Katana VentraIP

Eastern Front (World War II)

The Eastern Front[k] was a theatre of World War II fought between the European Axis powers and Allies, including the Soviet Union (USSR) and Poland. It encompassed Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Northeast Europe (Baltics), and Southeast Europe (Balkans), and lasted from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945. Of the estimated 70–85 million deaths attributed to World War II, around 30 million occurred on the Eastern Front, including 9 million children.[3][4] The Eastern Front was decisive in determining the outcome in the European theatre of operations in World War II, eventually serving as the main reason for the defeat of Nazi Germany and the Axis nations.[5] It is noted by historian Geoffrey Roberts that "More than 80 per cent of all combat during the Second World War took place on the Eastern Front".[6]

"Great Patriotic War" redirects here. For a discussion of the term itself, see Great Patriotic War (term).

The Axis forces, led by Nazi Germany, began their advance into the Soviet Union under the codename Operation Barbarossa on 22 June 1941, the opening date of the Eastern Front. Initially, Soviet forces were unable to halt the Axis forces, which came close to Moscow. Despite their many attempts, the Axis failed to capture Moscow and soon focused on the oil fields in the Caucasus. German forces invaded the Caucasus under the Fall Blau ("Case Blue") plan on 28 June 1942. The Soviets successfully halted further Axis advance at Stalingrad — the bloodiest battle in the war — costing the Axis powers their morale and becoming the turning point of the front.


Seeing the Axis setback from Stalingrad, the Soviet Union routed its forces and regained territories at its expense. The Axis defeat at Kursk terminated the German offensive strength and cleared the way for Soviet offensives. Its setbacks caused many countries friendly with Germany to defect and join the Allies, such as Romania and Bulgaria. The Eastern Front concluded with the capture of Berlin, followed by the signing of the German Instrument of Surrender on 8 May, a day that marked the end of the Eastern Front and the War in Europe.


The battles on the Eastern Front of World War II constituted the largest military confrontation in history.[7] In pursuit of its "Lebensraum" settler-colonial agenda, Nazi Germany waged a war of annihilation (Vernichtungskrieg) throughout Eastern Europe. Nazi military operations were characterised by vicious brutality, scorched-earth tactics, wanton destruction, mass deportations, forced starvations, wholesale terrorism, and massacres. These also included the genocidal campaigns of Generalplan Ost and Hunger Plan, which aimed at the extermination and ethnic cleansing of more than a hundred million Eastern European natives. German historian Ernst Nolte called the Eastern Front "the most atrocious war of conquest, enslavement, and annihilation known to modern history",[8] while British historian Robin Cross expressed that "In the Second World War no theatre was more gruelling and destructive than the Eastern Front, and nowhere was the fighting more bitter".[9]


The two principal belligerent powers in the Eastern Front were Germany and the Soviet Union, along with their respective allies. Though they never sent in ground troops to the Eastern Front, the United States and the United Kingdom both provided substantial material aid to the Soviet Union in the form of the Lend-Lease program, along with naval and air support. The joint German–Finnish operations across the northernmost Finnish–Soviet border and in the Murmansk region are considered part of the Eastern Front. In addition, the Soviet–Finnish Continuation War is generally also considered the northern flank of the Eastern Front.

58% of the USSR's high octane aviation fuel

33% of their motor vehicles

53% of USSR domestic production of expended ordnance (artillery shells, mines, assorted explosives)

30% of fighters and bombers

93% of railway equipment (locomotives, freight cars, wide gauge rails, etc.)

50–80% of rolled steel, cable, lead, and aluminium

43% of garage facilities (building materials and blueprints)

12% of tanks and SPGs

50% of TNT (1942–1944) and 33% of ammunition powder (in 1944)

[57]

16% of all explosives (From 1941 to 1945, the USSR produced 505,000 tons of explosives and received 105,000 tons of Lend-Lease imports.)

[58]

First period (: Первый период Великой Отечественной войны) (22 June 1941 – 18 November 1942)

Russian

Disappearance of Ondrej Sobola

Ondrej Sobola (7 August 1880 – officially 31 December 1918) was an Austro-Hungarian Army soldier. His death, in an unknown place during the First World War, inspired the Tree of Peace project.[181]

Biography

Sobola was born on 7 August 1880 in Lalinok into a farmer family. His family had lived in the area since 1512.[182] 1: 9. He was conscripted into the army in 1901.[183] Sobola and his older brother Å tefan travelled to the United States around 1906, residing in Clifton Heights, Pennsylvania.[184] Sobola returned to Lalinok in 1907, living there for three years, and again traveled to the United States on 30 November 1910.[185]


Sobola had returned to Lalinok by 1914. After the outbreak of the First World War, he enlisted in the 15th Military Infantry Regiment.[186] He was listed as missing in action on the Eastern Front in 1915. Sobola was one of those commemorated by his home village in a memorial to First World War dead on 11 November 2018.[187] His portrait made by sculptor Michal Janiga is also incorporated on a Memorial. His name is on a Memorial pillar in the Emperor's park of Kaiservilla in Bad Ischl.[188]

Tree of Peace

The Tree of Peace is an international project that originated in Slovakia. The project, created in 2018 on the centenary of the end of World War I, was initiated by landscape architect Marek Sobola, Ondrej's great-grandson.[189] The grave of Sobola has not been found after many years of historical searching in Military archives across Europe. His great-grandfather's death inspired Sobola to memorialize the soldiers who died in the First World War in unknown places without their names or identities. The main goal of the project was to promote a message of peace by planting "Trees of Peace" on every continent.[190]

Bellamy, Chris (2007). Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War. Macmillan.  978-0-375-41086-4.

ISBN

Braun, Hans-Joachim (1990). . Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-02101-2.

The German Economy in the Twentieth Century

; House, Jonathan (1995). When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army stopped Hitler. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 0-7006-0899-0.

Glantz, David

Glantz, David M. (1998). Stumbling colossus: the Red Army on the eve of World War. Lawrence, Kan.: University Press of Kansas.  978-0-7006-1789-0.

ISBN

Glantz, David M. (2005). Colossus reborn : the Red Army at war: 1941-1943. Kansas: University Press of Kansas.  978-0-7006-1353-3.

ISBN

Lak, Martijn (2015). "Contemporary Historiography on the Eastern Front in World War II". Journal of Slavic Military Studies. 28 (3): 567–587. :10.1080/13518046.2015.1061828. S2CID 142875289.

doi

on the Yad Vashem website

Marking 70 Years to Operation Barbarossa

Prof Richard Overy writes a summary about the eastern front for the BBC

by Alan Taylor, The Atlantic

World War II: The Eastern Front

Borodulin Collection. Excellent set of war photos

Rarities of the USSR photochronicles. Great Patriotic War 1941–1945

(photos, video, interviews, memorials. Written from a Russian perspective)

Pobediteli: Eastern Front flash animation

RKKA in World War II

Armchair General maps, year by year

Archived 31 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine

World War II Eastern Front Order Of Battle

. The Washington Post, 8 May 2015.

Don't forget how the Soviet Union saved the world from Hitler

from Yad Vashem

Images depicting conditions in the camps for Soviet POW