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
During the winter of 1941, both the Red Army and the German Wehrmacht experienced a terrifying bloodletting. Adolf Hitler’s seemingly invincible armies, having advanced hundreds of miles inside the Soviet Union, were slowed by the October muddy season that had turned all but a few roads into almost impassible quagmires. Read more
Eastern Front
By late October 1941, the armies of the Third Reich had swept deep into western Soviet Russia. Read more
Eastern Front
The concept of Soviet partisans participating in Russia’s wars was nothing new in 1941. During Napoleon’s invasion of the country in 1812, small bands of civilians harassed the French and their allies both before and after the retreat from Moscow. Read more
Eastern Front
The year 1943 began badly for the German Army on the Eastern Front. After a great struggle at Stalingrad, German Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrendered himself and his Sixth Army on January 31. Read more
Eastern Front
Andrei Andreievich Vlasov, one of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s favorite generals, played a key role in saving Moscow from Adolf Hitler’s armies during the winter of 1941-1942. Read more
Eastern Front
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had made the promise to Soviet Premier Josef Stalin, and Admiral Sir John Tovey of the Royal Navy had to keep it: to sail three convoys loaded with critical supplies from Britain to Russia every two months, with 25 to 35 ships in each convoy. Read more
Eastern Front
The Battle of Berlin began with what a German colonel called “a dull, continuous roar of thunder from the east.” Read more
Eastern Front
The most successful Italian Army of World War II was a political creation of dictator Benito Mussolini. Read more
Eastern Front
The arrival of Vyacheslav M. Molotov, the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union, in Berlin on a rainy November 12, 1940, was a solemn, strained occasion. Read more
Eastern Front
In 1976, the Soviet city of Tula joined an elite group of nine other Soviet communities designated as “Hero Cities.” Read more
Eastern Front
To plead Superior Orders one must show an inexcusable ignorance of their illegality. The sailor who voluntarily ships on a pirate craft may not be heard to answer that he was ignorant of the probability that he would be called upon to help in the robbing and sinking of other vessels … a man who sails under the flag of skull and crossbones cannot say that he never expected to fire a cannon against a merchantman,” wrote Judge John L. Read more
Eastern Front
After his heady series of victories in the spring and early summer of 1940, Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler was in for a frustrating six months. Read more
Eastern Front
By 1943 it was obvious to the Germans that their tank production could not keep pace with battlefield losses. Read more
Eastern Front
Ever since the tank appeared on the battlefield during World War I, armies the world over have sought to field man-portable infantry antitank weapons to give the infantryman a viable defense against the metal monsters. Read more
Eastern Front
In 1942, careworn Nazi Führer Adolf Hitler lamented to his military intimates at his Wolf’s Lair headquarters near Rastenburg in East Prussia, “If I had known that there were so many of them, I would have had second thoughts about invading!” Read more
Eastern Front
In January 12, 1945, Adolf Hitler received the news he had been dreading—the Soviet Red Army had launched its winter offensive. Read more
Eastern Front
World War II involved some of the most complex alliance systems in the history of warfare. Read more
Eastern Front
The American jeep holding the 3rd Belorussian Front Commander, General Ivan Danilovich Chernyakhovsky, drove quickly through the city of Mehlsack, just outside Königsberg. Read more
Eastern Front
The city of Ternopil, located on the eastern bank of the Seret River, was founded in 1540 as a Polish military stronghold. Read more
Eastern Front
Hitler was enraged as he stalked his way around the room during the waning months of World War II. Read more
