Some of the war’s most savage fighting occurred on the Eastern Front, where the Axis powers had set out to conquer the Balkan Peninsula and the immense reaches of the Soviet Union.
More combatants were killed on the Eastern Front than in all other theaters of World War II combined. These bitterly contested, racial battles prevented Germany from mounting a more resolute defense against Allied armies in Normandy, and later on the Reich’s western borders.
The strength, depth, and impact of the 1944 Slovak National Uprising made it one of the largest and most important anti-fascist campaigns in Europe during World War II.
On May 22, 1943, Moscow announced the dissolution of the Communist International.
News of the crushing Soviet victory at Stalingrad in February 1943 over the Third Reich and its satellite states struck the rest of Europe, indeed the globe, like a thunderbolt.
As many as half a million civilians remained in Stalingrad when the Germans approached in the late summer of 1942. Those who survived the initial onslaught and did not manage to flee, had to eke out a living on a battleground ravaged by incessant bombardment and street fighting. An overwhelming majority of them were women and children.
Eighty years ago, the Red Army managed to stop, contain, and ultimately defeat the largest German army on the Eastern Front.
During World War II, Nazi authorities condemned millions of Eastern Europeans to forced labor as part of an aggressive campaign to conquer and establish a colony in Eastern Europe.
Russian President Vladimir Putin appeals to memories of the Soviet Union’s Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany to justify his invasion of Ukraine.
During World War II, millions of Eastern Europeans were involuntarily deported to serve as forced laborers in Germany.
The Holocaust in Ukraine represents the first phase of the Holocaust in which an estimated 1.5 million Jews were shot to death at close range in ravines, open fields, and forests.
The Warsaw Uprising created a rift between Stalin and his Western Allies, which some historians argue anticipated the Cold War.
The German response to the Warsaw Uprising was characterized by ruthless terror and unrelenting bloodshed, which caused civilian support to drastically diminish.
Polish civilians played a critical role in the two-month long conflict in Warsaw.