting in the Southern Soviet Union in December 1942
42.
Operation Little Saturn
–
The success of Operation Uranus, launched on 19 November 1942, had trapped 250,000 -300,000 troops of General Friedrich Paulus German 6th Army and 4th Panzer Army in Stalingrad. To exploit this victory, the Soviet general staff planned a campaign of continuous and highly ambitious offensive operations. Later Joseph Stalin reduced his ambitious plans to a small campaign codenamed Operation Little Saturn. Despite these victories, the Soviets themselves became over extended, setting up the stages for the German offensives of the Third Battle of Kharkov, by 6 July, General Hermann Hoths Fourth Panzer Army had taken the city of Voronezh, threatening to collapse the Red Armys resistance. The rapid German advance threatened to cut the Soviet Union off from its southern territories, the operation formed part of the ongoing Battle of Stalingrad, and was aimed at destroying German forces in and around Stalingrad. Planning for Operation Uranus had commenced as early as September 1942 and these Axis armies were deployed in open positions on the steppe and lacked heavy equipment to deal with Soviet armor. Operation Winter Storm, undertaken between 12–23 December 1942, was the German Fourth Panzer Armys attempt to relieve encircled Axis forces during the Battle of Stalingrad. In late November, the Red Army completed Operation Uranus, which resulted in the encirclement of Axis personnel in, German forces within the Stalingrad Pocket and directly outside were reorganized under Army Group Don, under the command of Field Marshal Erich von Manstein. They would be supported by the 6th Army of the Voronezh Front, while General Rodion Malinovskys Soviet 2nd Guards Army blocked the German advance on Stalingrad, the modified plan Operation Little Saturn was launched on 16 December. This operation consisted of a movement which threatened to cut off the relieving forces. The Italians resisted the Soviet attack for two weeks, although outnumbered 9 to 1 in some sectors, but with huge losses. Manstein sent the 6th Panzer Division to the Italians aid, of the 130,000 encircled troops, to the south the advance of General Gerasimenkos 28th Army threatened to encircle the 1st Panzer Army and General Trufanovs 51st Army attacked the relief column directly. In a daring raid, by 24 December tanks of the 24th Tank Corps had reached Tatskinskaya, the Soviet tanks drove through snowstorms onto the airfield and roamed about for hours, destroying the German transport planes at their leisure. With the relief column under threat of encirclement, Manstein had no choice but to back to Kotelnikovo on 29 December. Of the 200,000 -250,000 soldiers encircled 90,000 survived to be taken prisoner, only 5,000 lived to return to Germany. The Soviets then attacked and pushed back the remaining units of the German 24th Army Corps on the Alpini left flank and contemporarily attacked the Alpini themselves. The Alpini held the front, but within three days the Soviets advanced 200 kilometers to the left and right of the Alpini, who were encircled and forced to try to escape a siege. Although the Alpini corps was ordered to hold the front at all costs, on the evening of January 17, the commanding officer of the corps General Gabriele Nasci finally ordered the full retreat, which was fully carried out on January 19
Operation Little Saturn
–
Soviet forces during Operation Little Saturn in December 1942
Operation Little Saturn
–
Soviet advances during Operations
Uranus,
Mars and Saturn.
Operation Little Saturn
–
Route of the Alpini toward Nikolaievka
43.
Battle of Krasny Bor
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The Battle of Krasny Bor was part of the Soviet offensive Operation Polyarnaya Zvezda. It called for an attack near Leningrad, to build on the success of Operation Iskra and completely lift the Siege of Leningrad. The offensive near Krasny Bor, formed the arm of the pincer. The Soviet offensive began on Wednesday,10 February 1943 and it produced noticeable gains on the first day, but rapidly turned into a stalemate. The strong defense of the 250th Infantry Division led by General Emilio Esteban Infantes, by February 13, the Soviet forces had stopped their offensive in this sector. In Spain, February 10 became known as Black Wednesday, due to the losses of the Spanish Division. It was the most costly battle for the Spanish volunteers during their time on the Eastern Front, the Siege of Leningrad began in early autumn 1941. By September 8, German and Finnish forces had surrounded the city, cutting off all routes to Leningrad. However the original drive on the city failed and the city was subjected to a siege, during 1942 several attempts were made to breach the blockade, but they were all unsuccessful. The last such endeavour in 1942 was the Sinyavin Offensive, after the defeat of that effort, the front line returned to what it was previously and again 16 kilometres separated Leonid Govorovs Leningrad Front in the city and Kirill Meretskovs Volkhov Front. Despite the failures of earlier operations, lifting the siege of Leningrad was a high priority, so new offensive preparations began in November 1942. In December, the plan was approved by the STAVKA. By January 1943, the situation looked very good for the Soviet side, the German defeat at Stalingrad had weakened the German front. The Soviet forces were planning or conducting offensive operations across the entire front, amidst these conditions, Iskra was to become the first of several offensive operations aimed at inflicting a decisive defeat on Army Group North. Operation Iskra was a victory for the Soviet forces and successfully opened a land corridor 8–10 km wide into the city. A railroad was built through it and allowed many more supplies to reach the city than the Road of Life, eliminating the possibility of the capture of the city. At the same time, however, STAVKA knew that Iskra was incomplete as the corridor it had opened was narrow and was still in range of German artillery, additionally, the important heights and strong point at Siniavino were still controlled by the Germans. This led Georgy Zhukov, the Soviet commander, to plan a more ambitious offensive operation named Operation Polyarnaya Zvezda
Battle of Krasny Bor
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German field defences near Leningrad in January 1943
Battle of Krasny Bor
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Soviet plan for Operation Polyarnaya Zvezda in the context of the wider offensive in the northern and central parts of the front
44.
Operation Tidal Wave
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It was a strategic bombing mission and part of the oil campaign to deny petroleum-based fuel to the Axis. The mission resulted in no curtailment of overall product output and this mission was one of the costliest for the USAAF in the European Theater, with 53 aircraft and 660 aircrewmen lost. It was the second-worst loss ever suffered by the USAAF on a single mission, five Medals of Honor and numerous Distinguished Service Crosses were awarded to Operation Tidal Wave crew members. Romania had been a power in the oil industry since the 1800s. It was one of the largest producers in Europe and Ploesti was a part of that production. The Ploiești oil refineries provided about 30% of all Axis oil production, in June 1942,13 B-24 Liberators of the Halverson project attacked Ploiești. Though damage was small, Germany responded by putting strong anti-aircraft defenses around Ploiești, Luftwaffe General Alfred Gerstenberg built one of the heaviest and best-integrated air defense networks in Europe. The defenses included several hundred large-caliber 88mm guns and 10.5 cm FlaK38 anti-aircraft guns, the latter were concealed in haystacks, railroad cars, and mock buildings. The Luftwaffe had three groups within flight range of Ploiești. Gerstenberg also counted on warnings from the Luftwaffe signals intelligence station in Athens, the Ninth Air Force was responsible for the overall conduct of the raid, and the partially formed Eighth Air Force provided three additional bomb groups. All the bombers employed were B-24 Liberators, colonel Jacob E. Smart planned the operation, based on HALPROs experiences. The bombers to be used were re-equipped with bomb-bay fuel tanks to increase their capacity to 3,100 gallons. The operation was to consist of 178 bombers with a total of 1,751 aircrew, one of the largest commitments of American heavy bombers, the planes were to fly from airfields near Benghazi, Libya. Reaching Ploiești, they were to locate pre-determined checkpoints, approach their targets from the north, for political reasons, the Allied planners decided to avoid the city of Ploiești, so that it would not be bombed by accident. Early on the morning of 1 August 1943, the five groups comprising the strike force began lifting off from their air fields around Benghazi. Large amounts of dust kicked up during take-off caused limited visibility and strained engines already carrying the burden of large bomb loads and these conditions contributed to the loss of one aircraft during take-off, but 177 of the planned 178 aircraft departed safely. No survivors were seen, and due to the weight of fuel, Iovine was unable to regain altitude to rejoin the formation. The resulting confusion was compounded by the inability to regain cohesion due to radio silence maintained as per mission guidance
Operation Tidal Wave
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A
B-24 Liberator called " Sandman " during a bomb run over the
Ploiești Astra Romana refinery during Operation Tidal Wave.
Operation Tidal Wave
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B-24D's fly over Ploiești during
World War II
Operation Tidal Wave
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Columbia Aquila refinery after the bombing, with bomb craters, largely intact
45.
Third Battle of Kharkov
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Known to the German side as the Donets Campaign, and in the Soviet Union as the Donbas and Kharkov operations, the German counterstrike led to the recapture of the cities of Kharkov and Belgorod. As the German Sixth Army was encircled in Stalingrad, the Red Army undertook a series of attacks against the rest of Army Group South. The Soviet victories caused participating Soviet units to over-extend themselves, months of continuous operations, however, had taken a heavy toll on the Soviet forces and some divisions were reduced to 1, 000–2,000 combat effective soldiers. On 19 February, Field Marshal Erich von Manstein launched his Kharkov counterstrike, using the fresh II SS Panzer Corps, the Wehrmacht flanked, encircled, and defeated the Red Armys armored spearheads south of Kharkov. This enabled Manstein to renew his offensive against the city of Kharkov proper on 7 March, despite orders to encircle Kharkov from the north the SS Panzer Corps instead decided to directly engage Kharkov on 11 March. This led to four days of fighting before Kharkov was recaptured by the 1st SS Panzer Division on 15 March. The German forces recaptured Belgorod two days later, creating the salient which in July 1943 would lead to the Battle of Kursk, the German offensive cost the Red Army an estimated 90,000 casualties. The house-to-house fighting in Kharkov was also particularly bloody for the German SS Panzer Corps, at the start of 1943, the German Wehrmacht faced a crisis as Soviet forces encircled and reduced the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad and expanded their Winter Campaign towards the Don River. On 2 February 1943 the Sixth Armys commanding officers surrendered, total German losses at the Battle of Stalingrad, excluding prisoners, were between 120,000 and 150,000. Throughout 1942 German casualties totaled around 1.9 million personnel, on 2 February, the Red Army launched Operation Star, threatening to recapture the cities of Belgorod, Kharkov and Kursk. A Soviet drive, spearheaded by four tank corps organized under Lieutenant-General Markian Popov, pierced the German front by crossing the Donets River, despite Hitlers orders to hold the city, Kharkov was abandoned by German forces and the city was recaptured by the Red Army on 16 February. Hitler immediately flew to Mansteins headquarters at Zaporizhia, on 19 February Soviet armored units broke through the German lines and approached the city. In view of the situation, Hitler gave Manstein operational freedom. When Hitler departed, the Soviet forces were only some 30 kilometers away from the airfield, by this time Stavka believed it could decide the war in the southwest Russian SFSR and eastern Ukrainian SSR, expecting total victory. The surrender of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad freed six Soviet armies, under the command of Konstantin Rokossovsky, which were refitted and reinforced by the 2nd Tank Army and these forces were repositioned between the junction of German Army Groups Center and South. Originally planned to begin between 12–15 February, deployment problems forced Stavka to push the date back to 25 February. Meanwhile, the Soviet 60th Army pushed the German Second Armys 4th Panzer Division away from Kursk and this opened a 60 kilometers breach between these two German forces, shortly to be exploited by Rokossovskys offensive. However, unexpected German resistance began to slow the operation considerably, offering Rokossovsky only limited gains on the flank of his attack
Third Battle of Kharkov
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Soldiers of the 1st SS
Panzer Division near Kharkov, February 1943
Third Battle of Kharkov
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German counteroffensives on the Eastern Front, February–March 1943
Third Battle of Kharkov
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Portrait of Field Marshal
Erich von Manstein, commander of Army Group South at the time of the battle.
Third Battle of Kharkov
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German
Panzer IV tanks at Kharkov, 1943.
46.
Battle of Kursk
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The Battle of Kursk was a Second World War engagement between German and Soviet forces on the Eastern Front near Kursk in the Soviet Union during July and August 1943. The German offensive was code-named Operation Citadel and led to one of the largest armoured clashes in history, the German offensive was countered by two Soviet counter-offensives, Operation Polkovodets Rumyantsev and Operation Kutuzov. For the Germans, the battle was the strategic offensive that they were able to launch on the Eastern Front. Their extensive loss of men and tanks ensured that the victorious Soviet Red Army enjoyed the strategic initiative for the remainder of the war. The Germans hoped to weaken the Soviet offensive potential for the summer of 1943 by cutting off a number of forces that they anticipated would be in the Kursk salient. The Kursk salient or bulge was 250 kilometres long north to south and 160 kilometres from east to west. The plan envisioned an envelopment by a pair of breaking through the northern and southern flanks of the salient. Adolf Hitler believed that a victory here would reassert German strength and improve his prestige with his allies and it was also hoped that large numbers of Soviet prisoners would be captured to be used as slave labour in the German armaments industry. The Soviet government had foreknowledge of the German intentions, provided in part by the British intelligence service, aware months in advance that the attack would fall on the neck of the Kursk salient, the Soviets built a defence in depth designed to wear down the German armoured spearhead. The Germans delayed the offensive while they tried to build up their forces and waited for new weapons, mainly the new Panther tank and this gave the Red Army time to construct a series of deep defensive belts. The defensive preparations included minefields, fortifications, artillery fire zones and anti-tank strong points, Soviet mobile formations were moved out of the salient and a large reserve force was formed for strategic counter-offensives. The Battle of Kursk was the first time in the Second World War that a German strategic offensive was halted before it could break through enemy defences, the maximum depth of the German advance was 8–12 kilometres in the north and 35 kilometres in the south. Though the Red Army had succeeded in winter offensives previously, their counter-offensives following the German attack at Kursk were their first successful strategic summer offensives of the war. As the Battle of Stalingrad slowly ground to its conclusion the Red Army moved to an offensive in the south. Army Group Center came under significant pressure as well, Kursk fell to the Soviets on 8 February 1943, and Rostov on 14 February. The Soviet Bryansk, Western, and newly created Central Fronts prepared for an offensive which envisioned the encirclement of Army Group Center between Bryansk and Smolensk, by February 1943 the southern sector of the German front was in strategic crisis. Since December 1942 Field Marshal Erich von Manstein had been strongly requesting unrestricted operational freedom to him to use his forces in a fluid manner. On 6 February 1943, Manstein met with Hitler at the headquarters in Rasternburg to discuss the proposals he had previously sent and he received an approval from Hitler for a counteroffensive against the Soviet forces advancing in the Donbass region
Battle of Kursk
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Soldiers of the 2nd SS Panzer Division and a Tiger I tank
Battle of Kursk
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German soldiers in Orel pass by the Church of the Intercession, early 1943.
Battle of Kursk
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Waffen-SS soldiers aboard a Panzer IV in Kharkov, March 1943
Battle of Kursk
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Ernst-Georg Buchterkirch (left) in discussion with General Model
47.
Battle of Smolensk (1943)
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The second Battle of Smolensk was a Soviet strategic offensive operation conducted by the Red Army as part of the Summer-Autumn Campaign of 1943. Its goal was to clear the German presence from the Smolensk and Bryansk regions, Smolensk had been under German occupation since the first Battle of Smolensk in 1941. Despite an impressive German defense, the Red Army was able to stage several breakthroughs, liberating several major cities, including Smolensk, as a result of this operation, the Red Army was able to start planning for the liberation of Belarus. Although playing a military role in its own right, the Smolensk Operation was also important for its effect on the Battle of the Dnieper. In the course of the operation, the Red Army also definitively drove back German forces from the Smolensk land bridge, losses were considerable and the whole army was less effective than before, as many of its experienced soldiers had fallen during the previous two years of fighting. This left the German army capable of reacting to Soviet moves. The Battle of the Dnieper was to achieve the liberation of Ukraine, both operations were a part of the same strategic offensive plan, aiming to recover as much Soviet territory from German control as possible. the Donbass, the left-bank Ukraine operation. The territory on which the offensive was to be staged was a hilly plain covered with ravines and possessing significant areas of swamps. Its most important hills reached heights over 270 m, allowing for improved artillery defense, in 1943, the area was for the most part covered with pine and mixed forests and thick bushes. Numerous rivers also passed through the area, the most important of them being the Donets Basin, Western Dvina, Dnieper, Desna, Volost, Dnieper is by far the largest of them and strategically most important. Also the surrounding wide, swamp-like areas proved difficult to cross, moreover, like many south-flowing rivers in Europe, the Dniepers western bank, which was held by German troops, was higher and steeper than the eastern. There were very few bridges or ferries. For the Soviet troops, the offensive was complicated by a lack of transport in the area in which the offensive was to be staged. The road network was not well developed and paved roads were rare, after rainfall, which was quite common during the Russian summer, most of them were turned into mud, greatly slowing down any advance of mechanized troops, and raising logistical issues as well. The only major railroad axis available for Soviet troops was the Rzhev-Vyazma-Kirov line, the Wehrmacht controlled a much wider network of roads and railroads, centered on Smolensk and Roslavl. These two cities were important logistical centers, allowing supply and reinforcements for German troops. By far the most important railroads for German troops were the Smolensk-Bryansk axis, in July 1943 the Soviet front line on this part of the Eastern Front was a concave with a re-entrant around Orel. The re-entrant exposed the Wehrmacht to flank attacks from the north but the offensive the main attack carried out Kalinin, the Kalinin Front would have for the operation the 4th Shock Army, 39th Army, 43rd Army, 3rd Air Army, 31st Army
Battle of Smolensk (1943)
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Map of the Smolensk operation and related offensives.
Battle of Smolensk (1943)
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A detail of the Smolensk offensive, showing the concave shape of the Soviet front line.
Battle of Smolensk (1943)
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A destroyed German bunker, showing shell impacts in its steel plating.
48.
Battle of the Dnieper
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The Battle of the Dnieper was a military campaign that took place in 1943 on the Eastern Front of World War II. It was one of the largest operations in World War II, subsequently, Kiev was liberated in the Battle of Kiev. One of the costliest operations of the war, the casualties are estimated at being from 1,700,000 to 2,700,000 on both sides. One of the most tragic events took place during the establishment of so-called Bukryn lodgement near the village of Malyi Bukryn, following the Battle of Kursk, the Wehrmachts Heer and supporting Luftwaffe forces in the southern Soviet Union were on the defensive in the southern Ukraine. On the Soviet side, Joseph Stalin was determined to launch an offensive in Ukraine. The main thrust of the offensive was in a direction, the northern flank being largely stabilized. The operation begun on 26 August 1943, divisions started to move on a 1, 400-kilometer front that stretched between Smolensk and the Sea of Azov. Overall, the operation would be executed by 36 Combined Arms, four Tank,2,650,000 personnel were brought into the ranks for this massive operation. The operation would use 51,000 guns,2,400 tanks and 2,850 planes, the Dnieper is the third largest river in Europe, second only to the Volga and the Danube. In its lower part, its width can reach three kilometres, and being dammed in several places made it even larger. Moreover, its western shore —the one still to be retaken— was much higher and steeper than the eastern, in addition, the opposite shore was transformed into a vast complex of defenses and fortifications held by the Wehrmacht. Faced with such a situation, the Soviet commanders had two options and this option were supported by Marshal Zhukov and Deputy Chief of Staff A. I. Antonov, who considered the substantial losses after the battle of Kursk. The second option would be to stage an assault without waiting. This option left no time for the German defenders. This second option was backed by I. V, Stalin due to the concern that the German scorched earth policy might devastate this region if the Red Army did not advance fast enough. STAVKA also paid attention to the possible scorched earth activities of German forces with a view to preventing them by a rapid advance. The assault was staged on a 300-kilometer front almost simultaneously, all available means of transport were to be used to transport the attackers to the opposite shore, including small fishing boats and improvised rafts of barrels and trees
Battle of the Dnieper
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Map of the battle of the Dnieper and linked operations
Battle of the Dnieper
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Soviet soldiers crossing the
Dnieper on improvised
rafts
Battle of the Dnieper
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Central Front
Konstantin Rokossovsky
Battle of the Dnieper
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Voronezh Front
Nikolai Vatutin
49.
Battle of Kiev (1943)
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The Second Battle of Kiev involved three strategic operations by the Soviet Red Army, and one operational counterattack by the Wehrmacht which took place between 3 October and 22 December 1943. Following the Battle of Kursk, the Red Army launched Belgorod-Kharkov Offensive Operation, Stavka, the Soviet high command, ordered the Central Front and the Voronezh Front to force crossings of the Dnieper. When this was unsuccessful in October, the effort was handed over to the 1st Ukrainian Front, the 1st Ukrainian Front, commanded by Nikolai Vatutin, was able to secure bridgeheads north and south of Kiev. The 24th Panzer Corps of Walther Nehring, in a defensive position, had the opposing Soviet forces squeezed in. As a result, Vatutin decided to concentrate his strength at the bridgehead at Lyutezh. The 3rd Guards Tank Army, commanded by Pavel Rybalko, moved northwards toward the Lyutezh bridgehead under cover of darkness, masses of artillery were shifted northwards, but the movements went unnoticed by the Germans. Early on the morning of 3 November 1943, the 4th Panzer Army was subjected to a massive Soviet bombardment, the German forces screening the bridgehead were defeated, and Kiev was quickly captured. The plan went very well for Vatutin, Manstein, however, as Rybalkos tanks moved through the streets of Kiev on 5 November, Manstein pleaded with Adolf Hitler to release the 48th and 40th Panzer Corps in order to have sufficient forces to retake Kiev. The 48th Panzer Corps was committed to Manstein, a number of sources give 6 November as the date for the fall of Kiev. Raus was in difficulty with his units suffering heavy casualties in the stages of Vatutins offensive. The 4th Panzer Army was reinforced, especially artillery and rockets. The German divisions were bolstered on 7 November by the arrival of the newly formed 25th Panzer Division commanded by General der Panzertruppen Georg Jauer and its drive on Fastov was halted by the 7th Guards Tank Corps. Rybalko was soon just 40 mi from Berdichev, Zhitomir was taken by the 38th Army, the 60th Army was at the gates of Korosten, 40th Army was moving south from Kiev. The only respite for the Germans came when the 27th Army exhausted itself, the 4th Panzer Army was in deep trouble. However, the situation changed with the arrival of Hermann Balcks XLVIII Panzer Corps, comprising the 1st SS Division, 1st Panzer Division, balck drove his forces north to Brusyliv and then west to retake Zhitomir. Rybalko sent the 7th Guards Tank Corps to counter the German assault, a huge tank battle ensued, which continued until the latter part of November, when the autumn mud halted all operations. Both sides had suffered heavy losses, the casualty ratio was fairly balanced, though the Soviets lost slightly more than the Germans. With the recapture of Zhitomir and Korosten the 4th Panzer had gained some breathing room, with Vatutin halted, Stavka released substantial reserves to his First Ukrainian Front to regain momentum
Battle of Kiev (1943)
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Battle of Kiev (1943)
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Panzer IVs in Zhitomir, November 1943
Battle of Kiev (1943)
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Kiev Kreschatik after liberation November 1943
Germany
Finland[1][2]
Italy[3]
Soviet Union
Northern Front:
Russian map of the operations around Leningrad in 1943 The German and allied Finnish troops are in blue. The Soviet troops are in red.[a 1]
