German+and+Russian+relations+WW2

Germany and USSR WW2 Brandon Ekholm

The clash of the Soviet Union & Nazi Germany during WWII would cause more deaths than any other event in the 20th century. From seemingly peaceful relations at the beginning to total war & genocide at the end, Russia & Germany were locked in war from 1941-1945 with equal atrocities committed on both sides. Relations pre-war The Offensive Extermination & Death camps The Summer offensive Russian Counter offensive The Fall of Germany ||
 * The Dictator's

The Dictator's
Hitler's obsession with a German superior race made him look for //Lebensraum// (living space for the German's). Hitler had always hated Communism & Marxism, but he was determined to secure his eastern border. Hitler made peaceful relations with the Soviet Union, & then stabbed them in the back when he was ready to invade. Hitler often ranted about communism being the plague of the earth & even went as far to plan the extermination of most ethnic Russians & replace them with Germans to utilize the vast resources of the USSR.

Stalin may have been one of the most ruthless dictators known to history & a fair match for Hitler. They shared many of the same characteristics. Unfortunately, Stalin was oblivious to Hitler & his hatred of communism. Stalin saw a friendly & beneficial relationship with Hitler in the future & when he heard that the //Wehrmacht// (German army), had crossed Soviet borders, he thought it was a joke. After learning it was true, Stalin was unable to lead the country for a week, leaving the USSR vulnerable to Hitler's army. He was a vain & paranoid man who had recently executed many of his own generals in the great purge leaving the vast Russian army without a leader.

Relations Pre War
After the re-signing of the Treaty of Rapallo, Nazi-Soviet relations appeared to be quite friendly & mutually assisting, Stalin believed he could benefit from having a Nazi regime in Germany. Hitler & Germany's re-militarization of the Rhineland, invasion of Czechoslovakia & //aunshlaus// posed as perfect distractions as Stalin tried to invade Finland & annexed Latvia & Estonia. Both nations agreed to invade & share Poland in the Pact of Steal & Russia traded raw materials & oil for German marks. Stalin saw a bright future for the two nations while Hitler was just waiting for the right opportunity to strike.

The Offensive
media type="youtube" key="fpTlLX1hmpQ?version=3" height="235" width="464" align="right"On June 22, 1941, German troops crossed the Russian border. All the German troops had been trained & well informed of their objectives & achieved all elements of organization & surprise. This was a major success for the Germany army. They captured thousands of soldiers. Hitler's plan, //operation Barbarossa,// was based on his Blitzkrieg idea, so his air force bombed all Russian railways & airbases. Most of the Russian air force was shot down on the ground before they realized they were at war. The German tanks led the army & encountered minor resistance along the way, penetrating deep into the Soviet Union. When the Russian army finally mobilized itself, it lacked the experience, training, equipment & leadership that the German army had. Months after they're invasion started, German armies reached as far as Leningrad, Kiev & almost Moscow. Fortunately for Stalin, winter came early & it brought the German army to a halt outside Moscow, the capital. Hitler ordered the cities capture, but the soldiers from Siberia & the Urals had finally arrived as Russia's defense & German tanks & planes refused to invade due to the cold. The German army got stuck for the rest of the winter; many starved & froze to death.

Extermination & Death Camps
Behind the German front lines followed true horror & destruction caused by Hitler's Waffen-SS who were in charge of rounding up all Jewish people in the occupied cities. The Waffen-SS would move into towns, find lists of the population, then gather all the Jews together to dig mud pits. The Jews were stripped of their clothes & shot by a firing squad into the pit. This was before the Nazi's made death camps like Auschwitz & Dachau. Millions were killed & buried in mass graves. Death camps were invented because of the horror that these killings had on German soldiers, many would go crazy after shooting women & children & local populations would see these atrocities & turn on German occupation.

**The Summer Offensive**
After the winter of 1941, Hitler revised his plan as his army still lay dormant outside of Moscow. He would attack southern Russia with a large army & take the rich oil fields of the Caucasus & the city of Stalingrad. At first, his offensive worked out just as well as it did the previous year, but the Russian army & the citizens of Stalingrad set the city up with supreme defense systems. When the fighting in Stalingrad started, it was the largest clash of armed forces in the history of the world. The fighting lasted months & continued through the winter. 300,000 German soldiers began to gain control of the city. Almost 1 million civilians were killed or wounded in this battle & Russian tactics where brutal, there was one gun per two soldiers, insufficient food rations & they would shoot any traitors. However, the Russian army had secretly been massing behind the Volga River & unleashed a massive encirclement & closed off the German occupied city of Stalingrad. Hitler gave his final order to fight to the death & troops would come & promoted General Paulus to Field Marshal. The fighting continued for months & the troops never came. Fighting was fiercer then ever & eventually the German army was decimated. This was one of the most violent & costly battles in history & marked an irreversible turning point in the war. After this Germany would rarely see another victory on the Eastern front. Less than a quarter of German soldiers would ever return to Germany.

Russian Counter Offensive
Now the red army had the upper hand through out the Russian front & launched major counter offensives. the German army was simply unable to continue fighting off the seemingly endless Russian army & their tanks that could be reproduced so quickly that it mattered little how many the Germans could take out. The German army picked Kursk (a large town in central Russia) to try & turn the war back in their favour. This battle in 1943 would be the largest tank battle in the history of the world. The battle lasted many days & involved 4 million Russian soldiers with 15 thousand tanks against 1.3 million Germans with 6 thousand tanks & both of these armies went head to head on the grass fields of Kursk. Even though the Germans won the fight they had to withdraw due to the allied landings in Italy. the battle saw over 200,000 deaths.Soon the entire German front crumbled to the Russian masses & they closed in on Berlin.

The Fall of Germany
The Russians where the first to reach Berlin & they saw it as a prize & revenge for the deaths at Stalingrad. the fighting was fierce & the Germans called up every available man for the fight but it was no good. The red tide swept over Berlin & Hitler killed himself in his bunker & soon after the Germans agreed to unconditional surrender but the fighting did not stop for Berlin. Thousands of women were raped & killed, houses where burned & the city was destroyed by the Russian soldiers who were so far from home & fueled by their hatred for the atrocities committed by the German army.

Sources http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F00TssZASkY http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Front_(World_War_II) http://www.2worldwar2.com/russia.htm http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://history-wiki.wikispaces.com/file/view/russia.jpg http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.notmytribe.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/german-soldier