World War II: The Eastern Front

Operation “Barbarossa”• June 22, 1941

• German army invades USSR with 3 million men

• Soviet resistance almost collapses – Germans occupy huge areas of Eastern Russia

• Germans capture millions of Soviet POW’s

Battle of Moscow

• German offensive slows down near Moscow by October rains, mud

• Attacks halted by arrival of “General” Winter (-50oC !) and Soviet counter-attack

• Germans driven backwards 150-200 km

before front stabilizes

1942: Road to Disaster

• German summer offensive drives Soviets back towards Stalingrad

Battle of Stalingrad

• Germans attempt to take city – Soviets resist fanatically – city mostly destroyed

• Nov. Soviets counter-attack and encircle German 6th Army (200 000 men) inside Stalingrad

• Jan. 1943 – 6th Army surrenders – major defeat for Germany

Summer 1943: Battle of Kursk

Largest tank battle in history

German attacks fail – huge numbers of tanks lost

Germans can now only retreat

1944 - 1945

• Soviets steadily push Germans back out of USSR, across Poland and into Germany

Apr. 1945: Battle for Berlin

The Final Act...

• Hitler spends final days in underground bunker

• April 30: Hitler & Eva Braun commit suicide

What About Il Duce ?

• 1945: Mussolini captured by partisans and killed

• Body is hung up by heels and ridiculed by Italians

Finis: VE- Day

• May 8, 1945: Germany surrenders to Allies