The Lesser of Two Evils
War is the tool used by men to achieve what they want through the lives of many, and no greater use of war has been seen than in the fields of eastern Europe from June of 1941- until may 1945. On June 22nd, 1941 Adolf Hitler, the leader of Nazi Germany, ordered the German Wehrmacht to invade the Soviet Union to the east. This invasion went nearly three weeks before Josef Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, acted on the operation against his country. The German army reached the gates of Moscow when their offensive was halted, and so from that day in december, when the Germans reached their high water mark, to the day the fighting ended in Berlin in May of 1945, the fields of Eastern Europe became home to the deadliest conflict in human history. The two leaders hurled their armies at each other, issuing orders to kill prisoners, execute civilians, and in the case of the soviets, even rape thousands of women across eastern europe. Though Stalin did eventually win the war, he proved to be the less favorable of the two Leaders. The war in the Eastern Front of World War Two can be seen as the Deadliest Part of the bloodiest war in human history
As War progresses the amount of prisoners will rise, as that number rises so does the risk of those prisoners being killed or simply dying naturally, in the Eastern Front the risk of death was much higher than normal conflicts. The Prisoners taken by the Germans and Soviets in World War two faced the harshest treatment of any war ever seen. The Commissar Order issued by Hitler stated “political officers were to be shot on capture” (Tucker and Wadley). The Commissar Order was designed to destroy the will power of the Soviet Armies. The Commissars were political office...
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...tern Front: World War II."). The soviets knew that the german army was a shadow of its former self and they intended to make sure that the world knew that by shattering their lines time and again, casualties were not an issue to the soviets, as history has displayed. When faced with defeat a man is capable of two things, rolling over and giving in, or fighting until death to defend what he has come to love, in the war between the Evil Soviet Union and the Third Reich a man was more likely to choose death before defeat.
The War in the Eastern Front of World War Two witnessed some of the highest casualty rates in human history with men on both sides dying by the millions. In the end millions of soldiers and civilians lay dead, mile upon mile of eastern europe became engulfed in death and destruction, and in the end the winner became the one who paid the highest price.
Mortality encumbered the prisons effortlessly. Every day is a struggle for food, survival, and sanity. Fear of being led into the gas chambers or lined up for shooting was a constant. Hard labor and inadequate amounts of rest and nutrition took a toll on prisoners. They also endured beatings from members of the SS, or they were forced to watch the killings of others.
In 1941, the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, under the code name Operation Barbarossa. Almost four million soldiers invaded making it the largest invasion in the history of warfare. The invasion was authorized by Hitler on December 18th, 1940 and began on June 22, 1941. The German invasion caused a high rate of fatalities. 95% of all German Army casualties that occurred from 1941 to 1944, and 65% of all Allied military casualties from the entire war took place during this invasion. The German forces captured over three million Soviet prisoners of war, and intentionally forced the prisoners to starve to death in order to further reduce the Eastern European population. Most of ...
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...
In 1914, with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife from Austro-Hungarian Empire caused an enormous war called World War I, that killed and injured about thirty million lives. It also destroyed the economy later on. World War I changed combat tactics in a whole new way, where people would die in a blink of an eye. Commanders and soldiers did not know about the capabilities of their new arsenals. The new industrialized developed weapons devastated the battlefield with blood, mountain of corpses, and small craters. Some of the weapons that were used were machine guns, poison gas, mortars, and tanks. Soldiers described the battlefield as a nightmare. This was the start of a new era arising through warfare. A very dangerous way to bring great change to the world but was not intended. World War I brought great changes to the world but, considering the countless deaths, it was the worst war ever, an inhumane war.
While being forced to live in Auschwitz they endured many cruel and harsh punishments. The main form of punishment was the gas chambers. These chambers were cells that were made underground and were able to be sealed. Zyklon-B was the poison used to gas and kill the Jewish people. “It takes about 10 minutes to kill 2,000 to 3,000 people in the gas chamber.” (Saldinger p.57) After gassing they would then be extracted from the chamber and taken to the crematorium where the bodies would be disposed of. Sometimes it wasn’t even the guards who would dispose of the bodies, most of the time it was the prisoners who were forced to extract their own people from the chambers. This was just one of the many forms of punishment; there were many more and some were just as bad.
World War I was a very deadly war with over 100 million human casualties(deaths plus injured). Therefore war is a very transformative event for humanity, because it always affects individuals, societies, and even the world in a pessimistic way.
World War 2 was a very historic and dangerous moment in time that costed millions of lives. This global war began when Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939. Nazi Germany at the time had major goals that needed to be met, like having complete world order, and wiping out every single race other than a pure Aryan bloodline. In order to reach this goal, Nazi Germany tried to take over countries, and they also committed mass genocide to the Jewish people.
In September of 1942, the German commander of the Sixth Army, advanced his troops to the city of Stalingrad where Hitler ordered the Wehrmacht to secure the oil fields and take Stalingrad. Stalingrad was a target location due to its manufacturing and center of communications for parts of Russia. Hitler had extra motivation to take Stalingrad because the significance of the name, it was named after the Soviet Russian leader Stalin. Russia had been war torn and devastated from previous attacks and battles from the Germans, they knew they had to persevere and hang on along enough to defeat the German Army. The Soviets did have somewhat of a warning of the German attack, they shipped out cattle, grain, and other main supplies, but most of the civilians stayed. Hitler was very confident he could take this city down without losing major causalities. While Hitler was planning the attack the Soviet Marshall Zhukov was planning a major counterattack. Marshall Zhukov had 6 armies of 1 million men ready to attack the Germans. Both the Germans and Soviets had flaws in their attacks but, t...
The inmates usually lived in overcrowded barracks and slept in bunk “beds”. In the forced labour camps, for instance, the inmates usually worked 12 hours a day with hard physical work, clothed in rags, eating too little and always living under the risk of corporal punishment” (Holocaust | Concentration Camps). Only 7,000 emaciated survivors of a Nazi extermination process that killed an estimated six million Jews were found at Auschwitz” (Rice, Earle). Most of these deaths occurred towards the end of the war; however, there were still a lot of lives that had been miraculously spared. “According to SS reports, there were more than 700,000 prisoners left in the camps in January 1945.
Germans advanced into Russia's land killing millions and millions of people . This battle was considered one of the most bloodiest battles in all history
The first World War is recorded down as one of the “deadliest conflict in human history”. With over 16 million dead, it was one of the first wars with a high amount of casualties. However, the one that tops the list with around 60 million deaths was World War II. What caused such a large scale war to happen in the first place? Seven and a half months after World War I, a treaty was signed between the victorious countries, Great Britain, France, United States, and Germany (Overview). It was created with the intention to create peace Europe and ensure that another war like World War I doesn’t happen again. However, the peace was short lived before the second World War engulfed Europe and the rest of the world in a brutal bloodshed. Instead of lasting peace, the Treaty of Versailles contributed greatly to the cause of World War II as it caused humiliation and anger within Germany. The pent up emotions eventually led to the rise of the Nazi Party and Adolf Hitler, who were angered by their loss in territory, military restrictions, economic reparations, and the war guilt clause.
World War II, known as the largest armed conflict in history, began in Europe in the 1930s and led to effect many people. The war resulted in not only the involvement of more countries than any other war but also introduced powerful, new, nuclear weapons that also contributed to the most deaths. As Hitler rose to power in 1933 the Holocaust began, his quest for the ‘perfect’ race resulted in the use of concentration camps, which would help to create the largest genocide of people in history.
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.
World War II was one of the deadliest wars we know of in history, with as many as sixty million casualties, most of whom were civilians. It impacted a lot of countries, almost all over the world, which is why the name is given. This war impacted many countries in the world, and damaged almost all of the countries involved greatly. It also led to the downfall of Western European countries as world powers, leaving it to the Soviet Union, and the United States. The war started in 1939 and ended in 1945, with the invasion of Poland and the Axis surrender, respectively.
...e German’s defeat at Stalingrad was the turning point of the action in the West. Hitler’s downfall had begun and his control over his once powerful army had been extremely weakened. It is safe to say that after the battle at Stalingrad, Russia became a world superpower and rode its strength all the way into the Cold War. If the outcome of this battle had been different, the war might have had a different outcome for Hitler and the Axis powers. There is no doubt that Hitler would have continued his campaign for world domination and he might have even succeeded. Stalingrad is also considered to be one of the bloodiest battles of all time, with total casualties from both sides surmounting past one million. This battle might have been the most significant one in all of World War II and it definitely turned the tides against one of the most infamous leaders of all time.