Was it a case of the Nazis losing or the Soviets winning on the Russian front during the Second World War?

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R.Giles                                                                                                                                                 01/05/07

(History Coursework)

Was it a case of the Nazis losing or the Soviets winning on the Russian front during the Second World War?

Intro: In the whole of history there has never been a war like it. In its scale of destruction the war on the Eastern Front was unique; from Leningrad to the Crimea, from Kiev to Stalingrad, the Soviet Union was devastated - at least 25 million Soviet citizens died. And in the end, what did the German aggressors have to show for it?

A broken, divided country, which had lost much of its territory, and a people burdened with the knowledge that they had launched a racist war of annihilation and, in the process, spawned the cancer of the Holocaust. But at the time there were many people - and not just Germans - who thought that the decision to invade the Soviet Union was a rational act in pursuit of German self-interest and, moreover, that this was a war the Germans would win.

        1939, war has broken out over the world, while most eyes are on the western front with their fairly normal conditions, there is a much more horrifying, terrifying, almost understandably front on the other side of the world, I am about to describe to you the, "USSR FRONT"!

        

        This enormous front was over three times the size of the Western front, a massive 1,600 kilometres. Even though the Germans used the same amount of troops on the Russian front as to the Western front, the space that was to be concerned was much larger, therefore the troops had to spread out more. The German goal was to secure a line beginning at the Siberian Arctic Sea Peninsula, right down to the mouth of the Volga at the Caspian Sea! Hitler also had a lot of other objectives on his mind. Russia was a country rich in natural resources; there were certain oil fields, coal fields and wheat fields that would be very useful for the German supplies as they were getting further and further away from Germany. There were also key cities that had to be taken in order to full fill the main objective, (north to south), Leningrad, a key city for its importance to the taking of Moscow, as it led a huge gaping hole towards the capital. Moscow, was the main backbone of the Soviet Union, if Moscow fell then so would the Russian morale. Rostov, with its key port linking Russian supplies from the empire down south, it was right on the mouth of the Black Sea. And finally the famous Slaughter City of Stalingrad, later on in the war, this city, standing alone in the South was the biggest city on Hitler’s mind, if it fell, then there would be a huge path over the Volga into Eastern Asia. It proved to be the most famous battleground of all, where the Soviets out witted their opponents with their amazing “turn around” strategies.

        

        If these cities were to be taken then it would require outstanding battle tactics and the German army would be tested to the limits. Germany would have to strike hard and fast, using Blitz kreig to stop the Red army retreating, pulling back and then mobilising again, the biggest threat on Hitler’s mind was the real USSR, they would have to succeed before the winter started, and if Hitler was too far into the USSR then supplies would be scarce and would take a much, much longer time to reach the desperate army, stranded in the vast refrigerator of the USSR.

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Hitler had a major battle plan on his mind and when the generals heard operation BARBARROSSA”, they were more than happy to apply! 

They were willing to try and fore fill their leaders main objective. Using Blitz kreig warfare, three German armies, totalling over a huge 3.2 million troops, 3580 tanks, 7184 big artillery guns, 1830 aircraft and 750,000 horses used for transport reasons, would be sent over to the unsuspecting Soviets.

Operation Barbarossa

At 5:30 a.m. on 22 June 1941, the German ambassador met with Molotov to announce a declaration of war on the basis of gross and repeated ...

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