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
On the second day of Adolf Hitler’s bold invasion of Russia in June 1941, the Germans were confronted with one of their most glaring shortcomings in weapons and armament. Read more
Eastern Front
After crushing the first-line Soviet armies in brutal three-week cauldron battles at the border, the steamroller of German Army Group Center continued deeper into Soviet territory during the opening days of Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, which began on June 22, 1941. Read more
Eastern Front
The image of Red Army soldiers hoisting their hammer and sickle emblazoned banner atop the Reichstag, the seat of the German parliament, is a classic photo of World War II, an image that told the world Nazi Germany was at last finished. Read more
Eastern Front
The war map gave Adolf Hitler every reason to be confident. Operation Barbarossa, Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union begun on June 22, 1941, had succeeded spectacularly on nearly every front. Read more
Eastern Front
In August 1943, immediately after the Battle of Kursk, the Red Army launched a series of follow up operations, resulting in the liberation of a large swath of Nazi-occupied Soviet territory. Read more
Eastern Front
The official history of Russian and Soviet airborne forces began on August 2, 1930, when 12 parachutists were dropped during maneuvers in the Moscow Military District. Read more
Eastern Front
An estimated four million Red Army soldiers were captured by the Germans during the six months after the launching of Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, on June 22, 1941. Read more
Eastern Front
Hitler’s Germany was known for its organization and efficiency, as well as its deprivations, terror, and cruelty. This was exemplified in its security forces. Read more
Eastern Front
Wednesday, August 23, 1944, was a day of triumph for the Allies in their struggle against the Axis powers. Read more
Eastern Front
Early in World War II, German panzer forces trampled all foes. Confidence suffused the Germans, and their tank designs stagnated. Read more
Eastern Front
The wide-scale murder of Jews by Nazi Germany’s Einsatzgruppen began in Poland in September 1939, protested only by German Army Generals Johannes Blaskowitz and Georg Kuchler. Read more
Eastern Front
On orders from Soviet Premier Josef Stalin, the offensive that resulted in the capture of the Nazi capital of Berlin in April 1945, developed into a race between the army groups of two Soviet commanders, Marshal Georgy Zhukov and Marshal Ivan Konev. Read more
Eastern Front
Operation Frantic was a seven-shuttle bombing series conducted by American bomb squadrons operating out of Southern Italy and Great Britain. Read more
Eastern Front
As Adolf Hitler began to formulate his grandiose plans for the conquest of the Soviet Union, he considered the far northern operation area little more than a sideshow. Read more
Eastern Front
World War II tanks usually had aggressive- or ferocious-sounding names, such as Hellcat, Panther, or Tiger. Yet the tendency was not universal, as with British Cruisers or the American M-3 Honey. Read more
Eastern Front
On July 4, 1942, the men of newly promoted Field Marshal Erich von Manstein’s Eleventh Army celebrated the capture of the last Soviet bastion in the Crimea. Read more
Eastern Front
In May and June of 1940 the attacking Germans had a supreme authority, Hitler, and an army that—if skeptical, even in places traitorous—was subdued and followed orders with astonishing competence. Read more
Eastern Front
World War I was only days old when German General of the Infantry Hermann von François went forward to view his soldiers engaged in combat south of Stalluponen in East Prussia. Read more
