The Eastern Front

& The Battle of Stalingrad

 Quick Review
WWII Starts September 1939

Summer of 1940
France Falls
Battle of Britain Begins
Britain fights Germany virtually alone!

December 7, 1941 Japan bombs Pearl Harbor

USA enters the war
Nazi-Soviet Pact 1939
 Operation Barbarossa
June 22, 1941 Hitler
breaks Nazi-Soviet Pact
and invades Russia.

4 million German soldiers

invade Russia.
Largest invasion force in
history.

Front stretches over 1,000

km from the Baltic to
Black Sea.
Nazi Germany at it’s Height 1942
 Axis and Allies
Axis Allies

Germany Britain

Italy France

Japan Russia

United States
Scorched Earth Policy
Military strategy that
destroys anything that might
be useful to the enemy by a
retreating army.

Retreating Russians burned

down their own homes,
fields, killed livestock, blew
up own buildings.

Remaining Russian citizens

and advancing German army
have no shelter or food to
aid them.
 Siege of Leningrad
Leningrad=St. Petersburg

Began on September 8, 1941

Lasted 872 Days

Extreme famine in the city

2,000 people arrested for

cannibalism

German’s eventually defeated.

Battle of Stalingrad
August 23, 1942

Battle lasts 6 months

Major turning point in

the war!
Russians defeat Nazi’s
and begin pushing them
back to Germany.

Over 2 million casualties