((Short description|Theatre of war of European Axis and Soviet Union blocs))

((Redirect|Great Patriotic War|a discussion of the term itself|Great Patriotic War (term)))
((pp-semi-indef|small=yes))
((refimprove|date=October 2023))
((EngvarB|date=October 2019))
((Use dmy dates|date=August 2019))
((Infobox military conflict
| conflict          = Eastern Front
| partof            = the [[European theatre of World War II]]
| image             = EasternFrontWWIIcolage.png
| image_size        = 300px
| caption           = Clockwise from top left: Soviet [[T-34]] tanks storming Berlin; German [[Tiger I]] tanks during the [[Battle of Kursk]]; German [[Junkers Ju 87|Stuka]] dive bombers on the Eastern Front, December 1943; [[Ivanhorod Einsatzgruppen photograph]] of [[Einsatzgruppen|German death squads]] murdering Jews [[The Holocaust in Ukraine|in Ukraine]]; [[Wilhelm Keitel]] signing the [[German Instrument of Surrender]]; Soviet troops in the [[Battle of Stalingrad]]
| date              = ((nowrap|[[Operation Barbarossa|((Start date|1941|06|22|df=y))]] – [[German Instrument of Surrender|((Start date|1945|05|08|df=y))]]<br />(((Age in years, months, weeks and days|month1=06|day1=22|year1=1941|month2=05|day2=8|year2=1945)))))
| place             = Europe, east of Germany: [[Central and Eastern Europe]], in later stages: [[Nazi Germany|Germany]] and [[Austria under National Socialism|Austria]]
| territory         = ((clist|bullets=y|title=[[Military occupations by the Soviet Union#After the Soviet Union entered the war on the Allied side|Soviet occupation]] of<br />[[Central and Eastern Europe]]
|[[Allied occupation of Germany]], [[Allied-occupied Austria|Austria]] and [[History of Germany (1945–1990)|Partition of Germany]]
|[[Provisional Government of the Republic of Poland|Polish puppet state]] and [[Territorial changes of Poland immediately after World War II|change of borders]]
|[[Soviet occupation of Romania]]
|[[Soviet occupation of Hungary]]
|((nowrap|[[1944 Bulgarian coup d'état|Bulgarian communist coup]] and [[Military occupations by the Soviet Union#Bulgaria (1944)|Soviet occupation]]))
|[[Baltic states under Soviet rule (1944–1991)|Soviet re-occupation of the Baltics]]
|[[Military occupations by the Soviet Union#Czechoslovakia (1944)|Czechoslovakia cedes]] [[Carpathian Ruthenia#Transition to Soviet takeover and control (1944-1945)|Carpathian Ruthenia]]
|[[East Prussia]] split between the Soviet Union ([[Kaliningrad Oblast]]) and [[Polish People's Republic|Poland]] ([[Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship]])
))
| result            = Soviet victory((efn|As part of the Allied victory in the European theatre of World War II))
* Fall of [[Nazi Germany]] (concurrently with the [[Western Front (World War II)|Western Front]])
* Beginning of the [[Cold War]] and creation of the [[Eastern Bloc]] and the [[Iron Curtain]]
* Beginning of [[Eastern European anti-Communist insurgencies|anti-communist insurgencies]]
| combatant1        = '''[[Axis powers|Axis]]''':((plainlist|
* '''((flagcountry|Nazi Germany))'''
* ((flagcountry|Kingdom of Romania)) ((small|([[King Michael's Coup|until 1944]])))
* ((flagcountry|Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946)))((efn|Hungary voluntarily participated in the conflict until March 1944, when it submitted to [[Operation Margarethe|German occupation]]. In October the same year, a [[Government of National Unity (Hungary)|puppet government]] was [[Operation Panzerfaust|installed]] which ensured Hungary's participation until the end of the conflict.))
* ((flag|Finland)) ((small|([[Lapland War|until 1944]])))
* ((flagcountry|Fascist Italy (1922-1943))) ((small|([[Armistice of Cassibile|until 1943]])))
* ((flagcountry|Slovak Republic (1939–1945)|name=Slovakia))((efn|Slovakia voluntarily participated in the conflict until August 1944, when it submitted to [[Slovak National Uprising|German occupation]] which ensured Slovakia's participation until the end of the conflict.))
* ((flagcountry|Independent State of Croatia))((efn|[[Croatian Home Guard (World War II)|Croatian army]] units fought as part of [[369th Croatian Reinforced Infantry Regiment (Wehrmacht)|German]] and [[Light Transport Brigade (Independent State of Croatia)|Italian units]]. [[Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia|Croatian Air Force]] pilots also operated as part of the German Air Force.))
))
| combatant2        = '''[[Allies of World War II|Allies]]''':((plainlist|
* '''((flag|Soviet Union|1936))'''
* ((flagdeco|Poland|1928)) [[Polish Armed Forces in the East|Poland]]((efn|The so-called "[[Anders' Army]]" (under [[Władysław Anders]]), composed of Poles in the USSR and loyal to the London-based [[Polish government-in-exile]], was [[Amnesty for Polish citizens in the Soviet Union|formed in the early stages of the war]], but shortly thereafter [[Polish Armed Forces in the West|moved to the West]] through [[Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran|Iran]]. After diplomatic relations between the Polish government and the Soviet Union broke down in 1943, a [[1st Tadeusz Kościuszko Infantry Division|pro-communist Polish division]] was formed, which would grow into the [[First Polish Army (1944–1945)|First]] and later [[Second Army (Poland)|Second Polish Armies]] that fought as part of the Soviet [[Red Army]]. Political leadership came from the [[Polish Committee of National Liberation]], which evolved into a [[Provisional Government of the Republic of Poland|Provisional Government]] rivaling the one in London.))
* ((nowarp|((flag|Mongolian People's Republic|1940|name=Mongolia))((efn|In addition to keeping around 10% of the population under arms, Mongolia provided supplies and raw materials to the Soviet military, and financed several units, such as the [[Revolutionary Mongolia tank brigade|"Revolutionary Mongolia" Tank Brigade]] and the [[Mongolian Arat squadron|"Mongolian Arat" Squadron]] as well as provided over half a million military horses to the Soviet Union.<ref> Alan J. K. Sanders (2010), ''Historical Dictionary of Mongolia'', 3rd ed. (Plymouth: Scarecrow Press).</ref> Also, more than 300 Mongolian volunteer military personnel fought on the Eastern front as part of the [[Red Army]].<ref>((cite book|title=One Man'a War: The WWII Sage of Tommy LaMore|first1=Tommy |last1=LaMore |first2=Dan |last2=Baker |date=2002 |publisher=Taylor Trade |isbn=9781461664680 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=yVP7AQAAQBAJ))</ref>))))
* ((nowrap|((flagcountry|Czechoslovak government-in-exile))))((efn|A battalion composed of Czechs and Slovaks in the Soviet Union (refugees, defectors, part of the ethnic minority in the USSR) was established early in the war and would eventually grow to a [[1st Czechoslovak Army Corps in the Soviet Union|Czechoslovak Army Corps]], loyal to the [[Czechoslovak government-in-exile]] in London, which fought as part of the [[Red Army]].))))
'''Former Axis powers''':((plainlist|
* ((nowrap|((flagcountry|Kingdom of Romania)) ((small|([[King Michael's Coup|from 1944]])))))
* ((flagcountry|Kingdom of Bulgaria)) ((small|([[1944 Bulgarian coup d'état|from 1944]])))
* ((flag|Finland)) ((small|([[Lapland War|from 1944]])))))
((clist|title=((nowrap|'''Support:'''))
|((flag|United States|1912))((efn|Support provided through [[Lend-Lease#U.S._deliveries_to_the_Soviet_Union|Lend-Lease]] and [[Arctic convoys of World War II|Arctic convoys]]))
|((flag|British Empire))((efn|Support provided through [[Arctic convoys of World War II|Arctic convoys]], as well as by the presence of [[No. 151 Wing RAF]] (with [[No. 81 Squadron RAF]] and [[No. 134 Squadron RAF]]) on the Eastern Front.))
|((nowrap|((flag|Free France))((efn|Support provided by the presence of [[Fighter Squadron 2/30 Normandie-Niemen]] as part of [[1st Air Army]] on the Eastern Front.)) ((small|(from 1943)))))))
| commander1        = ((clist|title='''Axis leaders:'''
|((flagdeco|Nazi Germany)) '''[[Adolf Hitler]]'''((KIA|Death of Adolf Hitler))
|((flagdeco|Nazi Germany)) [[Wilhelm Keitel]]
|((flagdeco|Nazi Germany)) [[Alfred Jodl]]
|((nowrap|((flagdeco|Nazi Germany)) [[Walther von Brauchitsch]]))
|((flagdeco|Nazi Germany)) [[Franz Halder]]
|((flagdeco|Nazi Germany)) [[Kurt Zeitzler]]
|((flagdeco|Nazi Germany)) [[Hermann Göring]]
|((flagdeco|Nazi Germany)) [[Hans Jeschonnek]]
|((flagdeco|Nazi Germany)) [[Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb|Wilhelm von Leeb]]
|((flagdeco|Nazi Germany)) [[Fedor von Bock]]
|((flagdeco|Nazi Germany)) [[Gerd von Rundstedt]]
|((flagdeco|Nazi Germany)) [[Günther von Kluge]]
|((flagdeco|Nazi Germany)) [[Georg von Küchler]]
|((flagdeco|Nazi Germany)) [[Wilhelm List]]
|((flagdeco|Nazi Germany)) [[Maximilian von Weichs]]
|((flagdeco|Nazi Germany)) [[Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist|Ewald von Kleist]]
|((flagdeco|Nazi Germany)) [[Erich von Manstein]]
|((flagdeco|Nazi Germany)) [[Ernst Busch (field marshal)|Ernst Busch]]
|((flagdeco|Nazi Germany)) [[Walter Model]]
|((flagdeco|Nazi Germany)) [[Johannes Friessner]]
|((flagdeco|Nazi Germany)) [[Georg Lindemann]]
|((flagdeco|Nazi Germany)) [[Ferdinand Schörner]]
|((flagdeco|Nazi Germany)) [[Lothar Rendulic]]
|((flagdeco|Nazi Germany)) [[Heinrich Himmler]]
|((flagdeco|Kingdom of Romania)) [[Ion Antonescu]]
|((flagdeco|Kingdom of Romania)) ((ill|Iosif Iacobici|ro))
|((flagdeco|Kingdom of Romania)) [[Ilie Șteflea]]
|((flagdeco|Kingdom of Romania)) [[Petre Dumitrescu]]
|((flagdeco|Kingdom of Romania)) [[Horia Macellariu]]
|((flagdeco|Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946))) [[Miklós Horthy]]
|((flagdeco|Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946))) [[Ferenc Szálasi]]
|((flagdeco|Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946))) [[Ferenc Szombathelyi]]
|((flagdeco|Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946))) [[Károly Beregfy]]
|((flagdeco|Finland)) [[Risto Ryti]]
|((flagdeco|Finland)) [[Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim|C.G.E. Mannerheim]]
|((flagdeco|Finland)) [[Aksel Airo]]
|((flagdeco|Fascist Italy (1922-1943))) [[Benito Mussolini]]
|((flagdeco|Fascist Italy (1922-1943))) [[Italo Gariboldi]]
))
| commander2        = ((clist|title='''Allied leaders:'''
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) '''[[Joseph Stalin]]'''
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Georgy Zhukov]]
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Boris Shaposhnikov]]
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Aleksandr Vasilevsky]]
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Aleksei Antonov]]
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Kliment Voroshilov]]
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Semyon Timoshenko]]
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Semyon Budyonny]]
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Nikolai Kuznetsov (admiral)|Nikolai Kuznetsov]]
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Ivan Isakov]]
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Pavel Zhigarev]]
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Alexander Novikov]]
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Sergei Khudyakov]]
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Markian Popov]]
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Fyodor Kuznetsov]]
|((flagicon|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Dmitry Pavlov (general)|Dmitry Pavlov]]((Executed))
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Mikhail Kirponos]]((KIA))
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Ivan Tyulenev]]
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Andrey Yeremenko]]
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Pavel Kurochkin]]
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Ivan Konev]]
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Yakov Cherevichenko]]
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Rodion Malinovsky]]
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Kiril Meretskov]]
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Filipp Golikov]]
|((nowrap|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Konstantin Rokossovsky]]))
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Leonid Govorov]]
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Nikolai Vatutin]]((KIA))
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Maksim Purkayev]]
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Vasily Sokolovsky]]
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Fyodor Tolbukhin]]
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Ivan Yefimovich Petrov|Ivan Petrov]]
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Ivan Bagramyan]]
|((flagdeco|Soviet Union|1936)) [[Ivan Chernyakhovsky]]((KIA))
|((flagdeco|Poland|1928)) [[Bolesław Bierut]]
|((flagdeco|Poland|1928)) [[Michał Rola-Żymierski]]
|((flagdeco|Poland|1928)) [[Zygmunt Berling]]
|((flagdeco|Kingdom of Romania)) [[Michael I of Romania|Michael I]]
|((flagdeco|Kingdom of Romania)) [[Constantin Sănătescu]]
|((flagdeco|Kingdom of Romania)) [[Nicolae Rădescu]]
|((flagdeco|Kingdom of Bulgaria)) [[Kimon Georgiev]]
|((flagdeco|Finland)) [[Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim|C.G.E. Mannerheim]]
))
| strength1         = ((plainlist|
* '''1941'''<br />3,767,000 troops
* '''1942'''<br />3,720,000 troops
* '''1943'''<br />3,933,000 troops
* '''1944'''<br />3,370,000 troops
* '''1945'''<br />1,960,000 troops))
| strength2         = ((plainlist|
* '''1941'''<br />(Front) 2,680,000 troops
* '''1942'''<br />(Front) 5,313,000 troops
* '''1943'''<br />(Front) 6,724,000 troops
* '''1944'''<br />6,800,000 troops
* '''1945'''<br />6,410,000 troops))
| casualties1       = '''Total:'''<br />5.1 million dead ((Bulletedlist|4.5 million killed or missing in action|600,000 died in captivity))<br />4.5 million captured<br />See [[#Casualties|below]].
| casualties2       = '''Total:'''<br />8.7–10 million dead ((Bulletedlist|6.5–6.7 million killed or missing in action|2.2–3.3 million died in captivity))<br />4.1 million captured<br />See [[#Casualties|below]].
| casualties3       = '''Civilian casualties''':<br />18–24 million civilians dead<br />See [[#Casualties|below]].
| notes             = 
))
((Campaignbox World War II))
((Campaignbox Axis–Soviet War))
((History of the Soviet Union))

The '''Eastern Front'''((Efn|Also known as:((Bulleted list|The '''[[Great Patriotic War (term)|Great Patriotic War]]''' (((Lang-ru|Вели́кая Оте́чественная война́|Velíkaya Otéchestvennaya voyná))) in the Soviet Union – and still is in some of its successor states.|The '''German–Soviet War''' (((Lang-de|Deutsch-Sowjetische Krieg)); ((Lang-uk|Німе́цько-радя́нська війна́|Niméts'ko-radiáns'ka viiná))), which is typically used in contemporary German and Ukrainian historiographies.)))) was a [[Theater (warfare)|theatre]] of [[World War II]] fought between the European [[Axis powers]] and [[Allies of World War II|Allies]], including the [[Soviet Union]] (USSR) and [[Polish Armed Forces in the East|Poland]]. It encompassed [[Central Europe]], [[Eastern Europe]], [[Northern Europe|Northeast Europe]] ([[Baltic states|Baltics]]), and [[Southeast Europe]] ([[Balkans]]), and lasted from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945. Of the estimated [[World War II casualties|70–85 million deaths]] attributed to World War II, around 30&nbsp;million occurred on the Eastern Front, including 9&nbsp;million children.<ref>((Cite book |last=Edwards |first=Robert |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ed9jDwAAQBAJ&q=World+War+2+eastern+front |title=The Eastern Front: The Germans and Soviets at War in World War II |date=15 August 2018 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-0-8117-6784-2 |via=Google Books))</ref><ref name="30m" /> The Eastern Front was decisive in determining the outcome in the [[European theatre of World War II|European theatre of operations]] in World War II, eventually serving as the main reason for the defeat of [[Nazi Germany]] and the Axis nations.<ref>((Harvnb|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"</ref> It is noted by historian [[Geoffrey Roberts]] that "More than 80 percent of all combat during the Second World War took place on the Eastern Front".<ref name=":1">((Cite book |last=Geoffrey |first=Roberts |title=Victory at Stalingrad |publisher=Routledge |year=2002 |isbn=978-0582771857 |edition=1st |pages=9 |language=en))</ref>

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 [[Battle of Moscow|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 ''[[Case Blue|Fall Blau]]'' ("Case Blue") plan on 28 June 1942. The Soviets successfully halted further Axis advance [[Battle of Stalingrad|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 [[Stalin's ten blows|regained territories]] at its expense. The Axis defeat [[Battle of Kursk|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 [[Kingdom of Romania|Romania]] and [[Tsardom of Bulgaria|Bulgaria]]. The Eastern Front concluded with the [[Battle of Berlin|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.<ref>((cite web |url= https://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/09/world-war-ii-the-eastern-front/100150/|title= World War II: The Eastern Front|date= 18 September 2011|website= The Atlantic|access-date= 26 November 2014))</ref> 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|scorched-earth tactics]], wanton destruction, mass deportations, forced starvations, wholesale terrorism, and massacres. These also included the genocidal campaigns of ((lang|de|[[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",<ref>((Cite book |last=Nolte |first=Ernst |author-link=Ernst Nolte |url=https://archive.org/details/threefacesoffasc0000nolt_x2l1 |title=Three Faces of Fascism: Action Française, Italian Fascism, National Socialism |publisher=Holt, Rinehart & Winston |year=1966 |edition=1st |pages=358 |language=en))</ref> while British historian Robin Cross expressed that "In the Second World War no theatre was more gruelling and destructive than the Eastern Front, and nowhere was the fighting more bitter".<ref>((Cite book |last=Cross |first=Robin |url=https://archive.org/details/battleofkurskope0000cros/page/n5/mode/1up |title=The Battle of Kursk: Operation Citadel 1943 |publisher=Penguin Publishing |year=2002 |isbn=9780141391090 |pages=viii |language=en))</ref>

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 [[Military history of the United States during World War II|United States]] and the [[Military history of the United Kingdom during World War II|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 [[Operation Silver Fox|German–Finnish operations]] across the northernmost Finnish–Soviet border and in the [[Murmansk Oblast|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.

==Background==
((See also|Anschluss|Munich Agreement|Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact))
Germany and the Soviet Union remained unsatisfied with [[Aftermath of World War I|the outcome]] of [[World War I]] (1914–1918). [[Soviet Russia]] had lost substantial territory in [[Eastern Europe]] as a result of the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]] (March 1918), where the [[Bolshevik]]s in Petrograd conceded to German demands and ceded control of Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Finland, and other areas, to the [[Central Powers]]. Subsequently, when Germany in its turn [[Armistice of 11 November 1918|surrendered]] to the [[Allies of World War I|Allies]] (November 1918) and these territories became independent states under the terms of the [[Paris Peace Conference, 1919|Paris Peace Conference of 1919]] at [[Versailles]], Soviet Russia was in the midst of [[Russian Civil War|a civil war]] and the Allies did not recognise the Bolshevik government, so no Soviet Russian representation attended.<ref name="Hankey2015">((cite book|author= Donald Hankey|title= The Supreme Control at the Paris Peace Conference 1919 (Routledge Revivals): A Commentary|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=MPzOBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA50|date= 3 June 2015|publisher= Routledge|isbn= 978-1-317-56756-1|page= 50))</ref>

[[Adolf Hitler]] had declared his intention to invade the Soviet Union on 11 August 1939 to [[Carl Jacob Burckhardt]], [[League of Nations]] Commissioner, by saying:

<blockquote>
Everything I undertake is [[Drang nach Osten|directed against the Russians]]. If the West is too stupid and blind to grasp this, then I shall be compelled to come to an agreement with the Russians, beat the West and then after their defeat turn against the Soviet Union with all my forces. I need the [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic|Ukraine]] so that they can't starve us out, as happened in the last war.<ref name=":0">((Cite book|last=McKale|first=Donald M.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aX4IuvfX194C&q=Everything+I+undertake+is+directed+against+the+Russians.+If+the+West+is+too+stupid+and+blind+to+grasp+this,+then+I+shall+be+compelled+to+come+to+an+agreement+with+the+Russians,+beat+the+West+and+then+after+their+defeat+turn+against+the+Soviet+Union+with+all+my+forces.+I+need+the+Ukraine+so+that+they+can't+starve+us+out,+as+happened+in+the+last+war&pg=PA124|title=Hitler's Shadow War: The Holocaust and World War II|date=2006-03-17|publisher=Taylor Trade Publishing|isbn=978-1-4616-3547-5|page=124|language=en))</ref>
</blockquote>
The [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact]] signed in August 1939 was a [[Non aggression pact|non-aggression agreement]] between Germany and the Soviet Union. It contained a secret [[Protocol (treaty)|protocol]] aiming to return [[Central Europe]] to the pre–World War I [[status quo ante bellum|''status quo'']] by dividing it between Germany and the Soviet Union. Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania would return to the Soviet control, while Poland and Romania would be divided.((citation needed|date=March 2015)) The Eastern Front was also made possible by the [[German–Soviet Border and Commercial Agreement]] in which the Soviet Union gave Germany the resources necessary to launch military operations in Eastern Europe.<ref>((cite book|last1=Ericson|first1=Edward|title=Feeding the German Eagle: Soviet Military Aid to Nazi Germany, 1933–1941|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=0-275-96337-3|pages=34–35|year=1999))</ref>

On 1 September 1939 [[Invasion of Poland|Germany invaded Poland]], starting [[World War II]]. On 17 September, the [[Soviet invasion of Poland|Soviet Union invaded]] [[Kresy|Eastern Poland]], and, as a result, [[Fourth Partition of Poland|Poland was partitioned]] among Germany, the Soviet Union and Lithuania. Soon after that, the Soviet Union demanded significant territorial concessions from Finland, and after Finland rejected Soviet demands, the Soviet Union attacked Finland on 30 November 1939 in what became known as the [[Winter War]] – a bitter conflict that resulted in a peace treaty on 13 March 1940, with Finland maintaining its independence but losing its eastern parts in [[Karelia]].<ref name=malksoo/>

In June 1940 the Soviet Union [[Occupation of the Baltic states|occupied and illegally annexed]] the three [[Baltic states]] (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania).<ref name=malksoo>((cite book|author= Mälksoo, Lauri|year= 2003|title= Illegal Annexation and State Continuity: The Case of the Incorporation of the Baltic States by the USSR|location= Leiden, Boston|publisher= Brill| isbn= 90-411-2177-3))</ref> The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact ostensibly provided security to the Soviets in the occupation both of the Baltics and of [[Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina|the north and northeastern regions of Romania]] (Northern [[Bukovina]] and [[Bessarabia]], June–July 1940), although Hitler, in announcing the invasion of the Soviet Union, cited the Soviet annexations of Baltic and Romanian territory as having violated Germany's understanding of the pact. Moscow partitioned the annexed Romanian territory between the Ukrainian and [[Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic]]s.

==Ideologies==
((Main|Germany–Soviet Union relations, 1918–1941))

===German ideology===
((Main|Mein Kampf|Racial policy of Nazi Germany|Nazism and race))
Hitler had argued in his autobiography ''[[Mein Kampf]]'' (1925) for the necessity of ''[[Lebensraum]]'' ("living space"): acquiring new territory for Germans in Eastern Europe, in particular Russia.<ref>"We National Socialists consciously draw a line under the direction of our foreign policy war. We begin where we ended six centuries ago. We stop the perpetual Germanic march towards the south and west of Europe, and have the view on the country in the east. We finally put the colonial and commercial policy of the pre-war and go over to the territorial policy of the future. But if we speak today in Europe of new land, we can primarily only to Russia and the border states subjects him think." Charles Long, 1965: [http://www.ifz-muenchen.de/heftarchiv/1965_4_4_lange.pdf The term 'habitat' in Hitler's 'Mein Kampf'] (pdf, 12 Seiten; 695&nbsp;kB)</ref> He envisaged settling Germans there, as according to Nazi ideology the Germanic people constituted the "[[master race]]", while exterminating or deporting most of the existing inhabitants to [[Siberia]] and using the remainder as [[slave labour]].<ref>((cite journal |first=Robert |last=Gellately |title=Reviewed work(s): Vom Generalplan Ost zum Generalsiedlungsplan by Czeslaw Madajczyk; Der "Generalplan Ost." Hauptlinien der nationalsozialistischen Planungs- und Vernichtungspolitik by [[Mechtild Rössler]] and Sabine Schleiermacher |journal= [[Central European History]] |volume= 29 |issue= 2 |pages=270–274 |date=June 1996 |jstor=4546609 |doi=10.1017/S0008938900013170))</ref>
Hitler as early as 1917 had referred to the Russians as inferior, believing that the [[Bolshevik Revolution]] had put the [[Jews]] in power over the mass of [[Slavs]], who were, in Hitler's opinion, incapable of ruling themselves and had thus ended up being ruled by Jewish masters.<ref name="Megargee2007">((cite book|last= Megargee |first= Geoffrey P.|author-link= Geoffrey Megargee|title= War of Annihilation: Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front, 1941|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QSpUZ6t6BPwC&pg=PA4|year=2007|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-0-7425-4482-6|page=4))</ref>

The Nazi [[leadership]], including [[Heinrich Himmler]],<ref>((cite web
 |url         = http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/SS2.htm
 |title       = Speech of the Reichsfuehrer-SS at the meeting of SS Major-Generals at Posen 4 October 1943
 |author      = Heinrich Himmler
 |work        = Source: Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Vol. IV. USGPO, Washington, 1946, pp. 616–634
 |publisher   = Stuart Stein, University of the West of England.
 |quote       = Whether nations live in prosperity or starve to death … interests me only in so far as we need them as slaves for our Kultur ...
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20090302202411/http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/SS2.htm
 |archive-date = 2 March 2009
 ))</ref> saw the war against the Soviet Union as a struggle between the ideologies of [[Nazism]] and [[Jewish Bolshevism]], ensuring territorial expansion for the Germanic [[Übermensch|''Übermenschen'']] (superhumans) - who according to Nazi ideology were the [[Aryan race|Aryan]] ''[[Herrenvolk]]'' ("master race") - at the expense of the Slavic ''[[Untermenschen]]'' (subhumans).<ref>((cite journal |first= John |last=Connelly |title=Nazis and Slavs: From Racial Theory to Racist Practice |journal= [[Central European History]] |volume= 32 |issue= 1 |pages= 1–33 |date= 1999 |jstor= 4546842 |doi= 10.1017/S0008938900020628 |pmid= 20077627 |s2cid= 41052845 ))</ref> [[Wehrmacht]] officers told their troops to target people who were described as "Jewish Bolshevik subhumans", the "Mongol hordes", the "Asiatic flood" and the "red beast".<ref>((cite book|last= Evans|first= Richard J.|title= In Hitler's Shadow: West German Historians and the Attempt to Escape from the Nazi Past|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UZgiAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA59|year= 1989 |publisher= Pantheon Books|isbn=978-0-394-57686-2|pages=59–60))</ref> The vast majority of German soldiers viewed the war in Nazi terms, seeing the Soviet enemy as sub-human.<ref>((cite book|last = Förster| first = Jürgen| author-link = Jürgen Förster | year = 2005 | title = Russia War, Peace and Diplomacy | publisher = Weidenfeld & Nicolson | page = 127))</ref>((qn|date=December 2023))

Hitler referred to the war in radical terms, calling it a "[[war of annihilation]]" (((lang-de | Vernichtungskrieg))) which was both an ideological and racial war. The Nazi vision for the future of Eastern Europe was codified most clearly in the ((lang | de | [[Generalplan Ost]])). The populations of occupied Central Europe and the Soviet Union were to be partially deported to West Siberia, enslaved and eventually exterminated; the conquered territories were to be colonised by German or "Germanized" settlers.<ref>((cite journal |first= Jonathan |last= Steinberg |title= The Third Reich Reflected: German Civil Administration in the Occupied Soviet Union, 1941–4 |journal= [[The English Historical Review]] |volume=110 |issue=437 |pages= 620–651 |date=June 1995 |jstor=578338 |doi=10.1093/ehr/CX.437.620))</ref> In addition, the Nazis also sought to rid themselves of the large Jewish population of Central and Eastern Europe<ref>((cite web |url= http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Holocaust/wansee-transcript.html |access-date= 5 January 2009 |title=The Wannsee Protocol |work=Literature of the Holocaust |publisher=University of Pennsylvania)) citing ((cite book |editor-first=John |editor-last=Mendelsohn |title=The Wannsee Protocol and a 1944 Report on Auschwitz by the Office of Strategic Services |volume=11 |series=The Holocaust: Selected Documents in Eighteen Volumes |location=New York |publisher=Garland |date=1982 |pages=18–32))</ref>
as part of their [[Holocaust |program aiming to exterminate all European Jews]].<ref>((cite journal |first=Christian |last=Gerlach |author-link = Christian Gerlach |title=The Wannsee Conference, the Fate of German Jews, and Hitler's Decision in Principle to Exterminate All European Jews |journal=[[The Journal of Modern History]] |volume=70 |issue=4 |date=December 1998 |pages=759–812 |doi= 10.1086/235167|s2cid=143904500 |url=http://boris.unibe.ch/74383/1/235167.pdf ))</ref>

Psychologically, the German surge to the east in 1941 marked a high point in some Germans' feeling of ((lang | de | Ostrausch)) - an intoxication with the idea of colonising the East.<ref>
((cite book
 |last1                = Lower
 |first1               = Wendy
 |author-link1         = Wendy Lower
 |date                 = 18 May 2006
 |title                = Nazi Empire-Building and the Holocaust in Ukraine
 |url                  = https://books.google.com/books?id=UwDmUJWdcJkC
 |publisher            = University of North Carolina Press
 |page                 = 71
 |isbn                 = 9780807876916
 |access-date          = 22 December 2023
 |quote                = [...] ''Ostrausch'' (a colonizing high or intoxication with the East) [...].
)) 
</ref>

After Germany's initial success at the [[Battle of Kiev (1941)|Battle of Kiev]] in 1941, Hitler saw the Soviet Union as militarily weak and ripe for immediate conquest. In a speech at the [[Berlin Sportpalast]] on 3 October, he announced, "We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down."<ref>((Internet Archive film | youtube-KFiOi_UnX98 | Adolf Hitler's Speech on Operation Barbarossa ))</ref> Thus the German authorities expected another short ''[[Blitzkrieg]]'' and made no serious preparations for prolonged warfare. However, following the decisive Soviet victory at the [[Battle of Stalingrad]] in 1943 and the resulting dire German military situation, [[Propaganda in Nazi Germany |Nazi propaganda]] began to portray the war as a German defence of Western civilisation against destruction by the vast "[[Bolshevism|Bolshevik]] hordes" that were pouring into Europe.

===Soviet situation===
[[File:Жуков и Тимошенко, 1940 год.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Semyon Timoshenko]] and [[Georgy Zhukov]] in 1940]]
((See also|Great Purge|Purge of the Red Army in 1941|Spanish Civil War|Battles of Khalkhin Gol))

Throughout the 1930s the Soviet Union underwent massive [[industrialisation]] and economic growth under the leadership of [[Joseph Stalin]]. Stalin's central tenet, "[[Socialism in One Country]]", manifested itself as a series of nationwide centralised [[Five-year plans of the Soviet Union|five-year plans]] from 1929 onwards. This represented an ideological shift in Soviet policy, away from its commitment to the international communist [[World revolution|revolution]], and eventually leading to the dissolution of the [[Comintern]] (Third International) organisation in 1943. The Soviet Union started a process of militarisation with the [[first five-year plan]] that officially began in 1928, although it was only towards the end of the second five-year plan in the mid-1930s that military power became the primary focus of Soviet industrialisation.<ref>((cite book |last=Hill |first=Alexander |year=2016 |title=The Red Army and the Second World War |place=UK |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-02079-5 |pages=34–44 ))</ref>

In February 1936 the [[1936 Spanish general election|Spanish general election]] brought many communist leaders into the [[Popular Front (Spain)|Popular Front]] government in the [[Second Spanish Republic]], but in a matter of months [[Spanish coup of July 1936|a right-wing military coup]] initiated the [[Spanish Civil War]] of 1936–1939. This conflict soon took on the characteristics of a [[proxy war]] involving the Soviet Union and [[International Brigades|left wing volunteers]] from different countries on the side of the predominantly socialist and communist-led<ref>((cite book |last=Bolloten |first=Burnett |title=The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and Counterrevolution |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0F20CAAAQBAJ&pg=PA483 |year=2015 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |isbn=978-1-4696-2447-1 |page=483|orig-date=1991))</ref> Second Spanish Republic;<ref name="Jurado 2006, page 5">((cite book |last=Jurado |first=Carlos Caballero |title=The Condor Legion: German Troops in the Spanish Civil War |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cZKHCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA5 |year=2013 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-4728-0716-8 |pages=5–6))</ref> while [[Nazi Germany]], [[Kingdom of Italy#Fascist regime (1922–1943)|Fascist Italy]], and [[Estado Novo (Portugal)|Portugal's Estado Novo]] took the side of [[Spanish Nationalists]], the military rebel group led by General [[Francisco Franco]].<ref>((cite book |last=Lind |first=Michael |title=Vietnam: The Necessary War: A Reinterpretation of America's Most Disastrous Military Conflict |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zvg1lr79qcEC&pg=PA59 |year=2002 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-0-684-87027-4 |page=59))</ref> It served as a useful testing ground for both the Wehrmacht and the [[Red Army]] to experiment with equipment and tactics that they would later employ on a wider scale in the Second World War.

Nazi Germany, which was an [[anti-communist]] régime, formalised its ideological position on 25 November 1936 by signing the [[Anti-Comintern Pact]] with [[Empire of Japan|Imperial Japan]].<ref name="weinberg">((cite book |last=Weinberg |first=Gerhard L. |author-link=Gerhard Weinberg |title=The Foreign Policy of Hitler's Germany: Diplomatic Revolution in Europe, 1933–36 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LVgmAQAACAAJ&pg=PA346 |year=1970 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-391-03825-7 |page=346))</ref> Fascist Italy joined the Pact a year later.<ref name="Jurado 2006, page 5" /><ref>((cite book |last=Spector |first=Robert Melvin |title=World Without Civilization: Mass Murder and the Holocaust, History and Analysis |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xZ5Ceq6l0M0C&pg=PA257 |year=2005 |publisher=University Press of America |isbn=978-0-7618-2963-8 |page=257))</ref> The Soviet Union negotiated [[Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance|treaties of mutual assistance with France]] and with [[Czechoslovakia]] with the aim of containing Germany's expansion.<ref>((cite web |title=Maksim Litvinov |date=27 December 2023 |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Maksim-Litvinov |publisher=Encyclopaedia Britannica))</ref> The German ''[[Anschluss]]'' of Austria in 1938 and the [[German occupation of Czechoslovakia|dismemberment of Czechoslovakia]] (1938–1939) demonstrated the impossibility of establishing a collective security system in Europe,<ref>((cite journal |first=Max |last=Beloff |title=Soviet Foreign Policy, 1929–41: Some Notes |journal=[[Soviet Studies]] |volume=2 |issue=2 |year=1950 |pages=123–137 |doi=10.1080/09668135008409773))</ref> a policy advocated by the Soviet ministry of foreign affairs under [[Maxim Litvinov]].<ref>((cite journal |author-link=Albert Resis |first=Albert |last=Resis |title=The Fall of Litvinov: Harbinger of the German–Soviet Non-Aggression Pact |journal=[[Europe-Asia Studies]] |volume=52 |issue=1 |year=2000 |pages=33–56 |doi=10.1080/09668130098253|s2cid=153557275 ))</ref><ref>((cite journal |first=Teddy J. |last=Uldricks |title=Stalin and Nazi Germany |journal=[[Slavic Review]] |volume=36 |issue=4 |year=1977 |pages=599–603 |doi=10.2307/2495264|jstor=2495264 |s2cid=159765625 |doi-access=free ))</ref> This, as well as the reluctance of the British and French governments to sign a full-scale anti-German political and military alliance with the USSR,<ref name="carley">((cite journal |first=Michael Jabara |last=Carley |title=End of the 'Low, Dishonest Decade': Failure of the Anglo–Franco–Soviet Alliance in 1939 |journal=Europe-Asia Studies |volume=45 |issue=2 |year=1993 |pages=303–341 |doi=10.1080/09668139308412091))</ref> led to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between the Soviet Union and Germany in late August 1939.<ref>((cite journal |first=Derek |last=Watson |title=Molotov's Apprenticeship in Foreign Policy: The Triple Alliance Negotiations in 1939 |journal=Europe-Asia Studies |volume=52 |issue=4 |year=2000 |pages=695–722 |doi=10.1080/713663077|s2cid=144385167 ))</ref> The separate [[Tripartite Pact]] between what became the three prime [[Axis Powers]] would not be signed until some four years after the Anti-Comintern Pact.

==Forces==
((See also|Aufbau Ost (1940)|Lossberg study))
[[File:Europe before Operation Barbarossa, 1941 (in German).png|thumb|upright=1.05|Situation in Europe by May/June 1941, immediately before [[Operation Barbarossa]]]]

The war was fought between Germany, its allies and [[Finland]], against the [[Soviet Union]] and its allies. The conflict began on 22 June 1941 with the [[Operation Barbarossa]] offensive, when [[Axis powers|Axis]] forces crossed the borders described in the [[German–Soviet Nonaggression Pact]], thereby invading the Soviet Union. The war ended on 9 May 1945, when Germany's armed forces [[Unconditional surrender|surrendered unconditionally]] following the [[Battle of Berlin]] (also known as the [[Berlin Offensive]]), a strategic operation executed by the Red Army.

The states that provided forces and other resources for the German war effort included the Axis Powers – primarily Romania, Hungary, Italy, pro-Nazi Slovakia, and Croatia. [[Anti-Soviet]] Finland, which had fought the Winter War against the Soviet Union, also joined the offensive. The ''Wehrmacht'' forces were also assisted by [[anti-Communist]] [[Partisan (military)|partisans]] in places like Western Ukraine, and the Baltic states. Among the most prominent volunteer army formations was the [[Blue Division|Spanish Blue Division]], sent by Spanish dictator Francisco Franco to keep his ties to the Axis intact.<ref name="Payne2011">((cite book|author=Stanley G. Payne|title=The Franco Regime, 1936–1975|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S6Ie_HYgjUwC&pg=PA282|date=27 September 2011|publisher=University of Wisconsin Pres|isbn=978-0-299-11073-4|page=282))</ref>

The Soviet Union offered support to the anti-Axis partisans in many ''Wehrmacht''-occupied countries in Central Europe, notably those [[Slovak National Uprising|in Slovakia]] and [[Polish resistance movement in World War II|Poland]]. In addition, the [[Polish Armed Forces in the East]], particularly the [[First Polish Army (1944–1945)|First]] and [[Polish Second Army|Second]] Polish armies, were armed and trained, and would eventually fight alongside the Red Army. The [[Free French]] forces also contributed to the Red Army by the formation of the [[Normandie-Niemen|GC3]] (''Groupe de Chasse 3'' or 3rd Fighter Group) unit to fulfil the commitment of [[Charles de Gaulle]], leader of the Free French, who thought that it was important for French servicemen to serve on all fronts.

{| class="wikitable"
|+Comparative strengths of combat forces, Eastern Front, 1941–1945<ref>((cite book|last1=Glantz|first1=David M.|last2=House|first2=Jonathan M.|title=When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WS2ArgEACAAJ&pg=PA301|edition=second|series=Modern War Studies|year=2015|publisher=University Press of Kansas|isbn=978-0-7006-2121-7|pages=301–303))</ref>((sfn|Glantz|1998|p=107))((sfn|Glantz|House|1995|p=68))
|-
!style="width: 10%;"|Date
!style="width: 45%;"|Axis forces
!style="width: 45%;"|Soviet forces
|-
|22 June 1941 || 3,050,000 Germans, 67,000 (northern Norway); 500,000 Finns, 150,000 Romanians<br />Total: '''3,767,000''' in the east (80% of the German Army) || 2,680,000 active in Western Military Districts out of '''5,500,000''' (overall); 12,000,000 mobilizable reserves
|-
|7 June 1942 || 2,600,000 Germans, 90,000 (northern Norway); 600,000 Romanians, Hungarians, and Italians<br />Total: '''3,720,000''' in the east (80% of the German Army)|| 5,313,000 (front); 383,000 (hospital)<br />Total: '''9,350,000'''
|-
|9 July 1943 || 3,403,000 Germans, 80,000 (northern Norway); 400,000 Finns, 150,000 Romanians and Hungarians<br />Total: '''3,933,000''' in the east (63% of the German Army)|| 6,724,000 (front); 446,445 (hospital);<br />Total: '''10,300,000'''
|-
|1 May 1944 || 2,460,000 Germans, 60,000 (northern Norway); 300,000 Finns, 550,000 Romanians and Hungarians<br />Total: '''3,370,000''' in the east (62% of the German Army)|| '''6,425,000'''
|-
|1 January 1945 || 2,230,000 Germans, 100,000 Hungarians<br />Total: '''2,330,000''' in the east (60% of the German Army) || '''6,532,000''' (360,000 Poles, Romanians, Bulgarians, and Czechs)
|-
|1 April 1945 || 1,960,000 Germans<br />Total: '''1,960,000''' (66% of the German Army)|| '''6,410,000''' (450,000 Poles, Romanians, Bulgarians, and Czechs)
|}
The above figures includes all personnel in the German Army, i.e. active-duty [[German Army (Wehrmacht)|Heer]], [[Waffen SS]], [[Luftwaffe]] ground forces, personnel of the naval coastal artillery and security units.<ref>((cite conference |last=Glantz |first=David M. |title=The Soviet-German War, 1941–1945: Myths and Realities |conference=Strom Thurmond Institute of Government and Public Affairs, Clemson University |date=11 October 2001 |url=http://sti.clemson.edu/publications-mainmenu-38/commentaries-mainmenu-211/doc_download/189-the-soviet-german-war-1941-1945-myths-and-realities-a-survey-essay |access-date=2 September 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160408141332/http://sti.clemson.edu/publications-mainmenu-38/commentaries-mainmenu-211/doc_download/189-the-soviet-german-war-1941-1945-myths-and-realities-a-survey-essay |archive-date=8 April 2016  ))</ref><ref>((cite web |last=Askey |first=Nigel |title=The Myth of German Superiority on the WW2 Eastern Front |date=30 October 2017 |website=operationbarbarossa.net/ |url=http://www.operationbarbarossa.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Essay-alt-view-TIK-presentation.pdf |quote=For example, my own extensive study of German forces in 1941 (Volume IIA and IIB of 'Operation Barbarossa: the complete Organisational and Statistical Analysis') shows the entire German force on the Eastern Front (up to 4 July 1941) had around 3,359,000 men (page 74, Vol IIB). This includes around 87,600 in the Northern Norway command (Bef. Fin.), and 238,700 in OKH Reserve units (some of which had not yet arrived in the East). It includes all personnel in the German Army (including the security units), Waffen SS, Luftwaffe ground forces and even naval coastal artillery (in the East). This figure compares very well with the figure in the table (around 3,119,000) derived from Earl Ziemke's book (which is used as the Axis source in the chart)))</ref> In the spring of 1940, Germany had mobilised 5,500,000 men.<ref>((cite book |last=Frieser |first=Karl-Heinz |date=1995 |title=Blitzkrieg-Legende: Der Westfeldzug 1940, Operationen des Zweiten Weltkrieges |trans-title=The Blitzkrieg Legend |language=de |location=München |publisher=R. Oldenbourg |page=43))</ref> By the time of the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Wehrmacht consisted of c. 3,800,000 men of the Heer, 1,680,000 of the Luftwaffe, 404,000 of the [[Kriegsmarine]], 150,000 of the Waffen-SS, and 1,200,000 of the Replacement Army (contained 450,400 active reservists, 550,000 new recruits and 204,000 in administrative services, vigiles and or in convalescence). The Wehrmacht had a total strength of 7,234,000 men by 1941. For Operation Barbarossa, Germany mobilised 3,300,000 troops of the Heer, 150,000 of the Waffen-SS<ref>((cite book|last=Muller-Hillebrand|first=Burkhart|title=Das Heer 1933–1945: Entwicklung des organisatorischen Aufbaues. Die Blitzfeldzüge 1939–1941|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EASitwAACAAJ&pg=PA102|volume=2|year=1956|publisher=Mittler & Sohn|page=102))</ref> and approximately 250,000 personnel of the Luftwaffe were actively earmarked.<ref>((cite book|last=Post|first=Walter|title=Unternehmen Barbarossa: deutsche und sowjetische Angriffspläne 1940/41|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6BegAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA249|year=2001|publisher=E.S. Mittler|isbn=978-3-8132-0772-9|page=249))</ref>
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 169-0368, Russland, Panzer III in Steppe.jpg|left|thumb|German soldiers in a Panzer III tank; Kalmyk steppe north of Stalingrad, September 1942]]
By July 1943, the Wehrmacht numbered 6,815,000 troops. Of these, 3,900,000 were deployed in eastern Europe, 180,000 in Finland, 315,000 in Norway, 110,000 in Denmark, 1,370,000 in western Europe, 330,000 in Italy, and 610,000 in the Balkans.<ref>Materialien zum Vortrag des Chefs des Wehrmachtführungsstabes vom 7.11.1943 "Die strategische Lage am Anfang des fünften Kriegsjahres", (referenced to KTB OKW, IV, S. 1534 ff.)</ref> According to a presentation by [[Alfred Jodl]], the Wehrmacht was up to 7,849,000 personnel in April 1944. 3,878,000 were deployed in eastern Europe, 311,000 in Norway/Denmark, 1,873,000 in western Europe, 961,000 in Italy, and 826,000 in the Balkans.<ref>"Strategische Lage im Frühjahr 1944", Jodl, Vortrag 5 May 1944. (referenced to BA-MA, N69/18.)</ref> About 15–20% of total German strength were foreign troops (from allied countries or conquered territories). The German high water mark was just before the [[Battle of Kursk]], in early July 1943: 3,403,000 German troops and 650,000 Finnish, Hungarian, Romanian and other countries' troops.((sfn|Glantz|1998|p=107))((sfn|Glantz|House|1995|p=68))

For nearly two years the border was quiet while Germany conquered Denmark, Norway, [[Battle of France|France, the Low Countries]], and the [[Balkans Campaign (World War II)|Balkans]]. Hitler had always intended to renege on his pact with the Soviet Union, eventually making the decision to invade in the spring of 1941.<ref name=":0" /><ref>((Cite book|last=Weinberg|first=Gerhard L.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rWjtDwAAQBAJ&q=Political+conversations+designed+to+clarify+the+attitude+of+Russia+in+the+immediate+future+have+been+started.+Regardless+of+the+outcome+of+these+conversations,+all+preparations+for+the+East+previously+ordered+orally+are+to+be+continued.+%5BWritten%5D+directives+on+that+will+follow+as+soon+as+the+basic+elements+of+the+army's+plan+for+the+operation+have+been+submitted+to+me+and+approved+by+me.+%E2%80%94Adolf+Hitle&pg=PA199|title=A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II|date=2013-07-11|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-511-25293-8|page=199|language=en))</ref>

Some historians say Stalin was fearful of war with Germany, or just did not expect Germany to start a [[two-front war]], and was reluctant to do anything to provoke Hitler. Others say that Stalin was eager for Germany to be at war with capitalist countries. ((citation needed|date=October 2022)) Another viewpoint is that Stalin expected war in 1942 (the time when all his preparations would be complete) and stubbornly refused to believe it would come early.<ref>((cite book|last=Hardesty|first=Von|title=Red Phoenix: The Rise of Soviet Air Power, 1941–1945|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z-lmAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA16|year=1982|publisher=Smithsonian Institution Press|isbn=978-0-87474-510-8|page=16))</ref>

British historians Alan S. Milward and M. Medlicott show that Nazi Germany—unlike Imperial Germany—was prepared for only a short-term war (Blitzkrieg).<ref>((cite journal |first=A. S. |last=Milward |title=The End of the Blitzkrieg |journal=[[The Economic History Review]] |volume=16 |issue=3 |year=1964 |pages=499–518 |doi=10.1111/j.1468-0289.1964.tb01744.x |doi-broken-date=31 January 2024|jstor=2592851 ))</ref> According to Edward Ericson, although Germany's own resources were sufficient for the victories in the West in 1940, massive Soviet shipments obtained [[German–Soviet Commercial Agreement (1939)|during a short period of Nazi–Soviet economic collaboration]] were critical for Germany to launch Operation Barbarossa.<ref>((cite journal |first=Edward E. III |last=Ericson |title=Karl Schnurre and the Evolution of Nazi–Soviet Relations, 1936–1941 |journal=[[German Studies Review]] |volume=21 |issue=2 |year=1998 |pages=263–283 |jstor=1432205 |doi=10.2307/1432205 ))</ref>

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-219-0595-05, Russland-Mitte-Süd, Infanteristen.jpg|thumb|German infantry in Russia, June 1943]]
Germany had been assembling very large numbers of troops in eastern Poland and making repeated [[reconnaissance]] flights over the border; the Soviet Union responded by assembling its divisions on its western border, although the Soviet mobilisation was slower than Germany's due to the country's less dense road network. As in the [[Sino-Soviet conflict (1929)|Sino-Soviet conflict]] on the [[Chinese Eastern Railway]] or [[Soviet–Japanese Border Wars|Soviet–Japanese border conflicts]], Soviet troops on the western border received a directive, signed by [[Marshal of the Soviet Union|Marshal]] [[Semyon Timoshenko]] and [[Army General (Soviet rank)|General of the Army]] [[Georgy Zhukov]], that ordered (as demanded by Stalin): "do not answer to any provocations" and "do not undertake any (offensive) actions without specific orders"((fact|date=October 2023)) – which meant that Soviet troops could open fire only on their soil and forbade counter-attack on German soil.((fact|date=October 2023)) The German invasion therefore caught the Soviet military and civilian leadership largely by surprise.

The extent of warnings received by Stalin about a German invasion is controversial, and the claim that there was a warning that "Germany will attack on 22 June without declaration of war" has been dismissed as a "popular myth". However, some sources quoted in the articles on Soviet spies [[Richard Sorge]] and [[Willi Lehmann]], say they had sent warnings of an attack on 20 or 22 June, which were treated as "disinformation". The [[Lucy spy ring]] in Switzerland also sent warnings, possibly deriving from Ultra codebreaking in Britain. Sweden had access to internal German communications through breaking the crypto used in the [[Siemens and Halske T52]] crypto machine also known as the Geheimschreiber and informed Stalin about the forthcoming invasion well ahead of June 22, but did not reveal its sources. ((citation needed|date=October 2022))

Soviet intelligence was fooled by German disinformation, so sent false alarms to Moscow about a German invasion in April, May and the beginning of June. Soviet intelligence reported that Germany would rather invade the USSR after the fall of the British Empire<ref>Source: L. E. Reshin, "Year of 1941", vol. 1, p. 508.</ref> or after an unacceptable ultimatum demanding German occupation of Ukraine during the German invasion of Britain.<ref>Source: L. E. Reshin, "Year of 1941", vol. 2, p. 152.</ref>

===Foreign support and measures===
[[Defence of the Reich|A strategic air offensive]] by the [[United States Army Air Force]] and [[Royal Air Force]] played a significant part in damaging German industry and tying up German air force and air defence resources, with some bombings, such as the [[Bombing of Dresden in World War II|bombing of the eastern German city of Dresden]], being done to facilitate specific Soviet operational goals. In addition to Germany, hundreds of thousands of tons of bombs were dropped on their eastern allies of [[Bombing of Romania in World War II|Romania]] and [[Strategic bombing during World War II#Allied bombing statistics 1939–1945|Hungary]], primarily in [[Operation Tidal Wave|an attempt to cripple Romanian oil production]].

British and Commonwealth forces also contributed directly to the fighting on the Eastern Front through their service in the [[Arctic convoys of World War II|Arctic convoys]] and [[No. 151 Wing RAF|training Red Air Force pilots]], as well as in the provision of early material and intelligence support.

{| class="wikitable floatright"
|+Allied shipments to the Soviet Union<ref>Hans-Adolf Jacobsen: ''1939–1945, Der Zweite Weltkrieg in Chronik und Dokumenten''. Darmstadt 1961, p. 568. (German Language)</ref>
|-class="hintergrundfarbe6"
!Year
!Amount<br />(tons)
!%
|-class="hintergrundfarbe2"
|align="left"|1941
|align="right"|360,778
|align="right"|2.1
|-class="hintergrundfarbe2"
|align="left"|1942
|align="right"|2,453,097
|align="right"|14
|-class="hintergrundfarbe2"
|align="left"|1943
|align="right"|4,794,545
|align="right"|27.4
|-class="hintergrundfarbe2"
|align="left"|1944
|align="right"|6,217,622
|align="right"|35.5
|-class="hintergrundfarbe2"
|align="left"|1945
|align="right"|3,673,819
|align="right"|21
|-class="hintergrundfarbe2"
|align="left"|'''Total'''
|align="right"|'''17,499,861'''
|align="right"|'''100'''
|}

====Soviet Union====
Among other goods, Lend-Lease supplied:<ref name="Weeks">((cite book|last=Weeks|first=Albert L.|title=Russia's Life-Saver: Lend-Lease Aid to the U.S.S.R. in World War II|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-BN64vwKSkQC&pg=PA8|year=2004|publisher=Lexington Books|isbn=978-0-7391-6054-1))</ref>((rp|8–9))
* 58% of the USSR's high octane aviation fuel
* 33% of their motor vehicles
* 53% of USSR domestic production of expended ordnance (artillery shells, mines, assorted explosives)
* 30% of fighters and bombers
* 93% of railway equipment (locomotives, freight cars, wide gauge rails, etc.)
* 50–80% of rolled steel, cable, lead, and aluminium
* 43% of garage facilities (building materials and blueprints)
* 12% of tanks and SPGs
* 50% of TNT (1942–1944) and 33% of ammunition powder (in 1944)<ref>[http://www.anews.com/p/67498308/ "Interview with Historian Alexei Isaev"] ((Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170923103208/http://www.anews.com/p/67498308/ |date=23 September 2017 )) (in Russian). "In 1944, we received about one third of the ammunition powder from the Lend-Lease. Almost half of TNT (the main explosive filler for most kinds of ammunition) or raw materials for its production came from abroad in 1942–44."</ref>
* 16% of all explosives (From 1941 to 1945, the USSR produced 505,000 tons of explosives and received 105,000 tons of Lend-Lease imports.)<ref name="ReferenceA">Ivan Ivanovich Vernidub, Boepripasy pobedy, 1998</ref>

Lend-Lease aid of military hardware, components and goods to the Soviet Union constituted to 20% percent of the assistance.<ref name="Weeks"/>((rp|122)) The rest were foodstuff, nonferrous metals (e.g., copper, magnesium, nickel, zinc, lead, tin, aluminium), chemical substances, petroleum (high octane aviation gasoline) and factory machinery. The aid of production-line equipment and machinery were crucial and helped to maintain adequate levels of Soviet armament production during the entire war.<ref name="Weeks"/>((rp|122)) In addition, the USSR received wartime innovations including penicillin, radar, rocket, precision-bombing technology, the long-range navigation system [[LORAN|Loran]], and many other innovations.<ref name="Weeks"/>((rp|123))

Of the 800,000 tons of nonferrous metals shipped,<ref name="Weeks"/>((rp|124)) about 350,000 tons were aluminium.<ref name="Weeks"/>((rp|135)) The shipment of aluminium not only represented double the amount of metal that Germany possessed, but also composed the bulk of aluminium that was used in manufacture of Soviet aircraft, that had fallen in critically short supply.<ref name="Weeks"/>((rp|135)) Soviet statistics show, that without these shipments of aluminium, aircraft production would have been less than one-half (or about 45,000 less) of the total 137,000 produced aircraft.<ref name="Weeks"/>((rp|135))

Stalin noted in 1944, that two-thirds of Soviet heavy industry had been built with the help of the United States, and the remaining one-third, with the help from other Western nations such as Great Britain and Canada.<ref name="Weeks"/>((rp|129)) The massive transfer of equipment and skilled personnel from occupied territories helped further to boost the economic base.<ref name="Weeks"/>((rp|129)) Without Lend-Lease aid, Soviet Union's diminished post invasion economic base would not have produced adequate supplies of weaponry, other than focus on machine tool, foodstuff and consumer goods.((Clarify|date=June 2019))<ref name="Weeks"/>((rp|129))

In the last year of war, Lend-Lease data show that about 5.1&nbsp;million tons of foodstuff left the United States for the Soviet Union.<ref name="Weeks"/>((rp|123)) It is estimated that all the food supplies sent to Russia could feed a 12,000,000-man strong army a half pound of concentrated food per day, for the entire duration of the war.<ref name="Weeks"/>((rp|122–3))

The total Lend-Lease aid provided during the Second World War had been estimated between $42–50&nbsp;billion.<ref name="Weeks"/>((rp|128)) The Soviet Union received shipments in war materials, military equipment and other supplies worth of $12.5&nbsp;billion, about a quarter of the American Lend-Lease aid provided to other Allied countries.<ref name="Weeks"/>((rp|123)) However, post-war negotiations to settle all the debt were never concluded,<ref name="Weeks"/>((rp|133)) and as of date, the debt issues is still on in future American-Russian summits and talks.<ref name="Weeks"/>((rp|133–4))

Prof. Dr. Albert L. Weeks concluded, "As to attempts to sum up the importance of those four-year-long shipments of Lend-Lease for the Russian victory on the Eastern Front in World War II, the jury is still out – that is, in any definitive sense of establishing ''exactly'' how crucial this aid was."<ref name="Weeks"/>((rp|123))

====Nazi Germany====
[[File:World War II in Europe, 1942.svg|thumb|upright=1.35|[[Europe]] at the height of German military expansion, 1942]]
Germany's economic, scientific, research and industrial capabilities were among the most technically advanced in the world at the time. However, access to (and control of) the [[resource]]s, raw materials and production capacity required to entertain long-term goals (such as European control, German territorial expansion and the destruction of the USSR) were limited. Political demands necessitated the expansion of Germany's control of natural and human resources, industrial capacity and farmland beyond its borders (conquered territories). Germany's military production was tied to resources outside its area of control, a dynamic not found amongst the Allies.

During the war, as Germany acquired new territories (either by direct annexation or by installing puppet governments in defeated countries), these new territories were forced to sell raw materials and agricultural products to German buyers at extremely low prices. Overall, [[Vichy France|France]] made the largest contribution to the German war effort. Two-thirds of all French trains in 1941 were used to carry goods to Germany. In 1943–44, French payments to Germany may have risen to as much as 55% of French GDP.<ref>((Cite book|chapter-url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-history-of-the-second-world-war/economics-of-the-war-with-nazi-germany/E2F3FE2B9549A00F2E992673C5C8B28D|chapter=The economics of the war with Nazi Germany|first1=Adam|last1=Tooze|first2=Jamie|last2=Martin|title=The Cambridge History of the Second World War|editor-first1=Adam|editor-last1=Tooze|editor-first2=Michael|editor-last2=Geyer|date=26 October 2015|publisher=Cambridge University Press|volume=3|pages=27–55|doi=10.1017/CHO9781139626859.003|isbn=978-1-139-62685-9))</ref> [[Norway]] lost 20% of its national income in 1940 and 40% in 1943.((sfn|Braun|1990|p=121)) Axis allies such as [[Kingdom of Romania|Romania]] and [[Kingdom of Italy|Italy]], [[Kingdom of Hungary|Hungary]], Finland, [[Independent State of Croatia|Croatia]] and [[Kingdom of Bulgaria|Bulgaria]] benefited from Germany's net imports. Overall, Germany imported 20% of its food and 33% of its raw materials from conquered territories and Axis allies.<ref>((Cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z2932p3/revision/4|title=Employment and living standards - Life in Nazi Germany, 1933-1939 - OCR B - GCSE History Revision - OCR B|website=BBC Bitesize))</ref>

On 27 May 1940, Germany signed the "Oil Pact" with Romania, by which Germany would trade arms for oil. Romania's oil production amounted to approximately 6,000,000 tons annually. This production represents 35% of the total fuel production of the Axis, including synthetic products and substitutes, and 70% of the total production of crude oil.<ref>A History of Romanian Oil, Vol. II, p. 245</ref> In 1941, Germany only had 18% of the oil it had in peacetime. Romania supplied Germany and its allies with roughly 13&nbsp;million barrels of oil (about 4&nbsp;million per year) between 1941 and 1943. Germany's peak oil production in 1944 amounted to about 12&nbsp;million barrels of oil per year.<ref>((Cite web|url=https://peakoil.com/consumption/china-today-is-foreign-oil-dependent-like-germany-in-ww2|title=China today is foreign oil dependent like Germany in WW2 &#124; Peak Oil News and Message Boards|website=peakoil.com))</ref>

Rolf Karlbom estimated that [[Sweden|Swedish]] share of Germany's total consumption of [[iron]] may have amounted to 43% during the period of 1933–43. It may also be likely that "Swedish ore formed the raw material of four out of every ten German guns" during the Hitler era'.<ref>((cite journal|doi=10.1080/03585522.1968.10411499 | volume=16 | title=Swedish iron ore exports to Germany, 1933–44 | year=1968 | journal=Scandinavian Economic History Review | pages=171–175 | last1 = Karlbom | first1 = Rolf| issue=2 | doi-access=free ))</ref>

===Forced labour===
((Main|Forced labour under German rule during World War II))
The use of foreign [[Unfree labour|forced labour]] and slavery in Germany and throughout [[German-occupied Europe]] during World War II took place on an unprecedented scale.<ref>Ulrich Herbert, ''Hitler's Foreign Workers: Enforced Foreign Labour in Germany under the Third Reich'' (1997)</ref> It was a vital part of the [[Economics of fascism#Political economy of Nazi Germany|German economic exploitation]] of conquered territories. It also contributed to the mass extermination of populations in German-occupied Europe. The Germans abducted approximately 12&nbsp;million foreign people from almost twenty European countries; about two-thirds came from Central and Eastern Europe.<ref name=BeyerSchneider>((Cite book |author=John C. Beyer |author2=Stephen A. Schneider |title=Forced Labour under Third Reich |publisher=Nathan Associates )) [http://www.nathaninc.com/sites/default/files/Pub%20PDFs/Forced%20Labor%20Under%20the%20Third%20Reich%2C%20Part%20One.pdf Part1] ((Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150824092603/http://www.nathaninc.com/sites/default/files/Pub%20PDFs/Forced%20Labor%20Under%20the%20Third%20Reich,%20Part%20One.pdf |date=24 August 2015 )) and [http://www.nathaninc.com/sites/default/files/Pub%20PDFs/Forced%20Labor%20Under%20the%20Third%20Reich%2C%20Part%20Two.pdf Part 2] ((Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170403025028/http://www.nathaninc.com/sites/default/files/Pub%20PDFs/Forced%20Labor%20Under%20the%20Third%20Reich%2C%20Part%20Two.pdf |date=3 April 2017 )).</ref> Counting deaths and turnover, about 15&nbsp;million men and women were forced labourers at one point during the war.<ref>((Cite journal |jstor = 30036339|title = Exploitation, Criminality, Resistance. The Everyday Life of Foreign Workers and Prisoners of War in the German Town of Osnabrck, 1939-49|journal = Journal of Contemporary History|volume = 40|issue = 3|pages = 483–502|last1 = Panayi|first1 = Panikos|year = 2005|doi = 10.1177/0022009405054568|s2cid = 159846665))</ref> For example, 1.5&nbsp;million French soldiers were kept in POW camps in Germany as hostages and forced workers and, in 1943, 600,000 French civilians were forced to move to Germany to work in war plants.<ref>Ulrich Herbert, "Forced Laborers in the 'Third Reich'", ''International Labor and Working-Class History'' (1997) ((cite web|url=http://projekte.geschichte.uni-freiburg.de/herbert/uhpub/forcedlaborers.html |title=Forced Laborers in the "Third Reich" - an Overview |access-date=20 May 2008  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080415124110/http://projekte.geschichte.uni-freiburg.de/herbert/uhpub/forcedlaborers.html |archive-date=15 April 2008 ))</ref>

The defeat of Germany in 1945 freed approximately 11&nbsp;million foreigners (categorised as "displaced persons"), most of whom were forced labourers and POWs. In wartime, the German forces had brought into the Reich 6.5&nbsp;million civilians in addition to Soviet POWs for unfree labour in factories.((r|BeyerSchneider)) In all, 5.2&nbsp;million foreign workers and POWs were repatriated to the Soviet Union, 1.6&nbsp;million to Poland, 1.5&nbsp;million to France, and 900,000 to Italy, along with 300,000 to 400,000 each to Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, Hungary, and Belgium.<ref>William I. Hitchcock, ''The Bitter Road to Freedom: The Human Cost of Allied Victory in World War II Europe'' (2008), pp 250–56</ref>

==Conduct of operations==
((Main|Strategic operations of the Red Army in World War II))

[[File:22jun1941.jpg|thumb|A map of the [[Southwestern Front (Soviet Union)|South Western Front (Ukrainian)]] on 22 June 1941.]]
While German historians do not apply any specific periodisation to the conduct of operations on the Eastern Front, all Soviet and Russian historians divide the war against Germany and its allies into three periods, which are further subdivided into eight major [[Military campaign|campaigns]] of the Theatre of war:<ref>((cite AV media |last=Glantz |first=David M. |author-link=David Glantz |title=The Soviet–German War, 1941–1945: Myths and Realities |publisher=[[United States Army War College]] |date=25 March 2010 |via=YouTube |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Clz27nghIg| archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211028/7Clz27nghIg| archive-date=2021-10-28))((cbignore))</ref>
* '''First period''' (((lang-ru|Первый период Великой Отечественной войны))) (22 June 1941 – 18 November 1942)
# Summer–Autumn Campaign of 1941 (((lang-ru|Летне-осенняя кампания 1941 г.))) (22 June – 4 December 1941)
# Winter Campaign of 1941–42 (((lang-ru|Зимняя кампания 1941/42 г.))) (5 December 1941 – 30 April 1942)
# Summer–Autumn Campaign of 1942 (((lang-ru|Летне-осенняя кампания 1942 г.))) (1 May – 18 November 1942)
* '''Second period''' (((lang-ru|Второй период Великой Отечественной войны))) (19 November 1942 – 31 December 1943)
# Winter Campaign of 1942–43 (((lang-ru|Зимняя кампания 1942–1943 гг.))) (19 November 1942 – 3 March 1943)
# Summer–Autumn Campaign of 1943 (((lang-ru|Летне-осенняя кампания 1943 г.))) (1 July – 31 December 1943)
* '''Third period''' (((lang-ru|Третий период Великой Отечественной войны))) (1 January 1944 – 9 May 1945)
# Winter–Spring Campaign (((lang-ru|Зимне-весенняя кампания 1944 г.))) (1 January – 31 May 1944)
# Summer–Autumn Campaign of 1944 (((lang-ru|Летне-осенняя кампания 1944 г.))) (1 June – 31 December 1944)
# Campaign in Europe during 1945 (((lang-ru|Кампания в Европе 1945 г.))) (1 January – 8 May 1945)

===Operation Barbarossa: Summer 1941===
[[File:Eastern Front 1941-06 to 1941-12.png|thumb|[[Operation Barbarossa]]: the German invasion of the [[Soviet Union]], 21 June 1941 to 5 December 1941:
((legend|#fff8d5|to 9 July 1941))
((legend|#ffd2b9|to 1 September 1941))
((legend|#ebd7ff|to 9 September 1941))
((legend|#ccffcd|to 5 December 1941))]]

((Main|Operation Barbarossa))

Operation Barbarossa began just before dawn on 22 June 1941. The Germans cut the wire network in all Soviet western military districts to undermine the Red Army's communications.<ref name="ZHU">((cite book | last =Zhukov | first =Georgy | title =Vospominaniya i razmyshleniya| publisher =Agenstvo pechati Novosti | year = 1972| location = Moscow))</ref> Panicky transmissions from the Soviet front-line units to their command headquarters were picked up like this: "We are being fired upon. What shall we do?" The answer was just as confusing: "You must be insane. And why is your signal not in code?"<ref>((cite book|last=Regan|first=Geoffrey|title=Military Anecdotes|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QJwkAAAACAAJ&pg=PA210|year=1992|publisher=Andre Deutsch|isbn=978-0-233-05077-5|page=210))</ref>

At 03:15 on 22 June 1941, 99 of 190 German divisions, including fourteen [[panzer division]]s and ten motorised, were deployed against the Soviet Union from the Baltic to the Black Sea. They were accompanied by ten Romanian divisions, three Italian divisions, two Slovakian divisions and nine Romanian and four Hungarian [[brigade]]s.<ref>((cite book | editor-last =Zhilin | editor-first =P.A. | title =Velikaya Otechestvennaya voyna| publisher =Izdatelstvo politicheskoi literatury| year = 1973| location = Moscow))</ref> On the same day, the [[Baltic Military District|Baltic]], [[Western Front (Soviet Union)|Western]] and [[Southwestern Front (Soviet Union)|Kiev Special military districts]] were renamed the [[Northwestern Front|Northwestern]], Western and Southwestern Fronts respectively.<ref name="ZHU" />

To establish air supremacy, the ''Luftwaffe'' began immediate attacks on Soviet airfields, destroying much of the forward-deployed Soviet Air Force airfield fleets consisting of largely obsolescent types before their pilots had a chance to leave the ground.<ref>Shirer (1990), p. 852</ref> For a month the offensive conducted on three axes was completely unstoppable as the [[panzer]] forces [[Encirclement|encircled]] hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops in huge pockets that were then reduced by slower-moving [[infantry]] armies while the panzers continued the offensive. Luftwaffe also dropped hundreds of Russian-speaking parachutists behind the offensive lines to bring back information of Soviet troops reserves' disposition.<ref>Helen Fry, "'The Walls Have Ears'", Yale University Press, ISBN 978-0-300-23860-0, 2019, p. 81</ref>

[[Army Group North]]'s objective was [[Saint Petersburg|Leningrad]] via the Baltic states. Comprising the [[16th Army (Wehrmacht)|16th]] and [[18th Army (Wehrmacht)|18th Armies]] and the [[4th Panzer Group]], this formation advanced through the Baltic states, and the Russian [[Pskov Oblast|Pskov]] and [[Novgorod Oblast|Novgorod]] regions. [[Forest brothers|Local insurgents]] seized the moment and controlled most of Lithuania, northern Latvia and [[Estonia in World War II#Summer War|southern Estonia]] prior to the arrival of the German forces.<ref>((cite journal |first1=Riho |last1=Rõngelep |first2=Michael Hesselholt |last2=Clemmesen |title=Tartu in the 1941 Summer War |journal=Baltic Defence Review |date=January 2003 |volume=9 |issue=1 ))</ref><ref name=kaasik>((cite book|author1=Peeter Kaasik |author2=Mika Raudvassar |year=2006|pages=495–517|chapter=Estonia from June to October, 1941: Forest Brothers and Summer War|editor1=Toomas Hiio |editor2=Meelis Maripuu |editor3=Indrek Paavle |title=Estonia 1940–1945: Reports of the Estonian International Commission for the Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity|location=Tallinn|title-link=Estonian International Commission for the Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity ))</ref>

[[Army Group Centre]]'s two panzer groups (the [[2nd Panzer Group|2nd]] and [[3rd Panzer Group|3rd]]), advanced to the north and south of [[Brest-Litovsk]] and converged east of [[Minsk]], followed by the [[2nd Army (Wehrmacht)|2nd]], [[4th Army (Wehrmacht)|4th]], and [[9th Army (Wehrmacht)|9th Armies]]. The combined panzer force reached the [[Berezina river|Beresina River]] in just six days, ((convert|650|km|mi|abbr=on)) from their start lines. The next objective was to cross the [[Dnieper river]], which was accomplished by 11 July. Their next target was [[Smolensk]], which fell on 16 July, but the [[Battle of Smolensk (1941)|fierce Soviet resistance in the Smolensk area]] and slowing of the ''Wehrmacht'' advance by the North and South Army Groups forced Hitler to halt a central thrust at Moscow and to divert the 3rd Panzer Group north. Critically, [[Heinz Guderian|Guderian]]'s 2nd Panzer Group was ordered to move south in a giant pincer manoeuvre with Army Group South which was advancing into Ukraine. Army Group Centre's infantry divisions were left relatively unsupported by armour to continue their slow advance to Moscow.<ref name="wilt">((cite journal |first=Alan F. |last=Wilt |title=Hitler's Late Summer Pause in 1941 |journal=[[The Journal of Military History|Military Affairs]] |volume=45 |issue=4 |pages=187–191 |date=December 1981 |jstor=1987464 |doi=10.2307/1987464))</ref>

[[File:RIAN archive 137811 Children during air raid.jpg|thumb|Soviet children during a German air raid in the first days of the war, June 1941, by [[RIA Novosti]] archive]]

This decision caused a severe leadership crisis. The German field commanders argued for an immediate offensive towards Moscow, but Hitler [[Lötzen decision|over-ruled them]], citing the importance of Ukrainian agricultural, mining and industrial resources, as well as the massing of Soviet reserves in the [[Gomel]] area between Army Group Centre's southern flank and the bogged-down Army Group South's northern flank. This decision, Hitler's "summer pause",<ref name="wilt" /> is believed to have had a severe impact on the outcome of the [[Battle of Moscow]] later in the year, by slowing down the advance on Moscow in favour of encircling large numbers of Soviet troops around Kiev.<ref>((cite journal |first=Russel H. S. |last=Stolfi |title=Barbarossa Revisited: A Critical Reappraisal of the Opening Stages of the Russo–German Campaign (June–December 1941) |journal=[[The Journal of Modern History]] |volume=54 |issue=1 |pages=27–46 |date=March 1982 |jstor=1906049|doi=10.1086/244076 |hdl=10945/44218 |s2cid=143690841 ))</ref>

[[Army Group South]], with the [[1st Panzer Group]], the [[6th Army (Wehrmacht)|6th]], [[11th Army (Wehrmacht)|11th]] and [[17th Army (Wehrmacht)|17th Armies]], was tasked with advancing through [[Galicia (Central Europe)#Second World War and Distrikt Galizien|Galicia]] and into Ukraine. Their progress, however, was rather slow, and they took heavy casualties in the [[Battle of Brody (1941)|Battle of Brody]]. At the beginning of July, the [[Third Army (Romania)|Third]] and [[Fourth Army (Romania)|Fourth]] Romanian Armies, aided by elements of the German 11th Army, fought their way through Bessarabia towards [[Odessa]]. The 1st Panzer Group turned away from Kiev for the moment, advancing into the Dnieper bend (western [[Dnipropetrovsk Oblast]]). When it joined up with the southern elements of Army Group South at [[Uman, Ukraine|Uman]], the Group [[Battle of Uman|captured about 100,000 Soviet prisoners]] in a huge encirclement. Advancing armoured divisions of Army Group South met with Guderian's 2nd Panzer Group near [[Lokhvytsia|Lokhvytsa]] in 16 September, cutting off large numbers of Red Army troops in the pocket east of Kiev.<ref name="wilt" /> 400,000 Soviet prisoners were captured as Kiev was surrendered on 19 September.<ref name="wilt" />

On 26 September, the Soviet forces east of Kiev surrendered and the Battle of Kiev ended.

As the Red Army withdrew behind the Dnieper and [[Daugava River|Dvina]] rivers, the Soviet [[Stavka]] (high command) turned its attention to evacuating as much of the western regions' industry as it could. Factories were dismantled and transported on flatcars away from the [[front line]] for re-establishment in more remote areas of the [[Ural Mountains]], [[Caucasus]], [[Central Asia]] and south-eastern Siberia. Most civilians were left to make their own way east, with only industry-related workers evacuated with the equipment; much of the population was left behind to the mercy of the invading forces.

Stalin ordered the retreating Red Army to initiate a [[scorched-earth policy]] to deny the Germans and their allies basic supplies as they advanced eastward. To carry out that order, [[destruction battalions]] were formed in front-line areas, having the authority to summarily execute any suspicious person. The destruction battalions burned down villages, schools, and public buildings.<ref name=paavle>((cite book|author=[[:et:Indrek Paavle|Indrek Paavle]], Peeter Kaasik|year=2006|pages=469–493|chapter=Destruction battalions in Estonia in 1941|editor=[[:et:Toomas Hiio|Toomas Hiio]] |editor2=Meelis Maripuu |editor3=Indrek Paavle |title=Estonia 1940–1945: Reports of the Estonian International Commission for the Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity|location=Tallinn|title-link=Estonian International Commission for the Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity))</ref> As a part of this policy, the [[NKVD prisoner massacres|NKVD massacred thousands of anti-Soviet prisoners]].<ref name="Social Catastrophe">((cite book|last=Gellately|first=Robert|author-link=Robert Gellately|title=Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z42C6L-fxjUC&pg=PA391|year=2007|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|isbn=978-1-4000-4005-6|page=391))</ref>

===Leningrad, Moscow and Rostov: Autumn 1941===
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1981-149-34A, Russland, Herausziehen eines Autos.jpg|thumb|[[Wehrmacht]] soldiers pulling a car from the mud during the [[rasputitsa]] period, November 1941]]
((Main|Siege of Leningrad|Battle of Moscow|Battle of Rostov (1941)))

Hitler then decided to resume the advance on Moscow, re-designating the panzer groups as panzer armies for the occasion. Operation Typhoon, which was set in motion on 30 September, saw the 2nd Panzer Army rush along the paved road from [[Oryol]] (captured 5 October) to the [[Oka River]] at [[Plavsk]], while the 4th Panzer Army (transferred from Army Group North to Centre) and 3rd Panzer armies surrounded the Soviet forces in two huge pockets at [[Vyazma]] and [[Bryansk]].<ref>((Cite book|title=Second World War|last=Gilbert|first=Martin|author-link=Martin Gilbert|publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson|year=1989|isbn=0-297-79616-X|location=London|pages=[https://archive.org/details/secondworldwar00gilb_0/page/242 242–3]|url=https://archive.org/details/secondworldwar00gilb_0/page/242))</ref> Army Group North positioned itself in front of Leningrad and attempted to cut the rail link at [[Mga]] to the east.<ref>((Cite book|title=Total War|last1=Calvocoressi|first1=Peter|last2=Wint|first2=Guy|publisher=Penguin|year=1972|location=Harmandsworth, England|page=179))</ref> This began the 900-day [[Siege of Leningrad]]. North of the [[Arctic Circle]], a German–Finnish force [[Operation Silver Fox|set out for Murmansk]] but could get no further than the [[Zapadnaya Litsa River]], where they settled down.<ref>((Cite book|title=Hitler's arctic war: the German campaigns in Norway, Finland and the USSR 1940–1945|last=Chris.|first=Mann|date=2002|publisher=Allan|others=Jörgensen, Christer.|isbn=0-7110-2899-0|location=Surrey|oclc=58342844|pages=81–86))</ref>

Army Group South pushed down from the Dnieper to the [[Sea of Azov]] coast, also advancing through [[Kharkov]], [[Kursk]], and [[Stalino]]. The combined German and Romanian forces moved into the [[Crimea]] and took control of all of the [[peninsula]] by autumn (except [[Sevastopol]], which [[Siege of Sevastopol (1941–1942)|held out]] until 3 July 1942). On 21 November, the Wehrmacht [[Battle of Rostov (1941)|took Rostov]], the gateway to the Caucasus. However, the German lines were over-extended and the Soviet defenders counterattacked the 1st Panzer Army's spearhead from the north, forcing them to pull out of the city and behind the [[Mius River]]; the first significant German [[Withdrawal (military)|withdrawal]] of the war.<ref>((Cite book|title=Stopped at Stalingrad|url=https://archive.org/details/stoppedatstaling00hayw|url-access=limited|last=Hayward|first=Joel|publisher=University Press of Kansas|year=1998|isbn=0-7006-1146-0|location=Lawrence, Kansas|pages=[https://archive.org/details/stoppedatstaling00hayw/page/n16 10]–11))</ref><ref>((Cite book|title=History of the Second World War|last=Liddell Hart|first=B. H.|publisher=Cassell|year=1970|isbn=0-330-23770-5|location=London|page=176))</ref>

The onset of the winter freeze saw one last German lunge that opened on 15 November, when the Wehrmacht attempted to encircle Moscow. On 27 November, the 4th Panzer Army got to within ((convert|30|km|mi|abbr=on)) of the [[Moscow Kremlin|Kremlin]] when it reached the last tramstop of the Moscow line at [[Khimki]]. Meanwhile, the 2nd Panzer Army failed to take [[Tula, Russia|Tula]], the last Soviet city that stood in its way to the capital. After a meeting held in [[Orsha]] between the head of the ''OKH'' ([[Oberkommando des Heeres|Army General Staff]]), General [[Franz Halder]] and the heads of three [[Army Group|Army]] groups and armies, decided to push forward to [[Moscow]] since it was better, as argued by the head of [[Army Group Center]], [[Field Marshal]] [[Fedor von Bock]], for them to try their luck on the battlefield rather than just sit and wait while their opponent gathered more strength.<ref>((Cite book|title=Barbarossa|last=Clark|first=Alan|publisher=Cassell|year=1965|isbn=0-304-35864-9|location=London|pages=172–180))</ref>

However, by 6 December it became clear that the ''Wehrmacht'' did not have the strength to capture Moscow, and the attack was suspended. [[Boris Shaposhnikov|Marshal Shaposhnikov]] thus began his [[counter-attack]], employing freshly mobilised [[Military reserve force|reserves]],<ref>((cite journal |first=Louis |last=Rotundo |title=The Creation of Soviet Reserves and the 1941 Campaign |journal=Military Affairs |volume=50 |issue=1 |pages=21–28 |date=January 1986 |jstor=1988530 |doi=10.2307/1988530))</ref> as well as some well-trained Far-Eastern divisions transferred from the east following [[Richard Sorge#Wartime intelligence|intelligence that Japan would remain neutral]].<ref>((Cite book|title=Blood, Tears and Folly|last=Deighton|first=Len|publisher=Pimlico|year=1993|isbn=0-7126-6226-X|location=London|page=479))</ref>

===Soviet counter-offensive: Winter 1941===
[[File:Eastern Front 1941-12 to 1942-05.png|thumb|The Soviet winter counter-offensive, 5 December 1941 to 7 May 1942:((legend|#ffd2b9|Soviet gains)) ((legend|#ccffcd|German gains))]]
((Main|Battle of Moscow|Second Battle of Kharkov|Winter Campaign of 1941–42|Bombing of Gorky in World War II))

The Soviet counter-offensive during the Battle of Moscow had removed the immediate German threat to the city. According to [[Zhukov]], "the success of the December counter-offensive in the central strategic direction was considerable. Having suffered a major defeat the German striking forces of Army Group Centre were retreating." [[Stalin]]'s objective in January 1942 was "to deny the Germans any breathing space, to drive them westward without let-up, to make them use up their reserves before spring comes..."<ref name=GeorgyZhukov>((Cite book |last=Zhukov |first=Georgy |title=Marshal of Victory, Volume II |publisher=Pen and Sword Books Ltd. |year=1974 |isbn=978-1-78159-291-5 |pages=52–53))</ref>

The main blow was to be delivered by a [[Pincer movement|double envelopment]] orchestrated by the Northwestern Front, the [[Kalinin Front]] and the Western Front. The overall objective according to Zhukov was the "subsequent encirclement and destruction of the enemy's main forces in the area of [[Rzhev]], Vyazma and Smolensk. The [[Leningrad Front]], the [[Volkhov Front]] and the right wing forces of the Northwestern Front were to rout the Army Group North." The Southwestern Front and [[Southern Front (Soviet Union)|Southern Front]] were to defeat Army Group South. The [[Caucasian Front (Soviet Union)|Caucasian Front]] and [[Black Sea Fleet]] were to take back the Crimea.<ref name=GeorgyZhukov/>((rp|53))

The 20th Army, part of the [[1st Shock Army|Soviet 1st Shock Army]], the 22nd Tank Brigade and five ski battalions launched their attack on 10 January 1942. By 17 January, the Soviets had captured Lotoshino and Shakhovskaya. By 20 January, the [[5th Combined Arms Army|5th]] and [[33rd Army (Soviet Union)|33rd]] Armies had captured Ruza, Dorokhovo, Mozhaisk and Vereya, while the [[43rd Army (Soviet Union)|43rd]] and [[49th Combined Arms Army#Red Army|49th]] Armies were at Domanovo.<ref name=GeorgyZhukov/>((rp|58–59))

The Wehrmacht rallied, retaining a [[Salients, re-entrants and pockets|salient]] at Rzhev. A Soviet [[Paratrooper|parachute drop]] by two battalions of the 201st Airborne Brigade and the 250th Airborne Regiment on 18 and 22 January was designed to "cut off enemy communications with the rear." Lt.-Gen. [[Mikhail Grigoryevich Yefremov]]'s 33rd Army aided by Gen. Belov's 1st Cavalry Corps and [[Soviet partisans]] attempted to seize Vyazma. This force was joined by additional paratroopers of the 8th Airborne Brigade at the end of January. However, in early February, the Germans managed to cut off this force, separating the Soviets from their main force in the rear of the Germans. They were supplied by air until April when they were given permission to regain the Soviet main lines. Only part of Belov's Cavalry Corps made it to safety however, while Yefremov's men fought "a losing battle."<ref name=GeorgyZhukov/>((rp|59–62))

By April 1942, the Soviet Supreme Command agreed to assume the defensive so as to "consolidate the captured ground." According to Zhukov, ''"During the winter offensive, the forces of the Western Front had advanced from 70 to 100&nbsp;km, which somewhat improved the overall operational and strategic situation on the Western sector."''<ref name=GeorgyZhukov/>((rp|64))

To the north, the Red Army surrounded a German [[garrison]] in [[Demyansk]], which [[Demyansk Pocket|held out with air supply for four months]], and established themselves in front of [[Kholm, Kholmsky District, Novgorod Oblast|Kholm]], [[Velizh]], and [[Velikie Luki]]. Further north still, the [[2nd Shock Army|Soviet 2nd Shock Army]] was unleashed on the [[Volkhov River]]. Initially this made some progress; however, it was unsupported, and by June a German counterattack cut off and destroyed the army. The Soviet commander, Lieutenant General [[Andrey Vlasov]], later defected to Germany and formed the ROA or [[Russian Liberation Army]]. In the south the Red Army lunged over the [[Donets River]] at [[Izyum]] and drove a ((convert|100|km|mi|abbr=on)) deep salient. The intent was to pin Army Group South against the Sea of Azov, but as the winter eased the Wehrmacht counter-attacked and cut off the over-extended Soviet troops in the [[Second Battle of Kharkov]].

===Don, Volga, and Caucasus: Summer 1942===
[[File:Eastern Front 1942-05 to 1942-11.png|thumb|[[Operation Blue]]: German advances from 7 May 1942 to 18 November 1942:
((legend|#fff8d5|to 7 July 1942))
((legend|#ffd2b9|to 22 July 1942))
((legend|#ebd7ff|to 1 August 1942))
((legend|#ccffcd|to 18 November 1942))]]

((Main|Case Blue|Battle of Voronezh (1942)|Battle of Caucasus|Battle of Stalingrad))

Although plans were made to attack Moscow again, on 28 June 1942, the offensive re-opened in a different direction. Army Group South took the initiative, anchoring the front with the [[Battle of Voronezh (1942)|Battle of Voronezh]] and then following the [[Don River, Russia|Don river]] southeastwards. The grand plan was to secure the Don and [[Volga]] first and then drive into the Caucasus towards [[Petroleum industry in Azerbaijan|the oil fields]], but operational considerations and Hitler's vanity made him order both objectives to be attempted simultaneously. Rostov was recaptured on 24 July when the 1st Panzer Army joined in, and then that group drove south towards [[Maykop|Maikop]]. As part of this, Operation Shamil was executed, a plan whereby a group of [[Brandenburger commando]]s dressed up as Soviet [[NKVD]] troops to destabilise Maikop's defences and allow the 1st Panzer Army to enter the oil town with little opposition.

Meanwhile, the 6th Army was driving towards [[Stalingrad]], for a long period unsupported by 4th Panzer Army, which had been diverted to help 1st Panzer Army cross the Don. By the time the 4th Panzer Army had rejoined the Stalingrad offensive Soviet resistance (comprising the 62nd Army under [[Vasily Chuikov]]) had stiffened. A leap across the Don brought German troops to the Volga on 23 August but for the next three months the ''Wehrmacht'' would be fighting the Battle of Stalingrad street-by-street.

Towards the south, the 1st Panzer Army had reached the Caucasian foothills and the [[Malka River]]. At the end of August Romanian mountain troops joined the Caucasian spearhead, while the Romanian 3rd and 4th armies were redeployed from their successful task of clearing the Azov [[littoral]]. They took up position on either side of Stalingrad to free German troops for the main offensive. Mindful of the continuing antagonism between Axis allies Romania and Hungary over [[Transylvania]], the Romanian army in the Don bend was separated from the Hungarian 2nd army by the Italian 8th Army. Thus, all of Hitler's allies were involved – including a [[Slovak Republic (1939–1945)|Slovakian]] contingent with the 1st Panzer Army and a Croatian [[regiment]] attached to 6th Army.

The advance into the Caucasus bogged down, with the Germans unable to fight their way past [[Malgobek]] and to the main prize of [[Grozny]]. Instead, they switched the direction of their advance to approach it from the south, crossing the Malka at the end of October and entering [[North Ossetia–Alania|North Ossetia]] and entered the suburbs of Ordzhonikidze on 2 November.

===Stalingrad: Winter 1942===
((Main|Battle of Stalingrad|Operation Little Saturn|Operation Mars|Third Battle of Kharkov|Battle for Velikiye Luki (1943)))
[[File:Eastern Front 1942-11 to 1943-03.png|thumb|Soviet advances on the Eastern Front, 18 November 1942 to March 1943:
((legend|#fff8d5|to 12 December 1942))
((legend|#ffd2b9|to 18 February 1943))
((legend|#ccffcd|to March 1943 (Soviet gains only)))]]

While the German 6th and 4th Panzer Armies had been fighting their way into Stalingrad, Soviet armies had congregated on either side of the city, specifically into the Don [[bridgehead]]s, and it was from these that they struck in November 1942. [[Operation Uranus]] started on 19 November. Two Soviet fronts punched through the Romanian lines and converged at [[Kalach-na-Donu|Kalach]] on 23 November, trapping 300,000 Axis troops behind them.<ref>Shirer (1990), p.925–926</ref> A simultaneous offensive on the Rzhev sector known as [[Operation Mars]] was supposed to advance to Smolensk, but was a costly failure, with German tactical defences preventing any breakthrough.

The Germans rushed to transfer troops to the Soviet Union in a desperate attempt to relieve Stalingrad, but the offensive could not get going until 12 December, by which time the 6th Army in Stalingrad was starving and too weak to break out towards it. [[Operation Wintergewitter|Operation Winter Storm]], with three transferred panzer divisions, got going briskly from [[Kotelnikovo]] towards the Aksai river but became bogged down ((convert|65|km|mi|abbr=on)) short of its goal. To divert the rescue attempt, the Red Army decided to smash the Italians and come down behind the relief attempt if they could; that operation starting on 16 December. What it did accomplish was to destroy many of the aircraft that had been transporting relief supplies to Stalingrad. The fairly limited scope of the Soviet offensive, although still eventually targeted on Rostov, also allowed Hitler time to see sense and pull Army Group A out of the Caucasus and back over the Don.<ref>Shirer (1990), p.927–928</ref>

On 31 January 1943, the 90,000 survivors of the 300,000-man 6th Army surrendered. By that time the Hungarian 2nd Army had also been wiped out. The Red Army advanced from the Don ((convert|500|km|mi|abbr=on)) to the west of Stalingrad, marching through Kursk (retaken on 8 February 1943) and Kharkov (retaken 16 February 1943). To save the position in the south, the Germans decided to abandon the Rzhev salient in February, freeing enough troops to make a successful [[riposte]] in eastern Ukraine. [[Erich von Manstein|Manstein]]'s counteroffensive, strengthened by a specially trained [[II SS Panzer Corps|SS Panzer Corps]] equipped with [[Tiger I|Tiger tanks]], opened on 20 February 1943 and fought its way from [[Poltava]] [[Third Battle of Kharkov|back into Kharkov]] in the third week of March, when the spring thaw intervened. This left a glaring Soviet bulge in the front centered on Kursk.

===Kursk: Summer 1943===
((Main|Battle of Kursk))

[[File:Eastern Front 1943-02 to 1943-08.png|thumb|German advances at [[Third Battle of Kharkov|Kharkov]] and [[Battle of Kursk|Kursk]], 19 February 1943 to 1 August 1943:
((legend|#ffd2b9|to 18 March 1943))
((legend|#ccffcd|to 1 August 1943))]]

After the failure of the attempt to capture Stalingrad, Hitler had delegated planning authority for the upcoming campaign season to the [[German Army High Command]] and reinstated Heinz Guderian to a prominent role, this time as Inspector of Panzer Troops. Debate among the General Staff was polarised, with even Hitler nervous about any attempt to pinch off the Kursk salient. He knew that in the intervening six months the Soviet position at Kursk had been reinforced heavily with [[anti-tank]] guns, [[tank trap]]s, [[land mine|landmines]], [[barbed wire]], [[trench warfare|trenches]], [[Bunker#Pillbox|pillboxes]], [[artillery]] and [[Mortar (weapon)|mortars]].<ref name="Mastny 1365–1388">((cite journal
 | last =Mastny
 | first =Vojtech
 | author-link =Vojtech Mastny (historian)
 | title =Stalin and the Prospects of a Separate Peace in World War II
 | journal =[[The American Historical Review]]
 | volume =77
 | issue =5
 | pages =[https://archive.org/details/MastnystalinAndProspectsOfSeparatePeaceInWorld/page/n0 1365]–1388
 | date =December 1972
 | url =https://archive.org/details/MastnystalinAndProspectsOfSeparatePeaceInWorld
 | jstor =1861311
 | doi =10.2307/1861311
 ))</ref>

However, if one last great ''blitzkrieg'' offensive could be mounted, then attention could then be turned to the Allied threat to the [[Western Front (World War II)|Western Front]]. Certainly, the peace negotiations in April had gone nowhere.<ref name="Mastny 1365–1388"/> The advance would be executed from the Orel salient to the north of Kursk and from [[Belgorod]] to the south. Both wings would converge on the area east of Kursk, and by that means restore the lines of Army Group South to the exact points that it held over the winter of 1941–1942.

In the north, the entire German 9th Army had been redeployed from the Rzhev salient into the Orel salient and was to advance from Maloarkhangelsk to Kursk. But its forces could not even get past the first objective at [[Olkhovatka]], just ((convert|8|km|mi|abbr=on)) into the advance. The 9th Army blunted its spearhead against the Soviet minefields, frustratingly so considering that the high ground there was the only natural barrier between them and flat tank country all the way to Kursk. The direction of advance was then switched to [[Ponyri]], to the west of Olkhovatka, but the 9th Army could not break through here either and went over to the defensive. The Red Army then launched a counter-offensive, [[Operation Kutuzov]].

On 12 July, the Red Army battled through the demarcation line between the 211th and 293rd divisions on the [[Zhizdra River]] and steamed towards [[Karachev]], right behind them and behind Orel. The southern offensive, spearheaded by [[German 4th Panzer Army|4th Panzer Army]], led by Gen. Col. [[Hermann Hoth|Hoth]], with three Tank Corps made more headway. Advancing on either side of the upper Donets on a narrow corridor, the II SS Panzer Corps and the [[Grossdeutschland Division|Großdeutschland Panzergrenadier divisions]] battled their way through minefields and over comparatively high ground towards [[Oboyan]]. Stiff resistance caused a change of direction from east to west of the front, but the tanks got ((convert|25|km|mi|abbr=on)) before encountering the reserves of the [[Soviet 5th Guards Tank Army]] outside [[Battle of Prokhorovka|Prokhorovka]]. Battle was joined on 12 July, with about one thousand tanks being engaged.

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101III-Merz-014-12A, Russland, Beginn Unternehmen Zitadelle, Panzer.jpg|thumb|The [[Battle of Prokhorovka]] was one of the largest tank battles ever fought. It was part of the wider [[Battle of Kursk]].|alt=]]

After the war, the battle near Prochorovka was idealised by Soviet [[historian]]s as the largest tank battle of all time. The [[meeting engagement]] at Prochorovka was a Soviet defensive success, albeit at heavy cost. The Soviet 5th Guards Tank Army, with about 800 light and medium tanks, attacked elements of the II SS Panzer Corps. Tank losses on both sides have been the source of controversy ever since. Although the 5th Guards Tank Army did not attain its objectives, the German advance had been halted.

At the end of the day both sides had fought each other to a standstill, but regardless of the German failure in the north Manstein proposed he continue the attack with the 4th Panzer Army. The Red Army started the strong offensive operation in the northern Orel salient and achieved a breakthrough on the flank of the German 9th Army. Also worried by the Allies' [[Operation Husky|landing in Sicily]] on 10 July, Hitler made the decision to halt the offensive even as the German 9th Army was rapidly giving ground in the north. The Germans' final strategic offensive in the Soviet Union ended with their defence against a major Soviet counteroffensive that lasted into August.

The Kursk offensive was the last on the scale of 1940 and 1941 that the ''Wehrmacht'' was able to launch; subsequent offensives would represent only a shadow of previous German offensive might.

===Autumn and winter 1943–44===
((Main|Battle of the Korsun–Cherkassy Pocket|Battle of Smolensk (1943)|Lower Dnieper Offensive|Dnieper-Carpathian Offensive|Leningrad–Novgorod Offensive|Battle of Narva (1944)))
[[File:BM 13 TBiU 7.jpg|thumb|upright|Loading a Soviet "[[Katyusha rocket launcher|Katyusha]]" rocket launcher]]

The Soviet multi-stage summer offensive started with the advance into the Orel salient. The diversion of the well-equipped ''Großdeutschland Division'' from Belgorod to Karachev could not counteract it, and the Wehrmacht began a withdrawal from Orel (retaken by the Red Army on 5 August 1943), falling back to the Hagen line in front of Bryansk. To the south, the Red Army broke through Army Group South's Belgorod positions and headed for Kharkov once again. Although intense battles of movement throughout late July and into August 1943 saw the Tigers blunting Soviet tank attacks on one axis, they were soon outflanked on another line to the west as the Soviet forces advanced down the [[Olshanka|Psel]], and Kharkov was abandoned for the final time on 22 August.

The German forces on the [[Mius]], now comprising the 1st Panzer Army and a reconstituted 6th Army, were by August too weak to repulse a Soviet attack on their own front, and when the Red Army hit them they retreated all the way through the [[Donbas]] industrial region to the Dnieper, losing half the farmland that Germany had invaded the Soviet Union to exploit. At this time Hitler agreed to a general withdrawal to the Dnieper line, along which was meant to be the ''Ostwall'', a line of defence similar to the [[Westwall#Reactivation of the Siegfried Line, 1944|Westwall]] (Siegfried Line) of fortifications along the German frontier in the west.

The main problem for the Wehrmacht was that these defences had not yet been built; by the time Army Group South had evacuated eastern Ukraine and begun withdrawing across the Dnieper during September, the Soviet forces were hard behind them. Tenaciously, small units paddled their way across the ((convert|3|km|mi|abbr=on)) wide river and established bridgeheads. A second attempt by the Red Army to gain land using parachutists, mounted at [[Kaniv]] on 24 September, proved as disappointing as at Dorogobuzh eighteen months previously. The paratroopers were soon repelled – but not until still more Red Army troops had used the cover they provided to get themselves over the Dnieper and securely dug in.

As September ended and October started, the Germans found the Dnieper line impossible to hold as the Soviet bridgeheads grew. Important Dnieper towns started to fall, with [[Zaporozhye]] the first to go, followed by [[Dnepropetrovsk]]. Finally, early in November the Red Army broke out of its bridgeheads on either side of Kiev and captured the Ukrainian capital, at that time the third largest city in the Soviet Union.

((convert|80|mi|km|round=10|order=flip)) west of Kiev, the 4th Panzer Army, still convinced that the Red Army was a spent force, was able to mount a successful riposte at [[Zhytomyr]] during the middle of November, weakening the Soviet bridgehead by a daring outflanking strike mounted by the SS Panzer Corps along the river Teterev. This battle also enabled Army Group South to recapture Korosten and gain some time to rest. However, on [[Christmas Eve]] the retreat began anew when the First Ukrainian Front (renamed from the Voronezh Front) struck them in the same place. The Soviet advance continued along the railway line until the 1939 Polish–Soviet border was reached on 3 January 1944.

[[File:Eastern Front 1943-08 to 1944-12.png|thumb|Soviet advances from 1 August 1943 to 31 December 1944: ((legend|#fff8d5|to 1 December 1943)) ((legend|#ffd2b9|to 30 April 1944)) ((legend|#ebd7ff|to 19 August 1944)) ((legend|#ccffcd|to 31 December 1944))]]

To the south, the Second Ukrainian Front (ex [[Steppe Front]]) had crossed the Dnieper at [[Kremenchug]] and continued westwards. In the second week of January 1944 they swung north, meeting Vatutin's tank forces which had swung south from their penetration into Poland and surrounding ten German divisions at Korsun–Shevchenkovsky, west of [[Korsun–Shevchenkovsky Offensive|Cherkassy]]. Hitler's insistence on holding the Dnieper line, even when facing the prospect of catastrophic defeat, was compounded by his conviction that the Cherkassy pocket could break out and even advance to Kiev, but Manstein was more concerned about being able to advance to the edge of the pocket and then implore the surrounded forces to break out.

By 16 February the first stage was complete, with panzers separated from the contracting Cherkassy pocket only by the swollen Gniloy Tikich river. Under shellfire and pursued by Soviet tanks, the surrounded German troops, among whom were the [[SS Division (motorised) Wiking|5th SS Panzer Division ''Wiking'']], fought their way across the river to safety, although at the cost of half their number and all their equipment. They assumed the Red Army would not attack again, with the spring approaching, but on 3 March the Soviet Ukrainian Front went over to the offensive. Having already isolated the Crimea by severing the [[Isthmus of Perekop|Perekop isthmus]], Malinovsky's forces advanced across the mud to the Romanian border, not stopping on the river [[Prut]].

One final move in the south completed the 1943–44 campaigning season, which had wrapped up a Soviet advance of over ((convert|500|mi|km|order=flip)). In March, 20 German divisions of ''[[Generaloberst]]'' [[Hans-Valentin Hube]]'s [[1st Panzer Army]] were encircled in what was to be known as [[Kamenets-Podolsky pocket|Hube's Pocket]] near Kamenets-Podolskiy. After two weeks' of heavy fighting, the 1st Panzer managed to escape the pocket, at the cost of losing almost the entire heavy equipment. At this point, Hitler sacked several prominent generals, Manstein included. In April, the Red Army took back Odessa, followed by 4th Ukrainian Front's campaign to restore control over the Crimea, which culminated in the capture of Sevastopol on 10 May.

Along Army Group Centre's front, August 1943 saw this force pushed back from the Hagen line slowly, ceding comparatively little territory, but the loss of Bryansk, and more importantly Smolensk, on 25 September cost the ''Wehrmacht'' the keystone of the entire German defensive system. The 4th and 9th armies and 3rd Panzer Army still held their own east of the upper Dnieper, stifling Soviet attempts to reach Vitebsk. On Army Group North's front, there was barely any fighting at all until January 1944, when out of nowhere Volkhov and Second Baltic Fronts struck.<ref name="glantz"/>

In a lightning campaign, the Germans were pushed back from Leningrad and [[Novgorod]] was captured by Soviet forces. After a ((convert|75|mi|km|order=flip|adj=on|round=10)) advance in January and February, the Leningrad Front had reached the borders of Estonia. To Stalin, the Baltic Sea seemed the quickest way to take the battles to the German territory in [[East Prussia]] and seize control of Finland.<ref name="glantz">((cite book|last=Glantz|first=David M.|author-link=David Glantz|title=The Battle for Leningrad: 1941–1944|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4uRmAAAAMAAJ&pg=PP1|year=2002|publisher=University Press of Kansas|isbn=978-0-7006-1208-6))</ref> The Leningrad Front's [[Battle of Narva (1944)|offensives towards Tallinn]], a main [[Baltic sea|Baltic]] port, were stopped in February 1944. The German army group "Narwa" included [[20 SS|Estonian conscripts]], defending the [[National Committee of the Republic of Estonia|re-establishment of Estonian independence]].<ref>((cite book|title=The Bulletin of International News|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V4siAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA825|year=1944|publisher=Royal Institute of International Affairs. Information Department.|page=825|chapter=Estonia))</ref><ref name="vm">((cite web|title=The Otto Tief government and the fall of Tallinn|publisher=Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs|date=22 September 2006|url=http://www.tbilisi.vm.ee/estonia/history/aid-503|access-date=2 September 2016|archive-date=6 March 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190306235141/https://www.tbilisi.vm.ee/estonia/history/aid-503))</ref>

===Summer 1944===
((Main|Crimean Offensive (1944)|Operation Bagration|Lvov–Sandomierz Offensive|Battle of Tannenberg Line|Warsaw Uprising|Slovak National Uprising|Battle of Romania (1944)|Battle of Debrecen|Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive))
[[File:19440712 soviet and ak soldiers vilnius.jpg|thumb|Soviet and Polish [[Armia Krajowa]] soldiers [[Vilnius Offensive|in Vilnius]], July 1944]]

''Wehrmacht'' planners were convinced that the Red Army would attack again in the south, where the front was ((convert|50|mi|km|order=flip)) from [[Lviv]] and offered the most direct route to [[Berlin]]. Accordingly, they stripped troops from Army Group Centre, whose front still protruded deep into the Soviet Union. The Germans had transferred some units to France to counter the [[invasion of Normandy]] two weeks before. The Belorussian Offensive (codenamed [[Operation Bagration]]), which was agreed upon by Allies at the [[Tehran Conference]] in December 1943 and launched on 22 June 1944, was a massive Soviet attack, consisting of four Soviet army groups totalling over 120 divisions that smashed into a thinly held German line.

They focused their massive attacks on Army Group Centre, not Army Group North Ukraine as the Germans had originally expected. More than 2.3&nbsp;million Soviet troops went into action against German Army Group Centre, which had a strength of fewer than 800,000 men. At the points of attack, the numerical and quality advantages of the Soviet forces were overwhelming. The Red Army achieved a ratio of ten to one in tanks and seven to one in aircraft over their enemy. The Germans crumbled. The capital of [[Belarus]], Minsk, was taken on 3 July, trapping some 100,000 Germans. Ten days later the Red Army reached the prewar Polish border. ''Bagration'' was, by any measure, one of the largest single operations of the war.

By the end of August 1944, it had cost the Germans ~400,000 dead, wounded, missing and sick, from whom 160,000 were captured, as well as 2,000 tanks and 57,000 other vehicles. In the operation, the Red Army lost ~180,000 dead and missing (765,815 in total, including wounded and sick plus 5,073 Poles),<ref name=autogenerated3>((cite book|last=Krivosheev|first=G. F.|author-link=Grigori F. Krivosheev|title=Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CTTfAAAAMAAJ&pg=PP1|year=1997|publisher=Greenhill Books|isbn=978-1-85367-280-4))</ref> as well as 2,957 tanks and assault guns. The offensive at Estonia claimed another 480,000 Soviet soldiers, 100,000 of them classed as dead.<ref name="laar">((cite book|first=Mart |last=Laar|title=Sinimäed 1944: II maailmasõja lahingud Kirde-Eestis |trans-title=Sinimäed Hills 1944: Battles of World War II in Northeast Estonia |publisher=Varrak |location=Tallinn |year= 2006|language=et))</ref><ref name="baxter">((cite book|last=Baxter|first=Ian|title=Battle in the Baltics, 1944–45: The Fighting for Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia: a Photographic History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8Nb6PQAACAAJ&pg=PP1|year=2009|publisher=Helion|isbn=978-1-906033-33-0))</ref>

The neighbouring [[Lvov–Sandomierz Offensive|Lvov–Sandomierz operation]] was launched on 17 July 1944, with the Red Army routing the German forces in Western Ukraine and retaking Lviv. The Soviet advance in the south continued into [[Battle of Romania (1944)|Romania]] and, following a coup against the Axis-allied government of Romania on 23 August, the Red Army occupied [[Bucharest]] on 31 August. Romania and the Soviet Union signed an [[armistice]] on 12 September.<ref>((cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article47701316 |title=Armistice Agreement Signed |newspaper=[[Army (newspaper)|Army News]] |location=Northern Territory, Australia |date=14 September 1944 |access-date=15 April 2020 |page=1 |via=Trove ))</ref><ref>((cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article47701380 |title=Terms Of Rumanian Armistice Announced |newspaper=[[Army (newspaper)|Army News]] |location=Northern Territory, Australia |date=15 September 1944 |access-date=15 April 2020 |page=1 |via=Trove ))</ref>

[[File:19440816 soviet soldiers attack jelgava.jpg|thumb|Soviet soldiers advance through the streets of [[Jelgava]], [[Latvia]], mid-1944.]]
The rapid progress of Operation Bagration threatened to cut off and isolate the German units of Army Group North bitterly resisting the Soviet advance towards [[Tallinn]]. Despite a ferocious [[Battle of Tannenberg Line|attack at the Sinimäed Hills]], Estonia, the Soviet Leningrad Front failed to break through the defence of the smaller, well-fortified [[Battle of Narva (1944)#Formation of Army Detachment "Narwa"|army detachment "Narwa"]] in [[Battle of Narva (1944)#Terrain|terrain not suitable for large-scale operations]].<ref name="white">((cite book |author=Estonian State Commission on Examination of Policies of Repression |editor-first=Vello |editor-last=Salo |title=The White Book: Losses inflicted on the Estonian nation by occupation regimes, 1940–1991 |publisher=Estonian Encyclopedia Publishers |year=2005 |isbn=9985-70-195-X |page=19 |url=http://www.riigikogu.ee/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/TheWhiteBook.pdf))</ref><ref name="hiio">((cite book|last=Hiio|first=Toomas |chapter=Combat in Estonia in 1944 |editor-first1=Toomas |editor-last1=Hiio |editor-first2=Meelis |editor-last2=Maripuu |editor-first3=Indrek |editor-last3=Paavle |title=Estonia, 1940–1945: Reports of the Estonian International Commission for the Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n6o-AQAAIAAJ&pg=PP1|year=2006|publisher=Estonian Foundation for the Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity|location=Tallinn|isbn=978-9949-13-040-5))</ref>

On the [[Karelian Isthmus]], the Red Army launched a [[Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive]] against the Finnish lines on 9 June 1944 (coordinated with the Western Allied Invasion of Normandy). Three armies were pitted there against the Finns, among them several experienced guards rifle formations. The attack breached the Finnish front line of defence in Valkeasaari on 10 June and the Finnish forces retreated to their secondary defence line, the [[VT-line]]. The Soviet attack was supported by a heavy artillery barrage, air bombardments and armoured forces. The VT-line was breached on 14 June and after a failed counterattack in Kuuterselkä by the Finnish armoured division, the Finnish defence had to be pulled back to the [[VKT-line]]. After heavy fighting in the battles of [[Battle of Tali-Ihantala|Tali-Ihantala]] and [[Battle of Ilomantsi|Ilomantsi]], Finnish troops finally managed to halt the Soviet attack.((Citation needed|date=May 2010))

In Poland, as the Red Army approached, the [[Polish Home Army]] (AK) launched [[Operation Tempest]]. During the [[Warsaw Uprising]], the Red Army were ordered to halt at the [[Vistula River]]. Whether Stalin was unable or unwilling to come to the aid of the Polish resistance is disputed.<ref name="Nowak">((cite journal | author =Jan Nowak-Jeziorański | date =31 July 1993 | title =Białe plamy wokół Powstania | journal =[[Gazeta Wyborcza]] | issue =177 | page =13 | url =http://szukaj.gazeta.pl/archiwum/1,0,130276.html?kdl=19930731GW&wyr=Nowak-Jeziora%25F1ski%2B | access-date =14 May 2007 | language =pl | author-link =Jan Nowak-Jeziorański ))((Dead link|date=March 2022 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes ))</ref>

In Slovakia, the Slovak National Uprising started as an armed struggle between German ''Wehrmacht'' forces and rebel Slovak troops between August and October 1944. It was centered at [[Banská Bystrica]].<ref>((cite web |last1=Czarnecka |first1=Daria |title=The Slovak National Uprising |url=https://enrs.eu/article/the-slovak-national-uprising |website=ENRS |access-date=18 July 2023))</ref>

===Autumn 1944===
((Main|Baltic Offensive (1944)|Belgrade Offensive|Budapest Offensive))
In the Autumn of 1944, the Soviets paused their offensive towards Berlin to first gain control over the Balkans.

On 8 September 1944 the Red Army began an attack on the [[Battle of the Dukla Pass|Dukla Pass]] on the Slovak–Polish border. Two months later, the Soviet forces won the battle and entered Slovakia. The toll was high: 20,000 Red Army soldiers died, plus several thousand Germans, Slovaks and Czechs.

Under the pressure of the Soviet [[Baltic Offensive (1944)|Baltic Offensive]], the German Army Group North [[Tallinn Offensive|were withdrawn]] to fight in the sieges of [[Moonzund Landing Operation|Saaremaa]], [[Courland Pocket|Courland]] and [[Battle of Memel|Memel]].

===January–March 1945===
((Main|Vistula–Oder Offensive|East Pomeranian Offensive|Silesian Offensives|East Prussian Offensive|Vienna Offensive))
[[File:Eastern Front 1945-01 to 1945-05.png|thumb|left|Soviet advances from 1 January 1945 to 11 May 1945: ((legend|#ffd2b9|to 30 March 1945)) ((legend|#ccffcd|to 11 May 1945))]]

The Soviet Union finally entered [[Warsaw]] on 17 January 1945, after the city was destroyed and abandoned by the Germans. Over three days, on a broad front incorporating four army [[Front (Soviet Army)|fronts]], the Red Army launched the [[Vistula–Oder Offensive]] across the Narew River and from Warsaw. The Soviets outnumbered the Germans on average by 5–6:1 in troops, 6:1 in artillery, 6:1 in tanks and 4:1 in [[self-propelled artillery]]. After four days the Red Army broke out and started moving thirty to forty kilometres a day, taking the Baltic states, [[Danzig]], East Prussia, [[Poznań]], and drawing up on a line sixty kilometres east of Berlin along the River [[Oder]]. During the full course of the Vistula–Oder operation (23 days), the Red Army forces sustained 194,191 total casualties (killed, wounded and missing) and lost 1,267 tanks and assault guns.

On 25 January 1945, Hitler renamed three army groups. Army Group North became [[Army Group Courland]]; Army Group Centre became Army Group North and [[Army Group A]] became Army Group Centre. Army Group North (old Army Group Centre) was driven into an ever-smaller pocket around [[Königsberg]] in East Prussia.

A limited counter-attack (codenamed [[Operation Solstice]]) by the newly created [[Army Group Vistula]], under the command of ((lang|de|[[Reichsführer-SS]])) Heinrich Himmler, had failed by 24 February, and the Red Army drove on to [[Pomerania]] and cleared the right bank of the Oder River. In the south, the German attempts, in [[Operation Konrad]], to relieve the encircled garrison at [[Budapest]] failed and the city fell on 13 February. On 6 March, the Germans launched what would be their final major offensive of the war, [[Operation Spring Awakening]], which failed by 16 March. On 30 March the Red Army entered [[Austria]] and captured [[Vienna]] on 13 April.

The OKW - Oberkommando der Wehrmacht or High Command of the German Army - claimed German losses of 77,000 killed, 334,000 wounded and 192,000 missing, with a total of 603,000 men, on the Eastern Front during January and February 1945.<ref>((cite book|last=Hastings|first=Max|title=Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944–45|page=260|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uKmeiZmEXJoC&pg=PP1|year=2005|publisher=Vintage Books|isbn=978-0-375-71422-1))</ref>

On 9 April 1945, Königsberg in East Prussia finally fell to the Red Army, although the shattered remnants of Army Group Centre continued to resist on the [[Vistula Spit]] and [[Hel Peninsula]] until the end of the war in Europe. The [[East Prussian Offensive|East Prussian operation]], though often overshadowed by the Vistula–Oder operation and the later battle for Berlin, was in fact one of the largest and costliest operations fought by the Red Army throughout the war. During the period it lasted (13 January – 25 April), it cost the Red Army 584,788 casualties, and 3,525 tanks and assault guns.

The fall of Königsberg allowed Stavka to free up General [[Konstantin Rokossovsky]]'s [[2nd Belorussian Front]] (2BF) to move west to the east bank of the Oder. During the first two weeks of April, the Red Army performed their fastest front redeployment of the war. General Georgy Zhukov concentrated his [[1st Belorussian Front]] (1BF), which had been deployed along the Oder river from [[Frankfurt an der Oder|Frankfurt]] in the south to the Baltic, into an area in front of the [[Seelow Heights]]. The 2BF moved into the positions being vacated by the 1BF north of the Seelow Heights. While this redeployment was in progress, gaps were left in the lines and the remnants of the German 2nd Army, which had been bottled up in a pocket near Danzig, managed to escape across the Oder. To the south General [[Ivan Konev]] shifted the main weight of the [[1st Ukrainian Front]] (1UF) out of [[Upper Silesia]] north-west to the [[Neisse]] River.<ref name=Ziemke71>Ziemke, ''Berlin'', see [[#References|References]] page 71</ref> The three Soviet fronts had altogether some 2.5&nbsp;million men (including 78,556 soldiers of the 1st Polish Army); 6,250 tanks; 7,500 aircraft; 41,600 artillery pieces and mortars; 3,255 [[truck]]-mounted [[Katyusha rocket launcher|Katyusha]] [[rocket launcher]]s, (nicknamed "Stalin Organs"); and 95,383 motor vehicles, many of which were manufactured in the United States.<ref name=Ziemke71 />

===End of the war: April–May 1945===
((Main|Battle of Berlin|Battle of Halbe|Prague Offensive))
[[File:Za pobedu nad germaniej.jpg|thumb|upright=0.5|14,933,000 Soviet and Soviet-allied personnel were awarded the [[Medal For the Victory Over Germany|Medal for Victory over Germany]].]]
[[File:Soviet Znamya Pobedy.svg|thumb|upright|A flag of the [[150th Rifle Division (Soviet Union)|Soviet 150th Rifle Division]] raised over the Reichstag (the [[Victory Banner]])]]

The Soviet offensive had two objectives. Because of Stalin's suspicions about the intentions of the [[Allies of World War II|Western Allies]] to hand over territory occupied by them in the post-war Soviet [[sphere of influence]], the offensive was to be on a broad front and was to move as rapidly as possible to the west, to meet the Western Allies as far west as possible. But the over-riding objective was to capture Berlin. The two were complementary because possession of the zone could not be won quickly unless Berlin was taken. Another consideration was that Berlin itself held strategic assets, including Adolf Hitler and part of the [[German nuclear energy project|German atomic bomb]] program.<ref>Beevor, ''Berlin'', see [[#References|References]] Page 138</ref>

The offensive to capture central Germany and Berlin started on 16 April with an assault on the [[Battle of the Oder–Neisse|German front lines on the Oder and Neisse rivers]]. After several days of heavy fighting the Soviet 1BF and 1UF punched holes through the German front line and were fanning out across central Germany. By 24 April, elements of the 1BF and 1UF had completed the encirclement of the German capital and the Battle of Berlin entered its final stages. On 25 April the 2BF broke through the German 3rd Panzer Army's line south of [[Stettin]]. They were now free to move west towards the [[British 21st Army Group]] and north towards the Baltic port of [[Stralsund]]. The [[58th Guards Rifle Division]] of the [[5th Guards Army]] made contact with the [[US 69th Infantry Division]] of the [[U.S. First Army|First Army]] near [[Torgau]], Germany at the [[Elbe]] river.<ref name="Beevor217-233">Beevor, ''Berlin'', see [[#References|References]] pp. 217–233</ref><ref name=Ziemke81>Ziemke, ''Berlin'', see [[#References|References]] pp. 81–111</ref>

On 29 and 30 April, as the Soviet forces fought their way into the centre of Berlin, Adolf Hitler married [[Eva Braun]] and then [[Hitler's death|committed suicide by taking cyanide and shooting himself]]. In his will, Hitler appointed Grand Admiral [[Karl Dönitz]] as new [[President of Germany (1919–1945)|President of the Reich]] and Propaganda Minister [[Joseph Goebbels]] as new [[Chancellor of the Reich]]; however, Goebbels also committed suicide, along with his wife [[Magda Goebbels|Magda]] and [[Goebbels children|their children]], on 1 May 1945. [[Helmuth Weidling]], defence commandant of Berlin, surrendered the city to the Soviet forces on 2 May.<ref name="Beevor-259">Beevor, ''Berlin'', see [[#References|References]] pp. 259–357, 380–381</ref> Altogether, the Berlin operation (16 April – 2 May) cost the Red Army 361,367 casualties (dead, wounded, missing and sick) and 1,997 tanks and assault guns. German losses in this period of the war remain impossible to determine with any reliability.<ref name="Khrivosheev-219-220">((Harvnb|Krivosheev|1997|pp=219, 220)).</ref>

Upon learning of Hitler and Goebbels's death, Dönitz (now President of the Reich) appointed [[Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk|Johann Ludwig Schwerin von Krosigk]] as new "Leading Minister" of the German Reich.<ref>((Cite book|last=Jones|first=Michael|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Wp9PEAAAQBAJ|title=After Hitler: The Last Ten Days of World War II in Europe|date=2015-10-06|publisher=Penguin|isbn=978-0-451-47701-9|language=en))</ref> Rapidly advancing Allied forces limited the jurisdiction of the new German government to an area around [[Flensburg]] near the [[Denmark|Danish]] border, where Dönitz's headquarters were located, along with [[Mürwik]]. Accordingly, this administration was referred to as the [[Flensburg government]].<ref>((cite news|date=15 May 1945|title=Regime of Doenitz Urges Recognition|volume=94|work=The New York Times|issue=31888|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1945/05/15/archives/regime-of-doenitz-urges-recognition-foreign-minister-predicts-chaos.html))</ref> Dönitz and Schwerin von Krosigk attempted to negotiate an armistice with the Western Allies while continuing to resist the Soviet Army, but were eventually forced to accept an unconditional surrender on all fronts.<ref>((cite news|date=8 May 1945|title=Foreign Minister Bids Reich to Hope; Schwerin von Krosigk Begins Campaign to Regain Freedom for Germany|volume=94|work=The New York Times|issue=31881|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1945/05/08/archives/foreign-minister-bids-reich-to-hope-schwerin-von-krosigk-begins.html))</ref>

At 2:41 am on 7 May 1945, at [[SHAEF]] headquarters, German Chief-of-Staff General Alfred Jodl signed the [[German Instrument of Surrender|unconditional surrender]] documents for all German forces to the Allies at [[Reims]] in France. It included the phrase ''All forces under German control to cease active operations at 2301 hours Central European time on 8 May 1945''. The next day shortly before midnight, Field Marshal [[Wilhelm Keitel]] repeated the signing in Berlin at Zhukov's headquarters, now known as the [[German-Russian Museum]]. [[The end of World War II in Europe|The war in Europe was over]].<ref>((cite book |last1=Ziemke |first1=Earl F. |title=THE U.S. ARMY IN THE OCCUPATION OF GERMANY 1944-1946 |date=1975 |publisher=US Government Printing Office |location=Washington D.C. |page=258 |url=https://history.army.mil/books/wwii/Occ-GY/ |access-date=20 February 2023 |chapter=15))</ref>

In the Soviet Union the end of the war is considered to be 9 May, when the surrender took effect Moscow time. This date is celebrated as a [[Public holiday|national holiday]] – [[Victory Day (Eastern Europe)|Victory Day]] – in [[Russia]] (as part of a two-day 8–9 May holiday) and some other post-Soviet countries. The [[Moscow Victory Parade of 1945|ceremonial Victory parade]] was held in Moscow on 24 June.

The German Army Group Centre initially refused to surrender and continued to [[Prague Offensive|fight in Czechoslovakia]] until about 11 May.<ref name="Ziemke-134">Ziemke, ''Berlin'', [[#References|References]] p. 134</ref> A small German garrison on the Danish island of Bornholm refused to surrender until they were bombed and invaded by the Soviets. The island was returned to the Danish government four months later.

The final battle of the Second World War on the Eastern Front, the Battle of Slivice, broke out on 11 May and ended in a Soviet victory on the 12th.

On 13 May 1945, all Soviet offensives ceased and the fighting on the Eastern Front of World War II came to an end.

===Soviet Far East: August 1945===
((Main|Soviet–Japanese War))
After the German defeat, Stalin promised his allies Truman and Churchill that he would attack the [[Japanese Empire|Japanese]] within 90 days of the German surrender. The [[Soviet invasion of Manchuria]] began on 8 August 1945, with an assault on the Japanese puppet states of [[Manchukuo]] and neighbouring [[Mengjiang]]; the greater offensive would eventually include northern [[Korea]], [[South Sakhalin|southern Sakhalin]], and the [[Kuril Islands]]. Apart from the [[Battles of Khalkhin Gol]], it marked the only military action of the Soviet Union against Imperial Japan; at the [[Yalta Conference]], it had agreed to Allied pleas to terminate the neutrality pact with Japan and enter the Second World War's Pacific theatre within three months after the end of the war in Europe. While not a part of the Eastern Front operations, it is included here because the commanders and much of the forces used by the Red Army came from the European Theatre of operations and benefited from the experience gained there.<ref>((cite journal |first=Raymond L. |last=Garthoff |title=The Soviet Manchurian Campaign, August 1945 |journal=Military Affairs |volume=33 |issue=2 |pages=312–336 |date=October 1969 |jstor=1983926 |doi=10.2307/1983926))</ref>

==Results==
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-E0406-0022-018, Berlin, Siegesfeier der Roten Armee.jpg|thumb|Soviet soldiers celebrating the surrender of the German forces in Berlin, 2 May 1945]]

The Eastern Front was the largest and bloodiest [[Theater (warfare)|theatre]] of World War II. It is generally accepted as being the deadliest conflict in human history, with over 30&nbsp;million killed as a result.<ref name=30m>According to ((harvnb|Krivosheev|1997)), in the Eastern Front, Axis countries and German co-belligerents sustained 1,468,145 irrecoverable losses (668,163 KIA/MIA), Germany itself– 7,181,100 (3,604,800 KIA/MIA), and 579,900 PoWs died in Soviet captivity. So the Axis KIA/MIA amounted to 4.8 million in the East during the period of 1941–1945. This is more than a half of all Axis losses (including the Asia/Pacific theatre). The USSR sustained 10.5 million military losses (including PoWs who died in German captivity, according to Vadim Erlikman. ''Poteri narodonaseleniia v XX veke : spravochnik.'' Moscow 2004. ((ISBN|5-93165-107-1))), so the number of military deaths (the USSR and the Axis) amounted to 15 million, far greater than in all other World War II theatres. According to the same source, total Soviet civilian deaths within post-war borders amounted to 15.7 million. The numbers for other Central European and German civilian casualties are not included here.</ref> The German armed forces suffered 80% of its military deaths in the Eastern Front.<ref>((cite book|last=Duiker|first=William J.|title=Contemporary World History|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Gd0bCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT159|edition=sixth|year=2015|publisher=Cengage Learning|isbn=978-1-285-44790-2|page=138|chapter=The Crisis Deepens: The Outbreak of World War II))</ref> It involved more land combat than all other World War II theatres combined.<ref name=":1" /> The largest military operation in history, [[Operation Barbarossa]], the bloodiest battle in history, [[Battle of Stalingrad|Stalingrad]], the most lethal siege in history, [[Siege of Leningrad|Leningrad]],<ref name=":12">((Cite book |last=Hanson |first=Victor Davis |author-link=Victor Davis Hanson |title=The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won |publisher=Basic Books |year=2020 |isbn=978-1541674103 |edition=Reprint |location=New York |pages=3, 257, 308 |language=en))</ref> and the single largest battle in the history, [[Battle of Kursk|Kursk]], all occurred on the Eastern Front.<ref>((Cite book |last=Frieser |first=Karl-Heinz |author-link=Karl-Heinz Frieser |title=Germany and the Second World War: The Eastern Front 1943–1944: The War in the East and on the Neighbouring Fronts |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2017 |isbn=978-0-19-872346-2 |edition=1st |volume=VIII |location=Oxford |pages=83, 200 |language=en))</ref> The distinctly brutal nature of warfare on the Eastern Front was exemplified by an often wilful disregard for human life by both sides. It was also reflected in the ideological premise for the war, which saw a momentous clash between two directly opposed ideologies.

Aside from the ideological conflict, the mindframe of the leaders of Germany and the Soviet Union, Hitler and Stalin, respectively, contributed to the escalation of terror and murder on an unprecedented scale. Stalin and Hitler both disregarded human life in order to achieve their goal of victory. This included the terrorisation of their own people, as well as [[mass deportation]]s of entire populations. All these factors resulted in tremendous brutality both to combatants and civilians that found no parallel on the [[Western Front (World War II)|Western Front]]. According to [[Time (magazine)|''Time'' magazine]]: "By measure of manpower, duration, territorial reach and casualties, the Eastern Front was as much as four times the scale of the conflict on the Western Front that opened with the [[Normandy landings|Normandy invasion]]."<ref>((cite news| url=http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1809018,00.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080528171454/http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1809018,00.html  | archive-date=28 May 2008 | magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] | title=Remembering a Red Flag Day | date=23 May 2008 | first=Jordan | last=Bonfante))</ref> Conversely, [[General (United States)|General]] [[George Marshall]], the [[Chief of Staff of the United States Army|U.S. Army Chief of Staff]], calculated that without the Eastern Front, the [[United States]] would have had to double the number of its soldiers on the Western Front.<ref name="gunther1950">((cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/rooseveltinretro00gunt | url-access=limited | title=Roosevelt in Retrospect | publisher=Harper & Brothers | last=Gunther |first=John | year=1950 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/rooseveltinretro00gunt/page/356 356]))</ref>

Memorandum for the President's Special Assistant [[Harry Hopkins]], Washington, D.C., 10 August 1943:

((blockquote|In War II Russia occupies a dominant position and is the decisive factor looking toward the defeat of the Axis in Europe. While in Sicily the forces of Great Britain and the United States are being opposed by 2 German divisions, the Russian front is receiving attention of approximately 200 German divisions. Whenever the Allies open a second front on the Continent, it will be decidedly a secondary front to that of Russia; theirs will continue to be the main effort. Without Russia in the war, the Axis cannot be defeated in Europe, and the position of the United Nations becomes precarious. Similarly, Russia's post-war position in Europe will be a dominant one. With Germany crushed, there is no power in Europe to oppose her tremendous military forces.<ref>((cite web |title=The Executive of the Presidents Soviet Protocol Committee (Burns) to the President's Special Assistant (Hopkins) |url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1943/d317 |website=www.history.state.gov |publisher=[[Office of the Historian]]))</ref>))

[[File:RIAN archive 2153 After bombing.jpg|thumb|Citizens of Leningrad during the [[Siege of Leningrad|872-day siege]], in which about one million civilians died]]

The war inflicted huge losses and suffering upon the civilian populations of the affected countries. Behind the front lines, [[wikt:atrocity|atrocities]] against civilians in German-occupied areas were routine, including those carried out as part of the Holocaust. German and German-allied forces treated civilian populations with exceptional brutality, massacring whole village populations and routinely killing civilian hostages (see [[German war crimes]]). Both sides practised widespread [[scorched earth]] tactics, but the loss of civilian lives in the case of Germany was incomparably smaller than that of the Soviet Union, in which at least 20&nbsp;million were killed. According to British historian [[Geoffrey Hosking]], "The full demographic loss to the Soviet peoples was even greater: since a high proportion of those killed were young men of child-begetting age, the postwar Soviet population was 45 to 50 million smaller than post-1939 projections would have led one to expect."<ref>((cite book|last=Hosking|first=Geoffrey A.|title=Rulers and Victims: The Russians in the Soviet Union|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CDMVMqDvp4QC&pg=PA242|year=2006|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-02178-5|page=242))</ref>

When the Red Army invaded Germany in 1944, many German civilians suffered from reprisals by Red Army soldiers (see [[Soviet war crimes]]). After the war, following the [[Yalta conference]] agreements between the Allies, the [[German people|German populations]] of East Prussia and [[Silesia]] were [[Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950)|displaced to the west]] of the [[Oder–Neisse line]], in what became one of the largest [[forced migration]]s of people in world history.

The Soviet Union came out of World War II militarily victorious but economically and structurally devastated. Much of the combat took place in or close to populated areas, and the actions of both sides contributed to massive loss of civilian life and tremendous material damage. According to a summary, presented by Lieutenant General [[Roman Rudenko]] at the [[Nuremberg Trials|International Military Tribunal]] in [[Nuremberg]], the property damage in the Soviet Union inflicted by the Axis invasion was estimated to a value of 679&nbsp;billion rubles. The largest number of civilian deaths in a single city was 1.2&nbsp;million citizens dead during the Siege of Leningrad.<ref name="ReferenceB">''[[The New York Times]]'', 9 February 1946, Volume 95, Number 32158.</ref>

The combined damage consisted of complete or partial destruction of 1,710 cities and towns, 70,000 villages/hamlets, 2,508 church buildings, 31,850 industrial establishments, ((convert|40000|mi|km|order=flip)) of railroad, 4,100 railroad stations, 40,000 hospitals, 84,000 schools, and 43,000 public libraries; leaving 25&nbsp;million homeless. Seven million horses, 17&nbsp;million cattle, 20&nbsp;million pigs, 27&nbsp;million sheep were also slaughtered or driven off.<ref name="ReferenceB"/> Wild fauna were also affected. Wolves and foxes fleeing westward from the killing zone, as the Soviet army advanced between 1943 and 1945, were responsible for a [[rabies]] epidemic that spread slowly westwards, reaching the coast of the [[English Channel]] by 1968.<ref>((Harvnb|Bellamy|2007|pp=1–2))</ref>

==Leadership==
((refimprovesect|date=October 2023))
The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were both ideologically driven states (by [[Soviet communism]] and by Nazism, respectively), in which the foremost political [[leader]]s had [[Totalitarianism|near-absolute power]]. ((citation needed|date=October 2022)) The character of the war was thus determined by the political leaders and their [[ideology]] to a much greater extent than in any other theatre of World War II.((citation needed|date=May 2018))

===Adolf Hitler===
[[File:Adolf Hitler cropped restored.jpg|thumb|upright|left|[[Adolf Hitler]] led Germany during World War II.]]

Hitler exercised tight control over the German war-effort, spending much of his time in his command bunkers (most notably at [[Rastenburg]] in East Prussia, at [[Vinnitsa]] in Ukraine, and under the garden of the [[Reich Chancellery]] in Berlin). At crucial periods in the war he held daily situation-conferences at which he used his remarkable talent for public speaking to overwhelm opposition from his generals and from the OKW staff with rhetoric.

In part because of the unexpected degree of German success in the Battle of France (despite the warnings of the professional military) Hitler believed himself a military genius, with a grasp of the total war-effort that eluded his generals. In August 1941, when [[Walther von Brauchitsch]] (commander-in-chief of the ''Wehrmacht'') and Fedor von Bock appealed for an attack on Moscow, Hitler instead ordered the encirclement and capture of Ukraine, in order to acquire the farmland, industry, and natural resources of that country. Some historians like Bevin Alexander in ''How Hitler Could Have Won'' regard this decision as a missed opportunity to win the war.((full citation needed|date=October 2023))

In the winter of 1941–1942 Hitler believed that his obstinate refusal to allow the German armies to retreat had saved Army Group Centre from collapse. He later told [[Erhard Milch]]:

<blockquote>
I had to act ruthlessly. I had to send even my closest generals packing, two army generals, for example ... I could only tell these gentlemen, "Get yourself back to Germany as rapidly as you can – but leave the army in my charge. And the army is staying at the front."
</blockquote>

The success of this [[hedgehog defence]] outside Moscow led Hitler to insist on the holding of territory when it made no military sense, and to sack generals who retreated without orders. Officers with initiative were replaced with yes-men or with fanatical Nazis. The disastrous encirclements later in the war – at Stalingrad, [[Korsun–Cherkassy Pocket|Korsun]] and many other places – resulted directly from Hitler's orders. This idea of holding territory led to another failed plan, dubbed((by whom|date=May 2018)) "''Heaven-bound Missions''", which involved fortifying even the most unimportant or insignificant of cities and the holding of these "fortresses" at all costs. Many divisions became cut off in "fortress" cities, or wasted uselessly in secondary theatres, because Hitler would not sanction retreat or voluntarily abandon any of his conquests.

Frustration at Hitler's [[leadership]] in the war was one of the factors in the attempted [[coup d'etat]] of 1944, but after the failure of the [[20 July Plot]] Hitler considered the army and its officer corps suspect and came to rely on the ''[[Schutzstaffel]]'' (SS) and Nazi party members to prosecute the war.

Hitler's direction of the war ultimately proved disastrous for the German Army, though the skill, loyalty, professionalism and endurance of officers and soldiers enabled him to keep Germany fighting to the end. [[F. W. Winterbotham]] wrote((fact|date=October 2023)) of Hitler's signal to [[Gerd von Rundstedt]] to continue the attack to the west during the [[Battle of the Bulge]]:

((blockquote|From experience we had learned that when Hitler started refusing to do what the generals recommended, things started to go wrong, and this was to be no exception.((fact|date=October 2023))))

===Joseph Stalin===
[[File:CroppedStalin1943.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Joseph Stalin]] led the Soviet Union during World War II.]]

Stalin bore the greatest responsibility for some of the disasters at the beginning of the war (for example, the Battle of Kiev in 1941), but equally deserves praise for the subsequent success of the Soviet Red Army, which depended on the unprecedentedly [[History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)|rapid industrialisation of the Soviet Union]], which Stalin's internal policy had made the first priority throughout the 1930s.
Stalin's [[Great Purge]] of the Red Army in the late 1930s involved the legal prosecution of many of the senior command, many of whom the courts convicted and sentenced to death or to imprisonment.

The executed included [[Mikhail Tukhachevsky]], a proponent of armoured blitzkrieg. Stalin promoted some [[obscurantist]]s like [[Grigory Kulik]] who opposed the mechanisation of the army and the production of tanks, but on the other hand purged the older commanders who had held their positions since the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922, and who had experience, but were deemed "politically unreliable". This opened up their places to the promotion of many younger officers that Stalin and the NKVD regarded as in line with [[Stalinism|Stalinist]] politics. Many((quantify|date=May 2018)) of these newly promoted commanders proved terribly inexperienced, but some later became very successful. Soviet tank-output remained the largest in the world.

From the foundation of the Red Army in 1918, political distrust of the military had led to a system of "dual command", with every commander paired with a [[political commissar]], a member of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]]. Larger units had military councils consisting of the commander, commissar and chief of staff – commissars ensured the loyalty of the commanding officers and implemented Party orders.

Following the [[Territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union|Soviet occupation of eastern Poland]], of the [[Occupation and annexation of the Baltic states by the Soviet Union (1940)|Baltic states]] and of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina in 1939–1940, Stalin insisted on the occupation of every fold of the newly Sovietized territories; this move westward positioned troops far from their depots, in salients that left them vulnerable to encirclement. As tension heightened in spring, 1941, Stalin desperately tried not to give Hitler any provocation that Berlin could use as an excuse for a German attack; Stalin refused to allow the military to go on the alert – even as German troops gathered on the borders and German reconnaissance planes overflew installations. This refusal to take necessary action was instrumental in the destruction of major portions of the Red Air Force, lined up on its airfields, in the first days of the German–Soviet war.

At the crisis of the war, in the autumn of 1942, Stalin made many concessions to the army: the government restored unitary command by removing the Commissars from the [[chain of command]]. Order 25 of 15 January 1943 introduced [[Shoulder mark|shoulderboards]] for all ranks; this represented a significant symbolic step, since after the [[Russian Revolution of 1917]] shoulderboards had connotations as a symbol of the old Tsarist régime. Beginning in autumn 1941, units that had proved themselves by superior performance in combat were given the traditional "Guards" title.((Sfn | Glantz | 2005 | p = 181))

These concessions were combined with ruthless discipline: [[Order No. 227]], issued on 28 July 1942, threatened commanders who retreated without orders with punishment by [[court-martial]]. Infractions by military and ''[[politruk]]s'' were punished with transferral to [[penal battalion]]s and to penal [[Company (military unit)|companies]] which carried out especially hazardous duties, such as serving as ''tramplers'' to clear Nazi minefields.<ref>((Citation | last = Toppe | first = Alfred | title = Night Combat | publisher = Diane | year = 1998 | isbn = 978-0-7881-7080-5 | page = 28))</ref> The order stipulated to capture or shoot "cowards" and fleeing panicked troops at the rear where blocking detachments were ordered to be set up. In the first three months after Order No. 227 was promulgated 1,000 retreating troops were shot and 24,993 were sent to penal battalions.<ref>((Cite book|title=Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953|last=Roberts|first=Geoffrey|publisher=Yale University Press|year=2006|isbn=0-300-11204-1|page=132))</ref> By October 1942 the idea of regular blocking detachments was quietly dropped, By 29 October 1944 the units were officially disbanded.<ref>((Cite web|url=http://bdsa.ru/%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%B7%D1%8B-%D0%BD%D0%BA%D0%BE-%D0%B7%D0%B0-1944-%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%B4/784-636|title=ПРИКАЗ О РАСФОРМИРОВАНИИ ОТДЕЛЬНЫХ ЗАГРАДИТЕЛЬНЫХ ОТРЯДОВ|website=bdsa.ru|access-date=2019-03-07|archive-date=20 December 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181220095346/http://bdsa.ru/%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%B7%D1%8B-%D0%BD%D0%BA%D0%BE-%D0%B7%D0%B0-1944-%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%B4/784-636))</ref><ref>((Cite book|title=Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army|last=Merridale|first=Catherine|publisher=New York : Metropolitan Books|year=2006|isbn=0-8050-7455-4|pages=[https://archive.org/details/ivanswarlifedeat00merr_0/page/158 158]|oclc=60671899|url=https://archive.org/details/ivanswarlifedeat00merr_0/page/158))</ref>

As it became clear that the Soviet Union would win the war, Stalin ensured that propaganda always mentioned his leadership of the war; he sidelined the victorious generals and never allowed them to develop into political rivals. After the war the Soviets once again purged the Red Army (though not as brutally as in the 1930s) and demoted many successful officers (including Zhukov, [[Rodion Malinovsky]] and [[Ivan Koniev]]) to unimportant positions.((Citation needed|date=August 2018))

==Repression and genocide in occupied territories==
((See also|Generalplan Ost|German atrocities committed against Soviet prisoners of war|World War II German war crimes in the Soviet Union|Commissar Order|Hunger Plan))

((quote|"... Hitler's first defeats on the [[Battle of Moscow|frontline outside Moscow]] drove him to endorse plans for the total extermination of the Jews, and almost simultaneously to openly intensify the [[anti-Slavic]] slogans of anti-Bolshevist and [[anti-Semitic]] propaganda. Then in 1943 came the call for total war. [[Total war#Nazi Germany|Total war]] meant further suffering and murders inflicted on millions. Millions of people perished heirless and nameless."<ref>((Cite book |last=Borejsza |first=Jerzy W. |title=A ridiculous hundred million Slavs: Concerning Adolf Hitler's world-view |publisher=Polskiej Akademii Nauk |year=2017 |isbn=978-83-63352-88-2 |location=Warsaw, Poland |pages=176 |translator-last=French |translator-first=David))</ref>||Polish historian [[:pl:Jerzy Wojciech Borejsza|Jerzy W. Borejsze]]))

[[File:The last Jew in Vinnitsa, 1941.jpg|thumb|upright|[[The Last Jew in Vinnitsa]]. A member of ''[[Einsatzgruppe]] D'' murders a Jew who is kneeling before a filled mass grave in [[Vinnitsa]], in 1942.]]
The enormous territorial gains of 1941 presented Germany with vast areas to pacify and administer. For the majority of people of the Soviet Union, the Nazi invasion was viewed as a brutal act of unprovoked aggression. While it is important to note that not all parts of Soviet society viewed the German advance in this way, the majority of the Soviet population viewed German forces as occupiers. In areas such as [[Estonia]], [[Latvia]], and [[Lithuania]] (which had been annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940) the ''Wehrmacht'' was tolerated by a relatively more significant part of the native population.

This was particularly true for the territories of Western Ukraine, recently rejoined to the Soviet Union, where the anti-Polish and anti-Soviet [[Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists|Ukrainian nationalist underground]] hoped in vain to establish the "independent state", relying on German armed force. However, Soviet society as a whole was hostile to the invading Nazis from the very start. The nascent national liberation movements among Ukrainians and [[Cossack]]s, and others were viewed by Hitler with suspicion; some, especially those from the Baltic States, were co-opted into the Axis armies and others brutally suppressed. None of the conquered territories gained any measure of self-rule.

Instead, the Nazi ideologues saw the future of the East as one of settlement by German colonists, with the natives killed, expelled, or reduced to slave labour. The cruel and brutally inhumane treatment of Soviet civilians, women, children and elderly, the daily bombings of civilian cities and towns, Nazi pillaging of Soviet villages and hamlets and unprecedented harsh punishment and treatment of civilians in general were some of the primary reasons for Soviet resistance to Nazi Germany's invasion. Indeed, the Soviets viewed Germany's invasion as an act of aggression and an attempt to conquer and enslave the local population.

[[File:Einsatzgruppen murder Jews in Ivanhorod, Ukraine, 1942.jpg|link=Ivanhorod Einsatzgruppen photograph, 1942|thumb|[[Ivanhorod Einsatzgruppen photograph|Einsatzgruppen murdering Jews]] in [[Ivanhorod]], Ukraine, 1942]]
Regions closer to the front were managed by military powers of the region, in other areas such as the Baltic states annexed by the USSR in 1940, Reichscommissariats were established. As a rule, the maximum in loot was extracted. In September 1941, [[Erich Koch]] was appointed to the Ukrainian Commissariat. His opening speech was clear about German policy: "I am known as a brutal dog ... Our job is to suck from Ukraine all the goods we can get hold of ... I am expecting from you the utmost severity towards the native population."

Atrocities against the Jewish population in the conquered areas began almost immediately, with the dispatch of ''[[Einsatzgruppen]]'' (task groups) to round up Jews and shoot them.<ref>[http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/holocaust/barbarossa/ Marking 70 Years to Operation Barbarossa] ((webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120916093736/http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/holocaust/barbarossa/ |date=16 September 2012 )) on the [[Yad Vashem]] website</ref>

The massacres of Jews and other [[Ethnic minority|ethnic minorities]] were only a part of the deaths from the Nazi occupation. Many hundreds of thousands of Soviet civilians were executed, and millions more died from [[starvation]] as the Germans requisitioned food for their armies and fodder for their draft horses. As they retreated from Ukraine and Belarus in 1943–44, the German occupiers systematically applied a scorched earth policy, burning towns and cities, destroying infrastructure, and leaving civilians to starve or die of exposure.((efn|On 7 September 1943, [[Heinrich Himmler|Himmler]] sent orders to [[HSSPF]] "Ukraine" [[Hans-Adolf Prützmann]] that "not a human being, not a single head of cattle, not a hundredweight of cereals and not a railway line remain behind; that not a house remains standing, not a mine is available which is not destroyed for years to come, that there is not a well which is not poisoned. The enemy must really find completely burned and destroyed land". He ordered cooperation with Infantry general Staff, also someone named Stampf, and sent copies to the Chief of Regular Police, Chief of Security Police & SS, [[SS-Obergruppenführer]] Berger, and the chief of the partisan combating units.<ref>Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Supplement A'' pg 1270</ref>)) In many towns, the battles were fought within towns and cities with trapped civilians caught in the middle. Estimates of total civilian dead in the Soviet Union in the war range from seven million (''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'')((full citation needed|date=October 2023)) to seventeen million (Richard Overy).((fact|date=October 2023))

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-031-2436-03A, Russland, Hinrichtung von Partisanen.jpg|thumb|[[Soviet partisans]] hanged by German forces in January 1943]]
The Nazi ideology and the maltreatment of the local population and Soviet POWs encouraged partisans fighting behind the front; it motivated even anti-communists or non-Russian nationalists to ally with the Soviets and greatly delayed the formation of German-allied divisions consisting of Soviet POWs (see [[Ostlegionen]]). These results and missed opportunities contributed to the defeat of the ''Wehrmacht''.

Vadim Erlikman has detailed Soviet losses totalling 26.5&nbsp;million war related deaths. Military losses of 10.6&nbsp;million include six million killed or missing in action and 3.6&nbsp;million POW dead, plus 400,000 paramilitary and Soviet partisan losses. Civilian deaths totalled 15.9&nbsp;million, which included 1.5&nbsp;million from military actions; 7.1&nbsp;million victims of Nazi [[genocide]] and reprisals; 1.8&nbsp;million deported to Germany for [[forced labour]]; and 5.5&nbsp;million [[famine]] and [[disease]] deaths. Additional famine deaths, which totalled one million during 1946–47, are not included here. These losses are for the entire territory of the USSR including territories annexed in 1939–40.((citation needed|date=November 2013))

Belarus lost a quarter of its pre-war population, including practically all its intellectual elite. Following bloody encirclement battles, all of the present-day Belarus territory was occupied by the Germans by the end of August 1941. The Nazis imposed a brutal regime, deporting some 380,000 young people for slave labour, and killing hundreds of thousands (civilians) more.<ref>((cite web|url=http://holocaustcontroversies.yuku.com/topic/1856/The-Nazi-struggle-against-Soviet-partisans|title=The Nazi struggle against Soviet partisans|website=Holocaust Controversies|date=17 March 2012 ))</ref> More than 600 villages like [[Khatyn]] were burned with their entire population.<ref>((cite web|url=http://www.belarusguide.com/travel1/Khatyn.html|title=Khatyn WWI Memorial in Belarus|website=www.belarusguide.com))</ref> More than 209 cities and towns (out of 270 total) and 9,000 villages were destroyed. Himmler pronounced a plan according to which ((frac|3|4)) of the Belarusian population was designated for "eradication" and ((frac|1|4)) of the racially 'cleaner' population (blue eyes, light hair) would be allowed to serve Germans as slaves.

Some recent reports raise the number of Belarusians who perished in the war to "3 million 650 thousand people, unlike the former 2.2 million. That is to say not every fourth inhabitant but almost 40% of the pre-war Belarusian population perished (considering the present-day borders of Belarus)."<ref>[http://www.belarusguide.com/history1/WWII_partisan_resistance_in_Belarus.htm Partisan Resistance in Belarus during World War II] belarusguide.com</ref>

Sixty percent of Soviet POWs died during the war. By its end, large numbers of Soviet POWs, forced labourers and Nazi collaborators (including those who were [[Operation Keelhaul|forcefully repatriated]] by the Western Allies) went to special NKVD "filtration" camps. By 1946, 80 per cent of civilians and 20 per cent of POWs were freed, others were re-drafted, or sent to labour battalions. Two per cent of civilians and 14 per cent of the [[Soviet repressions against former prisoners of war|POWs]] were sent to the [[Gulag]].<ref>("Военно-исторический журнал" ("Military-Historical Magazine"), 1997, No.5. page 32)</ref><ref>Земское В.Н. К вопросу о репатриации советских граждан. 1944–1951 годы // История СССР. 1990. No. 4 (Zemskov V.N. On repatriation of Soviet citizens. Istoriya SSSR., 1990, No.4)</ref>

The official Polish government report of war losses prepared in 1947 reported 6,028,000 victims out of a population of 27,007,000 ethnic Poles and Jews; this report excluded ethnic Ukrainian and Belarusian losses.

Although the Soviet Union had not signed the [[Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War (1929)|Geneva Convention (1929)]], it is generally accepted that it considered itself bound by the provisions of the [[Hague Conventions (1899 and 1907)|Hague convention]].<ref>((cite journal |first=Jacob |last=Robinson |title=Transfer of Property in Enemy Occupied Territory |journal=[[American Journal of International Law]] |volume=39 |issue=2 |pages=216–230 |date=April 1945 |jstor=2192342 |doi=10.2307/2192342|s2cid=147065225 ))</ref> A month after the German invasion in 1941, an offer was made for a reciprocal adherence to Hague convention. This 'note' was left unanswered by Third Reich officials.<ref>Beevor, ''Stalingrad''. Penguin 2001 ((ISBN|0-14-100131-3)) p 60</ref>

Soviet repressions also contributed into the Eastern Front's death toll. Mass repression occurred in the occupied portions of Poland as well as in the Baltic states and Bessarabia. Immediately after the start of the German invasion, the NKVD massacred large numbers of inmates in most of their prisons in [[Western Belarus]] and Western Ukraine, while the remainder was to be evacuated in death marches.<ref>Robert Gellately. ''Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe.'' [[Alfred A. Knopf|Knopf]], 2007 ((ISBN|1-4000-4005-1)) p. 391</ref>

==Industrial output==
[[File:RIAN archive 1274 Tanks going to the front.jpg|thumb|Soviet [[T-34]] tanks being transported from the factory to the front]]

The Soviet victory owed a great deal to the ability of its war industry to outperform the German economy, despite the enormous loss of population and land. Stalin's five-year plans of the 1930s had resulted in the industrialisation of the Urals and central Asia. In 1941, thousands of trains evacuated critical factories and workers from Belarus and Ukraine to safe areas far from the front lines. Once these facilities were reassembled east of the Urals, production could be resumed without fear of German bombing.

The increases in production of [[materiel]] were achieved at the expense of civilian living standards – the most thorough application of the principle of [[total war]] – and with the help of [[Lend-Lease]] supplies from the United Kingdom and the United States. The Germans, on the other hand, could rely on a large slave workforce from the conquered countries and Soviet POWs. American exports and technical expertise also enabled the Soviets to produce goods that they wouldn't have been able to on their own. For example, while the USSR was able to produce fuel of octane numbers from 70 to 74, Soviet industry only met 4% of demand for fuel of octane numbers from 90+; all aircraft produced after 1939 required fuel of the latter category. To fulfill demands, the USSR depended on American assistance, both in finished products and TEL.<ref>Alexander Matveichuk. [http://www.oilru.com/or/47/1006/ A High Octane Weapon of Victory.] Oil of Russia. Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. 2 November 2011.</ref>

Germany had far greater resources than did the USSR, and dwarfed its production in every matrix except for oil, having over five times the USSR's coal production, over three times its iron production, three times its steel production, twice its electricity production, and about 2/3 of its oil production.<ref>Walter Dunn, "The Soviet Economy and the Red Army", Praeger (30 August 1995), page 50. Citing K.F. Skorobogatkin, et al., "50 Let Voorezhennyk sil SSR" (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1968), p. 457.</ref>

German production of explosives from 1940 to 1944 was 1.595&nbsp;million tons, along with 829,970 tons of powder. Consumption on all fronts during the same period was 1.493&nbsp;million tons of explosives and 626,887 tons of powder.<ref>US Strategic Bombing Survey "Appendix D. Strategic Air Attack on the Powder and Explosives Industries", Table D7: German Monthly Production of Powders and Exploders (Including Extenders) and Consumption by German Armed Forces</ref> From 1941 to 1945, the USSR produced only 505,000 tons of explosives and received 105,000 tons of Lend-Lease imports.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> Germany outproduced the Soviet Union 3.16 to 1 in explosives tonnage.

Soviet armoured fighting vehicle production was greater than the Germans (in 1943, the [[Soviet armored fighting vehicle production during World War II|Soviet Union manufactured 24,089 tanks and self-propelled guns]] to [[German armored fighting vehicle production during World War II|Germany's 19,800]]). The Soviets incrementally upgraded existing designs, and simplified and refined manufacturing processes to increase production, and were helped by a mass infusion of harder to produce goods such as aviation fuel, machine tools, trucks, and high-explosives from Lend-Lease, allowing them to concentrate on a few key industries. Meanwhile, Germany had been cut off from foreign trade for years by the time it invaded the USSR, was in the middle of two extended and costly theatres at air and sea that further limited production ([[Battle of the Atlantic]] and Defence of the Reich), and was forced to devote a large segment of its expenditures to goods the Soviets could cut back on (such as trucks) or which would never even be used against the Soviets (such as ships). Naval vessels alone constituted 10–15% of Germany's war expenditures from 1940 to 1944 depending on the year, while armoured vehicles by comparison were only 5–8%.<ref>Military Analysis Division, U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey- European War, Volume 3, page 144. Washington, 1947.</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Summary of German and Soviet raw material production during the war<ref name="Russia's War">Richard Overy, ''Russia's War'', p. 155 and ''Campaigns of World War II Day By Day'', by Chris Bishop and Chris McNab, pp. 244–52.</ref>
|-
!rowspan="2"|Year
!colspan="2"|Coal<br />(million tonnes, Germany includes lignite and bituminous types)
!colspan="2"|Steel<br />(million tonnes)
!colspan="2"|Aluminium<br />(thousand tonnes)
!colspan="6"|Oil<br />(million tonnes)
|-
! style="background:#fff;"|German
! style="background:#fff;"|Soviet
! style="background:#fff;"|German
! style="background:#fff;"|Soviet
! style="background:#fff;"|German
! style="background:#fff;"|Soviet
! style="background:#fff;"|German
! style="background:#fff;"|Soviet
! style="background:#fff;"|Italian
! style="background:#fff;"|Hungarian
! style="background:#fff;"|Romanian
! style="background:#fff;"|Japanese
|-
!1941
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|483.4
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|151.4
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|31.8
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|17.9
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|233.6
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|–
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|5.7
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|33.0
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|0.12
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|0.4
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|5.5
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|–
|-
!1942
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|513.1
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|75.5
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|32.1
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|8.1
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|264.0
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|51.7
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|6.6
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|22.0
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|0.01
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|0.7
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|5.7
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|1.8
|-
!1943
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|521.4
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|93.1
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|34.6
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|8.5
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|250.0
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|62.3
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|7.6
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|18.0
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|0.01
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|0.8
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|5.3
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|2.3
|-
!1944
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|509.8
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|121.5
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|28.5
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|10.9
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|245.3
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|82.7
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|5.5
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|18.2
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|–
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|1
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|3.5
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|1
|-
!1945<ref name="Soviet numbers">Soviet numbers for 1945 are for the whole of 1945, including after the war was over.</ref>
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|–
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|149.3
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|–
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|12.3
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|–
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|86.3
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|1.3
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|19.4
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|–
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|–
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|–
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|0.1
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Summary of Axis and Soviet tank and self-<br />propelled gun production during the war<ref name="Russia's War" />
|-
!rowspan="2"|Year

!colspan="6"|Tanks and self-<br />propelled guns
|-
! style="background:#fff;"|Soviet
! style="background:#fff;"|German
! style="background:#fff;"|Italian
! style="background:#fff;"|Hungarian
! style="background:#fff;"|Romanian
! style="background:#fff;"|Japanese
|-
!1941
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|6,590
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|5,200<ref name="German tank numbers">German figures for 1941 and 1942 include tanks only.</ref>
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|595
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|–
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|–
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|595
|-
!1942
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|24,446
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|9,300<ref name="German tank numbers" />
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|1,252
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;" rowspan="3"|500
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|–
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|557
|-
!1943
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|24,089
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|19,800
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|336
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;" rowspan="2"|105
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|558
|-
!1944
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|28,963
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|27,300
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|–
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|353
|-
!1945<ref name="Soviet numbers" />
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|15,400
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|–
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|–
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|–
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|–
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|137
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Summary of Axis and Soviet aircraft production during the war<ref name="Russia's War" />
|-
!rowspan="2"|Year

!colspan="6"|Aircraft
|-
! style="background:#fff;"|Soviet
! style="background:#fff;"|German
! style="background:#fff;"|Italian
! style="background:#fff;"|Hungarian
! style="background:#fff;"|Romanian
! style="background:#fff;"|Japanese
|-
!1941
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|15,735
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|11,776
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|3,503
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|–
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;" rowspan="5"|1,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|5,088
|-
!1942
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|25,436
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|15,556
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|2,818
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|6
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|8,861
|-
!1943
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|34,845
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|25,527
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|967
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|267
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|16,693
|-
!1944
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|40,246
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|39,807
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|–
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|773
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|28,180
|-
!1945<ref name="Soviet numbers" />
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|20,052
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|7,544
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|–
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|–
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|8,263
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Summary of German and Soviet industrial labour (including those classified as handworkers), and summary of foreign, voluntary, coerced and POW labour<ref>''The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia'' by [[Richard Overy]] p. 498.</ref>
|-
!rowspan="2"|Year

!colspan="2"|Industrial labour
!colspan="2"|Foreign labour
!colspan="2"|Total labour
|-
! style="background:#fff;"|Soviet
! style="background:#fff;"|German
! style="background:#fff;"|Soviet
! style="background:#fff;"|German
! style="background:#fff;"|Total Soviet
! style="background:#fff;"|Total German
|-
!1941
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|11,000,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|12,900,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|–
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|3,500,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|11,000,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|16,400,000
|-
!1942
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|7,200,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|11,600,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|50,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|4,600,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|7,250,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|16,200,000
|-
!1943
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|7,500,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|11,100,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|200,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|5,700,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|7,700,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|16,800,000
|-
!1944
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|8,200,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|10,400,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|800,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|7,600,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|9,000,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|18,000,000
|-
!1945<ref name="Soviet numbers" />
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|9,500,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|–
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|2,900,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|–
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|12,400,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|–
|}

Soviet production and upkeep was assisted by the Lend-Lease program from the United States and the United Kingdom. In the course of the war the US supplied $11&nbsp;billion of materiel through Lend-Lease. This included 400,000 trucks, 12,000 armoured vehicles (including 7,000 tanks), 11,400 aircraft and 1.75&nbsp;million tons of food.<ref>[http://www.history.army.mil/books/AMH-V2/PDF/Chapter05.pdf ''World War II The War Against Germany And Italy''] ((Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170506174749/http://www.history.army.mil/books/AMH-V2/PDF/Chapter05.pdf |date=6 May 2017 )), US Army Center of Military History, page 158.</ref> The British supplied aircraft including 3,000 Hurricanes and 4,000 other aircraft during the war. Five thousand tanks were provided by the British and Canada. Total British supplies were about four million tons.<ref>((cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20001219165200/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/|archive-date=2000-12-19|title=Telegraph|website=The Telegraph))</ref> Germany on the other hand had the resources of conquered Europe at its disposal; those numbers are however not included into the tables above, such as production in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, and so on.

After the defeat at Stalingrad, Germany geared completely towards a war economy, as expounded in a speech given by Joseph Goebbels (the Nazi propaganda minister), in the Berlin [[Sportpalast speech|Sportpalast]], increasing production in subsequent years under [[Albert Speer]]'s (the ''Reich'' armaments minister) direction, despite the intensifying [[Strategic bombing during World War II|Allied bombing campaign]].

==Casualties==
((Further|World War II casualties|World War II casualties of the Soviet Union|German casualties in World War II))
[[File:Russians bury their fallen. Kollaanjoki 15.-16.7. 1944. Kollaanjoki 15 to 16.7. 1944..jpg|thumb|upright|Soviets bury their fallen, July 1944]]
[[File:World-War-II-military-deaths-in-Europe-by-theater-year.png|thumb|World War II military deaths in Europe by theatre, year]]
The fighting involved millions of Axis and Soviet troops along the broadest land front in military history. It was by far the deadliest single theatre of the European portion of World War II with up to 8.7 to 10&nbsp;million military deaths on the Soviet side (although, depending on the criteria used, casualties in the Far East theatre may have been similar in number).((sfn|Krivosheev|1997|p=85))<ref>((cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10007178 |title= Nazi Persecution of Soviet Prisoners of War |publisher=[[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]] |encyclopedia=[[Holocaust Encyclopedia]]|access-date=15 June 2011))</ref><ref>Richard Overy, The Dictators</ref> Axis military deaths were 5&nbsp;million of which around 4,000,000 were German deaths.<ref>((cite web |url=http://ww2stats.com/cas_ger_var_wvw.html|title=German military deaths to all causes EF|access-date=10 July 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130502201829/http://ww2stats.com/cas_ger_var_wvw.html|archive-date=2 May 2013))</ref><ref>German losses according to: Rüdiger Overmans, ''Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg''. Oldenbourg 2000. ((ISBN|3-486-56531-1)), pp. 265, 272</ref>

Included in this figure of German losses is the majority of the 2&nbsp;million German military personnel listed as missing or unaccounted for after the war. Rüdiger Overmans states that it seems entirely plausible, while not provable, that one half of these men were killed in action and the other half died in Soviet custody.<ref>Rüdiger Overmans. ''Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg''. Oldenbourg 2000. ((ISBN|3-486-56531-1)) p. 289</ref> Official OKW Casualty Figures list 65% of Heer killed/missing/captured as being lost on the Eastern Front from 1 September 1939, to 1 January 1945 (four months and a week before the conclusion of the war), with front not specified for losses of the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe.<ref>((cite news|url=http://www.zeit.de/1949/43/die-deutschen-verluste-im-zweiten-weltkrieg|title=Die deutschen Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg|first=Percy E. Schramm|last=Göttingen|date=21 November 2012|newspaper=Die Zeit))</ref>

Estimated civilian deaths range from about 14 to 17&nbsp;million. Over 11.4&nbsp;million Soviet civilians within pre-1939 Soviet borders were killed, and another estimated 3.5&nbsp;million civilians were killed in the annexed territories.((sfn|Krivosheev|1997|p=((page needed|date=July 2021)))) The Nazis exterminated one to two million Soviet Jews (including the annexed territories) as part of [[the Holocaust]].<ref name=gilbert>[[Martin Gilbert]]. ''Atlas of the Holocaust'' 1988 ((ISBN|0-688-12364-3))</ref> Soviet and Russian historiography often uses the term "irretrievable casualties". According to the [[Narkomat]] of Defence order (No. 023, 4 February 1944), the irretrievable casualties include killed, missing, those who died due to war-time or subsequent wounds, maladies and [[chilblain]]s and those who were captured.

The huge death toll was attributed to several factors, including brutal mistreatment of POWs and captured partisans, the large deficiency of food and medical supplies in Soviet territories, and atrocities committed mostly by the Germans against the civilian population. The multiple battles and the use of scorched earth tactics destroyed [[Agriculture|agricultural land]], infrastructure, and whole towns, leaving much of the population homeless and without food.

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Military losses on the Eastern Front during World War II<ref>Rüdiger Overmans, ''Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg''. Oldenbourg 2000. ((ISBN|3-486-56531-1)), ((cite web |url=http://ww2stats.com/cas_ger_var_wvw.html |title=German military deaths to all causes EF |access-date=10 July 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130502201829/http://ww2stats.com/cas_ger_var_wvw.html|archive-date=2 May 2013 )), [[Richard Overy]] The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia (2004), ((ISBN|0-7139-9309-X)), Italy: Ufficio Storico dello Stato Maggiore dell'Esercito. Commissariato generale C.G.V. . Ministero della Difesa – Edizioni 1986, Romania: G. I. Krivosheev (2001). Rossiia i SSSR v voinakh XX veka: Poteri vooruzhennykh sil; statisticheskoe issledovanie. OLMA-Press. pp. Tables 200–203. ((ISBN|5-224-01515-4)), Hungary: G. I. Krivosheev (2001). Rossiia i SSSR v voinakh XX veka: Poteri vooruzhennykh sil; statisticheskoe issledovanie. OLMA-Press. pp. Tables 200–203. ((ISBN|5-224-01515-4)). Hungarian wounded: [https://books.google.com/books?id=8urEDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA465 Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Encyclopedia of Casualty and Other Figures, 1492–2015, 4th ed. Micheal Clodfelter]. ((ISBN|078647470X)), 9780786474707. p. 527. Soviet volunteer deaths: Percy Schramm Kriegstagebuch des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht: 1940–1945: 8 Bde. (((ISBN|9783881990738)) ) Pages 1508 to 1511. German prisoners: G. I. Krivosheev Rossiia i SSSR v voinakh XX veka: Poteri vooruzhennykh sil; statisticheskoe issledovanie OLMA-Press, 2001 ((ISBN|5-224-01515-4)) Table 198</ref>
|-

!colspan="6"|Forces fighting with the Axis
|-
!
! style="background:#fff;"|Total Dead
! style="background:#fff;"|[[Killed in action|KIA]]/[[Died of wounds|DOW]]/[[Missing in action|MIA]]
! style="background:#fff;"|Prisoners taken by the Soviets
! style="background:#fff;"|Prisoners who died in Captivity
! style="background:#fff;"|[[Wounded in action|WIA]] (not including DOW)
|-
!Greater Germany
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|est 4,137,000((sfn|Krivosheev|1997|pp=276–278))
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|est 3,637,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|2,733,739–3,000,060
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|500,000<ref>Rüdiger Overmans, Soldaten hinter Stacheldraht. Deutsche Kriegsgefangene des Zweiten Weltkriege. Ullstein., 2000 Page 246 ((ISBN|3-549-07121-3))</ref>
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|Unknown
|-
!Soviet residents who joined German army
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|215,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|215,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|400,000+
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|Unknown
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|118,127
|-
!Romania
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|281,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|226,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|500,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|55,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|
|-
!Hungary
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|300,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|245,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|500,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|55,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|89,313
|-
!Italy
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|82,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|55,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|70,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|27,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|
|-
!Finland<ref>Kurenmaa, Pekka; Lentilä, Riitta (2005). "Sodan tappiot". In Leskinen, Jari; Juutilainen, Antti. Jatkosodan pikkujättiläinen (in Finnish) (1st ed.). Werner Söderström Osakeyhtiö. pp. 1150–1162. ((ISBN|951-0-28690-7)).</ref>
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|63,204
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|62,731
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|3,500
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|473
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|158,000
|-
!Total
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|est 5,078,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|est 4,437,400
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|4,264,497–4,530,818
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|est 637,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|Unknown
|}
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Military losses on the Eastern Front during World War II<ref>Vadim Erlikman, ''Poteri narodonaseleniia v XX veke: spravochnik''. Moscow 2004. ((ISBN|5-93165-107-1));
Mark Axworthy, ''Third Axis Fourth Ally''. Arms and Armour 1995, p. 216. ((ISBN|1-85409-267-7))</ref>
|-

!colspan="6"|Forces fighting with the Soviet Union
|-
!
! style="background:#fff;"|Total Dead
! style="background:#fff;"|KIA/DOW/MIA
! style="background:#fff;"|Prisoners taken by the Axis
! style="background:#fff;"|Prisoners who died in captivity
! style="background:#fff;"|WIA (not including DOW)
|-
!Soviet
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|8,668,400–10,000,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|6,829,600
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|4,059,000 (military personnel only)–5,700,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|2,250,000–3,300,000<ref>((cite web |url=http://ww2stats.com/pow_ger_dead_non.html |title=Non-Soviet POWs |access-date=9 July 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130422053802/http://ww2stats.com/pow_ger_dead_non.html|archive-date=22 April 2013  ))</ref><ref name="auto">((cite web|url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/media_cm.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005454&MediaId=133 |title=Gross-Rosen Timeline 1940–1945 |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |date=15 January 2009 |website=Internet Wayback Machine |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C. |access-date=5 April 2014  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090115200617/http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/media_cm.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005454&MediaId=133 |archive-date=15 January 2009 ))</ref> of which 1,283,200 confirmed((sfn|Krivosheev|1997|p=((page needed|date=July 2021))))
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|13,581,483((sfn|Krivosheev|1997|p=89))
|-
!Poland
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|24,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|24,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|Unknown
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|Unknown
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|
|-
!Romania
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|17,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|17,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|80,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|Unknown
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|
|-|-
!Bulgaria
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|10,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|10,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|Unknown
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|Unknown
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|
|-
!Total
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|Up to ~8,719,000 – 10,000,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|6,880,600
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|4,139,000–5,780,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|2,250,000–3,300,000
|  style="text-align:right; background:#fff;"|13,581,483
|}
[[File:Cemetery of German soldiers in Toila 24.jpg|thumb|upright|A German war cemetery in [[Estonia]]]]
Based on Soviet sources Krivosheev put German losses on the Eastern Front from 1941 to 1945 at 6,923,700 men: including killed in action, died of wounds or disease and reported missing and presumed dead((snd))4,137,100, taken prisoner 2,571,600 and 215,000 dead among [[Collaboration in the German-occupied Soviet Union|Soviet volunteers in the Wehrmacht]]. Deaths of POW were 450,600 including 356,700 in NKVD camps and 93,900 in transit.((sfn|Krivosheev|1997|pp=276–278))

According to a report prepared by the General Staff of the Army issued in December 1944, materiel losses in the East from the period of 22 June 1941 until November 1944 stood at 33,324 armoured vehicles of all types (tanks, assault guns, tank destroyers, self-propelled guns and others). Paul Winter, ''Defeating Hitler'', states "these figures are undoubtedly too low".<ref>Paul Winter, Defeating Hitler, p. 234</ref> According to Soviet claims, the Germans lost 42,700 tanks, tank destroyers, self-propelled guns and assault guns on the Eastern front.<ref>Micheal Clodfelter, Warfare and Armed Conflicts, p. 449</ref> Overall, Germany produced 3,024 reconnaissance vehicles,((Unreliable source?|date=January 2019)) 2,450 other armoured vehicles, 21,880 armoured personnel carriers, 36,703 semi-tracked tractors and 87,329 semi-tracked trucks,<ref>((Cite web|url=https://ww2-weapons.com/german-arms-production/|title=German arms production|date=5 September 2020|website=WW2 Weapons))</ref> estimated 2/3 were lost on the Eastern Front.((Citation needed|date=January 2019))

The Soviets lost 96,500 tanks, tank destroyers, self-propelled guns and assault guns, as well as 37,600 other armoured vehicles (such as armoured cars and semi-tracked trucks) for a total of 134,100 armoured vehicles lost.((sfn|Krivosheev|1997|pp=253–258))

The Soviets also lost 102,600 aircraft (combat and non-combat causes), including 46,100 in combat.((sfn|Krivosheev|1997|pp=359–360)) According to Soviet claims, the Germans lost 75,700 aircraft on the Eastern front.<ref name=Micheal>[https://books.google.com/books?id=8urEDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA465 Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Encyclopedia of Casualty and Other Figures, 1492–2015, 4th ed. Micheal Clodfelter]. ((ISBN|078647470X)), 9780786474707. P. 449</ref>

Polish Armed Forces in the East, initially consisting of Poles from Eastern Poland or otherwise in the Soviet Union in 1939–1941, began fighting alongside the Red Army in 1943, and grew steadily as more Polish territory was liberated from the Nazis in 1944–1945.

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-004-3633-30A, Russland, Cholm, gefallene Rotarmisten.jpg|thumb|Dead Soviet soldiers in [[Kholm, Kholmsky District, Novgorod Oblast|Kholm]], January 1942]]

When the Axis countries of Central Europe were occupied by the Soviets, they changed sides and declared war on Germany (see [[Allied Commission]]s).

Some Soviet citizens would side with the Germans and join Andrey Vlasov's Russian Liberation Army, [[Ukrainian Liberation Army]], [[Georgian Legion (1941–45)|Georgian Legion]] and other ''Ostlegionen'' units. Most of those who joined were Soviet POWs. These [[Wehrmacht foreign volunteers and conscripts|foreign volunteers in the Wehrmacht]] were primarily used in the Eastern Front but some were assigned to guard the beaches of [[Normandy]].<ref>((Cite book|title=D-Day: the Battle for the Normandy Beaches|last=Ambrose|first=Stephen|publisher=Simon & Schuster|year=1997|isbn=0-7434-4974-6|location=London|page=34))</ref> The other main group of men joining the German army were citizens of the Baltic countries annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940 or from Western Ukraine. They fought in their own [[Waffen-SS]] units, including the [[Latvian Legion]] and the [[14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician)|Galicia Division]].<ref>((Cite news|url=https://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/world-war-two/nazi-foreign-legions/|title=Nazi Foreign Legions – History Learning Site|work=History Learning Site|access-date=2018-02-02|language=en-GB))</ref>

Hitler's notorious [[Commissar Order]] called for Soviet political commissars, who were responsible for ensuring that Red Army units remained politically reliable, to be summarily shot when identified amongst captured troops. Axis troops who captured Red Army soldiers frequently shot them in the field or shipped them to concentration camps to be used as forced labourers or killed.<ref>[[Richard Overy]] The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia (2004), ((ISBN|0-7139-9309-X))</ref> Additionally, millions of Soviet civilians were captured as POWs and treated in the same manner. It is estimated that between 2.25 and 3.3&nbsp;million Soviet POWs died in Nazi custody, out of 5.25–5.7&nbsp;million. This figure represents a total of 45–57% of all Soviet POWs and may be contrasted with 8,300 out of 231,000 British and U.S. prisoners, or 3.6%.<ref>((cite web |url=http://ww2stats.com/pow_ger_dead_non.html |title=1945 |access-date=9 July 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130422053808/http://ww2stats.com/cas_ger_okh_dec45.html|archive-date=22 April 2013 ))</ref><ref name="auto"/> About 5% of the Soviet prisoners who died were of Jewish ethnicity.((Citation needed|date=May 2020))

==Disappearance of Ondrej Sobola==
Ondrej Sobola (7 August 1880 – officially 31 December 1918) was an Austro-Hungarian Army soldier. His death, in an unknown place during the First World War, inspired the Tree of Peace project.<ref>Sobola, Marek (14 December 2018). "INTERNATIONAL PROJECT "THE TREE OF PEACE"" (in slovenčina).</ref>

==Biography==
Sobola was born on 7 August 1880 in Lalinok into a farmer family. His family had lived in the area since 1512.<ref>Sobola, Marek (8 January 2019). "Obecná kniha – Príhovor" (PDF). Informačník Obce Divinka – Lalinok (in slovenčina). Village of Divinka (published 2018).</ref> 1: 9. He was conscripted into the army in 1901.<ref>Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces of Czech Republic, Military Central Archives, Fund: Tribal – Qualification sheets of soldiers born until 1910 (Czech: Kmenové – kvalifikační listy vojáků narozených do roku 1910). The Tribal list No. 109 of 1901.</ref> Sobola and his older brother Štefan travelled to the United States around 1906, residing in Clifton Heights, Pennsylvania.<ref>Sobola, Marek. "The genealogical research of Sobola and Lašút descent in the light of archival sources : bachelor thesis". Nitra : Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, 2014. p.73</ref> Sobola returned to Lalinok in 1907, living there for three years, and again traveled to the United States on 30 November 1910.<ref>"The Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island, Passenger search: Ondrej Sobola". www.libertyellisfoundation.org.</ref>

Sobola had returned to Lalinok by 1914. After the outbreak of the First World War, he enlisted in the 15th Military Infantry Regiment.<ref>Tsarskoe Selo State Museum. "Tree of Peace by Martial Chamber". eng.tzar.ru.</ref> He was listed as missing in action on the Eastern Front in 1915. Sobola was one of those commemorated by his home village in a memorial to First World War dead on 11 November 2018.<ref>Sobola, Marek (11 November 2018). "100. výročie veľkej vojny: V obci Lalinok si uctili pamiatku obetí globálneho konfliktu" (in slovenčina).</ref> His portrait made by sculptor Michal Janiga is also incorporated on a Memorial. His name is on a Memorial pillar in the Emperor's park of Kaiservilla in Bad Ischl.<ref>"Tlačová agentúra Slovenskej republiky - TASR.sk". www.tasr.sk.</ref>

==Tree of Peace==
The Tree of Peace is an international project that originated in Slovakia. The project, created in 2018 on the centenary of the end of World War I, was initiated by landscape architect Marek Sobola, Ondrej's great-grandson.<ref>Sobola, Marek (14 December 2018). "INTERNATIONAL PROJECT "THE TREE OF PEACE"" (in slovenčina).</ref> The grave of Sobola has not been found after many years of historical searching in Military archives across Europe. His great-grandfather's death inspired Sobola to memorialize the soldiers who died in the First World War in unknown places without their names or identities. The main goal of the project was to promote a message of peace by planting "Trees of Peace" on every continent.<ref>Sobola, Marek (14 December 2018). "INTERNATIONAL PROJECT "THE TREE OF PEACE"" (in slovenčina).</ref>

==See also==
<!-- Commented out: [[File:The Motherland Calls.jpg|thumb|[[The Motherland Calls]], statue located on [[Mamayev Kurgan]] memorial complex in [[Volgograd]]]] -->
((Div col))
* [[Timeline of the Eastern Front of World War II]]
* [[Historiography of World War II]]
* [[Outline of World War II]]
* ''[[The Battle of Russia]]'' – a film from the ''[[Why We Fight]]'' propaganda film series
* [[Horses in World War II]]
* [[Severity Order]]
* [[Barbarossa decree]]
* [[Commissar Order]]
* [[Kantokuen]] - Japanese plan to invade the Soviet Far East in 1941
((Div col end))
===National and regional experiences===
((Div col))
* [[Bulgaria during World War II]]
* [[Byelorussia in World War II]]
* [[Carpathian Ruthenia during World War II]]
* [[Estonia in World War II]]
* [[Finland in World War II]]
* [[German occupation of the Baltic states during World War II]]
* [[Military history of Greece during World War II|Greece during World War II]]
* [[Hungary in World War II]]
* [[Italian participation on the Eastern Front]]
* [[Romania in World War II]]
* [[Soviet–Japanese War]]
* [[Soviet occupation of the Baltic states (1940)]]
* [[Soviet occupation of the Baltic states (1944)]]
* [[Soviet Union in World War II]]
* [[Women in the Russian and Soviet military]]
* [[Women in World War II]]
* [[World War II in Yugoslavia]]
((Div col end))

===Lists===
((Div col))
* [[List of military operations on the Eastern Front of World War II]]
* [[Strategic operations of the Red Army in World War II]]
((Div col end))

==Notes==
((Notelist))
==References==
((Citation style|date=September 2022))
===Citations===
((Reflist))

===Sources===
*((Cite book
  |last=Bellamy
  |first=Chris
  |title=Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War
  |publisher=Macmillan
  |year=2007
  |isbn=978-0-375-41086-4
))
*((cite book |last=Braun |first=Hans-Joachim |title=The German Economy in the Twentieth Century |url=https://archive.org/details/germaneconomyint00brau |url-access=registration |publisher=Routledge |year=1990 |isbn=978-0-415-02101-2))
*((cite book | last1=Glantz |first1=David | author-link1=David Glantz |last2=House |first2=Jonathan |author-link2=Jonathan House |title=When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army stopped Hitler |location=Lawrence, Kansas |publisher=University Press of Kansas |year=1995 |isbn=0-7006-0899-0))
*((cite book |last1=Glantz |first1=David M. |title=Stumbling colossus: the Red Army on the eve of World War |date=1998 |publisher=University Press of Kansas |location=Lawrence, Kan. |isbn=978-0-7006-1789-0))
*((cite book |last1=Glantz |first1=David M. |title=Colossus reborn : the Red Army at war: 1941-1943 |date=2005 |publisher=University Press of Kansas |location=Kansas |isbn=978-0-7006-1353-3))

==Further reading==
((Refbegin|60em))

* Anderson, Dunkan, et al. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=3edfPwAACAAJ The Eastern Front: Barbarossa, Stalingrad, Kursk and Berlin (Campaigns of World War II)]''. London: Amber Books Ltd., 2001. ((ISBN|0-7603-0923-X)).
* [[Antony Beevor|Beevor, Antony]]. ''Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942–1943''. New York: Penguin Books, 1998. ((ISBN|0-14-028458-3)).
* Beevor, Antony. ''Berlin: The Downfall 1945''. New York: Penguin Books, 2002, ((ISBN|0-670-88695-5))
*  Dick, C. J. ''From Defeat to Victory: The Eastern Front, Summer 1944'' volume 2 of "Decisive and Indecisive Military Operations" (University Press of Kansas, 2016) [http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=56417 online review]
* Erickson, John. ''The Road to Stalingrad. Stalin's War against Germany''. New York: Orion Publishing Group, 2007. ((ISBN|0-304-36541-6)).
* Erickson, John. ''The Road to Berlin. Stalin's War against Germany''. New York: Orion Publishing Group, Ltd., 2007. ((ISBN|978-0-304-36540-1)).
* Erickson, John, and David Dilks. ''Barbarossa, the Axis and the Allies''. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995. ((ISBN|0-7486-0504-5)).
* Glantz, David, ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20110709141048/http://www.strom.clemson.edu/publications/sg-war41-45.pdf The Soviet‐German War 1941–45]: Myths and Realities: A Survey Essay''.
* [[Heinz Guderian|Guderian, Heinz]]. ''[[Panzer Leader (book)|Panzer Leader]]'', Da Capo Press Reissue edition. New York: Da Capo Press, 2001. ((ISBN|0-306-81101-4)).
* [[Max Hastings|Hastings, Max]]. ''Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944–1945''. Vintage Books USA, 2005. ((ISBN|0-375-71422-7))
*((cite book | last = Hill | first = Alexander | year = 2016 | title = The Red Army and the Second World War | place = UK | publisher = Cambridge University Press | isbn = 978-1-107-02079-5 ))
* International Military Tribunal at Nurnberg, Germany. [https://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/NT_Nazi-conspiracy.html ''Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Supplement A''], USGPO, 1947.
*((Cite book
  |last=Krivosheev
  |first=Grigoriy
  |title=Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century
  |publisher=Greenhill Books
  |year=1997
  |isbn=1-85367-280-7
  |ref=none
))
* [[Basil Liddell Hart|Liddell Hart, B.H.]] ''History of the Second World War''. United States of America: Da Capo Press, 1999. ((ISBN|0-306-80912-5)).
* Bengt Beckman. ''Svenska Kryptobedrifter''
* [http://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/?author_id=808 Lubbeck, William] and David B. Hurt. ''[http://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/?product_id=1457 At Leningrad's Gates: The Story of a Soldier with Army Group North]'', Philadelphia: Casemate, 2006. ((ISBN|1-932033-55-6)).
* [[Evan Mawdsley|Mawdsley, Evan]]  ''Thunder in the East: the Nazi–Soviet War, 1941–1945''. London 2005. ((ISBN|0-340-80808-X)).
*((Citation | last = Merridale | first = Catherine  | title = Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939–1945 | year = 2007 |  orig-date = 2006 | place = New York | publisher = Macmillan  | isbn = 978-0-312-42652-1 |  author-link = Catherine Merridale )).
* Müller, Rolf-Dieter and [[Gerd R. Ueberschär]]. ''[https://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=22785646 Hitler's War in the East, 1941–1945: A Critical Assessment] ((Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120716181615/http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=22785646 |date=16 July 2012 ))''. Berghahn Books, 1997. ((ISBN|1-57181-068-4)).
* [[Richard Overy|Overy, Richard]]. ''Russia's War: A History of the Soviet Effort: 1941–1945'', New Edition. New York: Penguin Books Ltd., 1998. ((ISBN|0-14-027169-4)).
* Schofield, Carey, ''ed''. ''Russian at War, 1941–1945''. Text by Georgii Drozdov and Evgenii Ryabko, [with] introd. by Vladimir Karpov [and] pref. by Harrison E. Salisbury, ed. by Carey Schofield. New York: Vendome Press, 1987. 256 p., copiously ill. with b&2 photos and occasional maps. ''N.B''.: This is mostly a photo-history, with connecting texts. ((ISBN|0-88029-084-6))
* Seaton, Albert. ''The Russo-German War, 1941–1945'', Reprint edition. Presidio Press, 1993. ((ISBN|0-89141-491-6)).
* [[William L. Shirer|Shirer, William L]]. (1960). ''The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany'' New York: Simon & Schuster.
* SvD 2010-10-23 [https://www.svd.se/svensk-knackte-nazisternas-hemliga-koder Svensk knäckte nazisternas hemliga koder]
* [[F. W. Winterbotham|Winterbotham, F.W.]] ''The Ultra Secret'', New Edition. Orion Publishing Group Ltd., 2000. ((ISBN|0-7528-3751-6)).
* Ziemke, Earl F. ''Battle For Berlin: End of the Third Reich'', NY:Ballantine Books, London:Macdomald & Co, 1969.
* Ziemke, Earl F. ''The U.S. Army in the occupation of Germany 1944–1946'', USGPO, 1975
((Refend))

===Historiography===
*((cite journal | last1 = Lak | first1 = Martijn | year = 2015 | title = Contemporary Historiography on the Eastern Front in World War II. | journal = Journal of Slavic Military Studies | volume = 28 | issue = 3| pages = 567–587 | doi = 10.1080/13518046.2015.1061828 | s2cid = 142875289 ))

==External links==
((Wikisource|Adolf Hitler's Letter to Benito Mussolini Explaining the Invasion of the Soviet Union))
((Wikisource|The Führer to the German People: 22 June 1941))
((Wikisource|Adolf Hitler's Order of the Day to the German Troops on the Eastern Front (2 October 1941)))
((Wikisource|Adolf Hitler Explains His Reasons for Invading the Soviet Union))
((Wikisource|Adolf Hitler's Proclamation to the German Army on His Assumption of Direct Command))
((Wikisource|Adolf Hitler's Speech at the Berlin Sportpalast (30 January 1942)))
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120916093716/http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/holocaust/barbarossa/index.asp?WT.mc_id=wiki Marking 70 Years to Operation Barbarossa] on the [[Yad Vashem]] website
* [https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/soviet_german_war_01.shtml Prof Richard Overy writes a summary about the eastern front for the BBC]
* [https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2011/09/world-war-ii-the-eastern-front/100150/ World War II: The Eastern Front] by Alan Taylor, ''The Atlantic''
* [http://www.borodulincollection.com/war/english/index.html Rarities of the USSR photochronicles. Great Patriotic War 1941–1945] Borodulin Collection. Excellent set of war photos
* [http://english.pobediteli.ru/ Pobediteli: Eastern Front flash animation] (photos, video, interviews, memorials. Written from a Russian perspective)
* [http://www.armchairgeneral.com/rkkaww2/ RKKA in World War II]
* [http://www.armchairgeneral.com/rkkaww2/maps.htm Armchair General maps, year by year]
* [http://www.ww2oo.net?Lang=E World War II Eastern Front Order Of Battle] ((Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120331093142/http://www.ww2oo.net/?Lang=E |date=31 March 2012 ))
* [https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/05/08/dont-forget-how-the-soviet-union-saved-the-world-from-hitler/ Don't forget how the Soviet Union saved the world from Hitler]. ''[[The Washington Post]]'', 8 May 2015.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20151208200157/http://collections.yadvashem.org/photosarchive/en-us/search.html#q=soviet%20pow Images depicting conditions in the camps for Soviet POW] from [[Yad Vashem]]

===Videos===
* "Operation Typhoon": ((YouTube|e4XEbJOqTCo)), lecture by [[David Stahel]], author of ''Operation Typhoon. Hitler's March on Moscow'' (2013) and ''The Battle for Moscow'' (2015); via the official channel of [[USS Silversides (SS-236)#USS Silversides Submarine Museum|USS Silversides Museum]].
* "Fighting a Lost War: The German Army in 1943": ((YouTube|1SdO-btKuds)), lecture by [[Robert Citino]], via the official channel of the [[U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center]].
* "Kursk, The Epic Armored Engagement": ((YouTube|N6xLMUifbxQ)), via the official channel of [[The National WWII Museum]]; session by the Robert Citino and Jonathan Parshall at the 2013 International Conference on World War II.
* "Mindset of WWII German Soldiers": ((YouTube|4eIn0IBsnBE))—interview with the historian [[Sönke Neitzel]] discussing his book ''Soldaten: On Fighting, Killing and Dying'', via the official channel of [[The Agenda]], a programme of [[TVOntario]], a Canadian public television station.
* "How the Red Army Defeated Germany: The Three Alibis": ((YouTube|zinPbUZUHDE))—lecture by Jonathan M. House of the [[U.S. Army Command and General Staff College]], via the official channel of [[Dole Institute of Politics]].

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[[Category:Eastern Front (World War II)| ]]
[[Category:Eastern European theatre of World War II]]
[[Category:European theatre of World War II|*]]
[[Category:Invasions of Russia]]