Eastern Front (World War II)

The Eastern Front during World War II or the Great Patriotic War was where the Axis countries and the Soviet Union fought. It began in 1941 with Operation Barbarossa and ended in 1945 by the Soviet soldiers capturing Berlin. Both the Axis countries and the Soviet Union had many millions of soldiers, and both sides lost millions.

Eastern Front
Part of the European theatre of World War II
Clockwise from top left: Soviet T-34 tanks storming Poznań, 1945; German Tiger I tanks during the Battle of Kursk, 1943; German Stuka dive bombers on the Eastern Front, 1943; German Einsatzgruppen death squad murdering Jews in Ukraine, 1942; Wilhelm Keitel signing the German Instrument of Surrender, 1945; Soviet troops at the Battle of Stalingrad, 1943
Date 22 June 1941 (1941-06-22) – 8 May 1945 (1945-05-08) (3 years, 10 months, 2 weeks and 2 days) Location Europe, east of Germany: Central and Eastern Europe, in later stages: Germany and Austria Result Soviet victory Fall of Nazi Germany (concurrently with the Western Front) Beginning of the Cold War and creation of the Eastern Bloc and the Iron Curtain Beginning of anti-communist insurgencies Territorial changes Soviet occupation of Central and Eastern Europe Allied occupation of Germany, Austria and Partition of Germany Polish puppet state and change of borders Soviet occupation of Romania Soviet occupation of Hungary Bulgarian communist coup and Soviet occupation Soviet re-occupation of the Baltics Czechoslovakia cedes Carpathian Ruthenia East Prussia split between the Soviet Union (Kaliningrad Oblast) and Poland (Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship)
Belligerents
Axis: Germany Romania (until 1944) Hungary Finland (until 1944) Italy (until 1943) Slovakia Croatia Support: Spain	Allies: Soviet Union Poland Czechoslovakia (from 1942) Yugoslavia (from 1944) Former Axis powers: Romania (from 1944) Bulgaria (from 1944) Finland (from 1944) Support: United States British Empire Mongolia Tannu Tuva (until 1944) Free France (from 1943)
Commanders and leaders
Axis leaders: Adolf Hitler † Wilhelm Keitel Alfred Jodl Walther von Brauchitsch Franz Halder Kurt Zeitzler Hermann Göring Hans Jeschonnek Wilhelm von Leeb Fedor von Bock Gerd von Rundstedt Günther von Kluge Georg von Küchler Wilhelm List Maximilian von Weichs Ewald von Kleist Erich von Manstein Ernst Busch Walter Model Johannes Friessner Georg Lindemann Ferdinand Schörner Lothar Rendulic Heinrich Himmler Ion Antonescu Iosif Iacobici Ilie Șteflea Petre Dumitrescu Horia Macellariu Miklós Horthy Ferenc Szálasi Ferenc Szombathelyi Károly Beregfy Risto Ryti C.G.E. Mannerheim Aksel Airo Benito Mussolini   Italo Gariboldi Jozef Tiso Ferdinand Čatloš Ante Pavelić	Allied leaders: Joseph Stalin Georgy Zhukov Boris Shaposhnikov Aleksandr Vasilevsky Aleksei Antonov Kliment Voroshilov Semyon Timoshenko Semyon Budyonny Nikolai Kuznetsov Ivan Isakov Pavel Zhigarev Alexander Novikov Sergei Khudyakov Markian Popov Fyodor Kuznetsov Dmitry Pavlov  Mikhail Kirponos † Ivan Tyulenev Andrey Yeremenko Pavel Kurochkin Ivan Konev Yakov Cherevichenko Rodion Malinovsky Kiril Meretskov Filipp Golikov Konstantin Rokossovsky Leonid Govorov Nikolai Vatutin † Maksim Purkayev Vasily Sokolovsky Fyodor Tolbukhin Ivan Petrov Ivan Bagramyan Ivan Chernyakhovsky † Bolesław Bierut Michał Rola-Żymierski Zygmunt Berling Edvard Beneš Ludvík Svoboda Josip Broz Tito Michael I Constantin Sănătescu Nicolae Rădescu Kimon Georgiev C.G.E. Mannerheim
Strength
1941 3,767,000 troops 1942 3,720,000 troops 1943 3,933,000 troops 1944 3,370,000 troops 1945 1,960,000 troops	1941 (Front) 2,680,000 troops 1942 (Front) 5,313,000 troops 1943 (Front) 6,724,000 troops 1944 6,800,000 troops 1945 6,410,000 troops
Casualties and losses
Total: 5.1 million dead 4.5 million killed or missing in action 600,000 died in captivity 4.5 million captured See below.	Total: 8.7–10 million dead 6.5–6.7 million killed or missing in action 2.2–3.3 million died in captivity 4.1 million captured See below.
Civilian casualties: 18–24 million civilians dead See below.

Romania, Italy and other Axis members joined the war, and Finland fought the Continuation War against the Soviet Union in cooperation with the bigger Axis war.

The Eastern Front is called the "Great Patriotic War" in Russia, and it is sometimes called the "Soviet-German War" in the West.

About four fifths of the Axis soldiers killed in World War II died on the Eastern Front. Even more millions of Soviet soldiers died. Many war crimes were committed by German troops. The Eastern Front was the most important conflict in Europe during World War II.

The winter of 1941-1942 began unusually early. It was not noted as being particularly bad by the Soviets, but the Germans were accustomed to warmer temperatures and so were ill-prepared. The Germans' equipment broke down in the cold, and some men were still wearing summer uniforms, which they stuffed with newspapers in an attempt to stay warm. Many German soldiers froze to death in the extreme cold.

The partly successful Operation Barbarossa was followed in 1942 by the failed "Fall Blau" (Case Blue), which was intended to take the Caucasus region and its oilfields. It ended with Soviet victory in the Battle of Stalingrad. In 1943 the Soviet Army won Battle of Kursk, the biggest battle among tanks in history.

A few years later, the Soviets pushed the German soldiers and invaded the German-occupied territories in Eastern Europe. The Soviets then invaded Germany itself and fought the Battle of Berlin, the final battle before Germany's surrender. And the soviets linked up with the western allies and the western front, Although the Soviets eventually repelled the Germans, the tremendous cost was five times as many Soviet deaths as Germans.

Main events

• 22 June 1941 - German invasion.
• 22-29 June 1941 - Defense of Brest Fortress.
• 2 October 1941 - 7 January 1942 - Battle of Moscow;
  • 5 December 1941 - counterattack starting.
• 23 August 1942 – 2 February 1943 - Battle of Stalingrad.
• 5 July - 23 August 1943 - Battle of Kursk.
• 16 April - 2 May 1945 - Battle of Berlin.