Eastern Front (World War II)

Eastern Front
Part of the European theatre of World War II

Clockwise from top left: Soviet T-34 tanks storming Berlin; German Tiger I tanks during the Battle of Kursk; German Stuka dive bombers on the Eastern Front, December 1943; Ivanhorod Einsatzgruppen photograph of German death squads murdering Jews in Ukraine; Wilhelm Keitel signing the German Instrument of Surrender; Soviet troops in the Battle of Stalingrad
Date22 June 1941 (1941-06-22)8 May 1945 (1945-05-08)
(3 years, 10 months, 2 weeks and 2 days)
Location
Europe, east of Germany: Central and Eastern Europe, in later stages: Germany and Austria
Result

Soviet victory[i]

Territorial
changes
Belligerents
Axis: Allies: Former Axis powers:
Commanders and leaders
Strength
  • 1941
    3,767,000 troops
  • 1942
    3,720,000 troops
  • 1943
    3,933,000 troops
  • 1944
    3,370,000 troops
  • 1945
    1,960,000 troops
  • 1941
    (Front) 2,680,000 troops
  • 1942
    (Front) 5,313,000 troops
  • 1943
    (Front) 6,724,000 troops
  • 1944
    6,800,000 troops
  • 1945
    6,410,000 troops
Casualties and losses
Total:
5.1 million dead
  • 4.5 million killed or missing in action
  • 600,000 died in captivity

4.5 million captured
See below.
Total:
8.7–10 million dead
  • 6.5–6.7 million killed or missing in action
  • 2.2–3.3 million died in captivity

4.1 million captured
See below.
Civilian casualties:
18–24 million civilians dead
See below.

The Eastern Front[j] 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.[1][2] 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.[3] 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".[4]

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.[5] 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".[6]

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.


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  1. ^ Edwards, Robert (15 August 2018). The Eastern Front: The Germans and Soviets at War in World War II. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-8117-6784-2 – via Google Books.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference 30m was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Bellamy 2007, p. xix: "That conflict, which ended sixty years before this book's completion, was a decisive component – arguably the single most decisive component – of the Second World War. It was on the eastern front, between 1941 and 1945, that the greater part of the land and associated air forces of Nazi Germany and its Axis partners were ultimately destroyed by the Soviet Union in what, from 1944, its people – and those of the fifteen successor states – called, and still call, the Great Patriotic War"
  4. ^ Geoffrey, Roberts (2002). Victory at Stalingrad (1st ed.). Routledge. p. 9. ISBN 978-0582771857.
  5. ^ "World War II: The Eastern Front". The Atlantic. 18 September 2011. Retrieved 26 November 2014.
  6. ^ Nolte, Ernst (1966). Three Faces of Fascism: Action Française, Italian Fascism, National Socialism (1st ed.). Holt, Rinehart & Winston. p. 358.

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