Operation Barbarossa and the Eastern Front
Lebensraum and the Nazi Ideal
In his book Mein Kampf, Hitler laid out his vision for a “Greater Germany.” Hitler dreamed of acquiring Lebensraum, or “Living Space” for the German people. Hitler believed that the racial superiority of the German people meant that they needed to continue to expand. As a result, Hitler declared that Eastern Europe would provide the lebensraum that the German people needed to achieve their glory.
Hitler believed that once those lands in Eastern Europe were conquered, Germany would be able to remove the people that already lived there, because they were ‘racially inferior’ and that this land could be transformed into ‘Greater Germany.’
Turn to the East
Germany had quickly overrun France, drive British forces from the continent, and subdued Poland: Hitler determined it was now time to strike eastward.
Though Nazi Germany and the USSR had signed a Nonaggression Pact in 1939, Hitler did not feel bound to honor it. Hitler regarded Slavs (the most prominent ethnic group of the people of Eastern Europe) as an inferior people who stood in the way of German greatness.
Soviet leaders also didn’t trust the Nazi government. Stalin, the USSR’s leader, believed that Nazi Germany was planning to attack the Soviet Union. Stalin signed the nonaggression pact in the hope of buying the Soviet Union enough time to properly prepare for the German invasion. The Soviets had spent those years frantically trying to build up its industrial/military capabilities.
Operation Barbarossa
On June 22nd, 1941, three million German soldiers launched a sneak attack across the border into the Soviet Union, in an undertaking that German High Command called Operation Barbarossa. The Soviets were caught completely off-guard; Stalin had not anticipated a German sneak-attack until 1946 at the earliest. German forces quickly overran Soviet border guards and began to push deep into Soviet territory.
The German advance was enormously successful. Soviet forces were in complete disarray and Soviet High Command struggled to reorganize their forces and move troops from across their huge country to meet the enemy advance.
German Problems
But the Germans soon began to run into problems. The German army was very dependent on trains to move their troops to the front. However, German military planners had not realized that Soviet railroad tracks were of a different gauge, or size, than standard European rails. This meant that German trains could not ride on Soviet tracks, meaning that troops and supplies had to be moved by much slower trucks and horse-drawn cart.
But this led to other problems. While the Soviets had been engaged in a massive infrastructure building program in the 1930s, many of the roads in the Western Soviet Union were in poor condition. German trucks and troops had to cross these roads, leading to a slower pace.
On top of this, desperate Soviet forces engaged in a fighting withdrawal, being pushed back by the ferociousness of the attack. Many soldiers and civilians were trapped behind the German lines and organized themselves as partisan troops, or guerrilla forces who launched hit-and-run raids on the Germans.
And so the German offensive began to slow down, hampered by partisans, poor transportation, and the vastness of the Soviet Union itself. German High Command had planned to capture Moscow in six weeks, before the brutal Russian Winter set in. Instead, German forces found themselves preparing a hard winter, deep in enemy territory.
Battle of Moscow
German forces pushed deep into the Soviet Union, but were being slowed by the heavy Russian winter and partisan attacks. Slowly, Soviet High Command began to re-gain control and put together a plan to defend Moscow (the capital) from the German attack.
Hitler had told his commanders that “We only have to kick in the door and whole rotten structure (the Soviet government/military) will come crashing down.” At Moscow, that would be put to the test.
The Soviet defenders began to fight tremendous determination and increasingly clever tactics. At Smolensk, Soviet commanders hid their tanks in a nearby forest, while German tanks attacked Soviet infantry. The infantry were slowly being pushed back, when the Soviets unleashed their tanks, savaging the German forces and further delaying the German advance on Moscow.
At Vyazma, Soviet forces were completely encircled by the Germans and being hammered by German aircraft. The Germans were shocked when the Soviet forces refused to surrender and continued to fight and die in huge numbers.
By the time German forces reached Moscow, the Soviets had prepared formidable defenses. 250,000 women and teenagers had dug trenches and other fortifications all around the city. Soviet soldiers poured into the city and were manning their posts.
German forces entered the city’s suburbs to heavy fighting. German officers could see the Kremlin (which housed the Soviet government) through their field glasses. In the city, workers would build tanks, put down their tools, pick up weapons, and drive the tanks straight into battle, many of them were not even painted.
The fighting was extremely bloody and winter continued to deepen. The Winter of 1941-1942 was the coldest European winter of the 20th century, with temperatures dropping to -44 degrees. Exposed soldiers, especially German troops who lacked cold-weather clothing and were not used to such temperatures, suffered badly from exposure and disease.
Finally, the German offensive exhausted itself, within sight of the Kremlin itself.
Soon, Soviet forces were actually pushing the Germans back, forcing the German lines more than 150 miles east of the city. Both sides were exhausted by the fighting and each prepared for more fighting once winter broke. Ultimately, the Battle of Moscow was a victory for the Soviets.
Leningrad
Leningrad, one of the largest cities in the Soviet Union, found itself encircled by German forces early in the war. The defenders of the city, however, refused to surrender. For an incredible 872 days, Soviet defenders held the Germans at bay (September of 1941 until January of 1944) until late in the war, when Soviet forces would lift the siege.
The Battle of Stalingrad
The next year, the Germans decided to attempt a push further south. Germany was running into difficulties finding enough fuel for their armies and so Hitler ordered a general offensive aimed at capturing the Soviet Union’s oil fields.
The Soviets ordered their defenses to be arrayed around the city of Stalingrad. Stalingrad was a highly industrialized city, providing the Soviet Union with a large amount of its heavy equipment, machine tools, and vehicles. It also happened to lay in the path of the German advance towards the oil fields.
German bombers blasted the city, turning much of it into rubble, while German forces swept into the city. Soviet defenders bitterly fought the invaders, which quickly devolved into house-by-house fighting. Squads of German and Soviet forces would wage battles for every building in the city, fighting amidst the ruins in the bloodiest fighting of the Second World War. The heaviest fighting centered around the Red October Tractor Factory, which caused more causalities than the entire Battle of France. At one point, nearly 90% of the city was under the control of the German army. Both sides began to rush reinforcements into the city.
In November of 1942, the Soviets launched a daring attack named Operation Uranus. Two Soviet Army groups swept around the city, trapping 300,000 German soldiers. The Germans launched an offensive to try and break their troops out of the encirclement, but it was defeated. Soon, these forces would be compelled to surrender. The Battle of Stalingrad ended in a crushing German defeat and was the turning point of the war in Europe.
It was the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany.
Soviet Counteroffensives
By 1943, Soviet forces were battered, but ready to go on the attack. The Germans had launched savage attacks against the Soviets, but there had failed. After Stalingrad, the Soviets began a general offensive that would last until the end of the war. These offensives took place over thousands of miles and involved millions of soldiers. More than 400,000 Soviet women would serve as front-line troops.
From 1943-1945, Hitler ordered that his soldiers not retreat a single inch. This meant that Soviet forces had to engage in a long and brutal slog across Eastern and Central Europe before defeating the Germans.
Regardless, the Germans were being pushed back. By late-1943, Soviet troops had entered Romania (a fascist state allied with Nazi Germany) and Occupied Poland. In 1944, Soviet forces finally entered eastern Germany itself, despite stiff resistance.
In the West, the United States, British, and Free French forces had launched the daring Operation Overlord (or D-Day), landing Allies troops in France for the first time since Dunkirk. Despite this landing, the Soviets were still facing off against more than 80% of the German army by themselves.
Soon, Soviet forces pressed in on Berlin itself. Nazi High Command, along with Adolf Hitler, had retreated to a bunker beneath the city from which to continue the war effort. Hitler promised that he had a secret plan to turn the war effort around and defeat the Soviets and their Western Allies.
By this point, there were too-few German men of military age left and many Hitler Youth (preteens and teens being trained in Nazi ideals) were armed and used to help defend the city.
On April 30th, Hitler committed suicide in his bunker. Without Hitler, Nazi High Command finally accepted that there was no way for them to win the war. On May 1st, Berlin surrendered to the Soviets, effectively ending the war in Europe.
Lebensraum and the Nazi Ideal
In his book Mein Kampf, Hitler laid out his vision for a “Greater Germany.” Hitler dreamed of acquiring Lebensraum, or “Living Space” for the German people. Hitler believed that the racial superiority of the German people meant that they needed to continue to expand. As a result, Hitler declared that Eastern Europe would provide the lebensraum that the German people needed to achieve their glory.
Hitler believed that once those lands in Eastern Europe were conquered, Germany would be able to remove the people that already lived there, because they were ‘racially inferior’ and that this land could be transformed into ‘Greater Germany.’
Turn to the East
Germany had quickly overrun France, drive British forces from the continent, and subdued Poland: Hitler determined it was now time to strike eastward.
Though Nazi Germany and the USSR had signed a Nonaggression Pact in 1939, Hitler did not feel bound to honor it. Hitler regarded Slavs (the most prominent ethnic group of the people of Eastern Europe) as an inferior people who stood in the way of German greatness.
Soviet leaders also didn’t trust the Nazi government. Stalin, the USSR’s leader, believed that Nazi Germany was planning to attack the Soviet Union. Stalin signed the nonaggression pact in the hope of buying the Soviet Union enough time to properly prepare for the German invasion. The Soviets had spent those years frantically trying to build up its industrial/military capabilities.
Operation Barbarossa
On June 22nd, 1941, three million German soldiers launched a sneak attack across the border into the Soviet Union, in an undertaking that German High Command called Operation Barbarossa. The Soviets were caught completely off-guard; Stalin had not anticipated a German sneak-attack until 1946 at the earliest. German forces quickly overran Soviet border guards and began to push deep into Soviet territory.
The German advance was enormously successful. Soviet forces were in complete disarray and Soviet High Command struggled to reorganize their forces and move troops from across their huge country to meet the enemy advance.
German Problems
But the Germans soon began to run into problems. The German army was very dependent on trains to move their troops to the front. However, German military planners had not realized that Soviet railroad tracks were of a different gauge, or size, than standard European rails. This meant that German trains could not ride on Soviet tracks, meaning that troops and supplies had to be moved by much slower trucks and horse-drawn cart.
But this led to other problems. While the Soviets had been engaged in a massive infrastructure building program in the 1930s, many of the roads in the Western Soviet Union were in poor condition. German trucks and troops had to cross these roads, leading to a slower pace.
On top of this, desperate Soviet forces engaged in a fighting withdrawal, being pushed back by the ferociousness of the attack. Many soldiers and civilians were trapped behind the German lines and organized themselves as partisan troops, or guerrilla forces who launched hit-and-run raids on the Germans.
And so the German offensive began to slow down, hampered by partisans, poor transportation, and the vastness of the Soviet Union itself. German High Command had planned to capture Moscow in six weeks, before the brutal Russian Winter set in. Instead, German forces found themselves preparing a hard winter, deep in enemy territory.
Battle of Moscow
German forces pushed deep into the Soviet Union, but were being slowed by the heavy Russian winter and partisan attacks. Slowly, Soviet High Command began to re-gain control and put together a plan to defend Moscow (the capital) from the German attack.
Hitler had told his commanders that “We only have to kick in the door and whole rotten structure (the Soviet government/military) will come crashing down.” At Moscow, that would be put to the test.
The Soviet defenders began to fight tremendous determination and increasingly clever tactics. At Smolensk, Soviet commanders hid their tanks in a nearby forest, while German tanks attacked Soviet infantry. The infantry were slowly being pushed back, when the Soviets unleashed their tanks, savaging the German forces and further delaying the German advance on Moscow.
At Vyazma, Soviet forces were completely encircled by the Germans and being hammered by German aircraft. The Germans were shocked when the Soviet forces refused to surrender and continued to fight and die in huge numbers.
By the time German forces reached Moscow, the Soviets had prepared formidable defenses. 250,000 women and teenagers had dug trenches and other fortifications all around the city. Soviet soldiers poured into the city and were manning their posts.
German forces entered the city’s suburbs to heavy fighting. German officers could see the Kremlin (which housed the Soviet government) through their field glasses. In the city, workers would build tanks, put down their tools, pick up weapons, and drive the tanks straight into battle, many of them were not even painted.
The fighting was extremely bloody and winter continued to deepen. The Winter of 1941-1942 was the coldest European winter of the 20th century, with temperatures dropping to -44 degrees. Exposed soldiers, especially German troops who lacked cold-weather clothing and were not used to such temperatures, suffered badly from exposure and disease.
Finally, the German offensive exhausted itself, within sight of the Kremlin itself.
Soon, Soviet forces were actually pushing the Germans back, forcing the German lines more than 150 miles east of the city. Both sides were exhausted by the fighting and each prepared for more fighting once winter broke. Ultimately, the Battle of Moscow was a victory for the Soviets.
Leningrad
Leningrad, one of the largest cities in the Soviet Union, found itself encircled by German forces early in the war. The defenders of the city, however, refused to surrender. For an incredible 872 days, Soviet defenders held the Germans at bay (September of 1941 until January of 1944) until late in the war, when Soviet forces would lift the siege.
The Battle of Stalingrad
The next year, the Germans decided to attempt a push further south. Germany was running into difficulties finding enough fuel for their armies and so Hitler ordered a general offensive aimed at capturing the Soviet Union’s oil fields.
The Soviets ordered their defenses to be arrayed around the city of Stalingrad. Stalingrad was a highly industrialized city, providing the Soviet Union with a large amount of its heavy equipment, machine tools, and vehicles. It also happened to lay in the path of the German advance towards the oil fields.
German bombers blasted the city, turning much of it into rubble, while German forces swept into the city. Soviet defenders bitterly fought the invaders, which quickly devolved into house-by-house fighting. Squads of German and Soviet forces would wage battles for every building in the city, fighting amidst the ruins in the bloodiest fighting of the Second World War. The heaviest fighting centered around the Red October Tractor Factory, which caused more causalities than the entire Battle of France. At one point, nearly 90% of the city was under the control of the German army. Both sides began to rush reinforcements into the city.
In November of 1942, the Soviets launched a daring attack named Operation Uranus. Two Soviet Army groups swept around the city, trapping 300,000 German soldiers. The Germans launched an offensive to try and break their troops out of the encirclement, but it was defeated. Soon, these forces would be compelled to surrender. The Battle of Stalingrad ended in a crushing German defeat and was the turning point of the war in Europe.
It was the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany.
Soviet Counteroffensives
By 1943, Soviet forces were battered, but ready to go on the attack. The Germans had launched savage attacks against the Soviets, but there had failed. After Stalingrad, the Soviets began a general offensive that would last until the end of the war. These offensives took place over thousands of miles and involved millions of soldiers. More than 400,000 Soviet women would serve as front-line troops.
From 1943-1945, Hitler ordered that his soldiers not retreat a single inch. This meant that Soviet forces had to engage in a long and brutal slog across Eastern and Central Europe before defeating the Germans.
Regardless, the Germans were being pushed back. By late-1943, Soviet troops had entered Romania (a fascist state allied with Nazi Germany) and Occupied Poland. In 1944, Soviet forces finally entered eastern Germany itself, despite stiff resistance.
In the West, the United States, British, and Free French forces had launched the daring Operation Overlord (or D-Day), landing Allies troops in France for the first time since Dunkirk. Despite this landing, the Soviets were still facing off against more than 80% of the German army by themselves.
Soon, Soviet forces pressed in on Berlin itself. Nazi High Command, along with Adolf Hitler, had retreated to a bunker beneath the city from which to continue the war effort. Hitler promised that he had a secret plan to turn the war effort around and defeat the Soviets and their Western Allies.
By this point, there were too-few German men of military age left and many Hitler Youth (preteens and teens being trained in Nazi ideals) were armed and used to help defend the city.
On April 30th, Hitler committed suicide in his bunker. Without Hitler, Nazi High Command finally accepted that there was no way for them to win the war. On May 1st, Berlin surrendered to the Soviets, effectively ending the war in Europe.