The Eastern Front was the largest land conflict of World War II, and the decisions made there shaped the overall outcome of the war in Europe. Germany and the Soviet Union committed more troops, equipment, and territory to this fight than to any other theater of the war. This page collects quick, clear facts on the key events, from the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that set the stage to the final Battle of Berlin. Related: Causes of World War II and European Theater of World War II.
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
The agreement signed in August of 1939 between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union shaped the early years of the war by removing the threat of a two-front conflict for Germany. It also divided Eastern Europe into German and Soviet zones of influence, directly setting the stage for the invasions that followed. Understanding the pact explains why the Soviet Union was caught so badly off guard when Germany turned against it less than two years later.
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FactsthatCrunchEvidence PhotoFactsthatCrunchA nonaggression pact is a formal agreement between two or more countries promising not to attack each other for a set period of time. The countries involved do not have to be allies or share the same goals; they simply agree to stay out of each other's way militarily. These agreements were common in the 1930s as nations tried to protect their borders without going to war.
"When Germany and the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression pact on August 23rd, 1939, many countries were surprised because the two powers had been bitter enemies for years."
FactsthatCrunchStalin led the Soviet Union through World War II, directing the Red Army's defense against the German invasion that began in June 1941 and pushing German forces back all the way to Berlin by May 1945. His decisions shaped the Eastern Front, where the Soviet Union suffered losses on a scale no other Allied nation experienced.
FactsthatCrunchOn the night of August 23rd, 1939, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop signed a non-aggression treaty in Moscow that also contained a secret protocol dividing Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence.
The Soviet Union had spent most of the 1930s pursuing collective security agreements with Western democracies to contain German expansion.
The Soviet Union abandoned its collective security approach and aligned itself with Nazi Germany, enabling both powers to partition Eastern Europe without interference from the other.
FactsthatCrunchWhat did the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact mean for Poland's eastern territory and the Baltic States?
The secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact assigned Finland to the Soviet sphere of influence.
Operation Barbarossa
Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in June of 1941 opened the largest land campaign in military history and shifted the overall scale of the war dramatically. The speed and size of the assault forced the Soviet military to fight massive defensive battles across thousands of miles of territory in a matter of weeks. The decisions made in those early months determined where and how the two sides would fight for the next four years.
FactsthatCrunchHow Big Was the Operation Barbarossa Invasion Force in World War II? The Axis Fielded More Troops Than the Entire U.S. Army Times Eight
The National WWII Museum notes that about 3.5 million German troops and nearly 700,000 allied Axis soldiers from Romania, Finland, Hungary, Italy, and Slovakia took part in the opening phase. Germany committed 138 of its own divisions, split across three Army Groups aimed at Leningrad, Moscow, and Kiev. The full Axis force was roughly eight times larger than the entire active-duty U.S. Army today.
FactsthatCrunchIf Hitler invaded Hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.
Churchill had opposed communism for decades, and this remark explained why he would still stand with the Soviet Union against Hitler, a case he then made to the British public in a radio broadcast the next evening promising Russia all possible help.
FactsthatCrunchWhat were the key turning points in Operation Barbarossa from June to December 1941?
Tap a point to read its detail.
FactsthatCrunchFactsthatCrunchOperation Barbarossa's Invasion Force in World War II Relied on Nearly 700,000 Horses, Far More Than Its 3,800 Tanks
When Germany and its Axis partners launched Operation Barbarossa on June 22nd, 1941, the force included about 700,000 horses to pull artillery and carry supplies, far more than its roughly 3,800 tanks or 4,300 aircraft. Despite its image as a modern mechanized army, the German military depended on horses more than on any other form of transport. Only about one fifth of the German Army was motorized; infantry divisions moved mostly on foot or by horse-drawn wagon.
FactsthatCrunchOur cause is just. The enemy will be defeated. Victory will be ours!
Molotov, not Stalin, told the Soviet people that Germany had attacked, since Stalin did not speak on the radio until July 3rd, 1941, and these closing words became the wartime slogan later engraved on the Soviet medal For Victory over Germany.
FactsthatCrunchGerman captivity killed Soviet prisoners of war at staggering rates, producing some of the deadliest numbers of any prisoner group in World War II.
FactsthatCrunchWhat were the major battles on the Eastern Front during World War II, and how did they change the course of the war?
Tap a point to read its detail.
FactsthatCrunchWhy Did Hitler Invade the Soviet Union?
Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 primarily because he believed that conquering Soviet territory would give Germany food, oil, and living space for German settlers, a goal he called Lebensraum. He also wanted to destroy Soviet communism, which he saw as a threat tied to what he called a Jewish conspiracy, and he expected the Soviet military to collapse quickly under a fast German attack. A third reason was that controlling Soviet resources would allow Germany to outlast Britain and any future American involvement in the war.
FactsthatCrunchFactsthatCrunchFactsthatCrunchOperation Barbarossa in World War II drew in 80 percent of the German Army, committing 148 divisions to a single campaign against the Soviet Union.
Germany began concentrating 73 percent of its army and 58 percent of its air force on the Soviet border in the months before the June 22nd, 1941 invasion. The scale of that commitment shaped the whole war: for most of the conflict, 75 to 80 percent of the Wehrmacht had to stay deployed in the East. By the end of the war, the Eastern Front had claimed about 95 percent of all German Army losses recorded between 1941 and 1944.
FactsthatCrunchThe Soviet Union lost an estimated 8.7 million military personnel in World War II, more than any other country, based on a 1993 study led by Colonel General Grigory Krivosheev using declassified Soviet Defense Ministry archives.
Germany, the next highest, lost about 5.3 million military personnel. The largest group within the Soviet military dead were ethnic Russians at roughly 5.7 million, followed by ethnic Ukrainians at about 1.3 million. These figures remain debated, as Russia's Central Defense Ministry Archive lists the names of roughly 14 million dead and missing service members.
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Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22nd, 1941, was so successful in its early weeks that the Soviets lost more aircraft in the first day of Operation Barbarossa than the United States had in its entire air force at the time.
FactsthatCrunchIn what order did these Operation Barbarossa advances happen across the Eastern Front?
FactsthatCrunchIn this photograph of Soviet soldiers fighting among ruined buildings on the Eastern Front, what does the soldiers' use of low ground and collapsed brick structures as cover reveal about urban combat in World War II?
In Operation Barbarossa in late 1941, was each of these a cause of the German advance stalling before Moscow or a factor that helped Soviet forces hold the line?
Sources
- Library of Congress
- Molotov radio address, June 22nd, 1941, US Holocaust Memorial Museum
- National WWII Museum
- Smithsonian Institution
- UNESCO
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- US National Archives
- Winston Churchill, The Grand Alliance, 1950
Siege of Leningrad
Few events on the Eastern Front lasted as long or placed as heavy a burden on civilians as the German encirclement of Leningrad. The city was cut off from reliable supply routes for nearly 900 days, forcing its population to survive on minimal food during some of the harshest winters of the war. The siege illustrates how the conflict on the Eastern Front affected city populations directly, not just military forces in the field.
FactsthatCrunchDuring the Siege of Leningrad, civilian deaths peaked at roughly 100,000 per month in January and February 1942, mostly from starvation.
German and Finnish forces encircled Leningrad beginning on September 8th, 1941, cutting off food and fuel supplies to a city of more than 2.5 million people. At the worst point of the first winter, the daily bread ration for non-working civilians fell to just 125 grams, a portion made partly from sawdust and other fillers. The siege lasted until January 27th, 1944, a total of 872 days, and killed an estimated one million or more civilians overall.
FactsthatCrunchFactsthatCrunchThe Siege of Leningrad and the Battle of Stalingrad were two of the most destructive engagements on the Eastern Front in World War II.
FactsthatCrunchThe Siege of Leningrad, which ran from September 8th, 1941, to January 27th, 1944, lasted 872 days, making it the longest blockade of a major city fought during World War II.
German and Finnish forces cut all land routes into Leningrad on September 8th, 1941, trapping a population of roughly 2.5 million people. The city was never captured. Soviet forces broke the blockade fully on January 27th, 1944, after a final offensive drove Axis troops back from the city's outer defenses.
FactsthatCrunchOn September 8th, 1941, German and Finnish forces completed a land blockade around Leningrad, cutting the city's roughly three million residents off from outside food and supply routes.
The German blockade of Leningrad lasted from September 8th, 1941, to January 27th, 1944. The city's survival depended on the Lake Ladoga supply route and strict rationing managed by Soviet authorities throughout those nearly 900 days.
FactsthatCrunchHow did the Road of Life keep Leningrad supplied across frozen Lake Ladoga during the siege?
During the Siege of Leningrad in World War II, was each of these a cause of German failure or a Soviet survival measure?
Can you put these key stages of the Siege of Leningrad in the correct order, from the German encirclement to the full Soviet relief in 1944?
How many tons of supplies crossed the Road of Life to reach besieged Leningrad during World War II?
Battle of Moscow
Germany's drive toward the Soviet capital in the fall and winter of 1941 was intended to end the campaign before Soviet industry could fully shift to war production. The Soviet defense, combined with an early and severe winter, stopped the German advance at the edges of the city. The outcome mattered because it was the first major halt to German progress on the Eastern Front and showed that a quick German victory was no longer certain.
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FactsthatCrunchAt Moscow, two roughly matched national armies faced each other in a direct push and counterattack, with no large allied contingents on either side. At Stalingrad, Germany relied heavily on Romanian, Italian, and Hungarian armies to hold its flanks, and those weaker allied forces were the main target of the Soviet encirclement plan.
FactsthatCrunchIn early December 1941, German forces halted outside Moscow and were thrown back by a Soviet counteroffensive, ending Hitler's plan to knock the Soviet Union out of the war in a single campaign.
FactsthatCrunchFactsthatCrunchIt is late October 1941, and you are Field Marshal Fedor von Bock, commanding Army Group Center during Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in World War II. Operation Typhoon, the German drive toward Moscow, has stalled after weeks of heavy rain turned the roads into mud, and your men and vehicles are worn down from months of fighting. You must decide whether to push forward toward Moscow before winter fully sets in or pull back and rest your forces, knowing that the Soviet capital is only about 65 miles (105 kilometers) away at its closest point.
Operation Typhoon, Germany's drive on Moscow in 1941, was halted in part because German supply lines had stretched more than 600 miles (965 km) from their starting positions, leaving frontline units short of fuel and ammunition.
Hitler fired General Walther von Brauchitsch and took personal command of the German Army after the failure at Moscow, which actually stabilized the front and prevented a complete collapse.
Sources
Battle of Stalingrad
The fighting for Stalingrad from the summer of 1942 through the winter of 1943 marked the point at which Soviet forces moved from holding ground to destroying entire German armies. Germany committed a large portion of its southern forces to taking the city, and the Soviet encirclement that followed trapped over 300,000 Axis troops. After Stalingrad, Germany was unable to mount a sustained offensive on the Eastern Front.
FactsthatCrunchDuring World War II, Stalingrad was a major industrial city on the western bank of the Volga River, home to large factories including the Stalingrad Tractor Factory, which produced T-34 tanks before being seized as a frontline stronghold in late 1942. The Battle of Stalingrad lasted from August 1942 to February 2nd, 1943, and left most of the city in ruins. Soviet and German forces fought building by building, and civilian and military casualties on both sides reached into the hundreds of thousands.
Today the city is called Volgograd, a name it received on November 10th, 1961, when Soviet authorities changed it during a period of de-Stalinization. A massive memorial complex on Mamayev Kurgan hill, opened in 1967, marks the battle site and includes the famous statue known as The Motherland Calls, which stands about 279 feet (85 meters) tall. The city has a population of around one million people and holds an annual commemoration each February 2nd to mark the battle's end.
The name change from Stalingrad to Volgograd shows how the city's identity has shifted over time, even as the battle remains one of the most studied turning points of World War II.
FactsthatCrunchKey takeaways
Operation Uranus was the Soviet counterattack planned to trap German forces fighting at Stalingrad, and it succeeded within four days of launching.
The three Soviet fronts attacked from the north and south at the same time, closing the encirclement near Kalach-on-Don on November 23rd, 1942.
The size of the force the Soviets committed, more than a million troops supported by thousands of guns and tanks, showed how much the Red Army had grown since 1941.
FactsthatCrunchWhy Was Stalingrad a Turning Point in World War II?
The German loss at Stalingrad in February 1943 was the first major defeat of a large German army on the Eastern Front, ending a long string of German advances deep into Soviet territory. Germany's Sixth Army, commanded by Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus, surrendered with roughly 91,000 surviving soldiers, including 24 generals, after months of brutal urban fighting. After Stalingrad, Germany shifted to a defensive posture in the east and never regained the initiative against the Soviet Union.
FactsthatCrunchIt is necessary to defend to the last drop of blood every position, every meter of Soviet territory.
Stalin's Order No. 227 was read aloud to Red Army units instead of being printed, and its slogan, Not one step back, became the main rallying cry of the Soviet press in the summer of 1942 as German forces pushed toward Stalingrad.
FactsthatCrunchFactsthatCrunchWhat were the key turning points in the Battle of Stalingrad from 1942 to 1943?
Tap a point to read its detail.
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FactsthatCrunchThe Battle of Stalingrad, fought from July 17th, 1942, to February 2nd, 1943, left behind casualty counts by group that show just how unevenly the losses fell across soldiers, prisoners, and civilians.
FactsthatCrunchOperation Uranus, launched on November 19th, 1942, encircled Germany's Sixth Army at Stalingrad, and that encirclement directly created the Kessel, or cauldron, that cut off roughly 300,000 German troops from outside supply lines.
The Luftwaffe's airlift attempt fell far short of the daily tonnage the trapped army needed, and the supply failure forced Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus to surrender his forces on February 2nd, 1943, a defeat that permanently weakened Germany's position on the Eastern Front.
FactsthatCrunchOn January 10th, 1943, Soviet forces launched Operation Ring, compressing the trapped German Sixth Army from all sides and ending any realistic hope of a German breakout or relief.
Germany held the initiative on the Eastern Front and was pushing deep into Soviet territory
The Soviet Union held the strategic initiative on the Eastern Front for the rest of the war
FactsthatCrunchAt Stalingrad, the Soviet Operation Uranus launched on November 19th, 1942 was a German offensive action designed to cut off Soviet supply lines.
Sources
- Library of Congress
- National WWII Museum
- Order No. 227, Soviet People's Commissariat of Defense, 1942
- Smithsonian Institution
- UNESCO
- US National Archives
Battle of Kursk
In July of 1943, Germany launched what became the largest tank engagement of the war in an attempt to regain the initiative on the Eastern Front. Soviet commanders had prepared extensive defensive lines in advance, which blunted the German attack and preserved Soviet armored strength. The result confirmed that the overall momentum on the Eastern Front had shifted permanently in the Soviet Union's favor.
FactsthatCrunchThe Battle of Kursk, fought from July 5th to August 23rd, 1943, is recognized as the deadliest armored battle in history, with the Soviet Red Army alone losing at least 1,600 tanks destroyed across the operation.
Germany committed roughly 2,700 tanks and assault guns to the offensive, while the Soviets fielded around 5,000 tanks across their fronts. Soviet tank losses far outnumbered German losses, yet the Red Army's large production reserves allowed it to absorb those losses and go on the offensive. Germany's panzer force never recovered enough to launch another major strategic attack on the Eastern Front.
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FactsthatCrunchPanzer is a German term used in World War II to describe armored fighting vehicles, especially tanks, and the military units built around them. Germany organized its tanks into panzer divisions, which combined tanks, motorized infantry, artillery, and support troops into fast-moving strike forces. These divisions were designed to break through enemy lines quickly and keep moving before defenders could regroup.
"During the invasion of France in May 1940, German panzer divisions crossed the Ardennes region and reached the English Channel in less than two weeks, cutting off Allied forces in the north."
FactsthatCrunchThe opening day of the Battle of Kursk, July 5th, 1943, produced more aircraft shot down than any other single day in the history of aerial warfare.
Germany launched Operation Citadel that morning with around 777,000 troops and 2,451 tanks and assault guns, while the Soviet side had massed roughly 1,300,000 troops and 3,600 tanks to defend the Kursk salient. Both air forces threw enormous numbers of planes into the fight at once: the Luftwaffe put around 1,800 aircraft into the battle and Soviet air forces fielded roughly 2,400, leading to air combat losses on a scale never seen in a single day before or since. The battle as a whole ran from July 5th to August 23rd, 1943, and ended in a Soviet victory that permanently shifted the initiative on the Eastern Front.
FactsthatCrunchHitler personally ordered Operation Citadel to proceed in July 1943, overriding concerns from senior commanders who warned that the German forces attacking Kursk faced heavily prepared Soviet defenses.
The Battle of Kursk, fought from July 5th to July 23rd, 1943, was the last time Germany held enough armored strength to attempt a large offensive on the Eastern Front. Hitler's decision to proceed with Citadel against reinforced Soviet lines drained German tank reserves and handed Soviet forces the overall momentum for the rest of the war in the East.
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In this colorized photograph of Soviet infantry advancing alongside tanks at Kursk in July 1943, what does the positioning of the foot soldiers directly beside and behind the moving tanks reveal about Soviet combined-arms tactics at this stage of the war?
FactsthatCrunchAt the Battle of Kursk in 1943, the Germans launched Operation Citadel with full knowledge of Soviet defensive plans, giving them a strong strategic surprise advantage.
FactsthatCrunchWhich definition fits each Battle of Kursk myth or fact?
FactsthatCrunchIt is late June 1943, and you are Adolf Hitler, dictator of Germany during World War II. Your generals are warning you that the Soviet Red Army has spent months building massive defensive lines around the Kursk salient, a bulge in the Eastern Front roughly 150 miles (240 kilometers) wide, and that the element of surprise is gone after repeated delays to the planned offensive. If you order the attack forward, you risk destroying Germany's best armored divisions against prepared positions; if you cancel or delay again, you give up any chance of regaining the initiative on the Eastern Front.
How deep were the Soviet defensive lines built at Kursk before the German attack in 1943?
Sources
- Library of Congress
- National WWII Museum
- NBC documentary The Decision to Drop the Bomb, 1965
- Smithsonian Institution
- UNESCO
Battle of Berlin
The Soviet assault on the German capital in April of 1945 was the final major operation on the Eastern Front and ended with Germany's unconditional surrender. The city was defended street by street, and the fighting continued even as the overall German command structure collapsed. The fall of Berlin closed four years of the most intense and destructive land warfare of the entire war.
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Evidence PhotoFactsthatCrunchHow did the final Soviet assault on Berlin unfold from the crossing of the Oder River to Germany's surrender in May 1945?
Tap a point to read its detail.
FactsthatCrunchBefore World War II, Berlin was Germany's largest city, with a population of about 4.3 million people and a downtown core of government buildings, theaters, universities, and department stores. During the war, Allied bombing campaigns and the Battle of Berlin in April and May 1945 left roughly 1.5 billion cubic feet (42 million cubic meters) of rubble across the city. Entire districts were flattened, and the population had dropped to under 2.8 million by the time Germany surrendered on May 8th, 1945.
Today Berlin is the capital of a unified Germany and has a population of about 3.7 million people. Many sites bombed during the war were rebuilt, but some ruins were preserved on purpose, such as the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in western Berlin, which still stands partly destroyed as a reminder of the war. The city hosts several major memorials and museums focused on World War II and the Holocaust, drawing millions of visitors each year.
Berlin's mix of restored buildings and kept ruins shows how a city can rebuild while still holding on to the memory of what was lost.
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Evidence Photo
FactsthatCrunchHitler rose from a failed art student and World War I corporal to become the dictator of Germany, leading the country into World War II and directing the Holocaust. His decisions as supreme military commander, including the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 and the declaration of war on the United States in December 1941, shaped the course of the entire conflict.
FactsthatCrunchThe Allied decision to divide Berlin into occupation zones in May 1945 locked the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union into a direct, permanent confrontation inside a single conquered city.
FactsthatCrunchFactsthatCrunchDuring the final Soviet assault on Berlin in April 1945, German civilians and soldiers faced a choice between fighting to the last or attempting to flee west toward American and British lines.
FactsthatCrunchWhy did Soviet forces rather than Western Allied forces capture Berlin in April 1945?
Sources
- German Federal Archives (Bundesarchiv)
- Library of Congress
- National Archives
- National WWII Museum
- NBC documentary The Decision to Drop the Bomb, 1965
- Smithsonian Institution
- UNESCO
- US National Archives