Eastern Front

The Eastern Front during World War II includes the area of military confrontation involving the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. The Soviet Red Army and the Nazi Wehrmacht clashed along the extended Eastern Front, which stretched thousands of miles from the Black Sea in the south to Finland and the approaches to the Arctic Circle in the north.

Eastern Front

Barbarossa: Hitler’s Great Blunder

By Frank Johnson

By April 1941, just over a year and a half into World War II, Nazi Germany was the master of Europe. Read more

After German forces overran their country in September 1939, tenacious Poles, such as these shown in Hungary, escaped the continent to reconstitute their forces in Britain and prepare for the day they could strike back at the Nazis.

Eastern Front

Polish Army’s Heroic Stand at Falaise

By Alan Davidge

Poland does not always get the recognition it deserves for helping to defeat Nazi Germany and end the war in Europe. Read more

Eastern Front

WWII: German Rations and Feeding the Troops of the Third Reich

By G. Paul Garson

It was Napoleon Bonaparte who purportedly said, “An army travels on its stomach.” Toward the goal of feeding his particular army’s stomach more efficiently, in 1795 the French general came up with an interesting solution to the problem. Read more

Eastern Front

Manstein’s Victorious Panzers

By William E. Welsh

Deep snow blanketed the steppes surrounding the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkov on February 6, 1943. The soldiers of Major Kurt Meyer’s reconnaissance battalion of SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler shivered from the cold. Read more

Aircraft manufactured in the U.S. await their new owners, the Soviet Red Air Force, at an airfield in Iran. The U.S. supplied several types of aircraft to the Soviet Union through Lend-Lease, including the A-20, P-39, P-40, B-25, and AT-6.

Eastern Front

Douglas A-20 Havoc Bomber: The Scourge of Axis Shipping

By Robert F. McEniry

Following the apocalyptic initial phase of Operation Barbarossa starting on June 22, 1941, the Germans inflicted crippling losses on the Red Army Air Forces (VVS) and the Soviet Naval Air Forces (VVS-VMF). Read more

Eastern Front

Meat Grinder at Yelnya

By Pat McTaggart

The smell of victory was in the air as the forces of Field Marshal Fedor von Bock’s Army Group Center continued to drive deep into the Ukraine during the final week of June 1941. Read more

The Soviet Union’s two primary antitank rifles saw wide use in World War II despite the limitations of their small calibers.

Eastern Front

Russian Antitank Rifles

By Christopher Miskimon

The German panzers approached the Russian artillery column as it moved to a new position. As the troops trudged toward their new firing point, six panzers appeared, rampaging into the Russian rear area, no doubt searching for vulnerable targets to destroy. Read more

A Finnish pilot at the controls of his Avro Anson FAF LeLv46 AN101 reconnaissance aircraft based at Tikkakoski, March 7, 1940, shortly before the Winter War ended in a truce. The Finns successfully blunted the Soviet invasion, thanks in large part to their air force.

Eastern Front

David vs Goliath

By Glenn Barnett

When Stalin and Hitler signed a non-aggression pact in August 1939, they secretly created spheres of influence. Besides dividing up Poland, they agreed to allow each other free reign over nations and territories they deemed important. Read more

A column of Waffen SS soldiers slogs through snow during the Operation Spring Awakening advance in Hungary. The German offensive was hampered by snow, rain, and deep mud, which bogged down tanks and other vehicles, requiring foot soldiers to undertake much of the fighting with limited mechanized support.

Eastern Front

Desperate Offensive for Oil

By Martin Dougherty

The winter of 1944-45 saw Nazi Germany in a grim position. The Allies were well established in Europe and advancing quickly. Read more

Polish troops engage in field exercises in April 1939, just five months before the Nazi invasion of their country and the outbreak of World War II. Some Poles initially thought the Soviet Army was there to help them.

Eastern Front

Invasion from the East

By John W. Osborn, Jr.

It was a quiet dinner on a side street in Berlin the evening of June 26, 1939, but more than food would be devoured that night. Read more

American OSS officers accompanied by Chetnik guerrillas on the move from the original evacuation airstrip in Pranjani, Serbia in anticipation of Soviet Red Army advances, September 10, 1944. The OSS officers were part of OSS operations Halyard and Ranger.

Eastern Front

Hazardous Balkan Air Rescue

By Kevin Morrow

Black puffs from flak bursts began blossoming in the air around Lieutenant Tom Oliver’s Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber high over the town of Bor, Yugoslavia. Read more

A German tanker stands on the Russian steppe near Voronezh after emerging from the turret of his PzKpfw. III tank. In the summer of 1942, Hitler mounted an armored thrust to the south along the Eastern Front, and it led to ruin.

Eastern Front

Derailing Case Blue

By Pat McTaggart

After the brutal defensive fighting during the winter of 1941-1942, Adolf Hitler was ready for another round with the Russians. Read more

German soldiers in winter camouflage defend their lines against oncoming Russians.

Eastern Front

Furious Fight in a Frozen Hell

By Pat McTaggart

It was the third winter in Russia for the men of Field Marshal Erich von Manstein’s Army Group South, and things were going from bad to worse. Read more

Eastern Front

Konstantin Rokossovsky: Marshal of Two Historic Enemies

By Blaine Taylor

The year was 1944, and the embattled Soviet Union’s top-level field commanders were meeting in conclave to discuss Operation Bagration, an upcoming offensive against the retreating German Army. Read more

A squad of Red Army machine gunners leap from tanks in an effort to halt the German advance. Soviet losses were heavy but Hitler soon called a halt to the successful Operation South Wind to mount another—Operation Spring Awakening—an attempt to secure vital oil reserves in Hungary that proved to be a failure.

Eastern Front

Operation South Wind’s Battle for the Gran Bridgehead

By Major General Michael Reynolds

By the end of 1944, the Soviet Red Army had surrounded the Hungarian capital of Budapest and established strong defensive positions running from Esztergom on the Danube to Lake Balaton. Read more

Eastern Front

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