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| The '''Eastern Front''' of ] was the ] in eastern Europe, in which fighting began in June ] and ended in May ]; the two principal ] nations were ] and the ]. Fighting on this front, along with other ] on other fronts, led to the defeat of ], the the rise of the Soviet Union as a military and industrial ], the Soviet occupation of ], and the ]. | |||
| ] over the ] during the ], May 1945]] | |||
| In ], the conflict is referred to as the '''Great Patriotic War''' (Великая Отечественная Война, ''Velikaya Otechestvennaya Voyna)'', a name which alludes to the ]–]ic '']'' on Russian soil in ]. The Russo-Finnish ] may be considered the northern flank of the Eastern Front. Some scholars of the conflict use the term '''Russo-German War''', while others use '''Soviet-German War''' or '''German-Soviet War'''. In the Soviet Union the end of war is considered to be ], when the surrender took effect ] time. This date is celebrated as a ], ], or День Победы in the ] and some other post-Soviet countries. | |||
| Some German armies initially refused to surrender and continued to ] until about ]. | |||
| ==Overview== | |||
| ] poster ''Mother Russia Is Calling You to the Front''.]] | |||
| The war between Germany and the Soviet Union began on ] ], when Germany invaded Soviet teritory on a broad front. Details of the initial invasion campaign can be seen at ]. Causes of the war are available in the ] article. In the initial period of the war, German forces defeated large Soviet forces and inflicted staggering casualties. However, they did not achieve their objectives of destroying the ] and causing a collapse of the ]. | |||
| The unexpected survival of the Red Army and Soviet state led to a long, brutal series of campaigns. In the winter of 1941-42, the Red Army took the offensive and drove the German forces back up to 100 miles in a broad attack that left both sides exhausted. In the spring of 1942, Soviet forces again took the offensive around Kharkov. This was defeated. In the summer of 1942, Germany again launched a massive offensive operation, this time aimed at the oil-rich Caucasus region. This led to the Stalingrad campaign. The stunning defeat of the Germans at Stalingrad, coming within a few months of western Allied victories at ] and the ], led to a sense that the tide of the war had turned against the Germans. | |||
| After Stalingrad, there was an unusual pause on the Eastern Front while both sides recovered their strength and considered their next moves. In the summer of 1943 at the ] the Red Army inflicted a decisive defeat on the Germans. Thereafter, in a series of increasingly large offensives, the Red Army drove the Germans out of the USSR, then out of the rest of Eastern Europe, and finally to Berlin. The fighting on the Eastern Front ended on ] ], when Germany's armed forces ] following the ]. | |||
| == Belligerents== | |||
| The ] was allied informally with the British Empire and United States of America during most of the conflict. By mid-war, the Soviet Union had help from an increasing ] movement in the USSR and other countries in ], notably those in Poland and ]. In addition the ] and ] Polish armies, armed and trained by the Soviets, fought alongside the ] at the front. Smaller contributions came from ], ](after switching sides late in the war) and Bulgaria. | |||
| Germany was able to call on the manpower of other satellite or ] nations, including ] ], ], ], and ] with some assistance from anti-communist ] as well as a volunteer ] from nominally neutral Fascist Spain. | |||
| == Major Campaigns == | |||
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| ==Industrial Management and Output== | |||
| World War Two was a war of materiel. The differences in the economic management of the belligerents had a major impact on the course of the fighting. | |||
| In general, the Soviet state was more highly centralized, and was able to make better use of the industrial base to produce weapons. The USSR was aided in this effort by substantial ] shipments of key materials and goods. Civilian standards of living were quite low and declined further during the war. | |||
| Germany was less centralized; although Hitler had dictatorial powers, the German economy operated in 'fiefs' with little coordination. Starting with a much larger industrial base, with the economies of much of Europe under their control, the Germans did not equal the Soviet output of key weapons or supplies. | |||
| See ] for details. | |||
| == Human Cost == | |||
| The Eastern Front was by far the largest and bloodiest ] of World War II, and generally accepted as the most costly conflict in human history at anywhere from 25-30 million dead as a result. It involved more land combat than all other World War II theatres combined; much of this combat took place in populated areas including major cities. There was tremendous brutality both to combatants and civilians, which was not often paralleled on the ]. | |||
| See ] for details. | |||
| The war inflicted huge losses and suffering onto the civilian populations of the affected countries. Behind the front lines, ] against civilians in German-occupied areas were routine. Much of the ] took place in areas of eastern Europe occupied by the Nazis. German and German-allied forces treated civilian populations with exceptional brutality, massacring villages and routinely killing civilian hostages. Both sides practiced widespread ] tactics. After the war, following the ] agreements between the Allies, the ] of ] and ] were ] of the ], in what became one of the largest ]s of people in world history. | |||
| See ] for details. | |||
| == Irregular Warfare == | |||
| See ] for details. | |||
| A variety of partisan groups carried out ] in the rear areas of the belligerents. In the initial period of the war, irregular warfare was very limited. However, the seeds of later partisan operations were sown as thousands of Red Army personnel, cut off from their retreating units and bypassed by fast-moving German units, dispersed into the forests or small towns of occupied areas. A combination of pre-war planning and wartime insertion of Soviet special operations troops provided leadership, direction and resources to the partisan movement. By mid-war, particularly when it became clear that the Germans might not win, the partisan movement gained power and succeeded in tying down substantial Axis units policing their own rear areas. Partisans provided intelligence to Soviet forces and occasionally were able to disrupt German logistics. | |||
| Some smaller partisan movements grew up in the uncertainty of war. In Ukraine, the nationalist OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists) fought both sides for an independent Ukraine. This group fought Red Army units until about 1950. | |||
| In Poland, a very large and higly-organized 'Home Army' fought the Germans at the ] in 1944. The Red Army, located in the Warsaw suburb of Praha at the time, did nothing to aid these partisans to fight the Nazi German forces. | |||
| == Controversies of the Eastern Front == | |||
| "Preemptive war"? | |||
| Warsaw Uprising | |||
| German treatment of conquered people | |||
| Stalin's war leadership | |||
| Hitler's war leadership | |||
| == Historiography == | |||
| Postwar German source bias | |||
| problems with the German sources | |||
| Postwar Soviet sources | |||
| - Stalin era | |||
| - Krushchev era | |||
| - Post-Krushchev | |||
| - New views since the collapse of the USSR | |||
| Other sources | |||
| ] ] to ] ]]] | |||
| ], December 1941]] | |||
| ] tank rolls off the line at the ''Krasnoye Sormovo'' Factory No. 112 in Gorki. The Soviet Union manufactured 58,000 T-34s during the war.]] | |||
| ==See also== ] in ].]] | |||
| * ]. | |||
| * ]. | |||
| * ], Axis attack on the Soviet Arctic. | |||
| * ], the Soviet campaign against ] in ]. | |||
| * ]. | |||
| * ] | |||
| ==References== | |||
| * ], & Artemis Cooper, ''Stalingrad'', Viking, 1998. | |||
| * Antony Beevor, ''Berlin: The Downfall 1945'', Penguin, 2002. | |||
| * ], ''The Road to Stalingrad'', Harper & Row, 1975. | |||
| * John Erickson, ''The Road to Berlin'', Harper & Row, 1982. | |||
| * John Erickson and ], ''Barbarossa, the Axis and the Allies'', Edinburgh University Press, 1994. | |||
| * ] and ], ''When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army stopped Hitler'', University Press of Kansas, 1995. | |||
| * ], '']'', ], New York, 2001. | |||
| * ], ''History of the Second World War'', Cassel & Co; Pan Books, 1973. | |||
| * | |||
| * ]''Deutsche militarische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg'' | |||
| * ], ''Russia's War: A History of the Soviet Effort: 1941–1945'', Penguin, 1997. | |||
| * ], ''The Russo-German War 1941–45'', Praeger, 1971. | |||
| ==External links== | |||
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| * (photos, video, interviews, memorials. Written from a Russian perspective) | |||
| * The German Armed Forces 1919-1945 | |||
| {{WWIITheatre}} | |||
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