SaltwaterServr
Blank Paper Offends Me
- Messages
- 8,124
- Reaction score
- 1
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/09/world-war-ii-the-eastern-front/100150/
The war on the Eastern Front, known to Russians as the "Great Patriotic War", was the scene of the largest military confrontation in history. More than 400 Red Army and German divisions clashed in a series of military operations over four years, along a front that extended more than 1,000 miles.
Some 27 million Soviet soldiers and civilians and nearly 4 million German troops lost their lives along the Eastern Front during those years of brutality. The warfare there was total and ferocious -- the largest armored clashes in history (Battle of Kursk), the most costly siege on a modern city (nearly 900 days in Leningrad), scorched earth policies, utter devastation of thousands of villages, mass deportations, mass executions, and countless atrocities attributed to both sides.
To make things even more complex, forces within the Soviet Union were often fractured among themselves -- early in the war, some groups had even welcomed the Germans as liberators from their mistreatment under Stalin, and fought against the Red Army. Later, as battles became desperate, Stalin issued Order No. 227, "Not a Step Back!", which forbid Soviet forces from retreating without direct orders -- commanders would face a tribunal, and foot soldiers faced "blocking detachments" from their own army, ready to gun down any who fled.
The photos gathered here cover much of the years of 1942-1943, from the siege of Leningrad to the decisive Soviet victories in Stalingrad and Kursk. The vastness of the scale of the warfare is nearly unimaginable, and nearly impossible to capture in a handful of images, so take these as a mere glimpse of the horrors of the Eastern Front.
Parts 1-13:
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/ww2.html
-------------------------------
There's a new book coming out, or has just come out, on the seige at Leningrad. The author mentioned that there are pages ripped from war diaries during the winter of 1943 by surviving family members. The utter depression of freezing, and having nothing to eat was overwhelming until the realization there was plenty of meat to be had. After the war, the diaries were 'amended' to erase the memories of the lengths that people went to in order to survive.
The war on the Eastern Front, known to Russians as the "Great Patriotic War", was the scene of the largest military confrontation in history. More than 400 Red Army and German divisions clashed in a series of military operations over four years, along a front that extended more than 1,000 miles.
Some 27 million Soviet soldiers and civilians and nearly 4 million German troops lost their lives along the Eastern Front during those years of brutality. The warfare there was total and ferocious -- the largest armored clashes in history (Battle of Kursk), the most costly siege on a modern city (nearly 900 days in Leningrad), scorched earth policies, utter devastation of thousands of villages, mass deportations, mass executions, and countless atrocities attributed to both sides.
To make things even more complex, forces within the Soviet Union were often fractured among themselves -- early in the war, some groups had even welcomed the Germans as liberators from their mistreatment under Stalin, and fought against the Red Army. Later, as battles became desperate, Stalin issued Order No. 227, "Not a Step Back!", which forbid Soviet forces from retreating without direct orders -- commanders would face a tribunal, and foot soldiers faced "blocking detachments" from their own army, ready to gun down any who fled.
The photos gathered here cover much of the years of 1942-1943, from the siege of Leningrad to the decisive Soviet victories in Stalingrad and Kursk. The vastness of the scale of the warfare is nearly unimaginable, and nearly impossible to capture in a handful of images, so take these as a mere glimpse of the horrors of the Eastern Front.
Parts 1-13:
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/ww2.html
-------------------------------
There's a new book coming out, or has just come out, on the seige at Leningrad. The author mentioned that there are pages ripped from war diaries during the winter of 1943 by surviving family members. The utter depression of freezing, and having nothing to eat was overwhelming until the realization there was plenty of meat to be had. After the war, the diaries were 'amended' to erase the memories of the lengths that people went to in order to survive.
