Eastern Front
Germans advance in USSR
One week after launching a massive invasion of the USSR, German divisions make staggering advances on Leningrad, Moscow and Kiev. Despite his signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin knew that war with Nazi Germany–the USSR’s natural ideological ...read more
Largest tank battle in history ends
The Battle of Kursk, involving some 6,000 tanks, two million men, and 5,000 aircraft, ends with the German offensive repulsed by the Soviets at heavy cost. In early July, Germany and the USSR concentrated their forces near the city of Kursk in western Russia, site of a ...read more
Soviets launch counterattack at Stalingrad
The Soviet Red Army under General Georgy Zhukov launches Operation Uranus, the great Soviet counteroffensive that turned the tide in the Battle of Stalingrad. On June 22, 1941, despite the terms of the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939, Nazi Germany launched a massive invasion against the ...read more
Siege of Leningrad begins
During World War II, German forces begin their siege of Leningrad, a major industrial center and the USSR’s second-largest city. The German armies were later joined by Finnish forces that advanced against Leningrad down the Karelian Isthmus. The siege of Leningrad, also known as ...read more
Battle of Stalingrad ends
The last German troops in the Soviet city of Stalingrad surrender to the Red Army, ending one of the pivotal battles of World War II. On June 22, 1941, despite the terms of the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939, Nazi Germany launched a massive invasion against the USSR. Aided by its ...read more
Siege of Leningrad
After the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941, a German army surrounded the city of Leningrad in an extended siege beginning that September. In subsequent months, the city sought to establish supply lines from the Soviet interior and evacuate its citizens, often ...read more
Yugoslavian partisan leader Tito signs “friendship treaty” with Soviet Union
On April 5, 1945, Yugoslav partisan leader Tito signs an agreement permitting “temporary entry of Soviet troops into Yugoslav territory.” Josip Broz, alias “Tito,” secretary general of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, led a partisan counteroffensive movement against the Axis ...read more
Soviets encircle Germans at Stalingrad
On November 22, 1942, a Soviet counteroffensive against the German armies pays off as the Red Army traps about a quarter-million German soldiers south of Kalach, on the Don River, within Stalingrad. As the Soviets’ circle tightened, German General Friedrich Paulus requested ...read more
Soviets capture Warsaw
Soviet troops liberate the Polish capital from German occupation. Warsaw was a battleground since the opening day of fighting in the European theater. Germany declared war by launching an air raid on September 1, 1939, and followed up with a siege that killed tens of thousands of ...read more
Soviet forces penetrate the siege of Leningrad
On January 12, 1943, Soviet troops create a breach in the German siege of Leningrad, which had lasted for a year and a half. The Soviet forces punched a hole in the siege, which ruptured the German encirclement and allowed for more supplies to come in along Lake Ladoga. Upon ...read more
Siege of Leningrad is lifted
On January 27, 1944, Soviet forces permanently break the Leningrad siege line, ending the almost 900-day German-enforced containment of the city, which cost hundreds of thousands of Russian lives. The siege began officially on September 8, 1941. The people of Leningrad began ...read more
Russians attack Germans in drive to expel them from Crimea
On April 8, 1944, Russian forces led by Marshal Fyodor Tolbukhin attack the German army in an attempt to win back Crimea, in the southern Ukraine, occupied by the Axis power. The attack would result in the breaking of German defensive lines in just four days, eventually sending ...read more
Operation Typhoon is launched
On October 2, 1941, the Germans begin their surge to Moscow, led by the 1st Army Group and Gen. Fedor von Bock. Russian peasants in the path of Hitler’s army employ a “scorched-earth” policy. Hitler’s forces had invaded the Soviet Union in June, and early on it had become one ...read more
Germany launches Operation Barbarossa—the invasion of Russia
On June 22, 1941, over 3 million German troops invade Russia in three parallel offensives, in what is the most powerful invasion force in history. Nineteen panzer divisions, 3,000 tanks, 2,500 aircraft, and 7,000 artillery pieces pour across a thousand-mile front as Hitler goes ...read more
Germans bombard Leningrad
On September 19, 1941, as part of their offensive campaign in the Soviet Union, German bombers blast through Leningrad’s antiaircraft defenses, and kill more than 1,000 Russians. Hitler’s armies had been in Soviet territory since June. An attempt by the Germans to take Leningrad ...read more
German general’s diary reveals Hitler’s plans for Russia
On July 8, 1941, upon the German army’s invasion of Pskov, 180 miles from Leningrad, Russia, the chief of the German army general staff, General Franz Halder, records in his diary Hitler’s plans for Moscow and Leningrad: “To dispose fully of their population, which otherwise we ...read more
Finland declares war on Germany
Finland, under increasing pressure from both the United States and the Soviet Union, finally declares war on its former partner, Germany. After the German invasion of Poland, the USSR, wanting to protect Leningrad more than ever from encroachment by the West—even its dubious ...read more
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was a brutal military campaign between Russian forces and those of Nazi Germany and the Axis powers during World War II. The battle is infamous as one of the largest, longest and bloodiest engagements in modern warfare: From August 1942 through February ...read more
German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact
On August 23, 1939–shortly before World War II (1939-45) broke out in Europe–enemies Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union surprised the world by signing the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, in which the two countries agreed to take no military action against each other for the ...read more
Stalin issues Order No. 227—outlawing cowards
On July 27, 1943, Joseph Stalin, premier and dictator of the Soviet Union, issues Order No. 227, what came to be known as the “Not one step backward” order, in light of German advances into Russian territory. The order declared, “Panic makers and cowards must be liquidated on the ...read more
Soviet Union invades Poland
On September 17, 1939, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov declares that the Polish government has ceased to exist, as the U.S.S.R. exercises the “fine print” of the Hitler-Stalin Non-aggression pact—the invasion and occupation of eastern Poland. Hitler’s troops were ...read more
Russians halt German advance in a decisive battle at Kursk
On July 12, 1943, one of the greatest clashes of armor in military history takes place as the German offensive against the Russian fortification at Kursk, a Russian railway and industrial center, is stopped in a devastating battle, marking the turning point in the Eastern front ...read more
Warsaw falls to German forces
On September 27, 1939, 140,000 Polish troops are taken prisoner by the German invaders as Warsaw surrenders to Hitler’s army. The Poles fought bravely, but were able to hold on for only 26 days. On the heels of its victory, the Germans began a systematic program of terror, ...read more
Germans capture Lvov—and slaughter ensues
On June 29, 1941, the Germans, having already launched their invasion of Soviet territory, invade and occupy Lvov, in eastern Galicia, in Ukraine, slaughtering thousands. The Russians followed a scorched-earth policy upon being invaded by the Germans; that is, they would destroy, ...read more