List of battles on the Eastern Front ww2
Eastern Front
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7.5 cm Pak 97/38 – GER/FRA | ANTI-TANK GUN Sd.Kfz. 251/1 Ausf. D – GER | PERSONNEL CARRIER/PRIME MOVER Sd.Kfz. 2 Kleines Kettenkrad – GER | PERSONNEL CARRIER/PRIME MOVER 15 cm Nebelwerfer 41 – GER | ROCKET LAUNCHER StuG III Ausf. G – GER | TANK DESTROYER 3.7 cm Pak 35/36 – GER | ANTI-TANK GUN Borgward IV Ausf. B – GER | REMOTE DEMOLITION VEHICLE PM M1910 – RUS | HEAVY MACHINE GUN The battles on the Eastern Front constituted the largest military confrontations in history. They were characterized by unprecedented ferocity, destruction on a massive scale, mass deportations, and immense loss of life due to combat, starvation, exposure, disease, and massacres. Of the estimated 70-85 million deaths attributed to World War II, around 40 million occurred on the Eastern Front. The Eastern Front was decisive in determining the outcome in the European Theater of Operation in World War II, with the Red Army inflicting by far the most damage on the armies of Nazi Germany and the Axis nations. The two principal powers were Germany and the Soviet Union, along with smaller Axis allies like Finland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Italy. Though never engaged in military action in the Eastern Front, the United States and the United Kingdom both provided substantial material aid to the Soviet Union. Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were essentially allied in the ruthless double invasion of Poland in September 1939, and their cooperative annexations of other small states, in whole or in part, in 1939-1940. However, in terms of ideology and imperial and territorial ambition they remained deeply at odds. Germany thus launched Operation Barbarossa, its invasion of the Soviet Union, on June 22nd, 1941, the summer solstice and hence true “longest day” of the war. From the first hours, Nazi death battalions (Einsatzgruppen) carried out mass murder campaigns. The fighting between the armies was brutal and merciless. In the first winter alone, 3.5 million Soviet POWs were starved to death or murdered by the Nazi regime. But the invasion slowed by December 1941, halting out just miles from Moscow. Another effort by the Germans stalled in Stalingrad in late 1942, before the turning point came at Kursk in the summer of 1943, while the Western Allies landed in Sicily and stepped up their bombing campaign against Germany itself. In the ‘bloodlands’ of the Eastern Front, years of hard attritional war were made worse by multiple genocides and two of the worst, bloodiest tyrants in all history: Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin. Together, they oversaw mass death and a war without garlands on the ground that exceeded in horror and malice and death and destruction any other war in human history. A strategic air offensive by the United States Army Air Force and Royal Air Force played a significant part in reducing German industry and tying up German air force and air defense resources, while the Red Army engaged by far the lion’s share of German forces on the ground.
The book is a stunning tale of death and disaster. In February 1915 one Austro-Hungarian army and one German army tried to relieve the Russian-besieged Habsburg fortress of Przemyśl and its 120,000-man garrison. The Austro-Hungarian troops advanced along the 1,200-meter high ridges of the Carpathian Mountains in snowstorms and dense fog. Intermittent sleet, snow, wind, and ice battered the men. Temperatures plummeted to -25 degrees Celsius. Sudden thaws turned the battlefields into seas of mud. Men either froze to death or drowned in the ooze. Hunger, starvation, disease (typhus and cholera), frostbite, and wolves took their toll. Horses and dogs became a dietary staple. Life expectancy was down to five or six weeks. Countless troopers committed suicide. The butcher’s bill was astronomical: 800,000 casualties, more men than would fall at Verdun or the Somme one year later. Despite the deadly relief effort, the Przemyśl garrison surrendered to the Russians on…
By Norman Stone,
Not only does Stone demolish the many false
ideas held about this part of the war, but he provides us with insights that allow us to understand the important connections among the three fronts of the war that impacted decisions in Paris and London—and vice versa. By Alan Clark, This book brings to life a part of the war Western readers know far too little about: the vast battles that ranged back and forth across
Eastern Europe and Russia. Two of the three armies involved, those of Tsarist Russia and Austria-Hungary, were spectacularly incompetent, and saw their soldiers needlessly slaughtered by the millions before these two empires dissolved under the war’s impact. By Elizabeth Wein,
I could have picked any one of Elizabeth Wein’s World War II novels; all are unique and profound, and all consider aspects of the war we don’t read about too often, or that we don’t often consider through the lens of women’s roles. But I chose White Eagles, about a young Polish female pilot modeled closely on Anna Leska, because I appreciate the attention it draws to the air war on the Eastern Front and because this is another story built
mainly on the humanity of its characters; pilot Kristina’s poignant relationships both with her brother and with her young passenger are the driving forces of the narrative. By Heinrich Boll, Leila Vennewitz (translator),
Boll, a Second World War veteran, tells this
episodic story from the perspective of a German soldier during the last year of the war. Loosely episodic and propelled by a kind of grim, fatalistic absurdity, it follows the hapless infantryman Feinhals as he lurches from misadventure to misadventure on the Eastern Front. What really stuck with me is the awfulness of the predicaments Feinhals finds himself in, such as the moment when a soldier sets out to surrender a hospital full of wounded men, only to accidentally set off a dud shell beside
the hospital’s cesspool. The Soviets, thinking they have been attacked, respond by levelling the place. "This war’s a load of shit," says one cynical character, and with a magnificent kaboom, that statement becomes literal. By Robert Kershaw,
I’m
an Eastern Front buff—especially the beginning of the war and its end. And this is the very best book on the first six or so months of the titanic clash between Hitler and Stalin. Robert Kershaw is one of the best (largely) WW2 historians because he gives the ordinary soldier a voice. There are other books that go into greater detail on specific actions, and it is more German than Russian focused, but for an overview from Leningrad to the Crimea, with the emphasis on the Moscow
axis, it’s the best general read by some distance. By Max Hastings,
Churchill is perhaps best remembered for his bulldog premiership during the Second
World War. Max Hasting’s excellent study graphically portrays the enormous political and strategic stresses and strains endured by Churchill. Coalition warfare was one of vigorously competing interests and Hastings shows how Churchill achieved a quite remarkable juggling act. By Alexander Hill,
The Eastern Front has not always
attracted the most readable scholarship, while two of the major works by British writers are by those who cannot read Russian. Hill is a welcome relief. His scholarship is impeccable and his book is readable. An important contribution. By Alexander Werth,
This vivid history of the Soviet Union
at war by BBC journalist Alexander Werth is worth picking up for the Stalingrad chapters alone. In January 1943, Werth set out by train from Moscow to Stalingrad with a small group of correspondents. His conversations with Russian soldiers, officers, nurses, and railwaymen about the fighting, the Germans, and the Soviet defense of the city are woven into these chapters and make for extremely engaging reading. By David R. Stone,
There is a shortage of good books on the military aspect of the war on the Eastern Front, with some of the most prominent books in English (and for that matter in Russian) dating back nearly fifty years. Stone’s volume is a prominent exception in this regard. Stone is thoughtful, concise, and judicious throughout. Readers will emerge with a comprehensive view of combat operations – and more. Or, view all 13 books about the Eastern Front in World War II New book lists related to the Eastern Front in World War IIAll book lists related to the Eastern Front in World War IIBookshelves related to the Eastern Front in World War IIWhat battles were fought on the Eastern Front ww2?Contents. 4.1 Operation Barbarossa: Summer 1941.. 4.2 Leningrad, Moscow and Rostov: Autumn 1941.. 4.3 Soviet counter-offensive: Winter 1941.. 4.4 Don, Volga, and Caucasus: Summer 1942.. 4.5 Stalingrad: Winter 1942.. 4.6 Kursk: Summer 1943.. 4.7 Autumn and Winter 1943–44.. 4.8 Summer 1944.. What battles were fought along the Eastern Front?Battles - The Eastern Front. What were the 20 major battles of ww2?Dates and Numbers of Battles. What were the 5 fronts of ww2?European Theatre. Nordic Front.. Western Front.. Eastern Front.. |
