Name: Soviet Storm
Uploaded: 2021-06-04T21:11:08.000Z
Description: Recount the most important, bloody, costly, and decisive events, battles, and personalities on the Eastern Front in World War II.

Recount the most important, bloody, costly, and decisive events, battles, and personalities on the Eastern Front in World War II.

Total Content Digital - Combat War

The Battle of Britain is over. The Luftwaffe has been driven to exhaustion, and Germany suffers its first major defeat. Even though Britain remains undefeated, it is so isolated that Hitler has no concerns about turning his attention East. Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the USSR, takes the Soviets completely by surprise and the Red Army suffers terrible casualties.

Operation Barbarossa

After the swift success at Smolensk, Hitler has diverted the bulk of Heinz Guderian's panzers down to the South, so as to capture the Ukrainian capital Kiev, considered more important than Moscow in Hitler's mind. It begins a gigantic clash and turns out to be the biggest military encirclement in history.

The Battle of Kiev

Erich von Manstein's soldiers have trapped a massive Soviet force in Crimea, but the doomed troops have no intentions of surrendering, strongly motivated by patriotism. Manstein assembles the greatest concentration of artillery in history, which includes the world's biggest railway-gun nicknamed 'Dora,' and for eight months Soviets troops are savagely bombarded; destroying Sevastopol's only harbor.

The Defence of Sevstopol

October 1941, Germany's Army Group Center is only some 25 km west of Moscow. The Russian winter, however, is only a few weeks away. With not enough soldiers or military equipment, the Soviet high command's only hope left is that the weather will save the capital. The battle ends in a bloody failure for the German Army, and it is forced to retreat.

Battle of Moscow

Leningrad, a vital and large Baltic sea port, is facing the entire weight of Army Group North. The Soviets have no reserves to spare as the Battle of Moscow is about to begin. Wilhelm von Leeb's Army Group North fails to take Leningrad, but begins a horrible siege that will last 872 days, in which over a million civilians will die of starvation and disease.

The Siege of Leningrad

The capture of Rzhev, the city that connects all railroads in Western Russia, is imperative. It will cost the lives of some 3 million Soviet soldiers and 500 000 German soldiers. It will take the Soviets a total of 3 years to throw the Germans firmly out of the city. These bloodbaths will become known by the veterans and historians as 'The Rzhev Meat-Grinder'.

The Rzhev Meat Grinder

After the failure to take both Moscow and Leningrad, Hitler sets his sights on the oil fields in the Caucasus. If captured, the Red Army will lose 70-90% of all its oil resources. Therefore, the famous city on the Volga, Stalingrad, must be 'held at all costs.' The German General Staff thinks taking the city will be a matter of a few weeks, but events steadily turn against the Germans.

Stalingrad

Ewald von Kleist has broken through to the Terek river, slap in front of the vital oil fields of Grozny and Baku. Only freezing temperatures in the Caucasus prevent von Kleist's 1st Panzer Army from breaking through to Ozoni Kizi and Tbilisi. The Soviets launch a desperate counter-attack that holds the Germans back.

Battle of The Caucasus

After two years of war, Hitler was no closer to victory in the East, and his forces had suffered a devastating defeat at Stalingrad. Now the Germans gathered their strength for one last massive offensive to decide the outcome of the war.

The Battle of Kursk

Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, is, after a lengthy battle, back in Soviet hands. But now they have to clear the Germans and German allies out of the Crimea and liberate the rest of Western Ukraine. Hitler declared the Crimea a 'Festung,' meaning it should be held at all cost and to the last man. The German 17th Army was effectively destroyed in the process.

Liberation of Ukraine

By summer 1944, Germany has undeniably lost the battle of the USSR. After the Soviet victories at Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk, and Leningrad, the Soviet Union, with its practically unlimited resources of manpower and matériel, begins to rapidly push the Germans back toward the German border. On 22 June 1944, Stalin launches Operation Bagration, named after a Russian hero of the Napoleonic Wars.

Operation Bagration

On 22 June 1941, German pilots were the first to see the sun rise. Before the day was over, the Soviet Air Forces had lost almost 2 000 aircraft. The early German air superiority gave a significant boost to German confidence, and severely damaged Soviet military capability and morale.

The War in the Air

Hours before the start of Operation Barbarossa, the Germans, along with their Finnish allies, begin mining the Gulf of Finland to prevent any naval evacuation of Soviet troops and ships. When Operation Barbarossa begins, Axis U-boats begin pounding the grand Soviet Navy, primarily based at Leningrad.

The War at Sea

By 1943-1944, as the Germans are desperately struggling to hold their ground, they are increasingly hindered by the Soviet partisans, which contain many former Red Army soldiers that had been cut off behind enemy lines. The Germans responded with intensive counter-insurgency campaigns and brutal reprisals against the civilian population.

The Partisan War

Shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, the Polish and British have succeeded in de-coding the top secret German military codes known as 'Enigma.' This information, referred to as 'Ultra' by the Allies, becomes vital for the Allies' military situation in North Africa, the Soviet Union, and Northern France.

The Secret War

Germany is retreating on all fronts and suffering defeat after defeat. The breach of Germany's pre-War borders now seems inevitable. Desperate, Hitler orders all males between the ages of 16 and 70 to enlist and fight for the fatherland. Nazi ideologues put faith in victory and the Nazis seem to vanquish and suppress all forms of doubt and resistance in the last months of the Reich.

The Battle for Germany

Germany has without question lost World War II in Europe, but Hitler, by now a heavily medicated and deluded character, refuses to give up hope; he orders the roughly one million German soldiers left in the ruined city to defend Berlin, now a strange mix of combat veterans, teenage boys from the Hitler Youth, and old men from the People's Army.

The Battle of Berlin

The war in Europe is over. However, in the Pacific East, the United States is still fighting the Japanese, who consider surrender the greatest humiliation for a soldier. Stalin promises to help Roosevelt, but the dropping of the Atomic bomb on Japan suddenly alters the calculus for the Allies. Despite the devastation, the Japanese military vows to fight on.

Soviet Storm

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