Eastern Front

The Eastern Front during World War II includes the area of military confrontation involving the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. The Soviet Red Army and the Nazi Wehrmacht clashed along the extended Eastern Front, which stretched thousands of miles from the Black Sea in the south to Finland and the approaches to the Arctic Circle in the north.

A squad of Red Army machine gunners leap from tanks in an effort to halt the German advance. Soviet losses were heavy but Hitler soon called a halt to the successful Operation South Wind to mount another—Operation Spring Awakening—an attempt to secure vital oil reserves in Hungary that proved to be a failure.

Eastern Front

Operation South Wind’s Battle for the Gran Bridgehead

By Major General Michael Reynolds

By the end of 1944, the Soviet Red Army had surrounded the Hungarian capital of Budapest and established strong defensive positions running from Esztergom on the Danube to Lake Balaton. Read more

A forlorn group of German soldiers carries the body of a dead comrade on a makeshift canvas stretcher. After a series of rapid successes on the Eastern Front, the Germans were subjected to the harsh Russian winter, followed by the sledgehammer blows of a rejuvenated Red Army.

Eastern Front

From the Luftwaffe: Joachim Benz on the Eastern Front

By Joachim Benz, as told to Peter D. Fyfe and Ward Carr

Following service as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Defense Artillery during the early 1970s, Ward Carr decided to remain in Germany, residing in Frankfurt. Read more

Russian women pilots originally flew the antiquated Polykarpov PO-2, which was made of wood covered with fabric.

Eastern Front

Red Air Force Heroines: The Night Witches

By George Tipton Wilson

Ignoring a nonaggression pact between Hitler and Stalin, Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, an invasion of the Soviet Union, on June 22, 1941. Read more

The German crew, which has manned a captured British Matilda tank in the Western Desert in 1941, surrenders to a group of New Zealand troops after the vehicle has been disabled by antitank fire. Note the German markings and flag draping the tank. (Australian War Memorial)

Eastern Front

Captured Allied Armor: Enemy Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing

By Christopher Miskimon

The German crewmen occupied the various stations in their tank as they approached the American roadblock ahead. It was 2100 hours on Christmas Eve, 1944, just outside the town of Manhay, Luxembourg, which was occupied by elements three different U.S. Read more

In September 1944, Red Army soldiers wade through a marshy area during a patrol. Such terrain played an important role on the Taman Peninsula as both armies had to contend with mobility issues.

Eastern Front

Breaching the Blue Line: The Soviet Army at the Taman Peninsula

By Victor Kamenir

The charred remains of men and machines scattered through the Kursk salient in July 1943 signified the death knell of the last attempt by the German Wehrmacht to regain the initiative on the Eastern Front. Read more

Eastern Front

The Thunder of Operation Gallop

By Pat McTaggart

As Adolf Hitler’s vaunted Sixth Army lay in its death throes in the ruins of Stalingrad, German forces to the west of the city faced their own kind of hell. Read more

Eastern Front

Was Leon Degrelle a Traitor of Belgium, or a German Army Hero?

By Richard Rule

Leon Degrelle was born in 1906 in Belgium to a prosperous family in the French-speaking region of Wallonia. Read more

Red Army scouts report the findings of a recent foray to locate the Germans in the northern Caucasus. The Germans were not uniformed against the harsh Russian winter and suffered tremendous casualties as a result.

Eastern Front

Russian Commanders: Marshal Semyon M. Budenny

By Blaine Taylor

At 8 am on the cold, blustery morning of November 7, 1941, the 24th anniversary of the Russian Communist Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, a dashing lone horseman galloped out of the Spassky Gate of the Kremlin onto snow-covered Red Square. Read more

With infantry charging alongside, a motorcycle unit of the Red Army roars into action against German positions in July 1942. The submachine gun appears to be the weapon of choice for these soldiers.

Eastern Front

Leningrad & Tikhvin: Nazi Winter Repulse During Operation Barbarossa

By Pat Mc Taggart

The men of Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb’s Heeresgruppe Nord (Army Group North) had little sleep during the night of June 21, 1941. Read more

German war artist Bruno Muller-Linow painted this image of an Allied coastal convoy under fire from German forces somewhere in the European Theater. The Soviet ships evacuating Tallinn were ravaged by German aircraft, heavy guns, and mines. (U.S. Army Art)

Eastern Front

The Soviet Dunkirk: The Tallinn Offensive

By Victor J. Kamenir

Early in World War II, a bitter joke circulated within the Soviet military. It ran, “What is the first thing Russia does when war is declared? Read more

Eastern Front

Barbarossa: Hitler’s Great Blunder

By Frank Johnson

By April 1941, just over a year and a half into World War II, Nazi Germany was the master of Europe. Read more

After German forces overran their country in September 1939, tenacious Poles, such as these shown in Hungary, escaped the continent to reconstitute their forces in Britain and prepare for the day they could strike back at the Nazis.

Eastern Front

Polish Army’s Heroic Stand at Falaise

By Alan Davidge

Poland does not always get the recognition it deserves for helping to defeat Nazi Germany and end the war in Europe. Read more

Eastern Front

WWII: German Rations and Feeding the Troops of the Third Reich

By G. Paul Garson

It was Napoleon Bonaparte who purportedly said, “An army travels on its stomach.” Toward the goal of feeding his particular army’s stomach more efficiently, in 1795 the French general came up with an interesting solution to the problem. Read more

Eastern Front

Manstein’s Victorious Panzers

By William E. Welsh

Deep snow blanketed the steppes surrounding the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkov on February 6, 1943. The soldiers of Major Kurt Meyer’s reconnaissance battalion of SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler shivered from the cold. Read more

Aircraft manufactured in the U.S. await their new owners, the Soviet Red Air Force, at an airfield in Iran. The U.S. supplied several types of aircraft to the Soviet Union through Lend-Lease, including the A-20, P-39, P-40, B-25, and AT-6.

Eastern Front

Douglas A-20 Havoc Bomber: The Scourge of Axis Shipping

By Robert F. McEniry

Following the apocalyptic initial phase of Operation Barbarossa starting on June 22, 1941, the Germans inflicted crippling losses on the Red Army Air Forces (VVS) and the Soviet Naval Air Forces (VVS-VMF). Read more

The Soviet Union’s two primary antitank rifles saw wide use in World War II despite the limitations of their small calibers.

Eastern Front

Russian Antitank Rifles

By Christopher Miskimon

The German panzers approached the Russian artillery column as it moved to a new position. As the troops trudged toward their new firing point, six panzers appeared, rampaging into the Russian rear area, no doubt searching for vulnerable targets to destroy. Read more

A Finnish pilot at the controls of his Avro Anson FAF LeLv46 AN101 reconnaissance aircraft based at Tikkakoski, March 7, 1940, shortly before the Winter War ended in a truce. The Finns successfully blunted the Soviet invasion, thanks in large part to their air force.

Eastern Front

David vs Goliath

By Glenn Barnett

When Stalin and Hitler signed a non-aggression pact in August 1939, they secretly created spheres of influence. Besides dividing up Poland, they agreed to allow each other free reign over nations and territories they deemed important. Read more

A column of Waffen SS soldiers slogs through snow during the Operation Spring Awakening advance in Hungary. The German offensive was hampered by snow, rain, and deep mud, which bogged down tanks and other vehicles, requiring foot soldiers to undertake much of the fighting with limited mechanized support.

Eastern Front

Desperate Offensive for Oil

By Martin Dougherty

The winter of 1944-45 saw Nazi Germany in a grim position. The Allies were well established in Europe and advancing quickly. Read more

Polish troops engage in field exercises in April 1939, just five months before the Nazi invasion of their country and the outbreak of World War II. Some Poles initially thought the Soviet Army was there to help them.

Eastern Front

Invasion from the East

By John W. Osborn, Jr.

It was a quiet dinner on a side street in Berlin the evening of June 26, 1939, but more than food would be devoured that night. Read more

American OSS officers accompanied by Chetnik guerrillas on the move from the original evacuation airstrip in Pranjani, Serbia in anticipation of Soviet Red Army advances, September 10, 1944. The OSS officers were part of OSS operations Halyard and Ranger.

Eastern Front

Hazardous Balkan Air Rescue

By Kevin Morrow

Black puffs from flak bursts began blossoming in the air around Lieutenant Tom Oliver’s Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber high over the town of Bor, Yugoslavia. Read more

Eastern Front

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