The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II where Nazi Germany and its allies unsuccessfully fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in Southern Russia. The battle was marked by fierce close-quarters combat and direct assaults on civilians in air raids, with the battle epitomizing urban warfare. The Battle of Stalingrad was the deadliest battle to take place during the Second World War. Today, the Battle of Stalingrad is universally regarded as the turning point in the European Theatre of war, as it forced the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht to withdraw considerable military forces from other areas in occupied Europe to replace German losses on the Eastern Front, ending with the rout of the six field armies of Army Group B, including the destruction of Nazi Germany's 6th Army and an entire corps of its 4th Panzer Army. The victory at Stalingrad energized the Red Army and shifted the balance of power in the favour of the Soviets.
Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov was a Marshal of the Soviet Union. He also served as Chief of the General Staff, Minister of Defence, and was a member of the Presidium of the Communist Party. During World War II, Zhukov oversaw some of the Red Army's most decisive victories.
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev stunned the communist world with his denunciation of his predecessor Joseph Stalin's crimes, and embarked on a policy of de-Stalinization with his key ally Anastas Mikoyan. He sponsored the early Soviet space program, and enactment of moderate reforms in domestic policy. After some false starts, and a narrowly avoided nuclear war over Cuba, he conducted successful negotiations with the United States to reduce Cold War tensions. In 1964, the Kremlin leadership stripped him of power, replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Premier.
Robert Capa was a Hungarian–American war photographer and photojournalist. He is considered by some to be the greatest combat and adventure photographer in history.
Semyon Konstantinovich Timoshenko was a Soviet military commander and Marshal of the Soviet Union.
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkrSSR, or UkSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. In the anthem of the Ukrainian SSR, it was referred to simply as Ukraine. Under the Soviet one-party model, the Ukrainian SSR was governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union through its republican branch: the Communist Party of Ukraine.
Order No. 227 was an order issued on 28 July 1942 by Joseph Stalin, who was acting as the People's Commissar of Defence. It is known for its line "Not a step back!", which became the primary slogan of the Soviet press in summer 1942.
The history of the Soviet Union between 1927 and 1953 covers the period in Soviet history from the establishment of Stalinism through victory in the Second World War and down to the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. Stalin sought to destroy his enemies while transforming Soviet society with central planning, in particular through the forced collectivization of agriculture and rapid development of heavy industry. Stalin consolidated his power within the party and the state and fostered an extensive cult of personality. Soviet secret-police and the mass-mobilization of the Communist Party served as Stalin's major tools in molding Soviet society. Stalin's methods in achieving his goals, which included party purges, political repression of the general population, and forced collectivization, led to millions of deaths: in Gulag labor camps and during famine.
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of conflict between the European Axis powers against the Soviet Union (USSR), Poland and other Allies, which encompassed Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Northeast Europe (Baltics), and Southeast Europe (Balkans) from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945. It was known as the Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union – and still is in some of its successor states, while almost everywhere else it has been called the Eastern Front. In present-day German and Ukrainian historiography the name German-Soviet War is typically used.
Hero City is a Soviet honorary title awarded for outstanding heroism during World War II. It was awarded to twelve cities of the Soviet Union, today in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. In addition, the Brest Fortress, today in Belarus, was awarded an equivalent title of Hero Fortress. This symbolic distinction for a city corresponds to the individual distinction Hero of the Soviet Union.
Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov was a Soviet military commander and Marshal of the Soviet Union. He is best known for commanding the 62nd Army which saw heavy combat during the Battle of Stalingrad in the Second World War.
Vasily Semyonovich Grossman was a Soviet writer and journalist.
Nikolai Fyodorovich Vatutin was a Soviet military commander during World War II who was responsible for many Red Army operations in Ukraine as the commander of the Southwestern Front, and of the Voronezh Front during the Battle of Kursk. During the Soviet offensive to retake right-bank Ukraine, Vatutin led the 1st Ukrainian Front, which was responsible for the Red Army's offensives to the west and the southwest of Kiev and the eventual liberation of the city.
Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovsky was a Soviet and Polish officer who became a Marshal of the Soviet Union, a Marshal of Poland, and served as Poland's Defence Minister from 1949 until his removal in 1956 during the Polish October. He became one of the most prominent Red Army commanders of World War II.
The First Battle of Kiev was the German name for the operation that resulted in a huge encirclement of Soviet troops in the vicinity of Kiev during World War II. This encirclement is considered the largest encirclement in the history of warfare. The operation ran from 7 July to 26 September 1941, as part of Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union.
The Hunger Plan was a partially implemented plan developed by Nazi bureaucrats during World War II to seize food from the Soviet Union and give it to German soldiers and civilians. The plan entailed the genocide by starvation of millions of Soviet citizens following Operation Barbarossa, the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union. The premise behind the Hunger Plan was that Germany was not self-sufficient in food supplies; to sustain the war and keep up domestic morale, it needed food from conquered lands at any cost. The plan created a famine as an act of policy, killing millions of people.
After the Munich Agreement, the Soviet Union pursued a rapprochement with Nazi Germany. On 23 August 1939 the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Germany which included a secret protocol that divided Eastern Europe into German and Soviet "spheres of influence", anticipating potential "territorial and political rearrangements" of these countries. Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, starting World War II. The Soviets invaded eastern Poland on 17 September. Following the Winter War with Finland, the Soviets were ceded territories by Finland. This was followed by annexations of the Baltic states and parts of Romania.
The Russification of Ukraine was a body of laws, decrees, and other actions undertaken by the Imperial Russian and later Soviet authorities to strengthen Russian national, political and linguistic positions in Ukraine.
Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin is a 2010 book by Yale historian Timothy D. Snyder. It is about mass murders committed during World War II in territories controlled by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
Estimates of the number of deaths attributable to the Soviet revolutionary and dictator Joseph Stalin vary widely. The scholarly consensus affirms that archival materials declassified in 1991 contain irrefutable data far superior to sources used prior to 1991 such as statements from emigres and other informants. A minority of authors and journalists maintain that "statistics can never fully describe what happened".
