In 1941 Germany invaded the USSR. Hitler thought it would be a quick victory which would give him control of the west and force the British to surrender so that he could win the war. However, the German forces were unable to defeat the USSR . This was because of many factors ; Soviet winter, mismanagement of the Axis powers, the battle of Stalingrad and Hitler’s underestimation of the strength of the Soviet Forces. But it was the Soviet winter and cold conditions that ultimately lead to Hitler’s defeat
Hitler originally had planned to invade the USSR in the May of 1941 but he was unable to do so because of Mussolini’s decision to invade Greece (Source 6). Mussolini invasion of Greece was unsuccessful and the Italian forces suffered huge losses. Hitler was forced to help Mussolini, his ally, which in turn lead to the invasion of the USSR (Operation Barbosa) being put on hold until Hitler’s troops had returned from the war in Greece. (Source 1) Because of this Operation Barbosa was moved to the June of 1941, which was closer to the Soviet winter.
Hitler had underestimated the length of the war (Source 4) and this meant that the German soldiers were forced fight through the harsh Soviet winter. Hitler wanted his forces to invade Stalingrad as he knew the political advantage he would gain if he controlled the city named after Stalin (Source 5). The battle of Stalingrad is seen as the turning point in the Second World War. During the battle of Stalingrad the German forces sustained many loses from which they never recovered despite previous victories in Leningrad and Kiev.
During the battle at Stalingrad the German soldiers lacked the supplies needed for a war in winter. They were unprepared and the long journey on foot to Stalingr...
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...nd east. This meant that an already weak army form the winter conditions was weakened even more. Supplies , arms and troops were even further divided to help fight in the pacific while the Japanese did not aid the Germans because of a pact signed with Stalin( Source 6). While the USSR and the USA were both new to the war and still had vast amounts of resources. (Source 4) This was largely due to Stalin’s 5 Year (Source 8) Stalin could produce arms at a rapid rate (Source 6)
Although all these factors contributed to the USSR victory , it was the winter weather that lead to the USSR defeat. The onset of winter gave the Soviet forces an advantage over the Germans as they were trained for war in those conditions and bought time for Stalin to mobilize troops. This gave the USSR an advantage which allowed them to beat the German forces and liberate Nazi occupied zones
Sajer describes the pride he felt at Chemnitz—and continues to feel—but struggles to reconcile with the ragged image of himself and his comrades under such incredible duress (Sajer 49-50). Sajer recounts how, soaked in rain and mud and subjected to ongoing artillery fire, he felt “like nothing.” (Sajer 50) This description exposes a break in the sense of significance he felt in the eyes of Germany while at Chemnitz, a significance that seemed to abandon him as he traveled deeper into Russia.
Hitler’s conduction of the Battle of Stalingrad was his biggest mistake. The decisions that Hitler made during the Battle of Stalingrad influenced the outcome of following battles and World War 2. Adolf Hitler kept sending men into the front line even though generals advised him to withdraw the troops and surrender. According to William L. Shirer, “When General Zeitzler got up enough nerve to suggest to the Fuehrer that the Sixth Army should be withdrawn from Stalingrad, Hitler flew into a fury. ‘Where the German soldier sets foot, there he remains!’"(The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Document 1) Hitler aspires to take over the world so a loss could make his leadership appear to be weak and expose flaws to the rest of the world creating a downward spiral of his reputation, of being
As the Soviet Union approaches Berlin from the East, the allied forces invade from the west. Hitler’s German war-machine was crumbling. The United States had to make an enormous decision. Should they attack the Red Army of the Soviet Union? Should they keep the increasingly shaky alliance with the Russians and end the war in Europe? America chose to remain allies, resulting in a decision that affected the world for the next 46 years. World War 2 had concluded but now there was a new enemy, the Soviet Communist.
The battle of Stalingrad has often been referred to as the turning point of World War II. Stalingrad, now called Volgograd is located on the river Volga in the southern part of western Russia. It was of extreme importance because it was the last stronghold protecting the vast oil fields that lay beyond it to the east. Hitler believed his Operation Barbarossa would be an easy victory, claiming that troops would be home for Christmas. There was much symbolism in Hitler’s decision to attack Stalingrad and that was due to that it was named after the Russian leader Stalin and would cause a great loss of morale in the Russian army if the German army could capture it. The German 6th Army ran into incredibly fierce resistance on the part of the Russians. As the battle waged on for nearly 3 months the daily bloodbaths of the street battles began to take their toll on both sides. Russia’s use of snipers began to cost the Germans more and more lives everyday. Most famous of...
This operation started on June 22, 1941. By the time December of 1941 came around, Germany 's troops had reached the gates of Moscow. Germany believed they were going to be successful, so they were pretty confident. For a short time in the spring of 1942, the Germans regained the military scheme, and by June, the Germans were making their way toward the city of Stalingrad.
The battle of Stalingrad is argued to be one of the most significant strategizing battle for the Germans. If Germany had won Stalingrad there would have been no fight left for the Russians to have. Instead, Germany made a hasty decision to attack in order to prevent Russia from coming up with a strategy which put Germany at a disadvantage. By the end of Stalingrad the Russians had managed to push back the Germans and put them on the defensive. If Russia had lost in their battle against Nazi Germany the United States and Great Britain would have faced a much harsher fight against Nazi Germany. Some would even argue that it would have been next to impossible for America to win against Nazi
Zhukov planned an attack from two directions, sweeping in and meeting in the middle. After four days, the Soviet attack had met in the middle and had completely surrounded German forces. The Soviet forces were ordered to stay very close to the German troops so that the airstrikes would put their own forces at risk. The German army begged Hitler to allow them to retreat, but he denied them and ordered his men to hold their ground at all costs. This proved to be a pivotal mistake.
A combination of factors affected Germany’s downfall, such as lack of morale, unwieldy weapons, and failure to work with its so-called allies. One very basic factor in the Allies’ victory was the formation of the Allies themselves. Neither France nor Great Britain could have fought the Axis powers on their own, nor were the two nations on the best of terms at the time. However, they found a common enemy in Germany. Also, without help from the other Allied nations, it is more than likely that the USSR would not have survived the war.
After a two year stalemate, both the Russians and Germans awaited major confrontations that would define the momentum for either side. Up until this point in the war, although the Germans had captured many European countries and were victoriously advancing with their keen tactics, such as the blitzkrieg and their cogent weapons, battles on the Eastern front seemed impossible to win. Upon a dismal loss at the Battle of Stalingrad earlier in 1943, German morale was greatly lowered and the German forces finally apprehended the strength of the Russian troops. The momentum would finally be settled with the decisive battle near the town of Kursk, a town on the Moscow-Rostov railway, in Southern Russia. The goal of the Battle of Kursk was to regain German morale and to pinch off a large salient in the Eastern front, which would make Russians much more vulnerable to German attack. Being such an important battle to the overall success of the Germans, they formulated several unique plans; however, due to the lack of good judgement, these plans were doomed from the very start.
The battle fought between the Soviet Red Army and the Nazi Wehrmacht over the “city of Stalin” for four long months in the fall and winter of 1942-3 stands as not only the most important battle of the Eastern front during World War II, but as the greatest battle ever fought. Germany’s defeat at Stalingrad ended three years of almost uninterrupted victory and signaled the beginning of the end of the Third Reich. In this way, Stalingrad’s significance was projected beyond the two main combatants, extending to all corners of the world.
The next year, in 1943, another German offensive was launched especially around the approaches of Stalingrad. Stalingrad was almost completely destroyed by the German sixth Army. That was the near end for Germany, but it took several months of destruction and desperate fighting, and millions of millions of deaths for that to happen.
World War II was seen around the globe as a war to end all wars. Combat like this had never been experienced before and it was the largest scale battle in recent history. The death tolls for all sides skyrocketed to heights that had never been reached in any battle ever before. There was one man at the center of it all, one man who came to personify the root of living, breathing evil. That man was Adolf Hitler and to the rest of the world, he was a superhuman military machine who had no other goal but to achieve world domination through destruction. But the roots of the Battle of Stalingrad all began in 1941 when Hitler launched operation Barbarossa. Hitler’s powerful army marched across the east, seemingly unstoppable to any force. Stalin’s Red Army was caught completely off guard and their lines were completely broken apart. A majority of the country’s air force was destroyed when airfields were raided and many of the planes never even got the chance to leave the ground. Hitler’s army finally came to Leningrad where the city was besieged. The city held for 900 days and never gave way to the relentless Germans. At the cost of 1.5 million civilians and soldiers, the Red Army stopped Hitler from advancing further and postponed his plan to sweep over the south. Another cause for the retreat of Hitler was the brutal Russian winter, which Hitler and his army were completely unprepared for and the icy cold deaths would continue to haunt the Germans.
"Nevertheless, like its predecessors, the Cold War has been a worldwide power contest in which one expanding power has threatened to make itself predominant, and in which other powers have banded together in a defensive coalition to frustrate it---as was the case before 1815, as was the case in 1914-1918 as was the case from 1939-1945" (Halle 9). From this power struggle, the Cold War erupted. In April 1945, Russian forces that had been triumphant at Stalingrad had pushed the German forces back into Germany and American and British forces that had been victorious in their invasion of Normandy did the same; they met at the Elbe River in central Germany (Lukacs 17). Europe was separated into two independent halves, one Russian occupied and the other American. From this division, the Cold War emerged.
During the early stages of the war, most of Germany’s victories were because of the success of blitzkrieg, or lightening war. Blitzkrieg tactics emphasised mobility and the concentrated use of armour and air power to overwhelm an enemy. Blitzkrieg was especially successful in flat, open countryside and was supremely suited for the Polish campaign in 1939. It was with blitzkrieg, as well as Germany’s superior tactics, effective use of armour, airpower and modern equipment, plus with the support of the USSR that the Germans used to overwhelm Poland in only 5 weeks. Two days after the German troops entered Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany. Hitler did not want this because it was a distraction from his main aim, to attack the USSR.
...t, Hitler believed that the British government would reconsider its policy of appeasement. He thus decided to invade Poland on September 1st 1939, on 3rd, British declared war against Hitler (Scaife 121). Hitler’s invasion of Poland was from the hope that the policy of appeasement would be used to solve the matter, but it failed.