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.

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

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

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

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

Wehrmacht Pioneer Mathias Hansen Laid to Rest 70 Years After Operation Barbarossa

By Wilhelm R. Gehlen & Don A. Gregory

Letters home provide us with a glimpse into the daily lives of soldiers during the best and worst times. Read more

Eastern Front

Axis Powers: The Infamous Tripartite Pact

By Blaine Taylor

On the evening of September 26, 1940, American radio announcer and journalist William L. Shirer noted in his later famous Berlin Diary that the next day Italian Foreign Minister Count Galeazzo Ciano would arrive there from Rome, adding that most people thought it was for the announcement that Francisco Franco’s Spain was entering the war on the side of the Axis. Read more

Eastern Front

Meat Grinder at Yelnya

By Pat McTaggart

The smell of victory was in the air as the forces of Field Marshal Fedor von Bock’s Army Group Center continued to drive deep into the Ukraine during the final week of June 1941. Read more

Eastern Front

Soviet Military Intelligence: Richard Sorge

By Pat McTaggart

The Siberians are coming!” It was a cry that spread terror through the ranks of the German Wehrmacht in the winter of 1941. Read more

Eastern Front

Roles of Women in World War 1: The Russian Battalion of Death

By Don Duffy

By spring 1917, Russia had borne the heaviest burden of World War I. Russian reports counted more than six million men killed, wounded, or interned as prisoners of war. Read more

A Roman soldier dictates a letter to a scribe outside a permanent Roman camp in Germany.

Eastern Front

Roman Generals: Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo

By Harold E. Raugh, Jr.

Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo was probably born between 4 bc and ad 1. His younger half-sister was first the mistress and then the consort of Gaius Caesar Germanicus, better known as the Emperor Caligula. Read more

With armor support, Red Army soldiers advance toward a burning farmhouse in the rugged Carpathian Mountain region. Hitler thought that the Soviet counteroffensive had run out of steam—but he was wrong.

Eastern Front

The Battle of Targul Frumos: A Defensive Stand on the Eastern Front

By Pat McTaggart

May 1, 1944. Marshal of the Soviet Union Ivan Stepanovich Konev had a right to be pleased with himself and his men as he gazed at the maps spread before him. Read more

A panther tank and panzer grenadiers of the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking help to break the encirclement of the Russian town of Kowel in the strategically important area of the Pripet Marshes.

Eastern Front

Waffen SS General Felix Steiner’s WWII Legacy

By Pat McTaggart

“Where is Steiner?” Adolf Hitler demanded as his Thousand Year Reich crumbled around him in April 1945. “Is he attacking yet?” Read more

Eastern Front

How Did Benito Mussolini Die? The Story Behind Il Duce’s Last Moments.

By Wil Deac

It was shortly before seven o’clock on the rain-drenched morning of April 27, 1945, the day before the death of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Read more

Eastern Front

The Bloody Triangle along WWII’s Eastern Front

By Victor J. Kamenir

In 1941, the year of the Battle of the Bloody Triangle, the northwestern corner of the Ukraine was not what one would call tank country. Read more

Eastern Front

Lilya Litvak: The Red Air Force’s Female Fighter Ace

By Michael D. Hull

When German panzer and infantry columns rumbled across the frontier into Russia on June 22, 1941, the Soviet Air Force was woefully unready for war. Read more

Eastern Front

Breaking out of Hell: The Korsun–Cherkassy Pocket

By Ludwig H. Dyck

On January 26, 1944, in the midst of the Ukrainian winter, the tanks of Gen. Ivan S. Read more

Bloodied but unbowed, a group of wounded Red Army soldiers awaits evacuation after a grueling battle against strong German forces around the Crimean port city of Sevastopol.

Eastern Front

Sturgeon Catch 1942: The Siege of Sevastopol

by Ludwig Heinrich Dyck

By late October 1941, the armies of the Third Reich had swept deep into western Soviet Russia. Read more

Eastern Front

Cauldron of Death: the Demyansk Salient and the Eastern Front

by Pat McTaggart

On the vast Eastern Front, the Demyansk salient represented little more than a smudge on the battle map. Read more

Eastern Front

Bradenburgers: Germany’s Special Forces in World War II

by Jon Latimer

War had been raging for 10 days, and Wehrmacht columns were pouring through Poland in a ceaseless torrent. Read more

Eastern Front

Russo-Japanese Clash at the Battle of Nomonhan

By Glenn Barnett

In May 1939, Mongolian herdsmen and part-time militia cavalry crossed the Khalkhin Gol, or Halha, River near the village of Nomonhan in Manchurian-claimed territory. Read more

Eastern Front

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