history - tgpw Flashcards
Military purges
35,000 officers purged. 3/5 marshals killed. Tukhachevsky killed.
Huge losses in first 6 months of war for USSR!
2.5 million dead / 3.5 million pow. By Dec 1941 - 2/5 of USSR pop under Nazi control
Siege of Leningrad
Kiev (Ukraine) fallen. Stalin refused to make a strategic withdrawal. Siege lasted 872 days. 8th Sep 1941 - Jan 27 1944. 1/3 of population (1 million) dead.
Battle of Kursk.
40% of Red Army Manpower amassed. 75% of Tanks. 3000 miles of trenches dug. 400,000 land mines used.
Stalin learns to delegate! Listens to Commander Zhukov’s advice to wait for expected Nazi attack at Kursk.
Fortified Kursk with 190 miles of defences!
Biggest tank battle in history! USSR won!
T34 Tanks
Over 80,000 made during war!
How many tanks / how much aircraft produced by USSR per month?
700 aircraft , 230 tanks. More than any other nation! Outproduced Nazis
October 1941 - Moscow
Dec 1941 - counteroffensive
Nazis within 10 miles of Moscow!
Russian counteroffensive pushes Nazis back 200 km from Capital!
In 1941 alone!
3 million USSR troops are captured by Nazis!
Biggest war front in history!
Over 1600 km!! 3.5 million German soldiers in active combat!
Stalin’s breakdown!
Stalin did not appear in public 10 days after the initial invasion!
The Race to Berlin!
78,000 casualties!
Stalin not caught completely unaware by Operation Barbarossa
Army of 5 million ready
When was Operation Barbarossa?
June 22nd in USSR, 4 am. 1941.
When was the Siege of Leningrad?
Sep 8th 1941 - Jan 27th 1944
When was the Battle of Stalingrad?
23rd Aug 1942 - 2nd Feb 1943
When was The Battle of Stalingrad?
23rd August 1942 - 2nd Feb 1943.
Anti-tank dogs :(
Dogs trained to locate tank. Bomb strapped to back, detonate under tank. Ineffective - dogs scared by moving tanks, ran back to owners.
Only 16 dogs disabled 12 tanks in whole war!
Hitler assumed Blietzkrieg would finish before xmas 1941. Underestimated USSR.
“We only have to kick in the door…”
1) Assumed USSR was weak, likely to collapse quickly when under attack (bcs of Stalin’s purges of the military)
2) Believed Blietzkrieg tactics would allow Germans to quickly surround & decimate the inefficient RA
“and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down”
THE MAIN STAGES OF WAR
1) JUNE 1941 - DEC 1941 - 3 pronged attack. Where?
EVIDENCE OF INITIAL NAZI SUCCESSES?
North to Leningrad / centrally to Moscow / south to Stalingrad, Caucasus region & oilfields
Nazis occupied Baltic States / ‘White Russia’ / Ukraine. Surrounded Leningrad.
October - 10 miles from Moscow
Dec 1941 - first successful Soviet counteroffensive!! Why?
What did they do? What did they establish?
Nazis overextended resources, weakened by weather & ferocious Soviet resistance.
RA drove Nazis 200km back from Moscow. Established a more stable front for the rest of the winter.
But the Soviet counteroffensive was still at a human cost!
First 6 months of war - 2.5 million killed / 3.5 million pow. Lost territory. 1 million Russian Jews shot by Nazis.
Spring 1942 - Spring 1943 (Feb)
NAZIS RESUME THEIR OFFENSIVE - had Hitler learned lessons like Stalin?
BATTLE OF STALINGRAD - TURNING POINT FOR USSR!
(Aug 23rd 1942 - Feb 2nd 1943)
(nazi failure gave USSR breathing space, then geared military and economic effort to total war.)
Hitler learned lessons: Focused on narrower front, Caucasus region, take industrial Stalingrad
End of 1942, bitter battle of Stalingrad. Large Nazi army bogged down on the Volga river. Surrounded by RA
Nazis surrendered early 1943. FIRST MAJOR LAND DEFEAT FOR NAZIS.
But real Nazi failure = failure of Blitzkrieg, inability to defeat USSR in 1941 - the whole of the German strategy and preparations had been geared towards a quick knock-out blow.
MARCH 1943 - JUNE 1944 (Operation Bagration)
RA built on its victory at Stalingrad
July 1943 - Battle at Kursk
By end of 1943 …
Siege of Leningrad lifted - Jan 1944
By end of 1943, Nazis driven out of most of central USSR / Ukraine
Siege of LG lifted Jan 1944 - following destruction of German troops in Crimea & liberation of ‘White Russia’
JUNE 1944 - USSR’s allies opened up a SECOND FRONT in NORMANDY
RA ready to drive back Germans into Berlin. Race to Berlin, 78,000 casualties.
Jan 1945 - RA cross German border after costly Battle to capture Warsaw.
2 weeks fighting.
Over 300,000 Soviet troops dead. SIMILAR AMOUNT TO TOTAL BRITISH MILITARY AND CIVILIAN DEATH TOLL FOR WHOLE WAR!!
After Germany surrendered in early May 1945, the USSR…
Soviets drove Japanese out of Manchuria.
Likely that USSR lost one-fifth of its pre-war population!
Soviet casualties = around half of total loss of human life of all the countries involved in WW2!
