Some of the war’s most savage fighting occurred on the Eastern Front, where the Axis powers had set out to conquer the Balkan Peninsula and the immense reaches of the Soviet Union.
More combatants were killed on the Eastern Front than in all other theaters of World War II combined. These bitterly contested, racial battles prevented Germany from mounting a more resolute defense against Allied armies in Normandy, and later on the Reich’s western borders.
On January 27, 1945, the Red Army entered the gates of Auschwitz in horrified awe of what they encountered. As they marched through the snow, they encountered stacks of frozen corpses and 7,000 frightened, exhausted prisoners in the wooden barracks.
In her September 2, 1939, My Day column, Eleanor Roosevelt reacts to the news of Germany's invasion of Poland, sharing her dismay at Adolf Hitler's actions and expressing sorrow for the European nations facing the crisis.
Despite being overlooked in many circles, American “Lend-Lease” support sent to the USSR not only tipped the scales in Eastern Europe but enabled the victory on the Russian Front.
As the anniversaries of Operations Barbarossa and Bagration approach, it is an opportune time to reexamine the immeasurably brutal war between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
When the Nazis came to clear out the Warsaw Ghetto, they were met with fierce resistance.
Stutthof concentration camp was among the sites of horror caught up in this gruesome crescendo to Adolf Hitler’s war for racial supremacy.
In a series of high-stakes strategic conferences in late 1943, the Allies made several key decisions that shaped wartime strategy, while reflecting the changing balance of power between the Allied nations and foreshadowing the postwar emergence of the bipolar world.
The creation of ghettos during World War II was a key part of Nazi plans to brutally persecute, separate, and eventually liquidate Europe’s Jewish population.
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From the beginning, this was to be a different kind of war—a war not only of conquest but also of annihilation.
The strength, depth, and impact of the 1944 Slovak National Uprising made it one of the largest and most important anti-fascist campaigns in Europe during World War II.
On May 22, 1943, Moscow announced the dissolution of the Communist International.
News of the crushing Soviet victory at Stalingrad in February 1943 over the Third Reich and its satellite states struck the rest of Europe, indeed the globe, like a thunderbolt.