Battle of Berlin

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global war that was under way by 1939 and ended in 1945. It involved a vast majority of the... world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, with more than 100 million people serving in military units. In a state of "total war", the major participants placed their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities at the service of the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Marked by significant events involving the mass death of civilians, including the Holocaust and the only use of nuclear weapons in warfare, it resulted in 50 million to over 70 million fatalities. These deaths make the war the deadliest conflict in human history. Although Japan was already at war with China in 1937, the world war is generally said to have begun on 1 September 1939, with the invasion of Poland by Germany, and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and most of the countries of the British Empire and Commonwealth.
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The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union,... Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945. It was known by many different names depending on the nation, notably the Great Patriotic War in the former Soviet Union, while known in Germany as the Eastern Front , the Eastern Campaign or the Russian Campaign . The battles on the Eastern Front constituted the largest military confrontation in history. They were characterized by unprecedented ferocity, wholesale destruction, mass deportations, and immense loss of life variously due to combat, starvation, exposure, disease, and massacres. The Eastern Front, as the site of nearly all extermination camps, death marches, ghettos, and the majority of pogroms, was central to the Holocaust. Of the estimated 70 million deaths attributed to World War II, over 30 million, many of them civilians, died on the Eastern Front.
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The term Great Patriotic War , Velíkaya Otéchestvennaya voyná, is used in Russia and some other states of the former Soviet Union to... describe the period from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945 during World War II, in the many fronts of the Soviet-German war against Nazi Germany and its allies. The term Patriotic War refers to the Russian resistance of the French invasion of Russia under Napoleon I, which became known as the Patriotic War of 1812. The term denotes a war for otechestvo, "the fatherland", i.e. a defensive war for one's homeland. The phrase Great Patriotic War appeared in 1914. It was the name of a special war-time appendix to the magazine Theater and Life in Saint Petersburg, and referred to the Eastern Front of World War I, where Russia fought against the German Empire and the Austrian Empire. The phrases Second Patriotic War and Great World Patriotic War were also used during World War I in Russia.
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The Battle of the Oder–Neisse is the German name for the initial phase of one of the last two strategic offensives conducted by the Red Army... in the Campaign in Central Europe during World War II. Its initial breakthrough phase was fought over four days, from 16 April until 19 April 1945, within the larger context of the Battle of Berlin. The Soviet military planners divide the frontal and pincer phases of the operation, named Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation into: The battle included heavy fighting by the three Fronts of the Marshals of Soviet Union Konstantin Rokossovsky's 2nd Belorussian Front, Georgy Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front and Ivan Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front, that assaulted the defending Wehrmacht Army Group Vistula commanded by Colonel-General Gotthard Heinrici and Field Marshal Ferdinand Schörner' Army Group Centre. Most of the fighting took place during 1st Belorussian Front's assault on the Seelow Heights, that were defended by the German 9th Army , in what became known as the Battle of the Seelow Heights.
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