INVASION OF RUSSIA
This was the long expected showdown between Nazi Germany and Communist Russia
June 22, 1941
Began a two front war
Stalin had ignored numerous warnings
Blitzkrieg - Means "lightening war."
- 150 divisions ( 3 million men) vs. 2 million Russians
- The ill-prepared Red Army was pushed back deep into the Soviet Union
- *** One of the strong points of the Russian army were their snipers. Not only did they have men but there were 2000 women snipers. Of this number only 500 women survived the war. (Source: The History Channel program "Snipers: World's Deadliest Snipers." )
- Initially the advancing Germans were well-received by the Soviet population
- By Nov., 1941 the Germans had reached the gates of Moscow (this would be the farthest they would get) and Leningrad
- battle line 2,000 miles long - from the Arctic to the Baltic Sea
- Germans said they were saving the world from Bolshevism
- Germans confident - thought it would be a short war - no preparation for a long struggle - didn't issue winter uniforms - vehicled not prepared for winter
- In 5 weeks they drove the Russians back - took 1000's of prisoners
- killing squads (Einstazgruppen) followed the troops and rounded up the Jews and killed them. (There is an excellent description of this in The Holocaust by Nora Levin on p. 242 - This book is available on Amazon.com. I saw one for sale for $.23 plus shipping. It is a fabulous book the covers every country in Europe and relates what the Germans did and how the people reacted.)
- As the Soviets moved back they set mines and booby traps everywhere they could. *** One sailor armed only with a Molotov cocktail died throwing himself under a tank. In another case, a Soviet died beside a German tank where he wrote a message in his own blood: "I die, but my country and the Party will win."
- Russians were helped by the Allies (materials)
- The world thought Russia would collapse
WINTER
- The arrival of winter cold caught the Germans unprepared
- The Soviets went on the offensive
- The soviet used the "scorched earth" forced the Germans to depend on long supply lines - Germans needed vast supplies of food, petroleum, and other raw materials
- The Soviets "moved" thousands of factories east of the Ural Mountains out of range of the Germans
- To rally the support of the Soviet people Stalin turned it into the "Great Patriotic War" - a crusade for Russia, not communism
- Religion was even revived for the war effort
- General Zhukov and his Siberian troops drove the Germans back a few hundred miles
- But, the winter turned to spring and the German offensive began anew in 1942
Stalingrad
- In the 1942 campaign the Axis armies changed their focus to the oil fields of the Caucasus Mountains - Germany needed oil
- The city of Stalingrad dominated this region - it became the focus of the turning point battle of the war
- August the German 6th Army drove south to Stalingrad (on the Volga River) - it held firm - both sides determined to hold this city
- The battle became a disaster for the Germans and the beginning of the end for the Axis forced
- In 2 months the Russians surrounded the 6th Arm and destroyed it - ***The German generals wanted to retreat. Hitler replied, " If you can't win, stay there and die."
- Germans surrendered Jan. 31, 1943
- The original force was 350,000 men
- Captured 90,000
- About 6,000 eventually returned to Germany after the war
- Hitler's first major defeat - a turning point
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