· web viewgerman wehrmacht and luftwaffe struck soviet forces across a wide front along the...
TRANSCRIPT
The Eastern FrontPatriotic War 1941-1945
Overview • Stalin as a military leader • Purging the Red Army• USSR: Relationship with Germany• Disregarded signs of Nazi invasion• Soviet Soldier Life• Nazi Germany v Communist Russia• Soviet Victory • Weather
• Women • Will to fight (or death)• Key Battles • War Crimes• The Cost • Recap • Questions
Stalin as a Military Leader
• As commander in chief, Stalin presided over the _______________________________________ charged with…
• ________________, ______________________, and coordination of all _____________________________.
• Stalin possessed certain characteristics that helped and hurt him in being a Military leader
• including a _______________________________________, the ability to get to the root of the matter, and ______________________________________________
• he lacked _______________________________ and _____________________________________
• Stalin relied on the ________________________ of throwing masses of soldiers into frontal attacks that resulted in the ____________________________
Stalin as a leader
• His goal of uniting the nation with him as the leader grew to _________________________________
• Stalin enacted a series of purges known as “______________________________”
• Millions of people were sent to _____________________, _________________________, or ___________________________________, out of fear that they were ______________________ __________________________________
• State police the NKVD
• Were at the _____________________________________
• It was found out after his death that Stalin had been suffering from atherosclerosis (fatty tissue build-up in the arteries) of the brain, possibly explaining his deranged “terror.”
Red Army Purge
• For decades, the __________________________ was recognized as the start of the ____________________________
• Approximately ________________________ military personal would be “lost” over the course of __________________________
• The numbers of rank-and-file affected are __________________________.
• Although the upper ranks were certainly hit harder by the purge,
• _____________________________________ suffered as well.
• As was true for the violence of the wider Great Terror, much of the military purge was driven by a wave of denunciations from below.
USSR: Relationship with Germany
• The two countries entered into ‘friendly relations” through a ______________________________________
• It was signed August 23, 1939 in Moscow, by Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German foreign minister, and Vyacheslav Molotov, the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs
• The news of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, came as a great surprise to the Soviet public who were used to _________________________ that was ____________________
• Caused great concern for the ____________________________________________ countries as well
Disregard for warnings about the Nazi Invasion
• The German invasion is said to be one of the _____________________________ attacks in Military history…
• _________________________________________ about it
• Hitler saw the _____________________ as an ___________________________________
• He saw _______________as the perfect area to grow the _________________________________
• Russian spies gave several warnings to Stalin in the months leading up to the invasion
• He did not
__________________________________________________________________
• He did not become concerned even when the _________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________
• He also was not worried when Nazi spy plans were “_____________________” flying in Russian air space
Life of a Soviet Soldier
• What is missing on the Soldiers that are on the boats?____________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
• What else do you notice that happens in the following scene?________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Nazi Germany vs. Soviet Union
• Fight on land
• ______________________________________ June 22, 1941
• German Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe struck Soviet forces across a wide front along the German-Soviet frontier
• The attack would also bring in ____________________________________________________________ ___________________________________ forces
• Axis military enjoyed ________________________________
• Pushed deep into the Soviet Union
• _________________________________________________________________________
• Winter hits the Axis troops
• _________________________________________________________________________
• Germany resumed the offensive in 1942, only to suffer a major defeat at ___________________________.
• ___________________________, in 1943, ended the Wehrmacht’s offensive ambitions.
• 1943, 1944, and 1945 saw the pace of Soviet conquest gradually accelerate, with the monumental offensives of late 1944 shattering the German armed forces.
• Fight in the Air
• Russia launched a few attacks against German cities in the first days of the war
• German Luftwaffe concentrated on ____________________________________________________________.
• Germany did launch a few large air raids against Russian cities, but did not maintain anything approaching a strategic campaign
• Fight at Sea
• Soviet and Axis forces fought in the ____________________________________________________________ for most of the conflict
• In the north, Soviet air and naval forces ________________________________________________________
• ______________________________, German and Romanian ships struggled against the Soviet Black Sea Fleet
• In the Baltic, Russian __________________________________________________________ conflict against Germany and Finland for the first three years
Soviet Victory: Weather
• Hitler’s plan called for the conquering of the Soviet Union ______________________________________ hit
• This did not happen
• When Nazi troops began their invasion it was _____________________________________________
• When their progression into the Soviet Union slowed, winter was coming, the Nazi troops had out _____________________________________________________________
• Nazi Troops were _____________________________________, low on___________, _______________ and most importantly did not have the _______________________________________________
• By the end of 1941 100,000 cases of frostbit had been reported by soldiers
• German machinery had never been tested in the unbearable cold of Russia
• The weather caused the _________________________________________________________
• Guns and artillery would be ____________________________________________
• The Soviets had ________________________________________________, guns and heavy machinery that could function perfectly in the cold
• The soviets also had ________________________________that allowed for them to continue fighting even in the ____________________________________________
Soviet Victory: Women
• Nearly ________________________________ Soviet women took up arms and served on the front lines of World War II as __________________________________________________________________________.
• Female troops eventually earned a reputation as some of the _____________________________________
_________________________________________.
• Anxious to prove their worth in combat, women regularly signed up for some of the most hazardous combat positions
Soviet Victory: Ordered to Fight
• August 1941, Stalin issues “_______________________”
• Any troops that surrendered or allowed themselves to be captures would be seen as traitors in the eyes of the Soviet government and would executed if the returned to Russia
• July 1942, “________________________”
• “________________________________________________”… cowards would be shot on sight
• Created special units that would be at the back of an army to shoot and kill any retreating Soviet troops
• They would kill as many as __________________________________ Soviet soldiers
• Around __________________ at the Battle of Stalingrad
Key Battles: The siege of Leningrad
• Lasted almost ___________________________________ and cost the lives of an estimated _______________ city residents
• It began on _______________________________ when German troops completed their encirclement of the city.
• Hunger and cold became the city's greatest enemies
• Food supplies were cut
• By November, individual rations were lowered to 1/3 of the daily amount needed by an adult.
• The ________________________________
• Froze Lake Ladoga to the city's east and created a _______________________________________ of trucks hauled a meager amount of food and supplies.
• It also provided an _______________________________ for thousands of the city's weak and elderly.
• The loss of population through death and evacuation decreased the strain on the remaining inhabitants.
• Food rations were increased and the city's situation stabilized.
• By ________________________________, the Red Army had pushed the German army beyond Leningrad allowing the city to celebrate the end of its siege.
Key Battles: Stalingrad
• _____________________________________________________________
• Key Victory of the Allies and extremely humiliating loss for the Axis power
• Specifically Hitler
• ________________________________ moves to take Stalingrad (September 3rd 1942)
• ________________________________________
• Late September Nazi Army raises flag over the middle of the city
• _____________________________________________________________________________________
• __________________________ Nazi’s are low on men and supplies
• Red Army counterattacks and surrounds the city
• ________________________________________________
• ________________________________________________
• Any hope of fighting out of the encirclement is dashed
• __________________________________ The remaining men of the Nazi 6th armies surrenders,
• _______________________ Nazi with losses in the _____________________ range
Key Battles: Kursk
• Some ___________________________, _____________ men and ______________ aircraft clashed in one of the most strategically important engagements of World War II
• An unsuccessful German ________________________ against Soviet forces in______________
• Germans had almost broken the Soviet’s down by March of 1943 but the Spring thaw happened causing the armies to halt and regroup
• German forces went on the attack in July
• The goal was to wreck the Soviet forces
• _____________________________________________________________________________________
• On July 5, the Germans struck on both sides of the salient to begin the biggest battle of World War II.
• Ninth German Army, after initial success, became entirely bogged down in its attack from the north
• The South campaign saw success but it too became bogged down
• German armor failed to gain ___________________________; instead, Soviet defenses tied the Germans into a massive battle of attrition not only on the ______________________________________________________.
• At great cost, including the loss of much of their armor, the Germans had failed,
• The operational balance on the Eastern Front had swung entirely in favor of the Soviets
War Crimes: Germany & Soviet Union
• The struggle for the Eastern Front was bigger and costlier than the fighting in the West
• but it was also ________________________________________________________
• Both sides flouted international law and practiced institutionalized acts of cruelty against ________________ ____________________________________________________________
• The Germans wiped out villages during their advance through Russia
• Jews and other minorities were regularly rounded up and shot or poisoned in mobile gassing vans.
• Other cities were __________________________________ into submission most famously Leningrad.
• The Red Army responded by giving no quarter during the Soviet push to Berlin in 1945
• hundreds of thousands of _____________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________
• According to some studies, Soviet troops may have also been responsible for the rape of some two million German women during the last days of the war
The Cost
• Soviet side, some ____________________ died in action, with another ________________________ dying in German POW camps
• The Germans lost __________________soldiers in action, and another _____________________________ to the Soviet camp system
• Around _________________________________________ are thought to have been killed.
• In part because of the horrific occupation policies of the German (and the Soviets), and in part because of a lack of food and other necessities of life.
• ***Statistics of this magnitude are inevitably imprecise, and scholars on all sides of the war continue to debate the size of military and civilian losses.***
• There is little question, however, that the war in the _____________________________________ conflict ever endured by humankind.
• There is also little question that the ___________________________________________________, causing the vast majority of German casualties during World War II as a whole.
Recap! Videos
Answer these questions
• Describe the relationship between Nazi Germany and The Soviet Union prior to 1941.
• Describe the leadership of Stalin.
• Explain the impact of the Allied victory in the Eastern Theater and how that changed the outcome of WWII.
• What helped the Soviet Union win the Eastern T heater?
• Compare and contrast the Eastern European theater to the Western European theater.