Joseph Stalin Archives

Joseph Stalin

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

Joseph Stalin

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

A propaganda poster depicts a polish officer being executed in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk.

Joseph Stalin

The Soviet Secret Police & the Katyn Forest Massacre

By Richard Rule

On September 17, 1939, in the wake of Hitler’s invasion of Poland, the Soviet Red Army crossed the Polish frontier from the east. Read more

On November 10, 1942, American troops occupy a machine-gun position in North Africa. The troops met sporadic resistance from Vichy French forces.

Joseph Stalin

General Mark Clark’s Secret Mission to North Africa

by Jon Mikolashek

Rain battered the shore and the seas were rough on the night of October 21, 1942. Under the surface of the water, a submarine carried the Allies’ best hope for turning the tide of war in 1942. Read more

In this bleak painting titled Stuka Support by German war artist Helmut Gerorg, beleaguered soldiers of the Wehrmacht scan the sky as the dive bombers attack distant Red Army targets.

Joseph Stalin

The Siege of Leningrad: Debacle At Luban

By Edward Paraubek

On February 23, 1942, Red Army Day, the People’s Commissar of Defense, Josef Stalin, issued Order No. 55. Read more

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

Joseph Stalin

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

Joseph Stalin

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

Joseph Stalin

Was It Right to Drop the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima & Nagasaki?

By Sam McGowan

The most controversial decision of the 20th century—probably in all of history—was the one reportedly made by President Harry S. 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.

Joseph Stalin

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)

Joseph Stalin

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

Joseph Stalin

Why the U.S. Dropped the Atomic Bomb on Japan in WWII

By Robert A. Rosenthal

How did we get to dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima? Who was responsible? Where and when did it begin? Read more

Joseph Stalin

Operation Barbarossa: How Stalin was Blindsided by Berlin

By Richard Z. Freemann, Jr.

“War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.”

—Winston Churchill (1950)

On Sunday, June 22, 1941, as the sun slumbered, 3.6 million soldiers, 2,000 warplane pilots, and 3,350 tank commanders under skilled German command crouched at the border of Soviet-occupied Poland ready to invade the Communist nation Joseph Stalin had ruled with steel-fisted brutality for years. Read more

Joseph Stalin

World War II Summary and Synopsis

by Mike Haskew

World War II spanned six long years from 1939 to 1945. The Allied powers, principally The United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union, defeated the Axis powers, led by Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy. Read more

Not exactly “the best damned documentary films ever made," the Why We Fight Series did effectively hammer home the importance of winning the war against the Axis.

Joseph Stalin

Why We Fight — Hollywood Teams Up with U.S. Military

by Kevin M. Hymel

General George C. Marshall had a problem. With the U.S. entry into World War II, he had to explain to an isolationist nation why the country was going to war. Read more

Joseph Stalin

New Mexico: Atomic Spy Capital

By Richard Higgins

New Mexico and its capital of Santa Fe bring to mind some beautiful images. Stunning sunsets, unlimited vistas, a plethora of art galleries, the spectacular food enlivened with the local green chile, an ancient Native American culture that still thrives, and a Spanish heritage tradition going back to within 50 years of Columbus’s arrival all make for a unique cultural and physical environment. Read more

Smoke from his cigar curls upward as an SS officer and his detachment pause at a road sign directing traffic toward the village of Malmedy, Belgium, during the opening hours of the German Ardennes offensive that came to be known as the Battle of the Bulge. In a field near Malmedy, troops under the command of SS Colonel Jochen Peiper committed one of the most infamous battlefield atrocities of World War II.

Joseph Stalin

Adolf Hitler Sends Joachim Peiper to the Bulge

By Josh Quackenbush

During the Battle of the Bulge, the largest battle America has ever fought, Hitler chose the Sixth Panzer Army for the German juggernaut’s most important role. Read more

Joseph Stalin

Escape to Tashkent: Fleeing Operation Barbarossa

By Rebecca Manley

In the fall of 1941, the Polish writer Aleksander Wat, recently released from confinement in a Soviet prison, made his way east across the vast expanses of the Soviet Union. Read more

Joseph Stalin

The Supply Front: The Allies’ Key to Victory

By Glenn Barnett

After the war in Europe was won, General Dwight D. Eisenhower had many opportunities to review various campaigns with the leaders of the Soviet Army–– including even Joseph Stalin himself. Read more

Joseph Stalin

The Gothic Line: How the Allies Breached Germany’s Defenses in Italy

By Michael E. Haskew

The reason for it was unthinkable. The Gothic Line, the last line of defense in Italy, was necessary, but senior German commanders had not been concerned that it would ever be contested by Allied forces. Read more

Joseph Stalin

Rankin C: The Occupation of Germany

By Michael E. Haskew

Almost from the beginning, the fractious alliance that defeated Nazi Germany was in peril. The United States and Great Britain had long distrusted the communist regime of the Soviet Union, and the feeling was strongly mutual. Read more

From Around the Network

Tarawa Through Japanese Eyes

Japan in World War II: Dealing With Known Unknowns

The outcome of the Battle of the Bulge might have been very different—starting for some of us at home.

Baseball Goes to War