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Important battles in the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union

The Soviet-German war, the Soviet-German battlefield of World War II, was an important part of the world anti-fascist war, and it was also the largest, most intense and most casualty battlefield in World War II.

The Soviet Union called this war the Great Patriotic War (Russian: ВеликаяОтечественная Война, which means the Great Patriotic War, Chinese called the Soviet Patriotic War).

Battles of historical significance in the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, in chronological order of start: Battle of Leningrad, Battle of Moscow, Battle of Kyiv, Battle of Stalingrad, Battle of Kursk, Battle of Belarus (Third Strike) , the Vistula-Oder battle, the Berlin battle.

Battle of Leningrad

The Battle of Leningrad, also known as the Defense of Leningrad, the Blockade of Leningrad, was a military operation carried out by the Axis powers to capture Leningrad (now known as St. Petersburg) during World War II.

The siege began on September 9, 1941, until January 18, 1943, when a narrow overland access to the city was established, and the siege ended in full on January 27, 1944. The Siege of Leningrad was the longest, most destructive, and the second most deadly siege of a major city in recent history.

Leningrad is the cradle of the great October Revolution, the second largest city in the Soviet Union, an important seaport and railway and river hub, and an important base for the Soviet Baltic Fleet. When Hitler formulated the “Barbarossa” plan, he repeatedly emphasized the need to capture “the birthplace of Bolshevism” – Leningrad, and arrogantly shouted that the city must be “erased from the earth”.

At the beginning of the war, Hitler tried unsuccessfully to occupy the city, and then carried out a 900-day siege.

During the siege of Leningrad, most of the Tsar’s palace and other historical places outside the city were looted and then destroyed. Many factories, schools, hospitals and other civilian infrastructure were destroyed by air strikes and long-range artillery. The 871-day siege resulted in the deaths of up to 1,500,000 soldiers and civilians. Civilians of the city are threatened with extreme starvation. About 7000-10000 inhabitants died every day in January-February 1942, most of them from starvation.

Battle of Moscow

Also known as the Battle of Moscow, it is a general term for a series of important strategic battles in the Soviet-German war in World War II.

The fighting began in October 1941 and continued until January 1942. The Battle of Moscow included a series of defensive campaigns (September 30-December 5, 1941) and offensive campaigns (December 5, 1941) in which the Soviet army smashed the assault groups of the German Army Group “Central” attacking Moscow. — 20 April 1942).

The battle ended with the victory of the Soviet Red Army. The Soviet Army won the Battle of Moscow and declared Hitler’s “invincible blitzkrieg” myth shattered .

Battle of Kyiv

The Battle of Kiev was a large-scale siege that took place in Ukraine on July 7, 1941 during World War II. It is considered to be the largest siege in history . It was fought as Operation Barbarossa from August 23, 1941 to September 26, 1941, and in Soviet history it is known as the Battle of Kyiv Defense. The battle was unprecedentedly tragic. On September 20, the city of Kyiv was captured by the German 6th Army.

On the same day, the German 46th Panzer Corps arrived and went into battle as a fresh force. At the same time, the Soviet army continued to put in new forces, trying to help the trapped Soviet army break through, but they were all repelled by the German army. By September 26, the Battle of Kyiv was over, most of the Soviet 5th, 21st, 37th, and 26th armies, and part of the 40th and 38th armies were annihilated, and 650,000 people were captured.

Battle of Stalingrad

The Battle of Stalingrad was a battle fought by Nazi Germany for the southern Soviet city of Stalingrad in World War II, from June 28, 1942 to February 2, 1943. The Battle of Stalingrad was a turning point in the Soviet-German battlefield of the Second World War, as well as a turning point in the Second World War.

Judging from the casualty figures alone, the battle was also the bloodiest battle in modern history. The casualties on both sides were estimated to be about 2 million, and the number of people involved in the battle was also greater than other battles in history.

The Battle of Stalingrad was the most serious strategic failure of Fascist Germany, which not only ended the offensive situation maintained by the German Army Group South since 1941, but also directly caused a fundamental change in the overall balance of power between the Soviet Union and Germany.

From a global perspective, the Battle of Stalingrad, together with the Battle of Guadalcanal and the Battle of El Alamein that took place in the same period, constituted a landmark event of the great turning point of the Anti-Fascist War at the end of 1942.

Battle of Kursk

The Battle of Kursk was one of the decisive battles on the Soviet-German battlefield during World War II. It was the largest tank battle in World War II; it was also the largest counter-offensive battle of World War II. In a battle that broke out in Sk, the German army and the Soviet Red Army dispatched nearly 8,000 tanks. A total of about 2.8 million soldiers were invested by both sides in the war, and more than 5,000 aircraft of the Air Force participated in the war. It also set two records: the largest tank battle in history and the largest single-day air battle.

The Battle of Kursk was also the last time the German army launched a large-scale strategic attack on the Soviet Union, with the intention to fully regain the strategic initiative by causing a large number of casualties to the Soviet army. The military has already obtained the intelligence that the German army is going to attack and has established three in-depth echelon defense lines.

Battle of Belarus

From June 23 to August 29, 1944, the Belarusian campaign was one of the largest strategic offensive campaigns carried out by the Soviet Red Army in the Soviet-German war of World War II.

It was the fifth of ten strikes by the Soviet Red Army against the Germans in 1944. The Soviet Red Army used a large number of concentrated artillery, tanks and combat aircraft, and used parallel pursuit on both sides combined with frontal pursuit to encircle the German heavy army group in depth and depth. . The Air Force dispatched 153,000 sorties, the most in the history of the Soviet Red Army.

Vistula-Oder battle

The Battle of the Vistula-Oder was a major decisive battle between the Soviets and the Germans in the area between the Vistula and the Oder during World War II.

The Soviet troops involved in the war were the 1st Ukrainian Front under Konev and the 1st Belarusian Front under Zhukov with a total of 2 million people; the Germans were 560,000 Army Group “A” under the command of Harpe.

On January 12, 1945, the 1st Ukrainian Front launched an attack, liberated Warsaw on the 17th, captured Krakow on the 19th, and went out to the Oder River on the 23rd; the 1st Belarusian Front also launched an attack on the 14th and broke through the enemy on the 25th. The Poznan line of defense, out to the Oder by February 3, ended the battle. The campaign wiped out 35 German divisions, defeated 25 divisions, and liberated most of Poland’s territory.

Battle of Berlin

The Soviet Army has a total of 270 divisions and cavalry divisions, 20 tank armies and mechanized armies, 14 air force armies, a total of 2.5 million troops, and 2,450 aircraft. , 14,200 artillery pieces, 1,500 tanks and self-propelled artillery, the face-to-face enemy is the German Army Group and the Central Army Group, with a total of 48 infantry divisions, 9 motorized divisions, and 6 armored divisions. A total of 800,000 people, 10,400 artillery and mortars, 1,500 tanks and assault artillery, 3,300 combat aircraft.

The battle was launched on April 16, 1945 and broke through the Oder and Ness lines successively. On the 25th a siege of Berlin was formed. During the storming of Berlin, the Soviet army adopted a multi-directional assault to the center. After fierce street battles, it broke into the central area of ​​Berlin on April 27. On the 29th, the Soviet army began to storm the Reichstag. Hitler committed suicide in the basement of the Chancellery on the 30th. On May 2, the garrison commander General H. Weidling led his troops to surrender, and the battle ended.