Operation Barbarossa

The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history... in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was created in 1918, in the aftermath of World War I. It continued to exist until 1939, despite both internal and external pressures, when Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and the Slovak Republic, marking the beginning of World War II. When the borders of the state were fixed in 1922 after several regional conflicts, the Republic bordered Czechoslovakia, Germany, Free City of Danzig, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, and the Soviet Union, plus a tiny strip of the coastline of the Baltic Sea, around the city of Gdynia, which itself was built in the 1930s. Furthermore, in the period March 1939 – August 1939, Poland bordered then-Hungarian province of Carpathian Ruthenia. It had an area of 388,634 km² , and 27.
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Estonia /ɨsˈtoʊniə/ , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to... the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies Sweden in the west and Finland in the north. The territory of Estonia covers 45,227 km , and is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. The Estonians are a Finnic people, and the official language, Estonian, is closely related to Finnish. Estonia is a democratic parliamentary republic divided into 15 counties. The capital and largest city is Tallinn. With a population of 1.34 million, it is one of the least-populous members of the European Union, Eurozone and NATO. Estonia has the highest GDP per person among former Soviet republics. Estonia is listed as a "High-Income Economy" by the World Bank and as an "advanced economy" by the International Monetary Fund; the country is an OECD member. The United Nations lists Estonia as a developed country with a Human Development Index of "Very High".
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Latvia /ˈlætviə/ , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the... north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus , and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden. With 2,067,887 inhabitants and a territory of 64,589 km it is one of the least populous and least densely populated countries of the European Union. The capital of Latvia is Riga. The official language is Latvian and the currency is called Lats . The country has a temperate seasonal climate. The Latvians are a Baltic people, culturally related to the Lithuanians. Together with the Finno-Ugric Livs , the Latvians are the indigenous people of Latvia. Latvian is an Indo-European language and along with Lithuanian the only two surviving members of the Baltic branch. Indigenous minority languages are Latgalian and the nearly extinct Finno-Ugric Livonian language.
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Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the largest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the... southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark. It borders Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, and a Russian exclave to the southwest. Lithuania has an estimated population of 3.2 million as of 2011, and its capital and largest city is Vilnius. The Lithuanians are a Baltic people, and the official language, Lithuanian, is one of only two living languages in the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family. For centuries, the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea was inhabited by various Baltic tribes. In the 1230s the Lithuanian lands were united by Mindaugas, who was crowned as King of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the first Lithuanian state, on 6 July 1253.
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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 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 Moscow is the name given by Soviet historians to two periods of strategically significant fighting on a 600 km sector of the... Eastern Front during World War II. It took place between October 1941 and January 1942. The Soviet defensive effort frustrated Hitler's attack on Moscow, capital of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the largest Soviet city. Moscow was one of the primary military and political objectives for Axis forces in their invasion of the Soviet Union. The German strategic offensive named Operation Typhoon was planned to conduct two pincer offensives, one to the north of Moscow against the Kalinin Front by the 3rd and 4th Panzer Groups, simultaneously severing the Moscow-Leningrad railway, and another to the south of Moscow Oblast against the Western Front, south of Tula by the 2nd Panzer Army, while the 4th Army advanced directly towards Moscow from the west. A separate operational German plan, codenamed Operation Wotan, was included in the final phase of the German offensive.
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The Battle of Białystok–Minsk was a German strategic operation conducted by the Army Group Centre during penetration of the Soviet border... region during the opening stage of Operation Barbarossa lasting from 22 June–3 July 1941. Its goal, the encirclement of the Red Army forces around Minsk, was accomplished. All major Russian counter-attacks and break-through attempts failed and the defenders were defeated, allowing for the Wehrmacht to take many Soviet prisoners and to further advance into the Soviet Union at a pace so swift that some believed the Germans had effectively won the war against Russia already. Commanded by Field Marshal Fedor von Bock, Army Group Centre was tasked with attacking from Poland through the Białystok - Minsk - Smolensk axis towards Moscow. The Army Group included the 9th and 4th Armies. Its armored forces were Hoth's 3rd Panzer Group and Guderian's 2nd Panzer Group. The two infantry Armies fielded 33 divisions and the Panzer Armies fielded nine armored divisions, six motorized divisions and a cavalry division. Army Group Center could call upon Luftflotte 2 for air support.
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The Battle of Raseiniai was a tank battle fought between the elements of the 4th Panzer Group commanded by Gen. Erich Hoepner and the 3rd Mechanized... Corps commanded by Major General Kurkin & 12th Mechanised Corps commanded by Major General Shestapolov in Lithuania 75 km northwest of Kaunas in the attempt by the commander of the Northwestern Front, Kutznetsov to contain and destroy German troops that had crossed the Neman River . The result of the battle was the almost complete destruction of Soviet armoured forces of the Northwestern Front, clearing the way for the continued German offensive towards the crossings of the Daugava River . This was one of the major battles during the initial phases of Operation Barbarossa known in Soviet history as the Border Defensive Battles as part of the larger Baltic Strategic Defensive Operation. Army Group North, commanded by Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb, and staging in East Prussia prior to the commencement of the offensive, was the northern of three Army Groups participating in the invasion of the Soviet Union.
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The Battle of Brody was a tank battle fought between the Panzer Group 1's IIIrd, XLVIII Army Corps and five Soviet Mechanized Corps of the Soviet... 5th Army and 6th Army in the triangle formed by the towns Dubno, Lutsk and Brody in Ukraine between 23 and 30 June 1941 known in Soviet historiography as a part of the Border Defensive Battles. Although the Red Army formations inflicted heavy losses on the German forces, they were outmaneuvered and suffered large losses in tanks. This was one of the most intense armoured engagements in the opening phase of Operation Barbarossa and remained the largest tank battle of World War II until the Battle of Kursk two years later. Panzer Group 1 led by Kleist was ordered to secure the Bug River crossings, and advance to Rovno and Korosten with the strategic objective of Kiev. It deployed two Corps forward and advanced between Lviv and Rovno in the attempt to cut the Lviv - Kiev railway line, driving a wedge along junction point between the Soviet 5th and 6th Armies.
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