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The Great Patriotic War Flashcards

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1
Q

How long had Hitler been prepping for Operation Barbarossa

A

October 1940

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2
Q

How have the German armed forces been described

A

experienced, battle-hardened and well equipped

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3
Q

when was the invasion of the USSR originally scheduled for

A

1st June

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4
Q

why was Operation Barbarossa delayed

A

the policies of Hitler’s Italian allies had caused a crisis in Yugoslavia

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5
Q

when did the Siege of Leningrad start

A

8th September 1941

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6
Q

When was the Battle of Moscow

A

December 1941

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7
Q

When was the renewed German offensive towards the Caucasus oil fields

A

July 1942

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8
Q

When did the German army surround Stalingrad

A

November 1942

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9
Q

When did the German army surrender at Stalingrad

A

February 1943

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10
Q

When was the Battle of Kursk, a start of a long German retreat

A

July 1943

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11
Q

When was the end of the Leningrad siege

A

January 1944

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12
Q

When was the Soviet victory in the Battle for Berlin

A

May 1945

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13
Q

When was the launch of Operation Barbarossa

A

22 June 1941

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14
Q

what approach did the German army take

A

three-headed spear - north through the Baltic states towards Leningrad, South and east into Ukraine and a central thrust towards Moscow

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15
Q

What left the Soviets unprepared for war

A

Stalin’s miscalculations

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16
Q

What did Stalin do in reference to reports about a German offensive

A

he ignored foreign sources that said that German invasion was imminent

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17
Q

What did Stalin do after the Nazi invasion

A

he shrank away from making a radio broadcast to the people; that task was left to Molotov

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18
Q

what had it appeared had happened to Stalin

A

He had lost his nerve, expecting that the people and the party would blame him and turn against him

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19
Q

How long did it take Stalin to make a radio speech

A

nearly two weeks (3rd July)

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20
Q

What did Stalin appeal to in his speech

A

patriotism and religion, and ti unity among the nationalities

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21
Q

What did Stalin say in his speech to try and unite the Russian people

A

“he aims to bring back the power of the landowners and restore Tsarism, to destroy the national culture and statehood of Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Uzbeks, Tatars, Moldovans, Georgians, Armenians, and other free people of the Soviet Union”

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22
Q

What was Stalin guilty of

A

errors and poor leadership in the early stages of the war

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23
Q

What was the issue with Stalin at the beginning of the war

A

he had a panic attack after the invasion and failed to give leadership in the first weeks; he prepared to move the government away from Moscow, to Samara on the Volga, and only decided at the last moment to stay in Moscow

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24
Q

Who was Stalin too reliant on

A

his inferior commanders, who had been promoted for political reasons after the purge of the army

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25
Q

What did Stalin do in September 1941

A

he helped to cause a massive defeat of his southern armies at Kiev by refusing to allow them to retreat until it was too late; he also showed no urgency in defending Leningrad after it was besieged

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26
Q

What became an effective mechanism to war

A

Stavka (the war cabinet)

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27
Q

what had to happen to the Stavka for it to become successful

A

a long series of defeats and disasters

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28
Q

What saved Stalin

A

the size of Russia, with its huge population, and vast distances
the severity of the Russian winter
the patriotism of the Soviet people

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29
Q

What did Stalin do well

A

he learned from his mistakes, and eventually was to receive accolades as the ‘Great War Hero’

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30
Q

What helped Stalin avoid another invasion from a different side

A

advance information about the intentions of Japan

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31
Q

who provided the advance information about Japan

A

the master spy Richard Sorge

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32
Q

What happened to the spy Sorge

A

he was executed in Tokyo in 1944

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33
Q

when were Kiev and Ukraine lost

A

19 September 1941

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34
Q

when were troops transferred from Siberia to Moscow

A

18 October 1941

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35
Q

When did German forces halt close to Moscow and how close were they

A

27th November 1941, they were 20km away

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36
Q

When was the German drive on Moscow halted

A

5 December 1941

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37
Q

When were there big german victories in Ukraine

A

31 May 1942

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38
Q

When was case blue and what was it

A

the German offensive towards Caucasus oilfields, on 28 June 1942

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39
Q

When was the fall of the Rostov on the Don

A

24th July 1942

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40
Q

When was the start of the bombardment of Stalingrad

A

23 August 1942

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41
Q

When did the German advance at Stalingrad halt

A

12 October 1942

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42
Q

Where did the German armies encircle in the early points of the invasion

A

Minsk, Smolensk, Kiev

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43
Q

how many soldiers were captured at Minsk and Smolensk

A

665,000

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44
Q

How many Soviet soldiers surrendered after the fall of Kiev on 19 September

A

half a million

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45
Q

When did Soviet leadership offer negotiations for a compromise peace

A

15th October

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46
Q

What sidetracked Case Blue

A

Hitler’s decision to divert forces to the capture of Stalingrad

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47
Q

What made Stalingrad into a catastrophic defeat

A

Hitler’s strategic mistake in persisting with defending Stalingrad to the death

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48
Q

What had happened to Hitler by early 1943

A

he was running out of men, resources and time

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49
Q

what was the offensive launched near Kursk in July

A

Operation Citadel

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50
Q

What was the biggest tank battle in History

A

Battle of Prokhorovka

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51
Q

What tank helped the Red Army win the Battle of Prokhorovka

A

the massed force of T-34 tanks

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52
Q

When did Hitler call off the Kursk offensive

A

13th July

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53
Q

What was all but certain after Kursk

A

Soviet victory

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54
Q

When was the liberation of Kiev

A

6 November 1943

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55
Q

When was the Tehran Summit

A

28 November 1943

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56
Q

When did Soviet troops enter Poland

A

4 January 1944

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57
Q

When did the Siege of Leningrad end

A

27 January 1944

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58
Q

how long did the Siege of Leningrad last

A

972 days

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59
Q

When was Crimea liberated by the Red Army

A

13th May 1944

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60
Q

When was Vilnius in Lithuania captured

A

13th July 1944

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61
Q

when did the soviet siege of Budapest start

A

29th December 1944

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62
Q

When was the city of Kharkiv in Ukraine first overrun

A

October 1941

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63
Q

when was Kharkiv recaptured and then lost

A

Feb 1942 and lost again in March

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64
Q

When was Kharkiv finally liberated

A

August 1943

65
Q

Why was life for civilians on the Home front unrelentingly harsh

A

food, fuel and shelter were all in short supply

66
Q

How many people died of hunger and cold in the siege of Leningrad

A

600,000

67
Q

what is it estimated that civilian deaths reached in 1945

A

more than 12 million

68
Q

What did Hitler order right from the start of the war

A

the instant execution of captured Soviet commissars

69
Q

What was Babi Yar

A

where the SS rounded up the Jewish population near Kiev. 34,000 were taken to Babi Yar, a ravine outside the city, shot and put into mass graves.

70
Q

What were commissars and secret police obsessed with

A

hunting down ‘slackers’, ‘deserters’ and ‘defeatists’

71
Q

Who was expelled due to fear of collaboration with the Germans and where did they go

A

Chechens and the Crimean Tatars were expelled to Central Asia in May 1944

72
Q

What great national myth emerged out of the Great Patriotic War

A

a united soviet people pulling together through shared sacrifices, following the great leader of Stalin

73
Q

How is it partly true that the war brought people together

A

The experiences of total war, and the massive propaganda campaigns that shaped them, did bring people together.

74
Q

What was the key unifying factor

A

fear and hatred of the Germans; a deep patriotism in defending the Motherland; an underlying faith in the revolution and in Stalin

75
Q

What was the soviet solution to the economic hardships caused by vast occupations

A

relocation

76
Q

what was the relocation

A

equipment, workers and whole factories were packed up, put on 20,000 trains and shifted hundreds of miles to the east, beyond the reach of the German bombs

77
Q

What were the two main routes for this vital supply line

A

the arctic convoys and the so-called Persian corridor

78
Q

How many American trucks were the USSR given

A

300,000

79
Q

When was Lend-lease

A

March 1941

80
Q

What did Lend-Lease do

A

it empowered FDR to give military aid to Britain and to extend help to the USSR in October.

81
Q

What was the initial effect of Lend-Lease

A

it contributed to 5 per cent of Soviet GNP

82
Q

What gave the red army vital mobility

A

trucks, jeeps and railway resources

83
Q

What did Khrushchev admit about Lend-lease in his memoir

A

“Without them our losses would have been colossal because we would have had no manoeuvrability”

84
Q

How much of the Russian GDP came from lend-lease in 1943 and 44

A

10%

85
Q

Without Lend-Lease, how much longer would the defeat of the Wehrmacht

A

12-18 months

86
Q

What was the worst year for agriculture

A

1943

87
Q

what was agricultural output in 1943 compared to 1940

A

it was 38% of the 1940 level in 1943

88
Q

How much of the population did not receive state rations

A

half the population

89
Q

What was revived for the first time since NEP

A

private trade

90
Q

What did Alec Nove say about the economic situation

A

“there was much that was genuinely heroic in the conduct of millions of overworked and underfed peasants, mostly women, who somehow kept the town and soldiers fed under conditions that we have difficulty even imagining”

91
Q

What happened to women after the war

A

any image of a soviet woman as a military officer or pilot was buried by the overwhelming official emphasis on the Soviet woman as mother, wife and builder of society

92
Q

what were women incredibly successful as in the Red Army

A

snipers

93
Q

What did Stalin order the partisans to do

A

to operate anywhere and everywhere, to cause havoc by guerrilla warfare

94
Q

What order was issued by the Germans in September 1941

A

between 50 and 100 communists should be killed for every German victim of a partisan attack

95
Q

how many people were killed in anti-partisan operations in Belorussia

A

250,000

96
Q

What happened to the partisans in 1942

A

each partisan unit had an NKVD cell attached to it to keep the group inline

97
Q

What was Evan Mawdsley’s judgement about the partisans

A

they probably reduced collaboration with the Germans by the local population and were responsible for the largest and most successful guerrilla campaign of the Second World War

98
Q

How many women served in the ranks of the armed forces

A

500,000

99
Q

how many women worked in civilian support staff

A

500,000

100
Q

What turned out 1061 snipers and 407 instructors

A

the central women’s school for sniper training

101
Q

how many German soldiers were killed by female snipers

A

12,000 German soldiers

102
Q

what per cent of the workforce were women

A

51-53 per cent

103
Q

How many writers joined the campaign to report on the front

A

1,000

104
Q

how many writers would die in the fighting

A

400

105
Q

what were people imprisoned for

A

‘defeatist talk about the situation on the front’

106
Q

what were political officers ordered to do

A

‘teach people implacable hatred and rage against the enemy’

107
Q

Who were two of the most talented writers for the Sovinformburo

A

Konstantin Simonov and Ilya Ehrenburg

108
Q

How does Eisenstein’s ‘Alexander Nevsky’ end

A

‘whosoever comes against us by the sword shall perish by the sword. Such is the law of the Russian land and such it will always be’

109
Q

How was the war described

A

a holy war

110
Q

In 1937, what per cent of people were religious

A

55%

111
Q

when did Stalin allow religious freedoms

A

September 1943

112
Q

What did the church do

A

tamed and removed rebels and contributed to the Russification of the borderlands

113
Q

How did the Church describe Stalin

A

‘the divinely anointed leader of our armed forces leading us to victory over the Barbarian invasion’.

114
Q

what was the church able to do for Stalin

A

rally support among the followers of the church

115
Q

What did John Barber say about propaganda

A

“perhaps what Stalin represented for ordinary people more than anything else during the war was hope - the hope of victory, the hope of survival, hope against hope that those in power cared about the millions they ruled”

116
Q

What did David Glantz argue about propaganda in the Red Army

A

“persuasive and constant propaganda and political agitation” was one of the factors which helped make the Red Army fight so hard

117
Q

How was the soviet union more prepared for war than many of the other combatants

A

it had a centralised command and propaganda structure, both political and economic, which enabled it to react quickly to the necessities of war and mobilise and deploy its population

118
Q

What did the war do for the image of Stalin

A

it consolidated his position and, indeed, promote his image as its indisputable and indispensable leader

119
Q

What did Kevin McDermott suggest

A

Stalin did not think Hitler would strike east until he had defeated or reached an agreement with Great Britain

120
Q

what was the codeword for the start of Operation Barbarossa

A

Dortmund

121
Q

What did members of the politburo say when they went to see Stalin

A

they had decided on establishing a state committee for the defence to run the war and requested that he should become its commissar

122
Q

How can the patriotism of the Soviet people be described

A

it was spontaneous, they were just not reacting to the horrors of Nazi occupation and the reinvigoration of nationalism and Orthodoxy by the Soviet government

123
Q

How did a Jewish scientist describe the war

A

the war was the ‘best time of our lives because at that time we all felt closer to our government than at any other time in our lives. It was not their country then bout our country. It was not they who wanted this or that to be done, but we who wanted to do it. It was not their war, but our war. It was our country we were defending, our war effort’

124
Q

What did Stalin say about his allies

A

there was a “coalition of the USSr, Great Britain and the USA against the German-fascist imperialists’ that made the defeat of nazism possible”.

125
Q

What did Stalin say about Lend-Lease

A

“if we had had to deal with Germany with one-to-one we could not have coped because we had lost so much of our industry”

126
Q

What did the sheer size of the USSR do in the war

A

its sheer size and difficult climate contributed to Russian victory. Stalin referred to ‘general winter’, which played a part in defeating the Germans who were ill-prepared for the winter conditions.

127
Q

What were the Red Army able to do that the Germans didn’t

A

The Red Army coped much better with the climate and, as they drove the Germans back to Berlin, the distances

128
Q

What was a big issue for the Nazi leadership

A

their ideology

129
Q

What did the German ideology lead to

A

the Germans making a serious underestimation of the USSR

130
Q

What did Hitler promise

A

a war of annihilation ‘conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness’

131
Q

What did Hitler order about how Russians should be treated when captured

A

all captured Jews, party and state functionaries and intellectuals were to be killed

132
Q

What has service said about the Germans role in aggravating the Russian people

A

‘if it had not been for Hitler’s fanatical racism, the USSR would not have won the struggle on the Eastern Front. Stalin’s repressiveness towards his own citizens would have cost him the war against Nazi Germany’

133
Q

How many people were evacuated in the removal of factories to the east

A

over 10 million

134
Q

what was the comparison of 1942 production figures compared to 1941

A

In 1942, the number of tanks and planes exceeded figures achieved in 1941

135
Q

What new weapons were produced

A

T-34 tanks, Katyusha rockets and Yak fighter planes

136
Q

What were working hours extended to

A

12 hours per day

137
Q

What had happened to production in 1943

A

the USSR produced more war materials than Germany

138
Q

What stopped the Germans from advancing further

A

Hitler kept switching strategies

139
Q

What did General Halder write in his diary on 3rd July

A

“it is no exaggeration to say that the campaign against Russia has been won in 14 days”

140
Q

What did Hitler do on the 14th of July 1941

A

he ordered a reduction in the number of troops on the eastern front and switched some divisions from the Moscow front to reinforce the attacks on Leningrad and Kiev

141
Q

Who was placed in charge of Moscow’s defences

A

the incredibly competent General Zhukov

142
Q

What did Zhukov organise

A

hundreds of thousands of women and children who dug anti-tank ditches and built tank traps and gun emplacements

143
Q

Why were the Soviet troops increasingly tenacious

A

strict army discipline

144
Q

how was strict army discipline achieved

A

NKVD agents were active within every army units

145
Q

what was set up by the Germans to go from town to town to liquidate jews

A

Special Task Forces (Einsatzgruppen)

146
Q

What did the Einsatzgruppen do

A

1150 jews were shot in Dvinsk, 7000 Jews were rounded up and shot in Lvov, 1460 in Lutsk, 300 and 500 at Zolochew and 3302 at Tilsit

147
Q

what happened at Kishinev in Bessarabia

A

the SS indulged in a two-week campaign of slaughter in which over 10,000 jews were murdered

148
Q

How many Jews died at Odessa

A

75,000

149
Q

What happened in August in Auschwitz

A

600 Russian prisoners were used in experiments to test a new method of mass killing - the gas chamber

150
Q

How did Pravda describe Stalin

A

the ‘genius organiser of our victories’ and the ‘great captain of the Soviet people’

151
Q

How did the historian Volkogonov (a stalinist critic) describe Stalin’s decision to hold the revolutionary rally during the war

A

‘bold and fair-sighted move, reflecting the sure hand with which Stalin influenced public opinion and guided the people’s mental state, and that at a time when many were doubtful about the outcome of the war’

152
Q

What did Lev Kopelev say about Russian propaganda

A

‘millions of people had been brutalised and corrupted by the war and by our propaganda’

153
Q

What were orders 270 and 227

A

it outlined how a soldier would be a deserter if he surrendered and a traitor if he retreated

154
Q

what did Samsonov say about the enforcement of discipline in the military

A

‘order 227, of course, was extremely severe, but necessary at that terrible moment’

155
Q

what did Soldiers say about the enforcement of discipline by Stalin

A

‘all my life I will remember what Stalin’s orders meant, not the letter, but the spirit and the content of the order definitely made possible the moral, psychological and spiritual break-through in the hearts and minds of all to whom it was read’

156
Q

Who did Stalin delegate an increasing amount to

A

on Vasilevsky (chief of the general staff), Antonov and Zhukov, who was the hero of Leningrad and Moscow.

157
Q

What did Antonov and Zhukov advise Stalin on

A

Zhukov and Vasilevsky would be the ones to advise Stalin on the deep, double encirclement of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad, which was key to success

158
Q

What plans did Stalin accept

A

Stalin accepted Zhukov’s rejection of his plans for a ‘pre-emptive offensive’ in favour of a deep defence at Kursk, which was a plan supported by Vasilevsky and Antonov

159
Q

What was Sir Alan Brooke’s reaction to Stalin

A

he was ‘more than ever impressed by the dictator’s military ability’

Russian History (15 decks)

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