"Siege of Sevastopol (1941–42) The Siege of Sevastopol also known as the Defence of Sevastopol (, transliteration: ""Oborona Sevastopolya"") or the Battle of Sevastopol (German: Schlacht um Sewastopol) was a military battle that took place on the Eastern Front of the Second World War. The campaign was fought by the Axis powers of Germany, Romania, and Italy against the Soviet Union for control of Sevastopol, a port in the Crimea on the Black Sea. On 22 June 1941 the Axis invaded the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa. Axis land forces reached the Crimea in the autumn of 1941 and overran"
"Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa (German: ""Unternehmen Barbarossa"") was the code name for the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, which started on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. The operation stemmed from Nazi Germany's ideological aims to conquer the western Soviet Union so that it could be repopulated by Germans, to use Slavs, especially Poles, as a slave-labour force for the Axis war effort, and to seize the oil reserves of the Caucasus and the agricultural resources of Soviet territories. In the two years leading up to the invasion, Germany and the Soviet Union signed political and economic"
"agent and ignored Roessler's information. On 22 June 1941, Germany would began their invasion. During the Battle of Kursk (German code name """"Operation Zitadelle""""), Rudolf Roessler was able to get battle information for the sectors attacked, number of men and materials, where the supply and command posts were, where possible reinforcements could come from, and the day and hour of attack. This time, Russia was prepared. 977,000 men, 3,300 tanks and assault guns, 20,000 other guns, and 3,000 aircraft in a defensive line 70 miles deep. The Soviets planned a counter-offensive trap which included a minefield to channel German tanks"
"the invasion commenced. On 21 June, at 13:00 Army Group North received the codeword Düsseldorf, indicating Barbarossa would commence the next morning, and passed down its own codeword, Dortmund. At around 03:15 on 22 June 1941, the Axis Powers commenced the invasion of the Soviet Union with the bombing of major cities in Soviet-occupied Poland and an artillery barrage on Red Army defences on the entire front. Air-raids were conducted as far as Kronstadt near Leningrad, Ismail in Bessarabia, and Sevastopol in the Crimea. Meanwhile, ground troops crossed the border, accompanied in some locales by Lithuanian and Ukrainian fifth columnists."
"On 22 June 1941, Germany, supported by Italy and Romania, invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, with Germany accusing the Soviets of plotting against them. They were joined shortly by Finland and Hungary. The primary targets of this surprise offensive were the Baltic region, Moscow and Ukraine, with the ultimate goal of ending the 1941 campaign near the Arkhangelsk-Astrakhan line, from the Caspian to the White Seas. Hitler's objectives were to eliminate the Soviet Union as a military power, exterminate Communism, generate ""Lebensraum"" (""living space"") by dispossessing the native population and guarantee access to the strategic resources needed to"
"Case Blue Case Blue () was the German Armed Forces' name for its plan for the 1942 strategic summer offensive in southern Russia between 28 June and 24 November 1942, during World War II. The operation was a continuation of the previous year's Operation Barbarossa, intended to knock the Soviet Union out of the war. It involved a two-pronged attack: one from the Axis right flank against the oil fields of Baku, known as Operation Edelweiss and one from the left flank in the direction of Stalingrad along the Volga River, known as Operation Fischreiher. Army Group South (""Heeresgruppe Süd"")"
"Case Blue Case Blue () was the German Armed Forces' name for its plan for the 1942 strategic summer offensive in southern Russia between 28 June and 24 November 1942, during World War II. The operation was a continuation of the previous year's Operation Barbarossa, intended to knock the Soviet Union out of the war. It involved a two-pronged attack: one from the Axis right flank against the oil fields of Baku, known as Operation Edelweiss and one from the left flank in the direction of Stalingrad along the Volga River, known as Operation Fischreiher. Army Group South (""Heeresgruppe Süd"")"
"their strategic mindsets for the ""next four decades"" and instigated the creation of ""an elaborate system of buffer and client states, designed to insulate the Soviet Union from any possible future attack."" As a consequence, Eastern Europe became communist in political disposition and Western Europe fell under the democratic sway of the United States, a nation uncertain about its future policies in Europe. Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa (German: ""Unternehmen Barbarossa"") was the code name for the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, which started on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. The operation stemmed from Nazi Germany's ideological"
"Operation Uranus Operation Uranus () was the codename of the Soviet 19–23 November 1942 strategic operation in World War II which led to the encirclement of the German Sixth Army, the Third and Fourth Romanian armies, and portions of the German Fourth Panzer Army. The operation was executed at roughly the midpoint of the five month long Battle of Stalingrad, and was aimed at destroying German forces in and around Stalingrad. Planning for Operation Uranus had commenced in September 1942, and was developed simultaneously with plans to envelop and destroy German Army Group Center (Operation Mars) and German forces in"
"duress, with no prospect of aid from France or Britain, Carol complied. On June 28, Soviet troops crossed the Dniester and occupied Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, and the Hertza region. On June 22, 1941, Adolf Hitler abruptly broke the non-aggression pact and invaded the Soviet Union. Soviet intelligence was fooled by German disinformation and sent to Moscow false alarms about German invasion in April, May and the beginning of June. Despite the popular myth there was no warning ""Germany will attack on 22 June without declaration of war"", moreover, Soviet intelligence reported that Germany would either invade the USSR after the"
"Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. The German offensive against the Soviet Union began early on 22 June 1941 with an artillery barrage. The 16th Panzer Division was subordinated to ""Heeresgruppe Süd"" (Army Group South) under the command of ""Generalfeldmarschall"" Von Rundstedt. The goal, together with the 6. Armee and 17. Armee as well as ""Panzergruppe"" I, was to follow the pincers of both armies, heading for Kiev and rolling up the Soviet flanks in the process, and finally encircling them at the Dnieper River. The main objective was to conquer the economically important Donets Basin as well"
"XII Squadriglia MAS The XIIª Squadriglia Squadriglia MAS (""Mezzi d'Assalto"") (Italian for ""12th Assault Vessel Squadron"") was a formation of the Italian Royal Navy (""Regia Marina"") which served on Lake Ladoga as part of the Axis siege of Leningrad during World War II. On 22 June 1941 the Axis, led by Nazi Germany, launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. During the summer of 1941 the Germans advanced into the USSR on three broad fronts, towards Leningrad in the north, Moscow in the centre, and Kiev in the south. By August 1941 the German Army Group North was"
"Operation Mars Operation Mars, also known as the Second Rzhev-Sychevka Offensive Operation (Russian: Вторая Ржевско-Сычёвская наступательная операция), was the codename for an offensive launched by Soviet forces against German forces during World War II. It took place between 25 November and 20 December 1942 around the Rzhev salient in the vicinity of Moscow. The offensive was a joint operation of the Soviet Western Front and Kalinin Front coordinated by Georgy Zhukov. The offensive was one in a series of particularly bloody engagements collectively known in Soviet and Russian histories as the Battles of Rzhev, which occurred near Rzhev, Sychevka and"
"Belgorod-Kharkov Offensive Operation The Belgorod-Kharkov Strategic Offensive Operation, or simply Belgorod-Kharkov Offensive Operation, was a Soviet strategic summer offensive that aimed to recapture Belgorod and Kharkov (now ""Kharkiv""), and destroy the German forces of the 4th Panzer Army and Army Detachment Kempf. The operation was codenamed Operation Polkovodets Rumyantsev (), after the 18th-century Field Marshal Peter Rumyantsev and was conducted by the Voronezh and Steppe Fronts in the southern sector of the Kursk Bulge. The battle was referred to as the Fourth Battle of Kharkov by the Germans. The operation began in the early hours of 3 August 1943, with"
"looked bleak for the Germans, a moment of relative calm had settled after the end of Operation Uranus; German and Soviet forces were planning their next movements. Operation Uranus Operation Uranus () was the codename of the Soviet 19–23 November 1942 strategic operation in World War II which led to the encirclement of the German Sixth Army, the Third and Fourth Romanian armies, and portions of the German Fourth Panzer Army. The operation was executed at roughly the midpoint of the five month long Battle of Stalingrad, and was aimed at destroying German forces in and around Stalingrad. Planning for"
"Norwegian Campaign order of battle The German operation for the invasion of Denmark and Norway in April 1940 was code-named ""Weserübung"", or ""Weser Exercise."" Opposing the invasion were the partially mobilized Norwegian military, and an allied expeditionary force composed of British, French, and Free Polish formations. The following list formed the order of battle for this campaign. On 1 March 1940, the German 21st Army Corps was renamed Group XXI and placed in charge of the invasion of Norway. The group was allotted two Mountain and five Infantry divisions for this task. It was led by the commanding officer of"
"to command an airborne unit was a huge leap of responsibility for him. During the German invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, Major General Aleksey Zhadov was en route on a train to Moscow from Tashkent in order to join the 4th Airborne Corps, which was now subordinated to the Soviet Western Front. When he arrived in Moscow on the morning of 24 June, he expected to hear news that the German attack had been promptly repulsed and the fight taken to German territory, but instead he was informed that the Soviet forces in the border areas"
"Operation Weserübung Operation Weserübung ( ) was the code name for Germany's assault on Denmark and Norway during the Second World War and the opening operation of the Norwegian Campaign. The name comes from the German for ""Operation Weser-Exercise"", the Weser being a German river. In the early morning of 9 April 1940 (""Wesertag"", ""Weser Day""), Germany invaded Denmark and Norway, ostensibly as a preventive manoeuvre against a planned, and openly discussed, Franco-British occupation of Norway known as Plan R 4. After the invasions, envoys of the Germans informed the governments of Denmark and Norway that the ""Wehrmacht"" had come"
"Directive 21, for the invasion of the Soviet Union, code-named Operation Barbarossa. The directive envisaged three army groups, each a million men strong, undertaking a simultaneous offensive from Germany-occupied Poland and German-allied Romania and Finland. The main objectives were Leningrad, Minsk, Kiev, and Moscow. The original German goal was the destruction of the Red Army is the border battles and rapid conquest of the European part of the Soviet Union to a line connecting the cities of Arkhangelsk and Astrakhan, often referred to as the A-A line, to the west of the Ural Mountains. The purges of the 1930s affected"
"Operation Kremlin Operation Kremlin (""Fall Kreml"" in German) was a successful German deception operation against Soviet forces in May–June 1942. After German troops captured the city of Kharkov in October 1941, the German High Command planned an offensive to destroy the Soviet forces toward the southern sector of the Eastern Front. To divert the attention of the Soviets from that thrust (which would lead to the Battle of Stalingrad), on May 29, 1942, the High Command ordered ""the earliest possible resumption of the attack on Moscow"" by Army Group Centre. The factor that made Operation Kremlin plausible to the Soviet"
"called for the capture of Moscow within four months. On 22 June 1941, Axis forces invaded the Soviet Union, destroyed most of the Soviet Air Force on the ground, and advanced deep into Soviet territory using ""blitzkrieg"" tactics to destroy entire Soviet armies. The German Army Group North moved towards Leningrad, Army Group South took control of Ukraine, and Army Group Center advanced towards Moscow. By July 1941, Army Group Center crossed the Dnieper River, on the path to Moscow. In July 1941, German forces captured Smolensk, an important stronghold on the road to Moscow. At this stage, although Moscow"
"Operation Bagration Operation Bagration (; , Operatsiya Bagration) was the codename for the Soviet 1944 Belorussian Strategic Offensive Operation, (, Belorusskaya nastupatelnaya Operatsiya ""Bagration"") a military campaign fought between 22 June and 19 August 1944 in Soviet Byelorussia in the Eastern Front of World War II. The Soviet Union achieved a major victory by destroying the German Army Group Centre and completely rupturing the German front line. On 23 June 1944, the Red Army attacked Army Group Centre in Byelorussia, with the objective of encircling and destroying its main component armies. By 28 June, the German Fourth Army had been"
"bolster the Italian presence. In April, Hitler launched the invasion of Yugoslavia, quickly followed by the invasion of Greece. In May, German forces were sent to support Iraqi rebel forces fighting against the British and to invade Crete. On 22 June 1941, contravening the Hitler–Stalin Non-Aggression Pact of 1939, 4–5 million Axis troops attacked the Soviet Union. This offensive (codenamed Operation Barbarossa) was intended to destroy the Soviet Union and seize its natural resources for subsequent aggression against the Western powers. The invasion conquered a huge area, including the Baltic republics, Belarus, and West Ukraine. By early August, Axis troops"
"and Operation Iskra, which led to an easing of the Soviet supply dilemma, though the siege was not completely lifted until January 1944. XII Squadriglia MAS The XIIª Squadriglia Squadriglia MAS (""Mezzi d'Assalto"") (Italian for ""12th Assault Vessel Squadron"") was a formation of the Italian Royal Navy (""Regia Marina"") which served on Lake Ladoga as part of the Axis siege of Leningrad during World War II. On 22 June 1941 the Axis, led by Nazi Germany, launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. During the summer of 1941 the Germans advanced into the USSR on three broad fronts,"
"Action of 26 June 1941 The Action of 26 June 1941 consisted in an engagement between the navies of Soviet Union and Romania, taking place on the Chilia branch of the Danube Delta, near the commune of Ceatalchioi. The action resulted in a Romanian victory and the withdrawal of the Soviet vessels, one of them being damaged and later captured. On 22 June 1941, Romania joined the German-led Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, aiming to recover land lost to the latter in 1940. The Chilia branch separated Southern Bessarabia from Romania proper, so control of this waterway was a"
"the British. On 22 June 1941, the Wehrmacht commenced Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. The Luftwaffe order of battle of 22 June 1941 contained four dive bomber wings. ""VIII. Fliegerkorps"" under the command of ""General der Flieger"" Wolfram von Richthofen was equipped with units ""Stab"", II. and III./StG 1. Also included were ""Stab"", I., II. and III. of ""Sturzkampfgeschwader 2"" Immelmann. Attached to ""II. Fliegerkorps"", under the command of ""General der Flieger"" Bruno Loerzer, were ""Stab"", I., II. and III. of StG 77. ""Luftflotte 5"", under the command of ""Generaloberst"" Hans-Jürgen Stumpff, operating from Norway's Arctic Circle,"
"Baltic Operation The Baltic Operation, also known as the Defensive operation in Lithuania and Latvia encompassed the operations of the Red Army from 22 June to 9 July 1941 conducted over the territories of the occupied Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in response to an offensive launched by the German army. The operation consisted of three distinct smaller operations The principal Red Army formations of the operation were the Northwestern Front and the Baltic Fleet, with the major ground forces consisting of the 8th (commander General Major P.P. Sobennikov), 11th (commander General Lieutenant Morozov) and later 27th Armies. The operation was"
"pact by invading the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 (Operation Barbarossa). The clauses of the Nazi–Soviet Pact provided a written guarantee of non-belligerence by each party towards the other, and a declared commitment that neither government would ally itself to, or aid an enemy of the other party. In addition to stipulations of non-aggression, the treaty included a secret protocol that defined the borders of Soviet and German ""spheres of influence"" in the event of possible rearrangement of the territories belonging to Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland. The secret protocol also recognized the interest of Lithuania in the"
"Winter Campaign of 1941–42 The Winter Campaign of 1941–1942 from 5 December 1941 to 7 May 1942 was the name given by Soviet military command to the period that marked the commencement of the Moscow Strategic Offensive Operation (better known as the Battle of Moscow). The opening phase of the Red Army strategic counter-offensive operations in the Soviet Union was a major albeit costly Soviet victory. The campaign began with the Moscow Strategic Offensive Operation (5 December 1941 – 7 January 1942) with the simultaneous Kerch-Feodosia Amphibious Operation (25 December 1941 – 2 January 1942) The operations in central and"
"Battle of the Caucasus The Battle of the Caucasus is a name given to a series of Axis and Soviet operations in the Caucasus area on the Eastern Front of World War II. On 25 July 1942, German troops captured Rostov-on-Don, Russia, opening the Caucasus region of the southern Soviet Union, and the oil fields beyond at Maikop, Grozny, and ultimately Baku, to the Germans. Two days prior, Adolf Hitler issued a directive to launch such an operation into the Caucasus region, to be named Operation Edelweiß. German forces were compelled to withdraw from the area that winter as Operation"
"Group B was supposed to conquer Stalingrad and, if possible, Astrakhan (Operation Heron – Fischreiher because of the fish in the Volga River). Army Group North was instructed to conquer Leningrad (Operation Fireworks because of artillery fire).”).” The directive said: The directives went on to explain just what each individual army should do in the upcoming assault. Operation Braunschweig Operation Braunschweig (""Brunswick""), named after Braunschweig, was the German summer offensive that began on 28 June 1942. The operation was initially named ""Fall Blau"" (Case Blue), which is the common name used for the whole offensive. The name was changed from"
"the meantime, Soviet and German commanders began to plan their next movements. On 28 June 1942, the Wehrmacht began its offensive against Soviet forces opposite of Army Group South, codenamed Case Blue. After breaking through Red Army forces by 13 July, German forces encircled and captured the city of Rostov. Following the fall of Rostov, Hitler split German forces operating in the southern extremity of the southern Russian SFSR in an effort to simultaneously capture the city of Stalingrad and the Caucasus oil fields. The responsibility to take Stalingrad was given to the Sixth Army, which immediately turned towards the"
"Order of battle for Operation Barbarossa This is the order of battle for Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II. It was fought between the German-led Axis Forces and the Soviet Forces. The operation started on June 22, 1941, and ended on December 5, 1941, at the conclusion of Operation Typhoon. Commanded by Feldmarshal Wilhelm von Leeb Colonel General Ernst Busch Colonel General Georg von Küchler Colonel General Erich Hoepner Commanded by Feldmarshal Fedor von Bock Colonel General Günther von Kluge Colonel General Adolf Strauß Colonel General Heinz Guderian Colonel General Hermann Hoth Commanded"