Eastern Front

In one of the most unknown, yet complete genocides ever committed, Stalin begins his redrawing of the European borders under his own ethnic lines, which, unsurprisingly, results in more territory for the USSR.  Millions of Germans in East Prussia, Silesia and Pomerania who have not yet starved to death in the intervening year, are forcibly displaced and sent Westward.  Konigsberg, the capital of East Prussia, is renamed Kaliningrad and nowadays is a Russian city, with no German traces remaining.  It is estimated  that up to four million former German inhabitants of the Eastern German territory die as a result of this purge.

Germany is not alone, as Poles are removed from their historic homes and placed in the former German territories.  Russians and Ukrainians will be the ones to populate their former homelands.  The huge Polish war cemetery in Galicia is now in the enlarged Ukraine, and this is a hugely contentious issue between the two Nations, even to the present day.

The ensuing division of Germany, communist rule in the likes of Poland, Romania and Czechoslovakia, and the cold war, ensure the aftermath of this huge conflict remain felt, even to the present day.

Following the Russian attacks in 1944, Hitler forms army Group Vistula to defend Eastern germany.  By now, the end is in sight, and many Eastern germans become refugees, fleeing their homelands.  Amazingly, no official orders to evacuate were ever given and for many Eastern Germans the first news of the Russians coming was when they heard the guns, or Russian troops and tanks rolled by their doorstep.  Several German cities, such as Konigsberg and Breslau become fortress cities, completely surrounded and fighting to the death.

Russian attacks in the South lose Hitler his access to oil resources, and Romania even turns completely to become a Russian ally.  Hungary is next to fall, although opposition is stronger.  Many of the buildings in Budapest, even in the present day, bear the scars of the fighting from this time.

Hitler makes his final public appearance in March 1945, captured on film looking worn and haggard as he issues medals to Hitler Youth boys, following an ultimately pointless counter-attack, the final one of the war for Germany, in March 1945.  After this he retreats to Berlin to await the final onslaught.  He still believes that somehow the enemy will be beaten at the gates by divine intervention, exactly as happened to Frederick the Great, the Prussian leader, when fighting the Russians two hundred years earlier.

All of this leads up to the final Russian onslaught, the attack on Berlin.  In March 1945, a huge Russian offensive of thousands of guns barrage down on the beleagured German defenders East of Berlin.   Stalin turns the assault into a race between Generals Zhukov and Koniev to reach Berlin first.  The Germans, hopelessly outnumbered, are forced to retreat, and the Russians soon reach the perimeter of the city.  For many, it is a battle to the death, as by now they know their fate if captured by the Soviets.  Despite huge losses, the endless number of Russians race forward, to the edge of the Reichstag.

As the end looms, many of Hitlers henchmen, including Heinrich Himmler and his entire family, commit suicide.  Hitler, it is alleged, also committed suicide, along with his long time female companion Eva Braun.  Here, however, things remain contentious even to the present day, and an excellent book, Hitler’s Escape questions much of the contemporary evidence to whether Hitler, did in fact escape to South America via Spain.  Certainly, no one source has ever been able to prove, beyond doubt, that Hitler was really found dead in Berlin at the end of the War.

Finally, the Reichstag, the symbol of Germany, was captured, and the battle for Berlin was over.  After this, the official German government rebased to Flensburg on the border with Denmark.  The fighting in the Eastern front concluded somewhat, although many Germans in pockets around Prague continued to fight the Russians even beyond the official end of World War 2, probably knowing their fate if they surrendered.  Many German POWs were shipped Eastward to S iberia at the end of World War 2 as part of Germanys war reparations to Russia.  The last were returned during the 1950s, although there is no doubt many thousands perished in Siberia.

By now, Allied bombing of Germany is causing huge damage to its ability to produce the equipment needed to conduct the war.  Despite this, Germany still manages its best ever production, including some 12,000 tanks.  But this dwarfs compared to regular Russian production along of 20,000, to say nothing of the USA and UK production.  This year therefore is all about Germany trying to maintain the status quo and hold back the Russian advance.

As the summer begins, Germany is convinced that a huge Russian attack is in the offing.  German generals are convinced the attack will come in the centre, but Hitler is convinced it will be in the South, perhaps an attempt to cripple Germanys oil supplies from the Ukraine and Romania.  He therefore orders the south to be shored up at the expense of Army Group Centre.

Hitler is proved wrong as the Russians launch their huge offensive in the centre.  The Germans are hopelessly outnumbered, some six to one and are pushed back.  Many units are cut off, and ultimately die or are taken prisoner.  Losses for Germany are massive, and the gains for Russia are massive, as they push hundreds of miles Westward, the attack finally stopping just outside Warsaw.  This stoppage of the attack is a contentious issue, as Polish partisans, led to believe the Russians are coming to liberate the city, conduct a huge uprising against the Germans.  The uprising is put down brutally, with huge killing, and Warsaw remains in German hands.  Apparently, it later turns out that Stalin ordered the halt to the advance outside Warsaw, so that much of Polands political power would be destroyed by the failed uprising and that Stalin would be able to implement his own brand of communism on the Polish people once the war had ended.

The attack is such a major success that the German Army Group North is now cut off in the North and forced to retreat.  Army Group North never again manages to meetup with the main German line and continues to fight as a pocket in the Baltic region right up to the end of the war in 1945.

This year also sees the first Russian advance in German territory, in East Prussia.  As a portent of what is to come, rapes are committed and the entire population of several villages are killed.  Stalin himself orders his troops to “rob the women of their Germanic pride”.  A command many will heed in the coming year.

Finland agrees a peace with Russia.  ceding back some of the border territories it had reclaimed in the intervening years since 1940.

The year begins with both sides making huge military plans.  Both sides have been well resupplied over the winter, although Russia will gain the most, through its superiority in numbers of men and material, unless Germany can do something soon.  The plan for Germany culminates in the idea of bringing the bulk of the Russian army into one place, and crushing it.  This plan culminates in a huge attack at Kursk.

Unfortunately for Germany, Russian intelligence is good, and they are well aware of the build up of men around Kursk.  They are well-prepared for the German attacks, and are able to conduct many damaging attacks on the Germans of their own.  During the ferocious fighting, the city of Kharkov changes hands no less than six times.  The fighting was so ferocious that Germany alone, in official statistics, admitted to almost one million casualties in the Kursk region in 1943.

The biggest individual tank battle in history, ever, takes place during Kursk, at a village called Prokhorovka.  hundreds of tanks from both sides meet and trade shots and mobility.  It is the ultimate test of the relatively new fighting machine invented in World War 1.  The final outcome is relatively even, perhaps a slight numeric victory for Germany, however, the losses for Russia can easily be replaced and this is no longer true for Germany, who by now is becoming starved of resources and manpower.

Ultimately, Germanys attacks peter out, and the Russians are finally able to call up their reserves and conduct a huge counter-attack, pushing the Germans even further back.  The final outcome of Kursk for Germany is massive casualties, huge losses of equipment, and a retreat to positions way back from where the fighting had begun.

After Kursk, the future of the war in the East is in no doubt.  The best Germany can hope for is to hold the Russian advance for as long as possible, while perhaps their futuristic weapons research establishment at Piennemunde in Eastern Germany can produce some super weapon to bring around an unlikely victory.

Germany renews its attacks on Russia, this time concentrating their attacks on Southern Russia, capturing the Crimea and Sevastopol after a seige.  This is one of the few times their huge barrage gun, Big Bertha, is ever called into use.  The ultimate plan is the capture of the oil fields in the Caucus.  Sixth Army, 320,000 men strong, under the command of General Von Paulus, drives into Stalingrad, a city on the Volga named after the Russian leader.  Stalingrad becomes one of the biggest killing grounds of World War 2, as the name and strategic importance drive both Hitler and Stalin into a huge conflict.

Tactically, street-to-street fighting suits the Russians far better than the Germans, who from a strategic point of view would have been far better off to ignore it and starve it into submission.  Another clear example of Hitlers overriding of his generals advice.  The Germans drive through to within 100 yards of the Volga, where they are stopped by suicidal Russian attacks, often by men sharing one gun between six soldiers, such is the Russian desperation and seemingly endless supply of manpower.

Finally, with some military leadership that knows what it is doing, the tide turns and Russia is able to conduct serious counterattacks under General Zhukov.  German generals call for a withdrawal from Stalingrad, before the sixth army is cut off.  Hitler refuses, insisting that the army remain and be supplied from the air.  This turns out to be a forlorn hope, with only a fraction of the supplies needed getting through and despite some serious counterattacks, the Russian encirclement is complete.   It is now only a matter of time before Sixth Army meets its fate.

Just before the end, Hitler promotes Von Paulus to field-marshall, with the message that no Field-Marshall of the German army has ever surrendered to the enemy.  The implication is clear, suicide or a fight to the death is expected.  Von Paulus ultimately ignores this advice and surrenders anyway, along with a final 12,000 bedraggled and starved German soldiers.   In the end, 100,000 German prisoners are marched Eastward to forced labour in the Siberian gulags.  Less than 10,000 of them will ever live to see Germany again.

While both sides suffer huge losses in Stalingrad, it is Germany that cannot afford the manpower and military equipment loss suffered.  Russia by now is rolling thousands of tanks, planes and guns off its production lines, much of the material is well-designed and of superior quality, including the T-34 tank, the best tank of the whole war.  Many of germany’s top generals such as Model and Guderian see Germany’s only chance now as fluid, mobile defense.  Hitler cannot be persuaded, however.

Germany launches operation  Barbarossa, the most incredibly huge military invasion ever undertaken, a simultaneous assault along a 3,000 mile front, with the intention of marching thousands of miles Eastward.   The plan is to take and hold a line Eastward of Moscow, having destroyed or captured all of the Soviet Unions industrial muscle, then sue for peace.  The Ukraine is intended to become a German colony, where oil and wheat resources can be exploited for the benefit of the Aryan master race.

The Russians, partly thanks to Stalins insistence it would never happen, are almost totally unprepared.  Furthermore, thanks to Stalins purges in the 1930s, most of the best army leaders are gone, leaving many of the generals as Stalins political cohorts, with no knowledge of tactics to fight back.

German successes during this period are incredible.  At Smolensk, they even manage to take an entire Russian Army, some 300,000 strong, prisoner.  Many of these prisoners will die on the march Westward and the subsequent forced labour camps.

The one crucial mistake in the German assault can be blamed on Benito Mussolini.  Without telling Hitler, he invaded Greece and Jugoslavia in early 1941 and was hopelessly defeated.  Germany was forced to despatch forces to the Balkans to help their ally, and while they were successful there, the attack on Russia begins six weeks later than planned.  They almost reach their objectives in Russia, the attack finally grinding to a halt on the outskirts of Moscow, but are stopped, not only by suicidal Russian counterattacks, but by the onset of the Russian winter, where their superior tactics and military muscle sink in the mud and snow.  German troops are forced to dig in.     Not only that, but they are unprepared for the coldness of the Russian winter, having only being issued summer combat wear, and many thousands die in the cold conditions.

December ends with serious Russian counterattacks inflicting further casualties on the Germans.  German generals demand of Hitler that they retreat but Hitler refuses.  Despite horrific losses, Germany holds out.  This seems to build into Hitler the militaristic master leader he comes to believe he is.  During the war in the East he will make many bad decisions, overriding his generals, to serious detriment of the Eastern front campaign.

Germany’s other big mistake at this time is not to win over the hearts and minds of the Ukrainian people, who suffered terribly through forced starvation policies of Stalin during the 1930s.  Many commentators feel that had they taken the Ukraine and treated it as giving freedom to a Russian  occupied ally the final outcome of the war in the East might have been very different.  This was in fact the very successful policy taken with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, although as far as Germany was concerned those were three nations with strong Aryan roots.  Instead, they treat the Ukrainian citizenry with the same level of contempt as Stalin did.

In the North, Germany advances as far as the edge of Leningrad, and thus a seige lasting 3 years begins.  Many Russians living in the city will be reduced to eating Rats, sawdust and whatever else they can get their hands on.

All quiet on the Eastern front.  Germany and Russia remain suspicious of each other, with their extreme ideologies, but it is still peacetime, allowing Germany free reign to conclude their conquests in the West.  By the end of 1940, Hitler has given up on a possible invasion of Britain, considering that Britain is now sterile and no threat any longer.   He now turns his attention Eastward.

All along, right up to June 1941, Stalin refuses to believe that Hitler would ever consider attacking the military might and huge expanse of the Soviet Union.

Russia attempts to pursue some imperial ambitions of its own in the far North, against Finland.  However, their armies are poorly led and underequiped for the severe arctic winter.  Russian suffers over 100,000 casualties , at the expense of a few thousand for the Finns, who utilise a mobile defense with many ski troops.  In the end though Finland is forced to hand over the border province of Karelia, but the war is an embarrassing lesson for the USSR.