The Eastern Front

Hitler's war against the Soviet Union began on 22 June 1941. His orders to the German Army were to destroy the Red Army defenders and secure Soviet territory up to the ‘AA’ (Archangel–Astrakhan) line, which ran south-east from Archangel in the White Sea to Moscow's rear, then south along the Volga river to Astrakhan on the Caspian Sea.

Huge German forces swept into the Soviet Union's Baltic republics, Belorussia, the Ukraine, and Russia itself. By the end of September, having advanced more than a thousand kilometres across a front more than a thousand kilometres wide, they had captured Kiev, established a stranglehold around Leningrad, and stood at the gates of Moscow.

In the autumn of 1941, by means of nationalist appeals and harsh discipline, Stalin and his generals rallied their people. The battle of Moscow denied Hitler his chance of a quick victory. Moscow was saved, and Leningrad did not surrender. There followed a year of inconclusive moves and counter-moves on each side, but the German successes appeared more striking. In the spring and summer of 1942 German forces advanced more hundreds of kilometres across the south of Russia towards Stalingrad and the Caucasian oilfields.

But these forces were destined for physical destruction in the Red Army's defence of Stalingrad, and its winter counter-offensive. Their position now untenable, the German forces in the south began a long retreat.