Eastern Front

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

The Last Nazi Hunters

By James Verini

Crowded in front of the television in Eli Rosenbaum’s office, his staff was taken with a giddy anticipation not often found in employees of the United States Department of Justice. 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

Demise of the Japanese Navy

By Christopher Miskimon

The Japanese superbattleship Musashi was steaming east along with a fleet of other battleships, cruisers, and destroyers on their way toward what was expected to be a climactic battle at Leyte Gulf. Read more

Eastern Front

The Fate of Nazi Germany’s Cossacks

By Don Haines

Between 1944 and 1947, over two million Russians who had been living in the occupied countries of Europe, some voluntarily, some not, were forcibly repatriated to the Soviet Union. Read more

As the Wermacht tightened the ring around Sevastopol in 1942, German and Soviet fighter aces blazed away at one another day after day.

Eastern Front

Dueling Aces in Sevastopol

By Christer Bergström and Andrey Mikhailov

In June 1942, the Black Sea port of Sevastopol on the Crimea was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting of World War II. Read more

Spitfire pilots are shown with their aircraft in Burma. Although commonly associated with the Battle of Britain, the Spitfire also saw service in British theaters of war around the globe in World War II.

Eastern Front

The Supermarine Spitfire and the Battle of Britain

by William F. Floyd Jr.

On March 5, 1936, the new Supermarine Type 300 took off from Southampton, England. The plane would soon be called the Spitfire, and along with the Hawker Hurricane it would become Great Britain’s first line of defense. Read more