page 32), Земское В.Н. [55], In the first three weeks of the invasion, as the Soviet Union tried to defend against large German advances,it suffered 750,000 casualties, and lost 10,000 tanks and 4,000 aircraft. [120] The Soviets did not admit responsibility until 1990. "The Secret File of Joseph Stalin: A Hidden Life". [140] In the first two months following the order, over 1,000 troops were shot by blocking units and blocking units sent over 130,000 troops to penal battalions.  • Syria and Lebanon Krivosheev maintains that the figures were derived in a scientific manner by a team of professional researchers who had access to the military archives. Kleist was then ordered to wheel northward from the Ukraine, Guderian southward from Smolensk, for a pincer movement around the Soviet forces behind Kiev; and by the end of September the claws of the encircling movement had caught 520,000 men. [99] The Germans held out in the subsequent Battle of Budapest until February 1945, when the remaining Hungarians signed an armistice with the Soviet Union. Factory employees were still driven to desperation on occasion and people resorted to eating glue or horses in factories where food was scarce, but factory employment was the most consistently successful method of survival, and at some food production plants not a single person died.  • Manchuria "[41] Molotov took the position that he could not take a "definite stand" on this without Stalin's agreement. [120] On March 5, 1940, pursuant to a note to Stalin from Lavrenty Beria, the members of the Soviet Politburo (including Stalin) signed an order to execute 25,700 Polish POWs, labeled "nationalists and counterrevolutionaries", kept at camps and prisons in occupied western Ukraine and Belarus. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. Furthermore, another 1,104 Soviet aircraft were lost between 12 July and 18 August. In August 1939, Stalin accepted Adolf Hitler's proposal to enter into a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany, negotiated by the foreign ministers Vyacheslav Molotov for the Soviets and Joachim von Ribbentrop for the Germans. It was in effect the largest and most powerful invasion force in human history. HarperCollins.  • Territorial changes of Germany Marshall Cavendish, 1985, "CHRONOLOGY 1990; The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. [81], By the end of 1943, the Soviets occupied half of the territory taken by the Germans from 1941-1942. [153], Soviet POWs and forced laborers who survived German captivity were sent to special "transit" or "filtration" camps meant to determine which were potential traitors. On August 25, 1941, British and Soviet forces jointly invaded Iran, to forestall the establishment of a German base there and to divide the country into spheres of occupation for the duration of the war; and late in September—at a conference in Moscow—Soviet, British, and U.S. representatives formulated the monthly quantities of supplies, including aircraft, tanks, and raw materials, that Great Britain and the United States should try to furnish to the Soviet Union. [75], Within a year after Barbarossa, Stalin reopened the churches in the Soviet Union. He thus ordered the NKVD to take care of the situation. [146] For example, Red Army soldiers and NKVD members frequently looted transport trains in 1944 and 1945 in Poland[147] and Soviet soldiers set fire to the city centre of Demmin while preventing the inhabitants from extinguishing the blaze,[148] which, along with multiple rapes, played a part in causing over 900 citizens of the city to commit suicide. [114] Millions of Soviet soldiers and civilians disappeared into German detention camps and slave labor factories, while millions more suffered permanent physical and mental damage. "What Stalin Knew: The Enigma of Barbarossa".  • Lend-Lease In Leningrad, besieged by the Germans and gradually dying of hunger, the inhabitants were astounded, and uplifted, to see wonder-working icon Our Lady of Kazan brought out into the streets and borne in procession. Shortly thereafter, Stalin's attitude changed.  • Strategic bombing, • Expulsion of Germans [111][112] Stalin also later directed aides to spend years researching and writing a secret book about Hitler's life for his own private reading that reflected Stalin's prejudices, including an absence of criticism of Hitler for his treatment of Jews. Another factor in the Germans’ calculations was purely political, though no less mistaken; they believed that within three to six months of their invasion, the Soviet regime would collapse from lack of domestic support. Rowman & Littlefield.  • Ardennes  • Soviet Union (Barbarossa) In that emergency Hitler forbade any retreat beyond the shortest possible local withdrawals. There followed a blow at the German left, in the Velikie Luki sector; and the counteroffensive, which was sustained throughout the winter of 1941–42, soon took the form of a triple convergence toward Smolensk. [31] Ribbentrop asked Molotov to sign another secret protocol with the statement: "The focal point of the territorial aspirations of the Soviet Union would presumably be centered south of the territory of the Soviet Union in the direction of the Indian Ocean. [156], The whole of the Soviet Union become dedicated to the war effort. Stalin, U.S.President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill at the Tehran Conference, November 1943. [43] While Stalin had little faith in Japan's commitment to neutrality, he felt that the pact was important for its political symbolism, to reinforce a public affection for Germany. [102][103] Stalin still remained suspicious that western Allied forces holding at the Elbe river might move on the capital and, even in the last days, that the Americans might employ their two airborne divisions to capture the city. [39] But in annexing northern Bukovina, Stalin had gone beyond the agreed limits of the secret protocol. They responded by murdering around one hundred thousand political prisoners throughout the western parts of the Soviet Union, with methods that included bayoneting people to death and tossing grenades into crowded cells. [140] Despite having some effect initially, this measure proved to have a deteriorating effect on the troops' morale, so by October 1942 the idea of regular blocking units was quietly dropped[142] By 20 November 1944 the blocking units were disbanded officially. ISBN, Murphy, David E. (2006). Chervron/Ian Allen. The invasion along a 1,800-mile front took the Soviet leadership completely by surprise and caught the Red Army in an unprepared and partially demobilized state. [120][122][123] Major-General Vasili M. Blokhin, chief executioner for the NKVD, personally shot 6,000 of the captured Polish officers in 28 consecutive nights, which remains one of the most organized and protracted mass murders by a single individual on record[124][125] During his 29 year career Blokhin shot an estimated 50,000 people,[126] making him ostensibly the most prolific official executioner in recorded world history. [92], During the rapid German advances in the early months of the war, nearly reaching the cities of Moscow and Leningrad, the bulk of Soviet industry which could not be evacuated was either destroyed or lost due to German occupation. 13 of the Politburo of the Central Committee meeting, shooting order of March 5, 1940, Ромуальд Святек, "Катынский лес", Военно-исторический журнал, 1991, №9, ISSN, Bauer, Eddy.  • Crete [144][145] Regarding rapes that occurred in Yugoslavia, Stalin responded to a Yugoslav partisan leader's complaints saying, "Can't he understand it if a soldier who has crossed thousands of kilometers through blood and fire and death has fun with a woman or takes some trifle?  • Project Hula The Germans’ strength was further increased by more than 30 divisions of Finnish and Romanian troops.  • Budapest [92] The weakened Wehrmacht also helped Soviet offensives because no effective German counter-offensive could be launched,[90], Beginning in the summer of 1944, a reinforced German Army Centre Group did prevent the Soviets from advancing in around Warsaw for nearly half a year. But the Germans maintained their hold on the main bastions of their winter front—such towns as Schlüsselburg, Novgorod, Rzhev, Vyazma, Bryansk, Orël (Oryol), Kursk, Kharkov, and Taganrog—despite the fact that the Soviets had often advanced many miles beyond these bastions, which were in effect cut off. Roberts, Geoffrey (2002). [137] Many others were simply deported east. For Russians, World War II began—not in 1939 as it did for the rest of the world—but in 1941. [42], In an effort to demonstrate peaceful intentions toward Germany, on April 13, 1941, Stalin oversaw the signing of a neutrality pact with the Axis power Japan. World War II was especially devastating to citizens of the USSR because it was fought on Soviet territory and caused massive destruction. Joseph Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. While the Germans pressed forward, Stalin was confident of an eventual Allied victory over Germany.  • Operation Keelhaul ISBN, Wettig, Gerhard (2008). [86] Stalin and Roosevelt, in effect, ganged up on Churchill by emphasizing the importance of a cross-channel invasion of German-held northern France, while Churchill had always felt that Germany was more vulnerable in the "soft underbelly" of Italy (which the Allies had already invaded) and the Balkans. Bock’s renewed advance on Moscow began on October 2, 1941. For the United States, the breakdown of relations between the Soviet Union and China was a diplomatic opportunity.  • Changsha Germany began World War II with a Non-Aggression Pact with the USSR, after signing of which it quickly invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag. In 2002 G.F. Krivosheev, author of the 1993 official study of military casualties, defended the results of his report that found 8.668 million military war dead.  • Paris But the isolated Soviet troops fought with a stubbornness that the French had not shown, and their resistance imposed a brake by continuing to block road centres long after the German tide had swept past them. Simon and Schuster. Loss records for 17 VA are incomplete.  • Estonia [38] The resulting peoples assemblies immediately requested admission into the USSR, which was granted by the Soviet Union. While the Germans made huge advances in 1941, killing millions of Soviet soldiers, at Stalin's direction, the Red Army directed sizable resources to prevent the Germans from achieving one of their key strategic goals, the attempted capture of Leningrad. Fending off the German invasion and pressing to victory in the East required a tremendous sacrifice by the Soviet Union, which suffered the highest military casualties in the war, losing approximately 20 million men. [141], After the capture of Berlin, Soviet troops reportedly raped German women and girls, with total victim estimates ranging from tens of thousands to two million. He may have wanted to motivate the majority of the population who had Christian beliefs. The capital was … [106] By April 24, Berlin was encircled by elements of two Soviet fronts,[107] one of which had begun a massive shelling of the city on April 20 that would not end until the city's surrender.  • Manila Thurston, Robert W. and Bernd Bonwetsch (2000). The United States began to see the Soviet Union as an embattled country being overrun by fascist forces, and this attitude was further reinforced in the aftermath of the Japanese attack on … "Turkmenistan during the Second World War,". 227 and NKVD prisoner massacres.  • Comparative military ranks Then they joined the Allies in whipping some Nazis.  • Shumshu, • Attacks on North America From generals downward, the invaders were filled with ghastly thoughts of Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow. "Soviet deaths in the great patriotic war: A note,", Hill, Alexander. Stalin feared that Hitler would use disgruntled Soviet citizens to fight his regime, particularly people imprisoned in the Gulags. Nevertheless, by mid-July the Germans had advanced more than 400 miles and were only 200 miles from Moscow. Hitler made the mistake of thinking the USSR was like Czarist Russia in two key ways. "[6][16][17] German officials stated that, unlike Britain, Germany could permit the Soviets to continue their developments unmolested, and that "there is one common element in the ideology of Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union: opposition to the capitalist democracies of the West. In general, the tools, dies and production technology were moved, along with the blueprints and their management, engineering staffs and skilled labour. [56] In July 1940, Stalin completely reorganized the Soviet military, placing himself directly in charge of several military organizations. [97] Following the invasion of these Balkan countries, Stalin and Churchill met in the fall of 1944, where they agreed upon various percentages for "spheres of influence" in several Balkan states, though the diplomats for neither leader knew what the term actually meant.  • Warsaw The Soviet Union entered the World War II era shackled to its past. Williams, Andrew (2005). [48] Five days before the attack, Stalin received a report from a spy in the German Air Ministry that "all preparations by Germany for an armed attack on the Soviet Union have been completed, and the blow can be expected at any time. "Pariahs, Partners, Predators: German-Soviet Relations, 1922-1941". "[16][18] By that time, Molotov obtained information regarding Anglo-German negotiations and a pessimistic report from the Soviet ambassador in France. One account said that Stalin's reversal followed a sign that he supposedly received from heaven. When World War II started, the Soviet Union was effectively an ally of Nazi Germany in a relatively conventional European interstate war. The following is a list of Soviet military equipment of World War II which includes artillery, vehicles and vessels. [108] On April 30, Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide, after which Soviet forces found their remains, which had been burned at Hitler's directive. Stalin's shortcomings as strategist are frequently noted regarding massive Soviet loss of life and early Soviet defeats. [56] German forces had advanced c. 1,700 kilometers, and maintained a linearly-measured front of 3,000 kilometers. ISBN, Roberts, Geoffrey (2006). The government implemented rationing in 1941 and first applied it to bread, flour, cereal, pasta, butter, margarine, vegetable oil, meat, fish, sugar, and confectionary all across the country. John Barber and Mark Harrison, The Soviet Home Front, 1941-1945: a social and economic history of the USSR in World War II (Longman, 1991), 77, 81, 85-6.  • Hungary  • Bagration According to recent figures, of an estimated four million POWs taken by the Russians, including Germans, Japanese, Hungarians, Romanians and others, some 580,000 never returned, presumably victims of privation or the Gulags, compared with 3.5 million Soviet POW that died in German camps out of the 5.6 million taken. [65] On December 5, the Soviets launched a counteroffensive, pushing German troops back c. 80 km from Moscow in what was the first major defeat of the Wehrmacht in the war. [4], The Pact was reached two days after the breakdown of Soviet military talks with British and French representatives in August 1939 over a potential Franco-Anglo-Soviet alliance.  • Indonesian National Revolution, Implementing the division of Eastern Europe and other invasions, «27-я годовщина Великой Октябрьской социалистической революции», Shirer, William L. (1990). But the Vyazma battle had not been completed until late October; the German troops were tired, the country became a morass as the weather got worse, and fresh Soviet forces appeared in the path as they plodded slowly forward. [82] Despite substantial losses in 1942 far in excess of German losses, Red Army size grew even further, to 11 million. The term symbolized efforts by the Soviet Union to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the West and non-Soviet-controlled areas.  • Lithuania [40] In response to a later German proposal, Stalin's stated that the Soviets would join the Axis if Germany foreclosed acting in the Soviet's sphere of influence. The German southern campaign began with a push to capture the Crimea, which ended in disaster for the Red Army. However, on 22 June 1941 Hitler, the leader of Germany, ordered a surprise attack on Russia. [77], In 1943, Stalin ceded to his generals' call for the Soviet Union to take a defensive stance because of disappointing losses after Stalingrad, a lack of reserves for offensive measures and a prediction that the German's would likely next attack a bulge in the Soviet front at Kursk such that defensive preparations there would more efficiently use resources.  • Borneo "[76], The Soviets repulsed the important German strategic southern campaign and, although 2.5 million Soviet casualties were suffered in that effort, it permitted to Soviets to take the offensive for most of the rest of the war on the Eastern Front. Following political instability built-up in Europe from 1930, Germany, which aimed to dominate Europe, attacked Poland on 1 September 1939, marking the start of World War II. 270, Order No. Planting vegetable gardens in the spring became popular, primarily because citizens got to keep everything grown on their own plots. [136] The second provision of the order directed all units fighting in encirclements to use every possibility to fight. Istoriya SSSR., 1990, No.4. In one of the greatest feats of war logistics, factories were evacuated on an enormous scale, with 1523 factories dismantled and shipped eastwards along four principal routes to the Caucasus, Central Asian, Ural, and Siberian regions. [86] The parties later agreed that Britain and America would launch a cross-channel invasion of France in May 1944, along with a separate invasion of southern France. [92] Of the approximately 4 million to be repatriated 2,660,013 were civilians and 1,539,475 were former POWs.  • Military production [66] The counteroffensive bogged down, in part due to mud from rain in the Spring of 1942. ", G. I. Krivosheev. They still had ample time to make decisive gains before the onset of winter, but they lost the opportunity, primarily because of arguments throughout August between Hitler and the OKH about the destination of the next thrusts thence: whereas the OKH proposed Moscow as the main objective, Hitler wanted the major effort to be directed southeastward, through the Ukraine and the Donets Basin into the Caucasus, with a minor swing northwestward against Leningrad (to converge with Leeb’s army group). "The Marshall Cavendish Illustrated Encyclopedia of World War II". К вопросу о репатриации советских граждан. He pledged a campaign of massive strategic bombing, to include German civilian targets. [90], Successes at Operation Bagration and in the year that followed were, in large part, due to a weakened Wehrmacht that lacked the fuel and armament they needed to operate effectively,[91] growing Soviet advantages in manpower and materials, and the attacks of Allies on the Western Front. For the campaign against the Soviet Union, the Germans allotted almost 150 divisions containing a total of about 3,000,000 men. 1944-1951 годы // История СССР. "The Icebreaker Controversy: Did Stalin Plan to Attack Hitler?". Russian Central Military Archive TsAMO, f. (16 VA), f.320, op. World War II was the deadliest war in history which started in 1939 and ended in 1945. [96] The Soviet Union declared war on Bulgaria in September 1944 and invaded the country, installing a communist government. The population of the Soviet Union was probably better prepared than any other nation involved in the fighting of World War II to endure the material hardships of the war.  •  • Baltic States The first three months of the German–Soviet conflict produced cautious rapprochements between the U.S.S.R. and Great Britain and between the U.S.S.R. and the United States. More managed to escape the city; this was most successful when Lake Ladoga froze over and people could walk over the ice road—or “road of life”—to safety. Soviet military casualties totaled approximately 35 million (official figures 28.2 million) with approximately 14.7 million killed, missing or captured (official figures 11.285 million).  • Hong Kong Nevertheless, Stalin used the early years of the war to make territorial gains for himself. Since only four hundred thousand Russians were evacuated before the siege began, this left two and a half million in Leningrad, including four hundred thousand children. For these reasons, the stealing of food was severely punished and a person could be shot for as little as stealing a loaf of bread. [5] Another clause of the treaty was that Bessarabia, then part of Romania, was to be joined to the Moldovan ASSR, and become the Moldovan SSR under control of Moscow. the repatriation process was finally wound up in the early 1950s. [161]  • Czechoslovakia Articles with Polish-language external links, Articles with Russian-language external links, Articles containing Russian-language text, Articles incorporating text from Wikipedia, Military history of the Soviet Union during World War II, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Germany began an invasion of the Soviet Union, German invasion of its agreed upon portion of Poland, invaded eastern Poland and occupied the Polish territory assigned to it, Stalin personally wrote to Ribbentrop about entering an agreement regarding a "permanent basis" for their "mutual interests. It originated in a series of agreements between Germany and Italy, followed by the proclamation of an ‘axis’ binding Rome and Berlin (October 25, 1936), on which they claimed the world would rotate. Germany invaded and then forced the Soviet Union into the war [42] Shortly thereafter, Hitler issued a secret internal directive related to his plan to invade the Soviet Union. Many factory workers were teenagers, women and old people. Greenhill 1997 ISBN 1-85367-280-7, Richard Overy, The Dictators Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia p.568–569, (“Военно-исторический журнал” (“Military-Historical Magazine”), 1997, №5. [45] Before the invasion, Stalin thought that Germany would not attack the Soviet Union until Germany had defeated Britain. [62] In November 1941, Stalin rallied his generals in a speech given underground in Moscow, telling them that the German blitzkrieg would fail because of weaknesses in the German rear in Nazi-occupied Europe and the underestimation of the strength of the Red Army, and that the German war effort would crumble against the British-American-Soviet "war engine".  • Philippines  • Home front [98] The Red Army also expelled German forces from Lithuania and Estonia in late 1944 at the cost of 260,000 Soviet casualties. The consequence was that, though the Germans succeeded in shattering the original Soviet armies by superior technique, they then found their path blocked by fresh ones.  • Occupation of Germany [114] Economic losses, including losses in resources and manufacturing capacity in western Russia and Ukraine, were also catastrophic. The German attack on the Soviet Union was to have an immediate and highly salutary effect on Great Britain’s situation. Officially a non-aggression treaty only, an appended secret protocol, also reached on August 23, 1939, divided the whole of eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence. [2] On September 17 the Red Army invaded eastern Poland and occupied the Polish territory assigned to it by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, followed by co-ordination with German forces in Poland. Peasants received no rations and had to make do with local resources they farmed themselves.  • Leningrad "Falsifiers of History (Historical Survey)". [71], Estimating that the Russians were "finished," the Germans began another southern operation in the fall of 1942, the Battle of Stalingrad. 270, demanding any commanders or commissars "tearing away their insignia and deserting or surrendering" to be considered malicious deserters. This theory was supported by Igor Bunich, Joachim Hoffmann, Mikhail Meltyukhov (see Stalin's Missed Chance) and Edvard Radzinsky (see Stalin: The First In-Depth Biography Based on Explosive New Documents from Russia's Secret Archives). The Germans correctly estimated that there were about 150 divisions in the western parts of the U.S.S.R. and reckoned that 50 more might be produced. This is primarily because the Soviets were so used to shortages and coping with economic crisis in the past, especially during wartime—World War I brought similar restrictions on food. [6][7] Political discussions had been suspended on August 2 when Molotov stated they could not be restarted until progress was made in military talks late in August,[8] after the talks had stalled over guarantees of the Baltic states,[9][10] while the military talks upon which Molotov insisted[9] started on 11 August. On repatriation of Soviet citizens. The campaign also had a potent psychological effect and boosted morale, a survival component almost as crucial as bread. [46] Two highly placed Soviet spies in Germany, "Starshina" and "Korsikanets", had sent dozens of reports to Moscow containing evidence of preparation for a German attack. The Soviets also destroyed or evacuated most of their rolling stock (railroad cars), thus depriving the Germans of the use of the Soviet rail system, since Soviet railroad track was of a different gauge than German track and German rolling stock was consequently useless on it. "The Myth of Munich". ISBN 0-340-83397-1., page 310-1. [164], • Yugoslavia Priests must be brought back from imprisonment, Leningrad must not be surrendered, but the sacred icon of Our Lady of Kazan should be carried around the city boundary, taken on to Moscow, where a service should be held, and thence to Stalingrad Tsaritsyn."[76]. The result was similar when Guderian’s tanks, having crossed the Dnieper River on July 10, entered Smolensk six days later and converged with Hoth’s thrust through Vitebsk: 200,000 Soviet prisoners were taken; but some Soviet forces were withdrawn from the trap to the line of the Desna, and a large pocket of resistance lay behind the German armour.  • Eastern Romania Agricultural production was interrupted, with grain harvests left standing in the fields that would later cause hunger reminiscent of the early 1930s. a) he believed it was vulnerable to attack from within. Byelorussia (also known as the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic), known today as Belarus, was a republic of the Soviet Union when World War II began. Nazi Germany invading the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, June 22, 1941. A few months later, the German ambassador to Moscow, Wilhelm von Mirbach, was shot dead by Russian Left Socialist-Revolutionaries in an attempt to incite a new war between Russia and … As the world marks the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II, it would be much better not only for the history of Russia but also for the country’s future if Russian leaders were willing to permit—and even encourage—a more even-handed discussion of the Soviet Union’s role in the war. [140] From 1942 to 1945, 427,910 soldiers were assigned to penal battalions.  • Leyte ISBN. It reports a further 108 missing on operations and four lost on the ground. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was founded in November 1917 by the Bolshevik Party.  • Market Garden [50] Stalin felt that a mobilization might provoke Hitler to prematurely begin to wage war against the Soviet Union, which Stalin wanted to delay until 1942 in order to strengthen Soviet forces.[51]. "Stalin's Last Crime: The Plot Against the Jewish Doctors, 1948-1953". Had fear made him run to his Father? [29] The Soviet portions lay east of the so-called Curzon Line, an ethnographic frontier between Russia and Poland drawn up by a commission of the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. b) he failed to note the industrial and technical advancements the USSR had made. Stalin and Ribbentrop at the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The main combatants were the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) and the Allies (France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and China). 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On private land 1944 at the start of World War II began—not in 1939 and finalised after World II... `` a New Estimate of Ukrainian population losses during the War effort on Russia s role it! Military equipment of World War II era shackled to its past old people, Franklin...
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