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During German-Finnish negotiations, Finland had demanded to remain neutral unless the Soviet Union attacked them first. Germany therefore sought to provoke the Soviet Union into an attack on Finland. After Germany launched Barbarossa on 22 June, German aircraft used Finnish air bases to attack Soviet positions.
The campaign was fought by the Axis powers of Germany and Romania against the Soviet Union for control of Sevastopol, a port in Crimea on the Black Sea. On 22 June 1941, the Axis invaded the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa , with Axis land forces reaching the Crimean peninsula in the autumn of 1941 and overrunning most of the area.
The line had its origins in an earlier military study carried out in the summer of 1940 by General Erich Marcks called the Operation Draft East. [4] This report advocated the occupation of the Soviet Union up to the line "Arkhangelsk-Gorky-Rostov" in order to prevent it from being a threat to Germany in the future and "protect it against enemy bombers".
The entry of the Soviet Union in the war against Japan along with the atomic bombings by the United States led to Japan's surrender, marking the end of World War II. The Soviet Union suffered the greatest number of casualties in the war, losing more than 20 million citizens, about a third of all World War II casualties.
Axis and Soviet air operations during Operation Barbarossa took place over a six-month period, 22 June – December, 1941. Aviation played a critical role in the fighting on the Eastern Front during this period, in the battles to gain and maintain air superiority or air supremacy, to offer close air support to armies on battlefield, interdicting enemy supply lines, while supplying friendly forces.
A Russian translation of Schulenburg's declaration dated 5:30 a.m., 22 June 1941. The text reads: "In view of the intolerable threat that arose at the German eastern border as a result of the massive buildup and preparedness of all armed forces of the Red Army, the German government considers itself compelled to immediately take military countermeasures.
The forces mobilized in the Soviet Union were not positioned for defensive, but for offensive aims". He concluded, "Hitler's invasion forces didn't outnumber [the Soviets], but were rather outnumbered themselves. The Soviets were unable to organize defenses. The troops were provided with maps that covered territories outside the Soviet Union". [73]
The Soviet Union is referred to as Russia throughout the document, a metonym that was common in the West throughout the Cold War.) The chiefs of staff were concerned that both the enormous size of the Soviet forces deployed in Europe at the end of the war and the perception that Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin was unreliable caused a Soviet threat ...