Early summer 1944.
The war had decisively turned against Germany.
The Axis forces had been consistently pushed back and both from East and west the Allies
were preparing to move into Germany.
The Western Allies had gathered their forces to open the second front and the Germans had
prepared a large force to counter them.
They intended to push the Western Allies into the sea and then concentrate again on the
Eastern front.
There the Red Army had achieved a strong superiority and was hoping to finish the war in a two
stage operation.
First, the German forces on the Eastern front would have to be destroyed on their advance
positions without them being able to retreat into Germany.
After the Axis forces had been severely weakened, the Red Army would advance into Germany and
take over its resources to wage war.
As the first step Finland would be knocked out of the war.
Then the Red Army would encircle and destroy the German Army group Center.
After that, the Soviet forces would advance towards the Vistula river and the Baltic,
which would result in cutting off the Army Group North.
The German forces would then be pushed into the sea and be destroyed.
Finally an attack would be launched in the South in order to seize the Romanian oil fields.
These operations would destroy most of the Axis military capabilities on the Eastern
front and clear the scene for an attack into Germany itself.
Back in 1941 the Finns had seized forward defensive positions on the Soviet territory
and since then the Northern part of the front hadn’t seen much action.
The Soviet plan entailed encircling the Finnish forces on their forward positions and then
advancing into the depth of the country without much resistance.
The first attack on the Karelian Isthmus pushed the Finnish forces back, but they were able
to escape the encirclement and conducted an orderly retreat.
The Soviets launched an offensive in the east, but here too the Finns were able to pull their
forces back and deploy them on a new defensive line.
By this time the focus of the Red Army had changed to the central part of the front and
they couldn’t spare forces for follow-up operations in Finland.
Thus armistice was signed in September and Finland was able to leave the war with fewer
concessions, than could’ve been possible.
With Finland leaving the war, the German presence in the North of the country became untenable.
Using the rough terrain to their advantage, they conducted a stage by stage retreat and
were able to evade the Finnish and Soviet pursuit extracting their units into Norway.
The Red Army didn’t follow them and the large scale fighting in the North came to
an end.
As the battles were raging in Finland, the Soviet forces were about to launch their attack
in the Center.
Army Group Center could be attacked from the South and North of the Pripyat marshes and
Soviets had created two large concentrations of forces.
The Southern attack would be more dangerous for the Germans and they directed all of their
attention to that sector, thinking that the Northern one was a ruse.
This allowed the Soviets to achieve a total surprise.
They attacked at the flanks of the Army Group Center.
The German forces were forbidden to retreat and many of their units were encircled near
the original front.
Their southern forces were able to pull back further, but were also eventually trapped.
The Red Army advanced towards Minsk with little opposition.
The Germans were unable to pull their remaining forces back in time and they were encircled
east of Minsk.
With half of the Army Group Center’s strength being destroyed, the Red Army’s advance
continued.
One opportunity to stop the Soviet advance, was to pull back part of the Army Group North
and counterattack at the flank of the Soviet forces.
However due to strategic considerations, Army Group North stayed in its position.
Instead it was decided to stop the Soviet advance by redeploying units from other sectors
of the front.
With their main focus in the west, there were no ready reserves in the East.
It would take time before the Germans could gather a large enough force from other sectors
of the eastern front.
When the front had moved far enough west, the Soviet forces in the south joined the
action.
They had built up an especially strong concentration here and the Germans were unable to stop it.
After achieving a breakthrough, their force was divided into two.
One of them was tasked with securing a bridgehead over the Vistula river for a future offensive
and the other moved north in a flanking move against the Army group Center.
By this time the Germans had gathered a reserve force of armoured units and could start patching
up the front.
There were two critical situations - the breakthrough on the southern flank of the Army Group Center
and a large gap between Army Groups Center and North.
The Germans decided to first deal with the southern situation.
As the Soviet forces neared Warsaw, Polish resistance launched an uprising in the city.
However, the German armoured forces arrived, blunted the Soviet spearhead and the front
was stabilized.
Meanwhile, the Red Army had began the destruction of the Army Group North.
It exploited the gap between the Army Groups North and Center and soon the Soviet forces
established a narrow corridor to the sea, severing the land communications of the Army
Group North.
However the Red Army didn’t have the strength to push the Germans into the sea and the Germans
were able to trade land for time.
This gave them time to redeploy their armoured reserves to the sector and they counterattacked
reestablishing the land connection with the Army Group North.
The Red Army now made a pause to gather sufficient strength for the final push.
However, when their advance continued, the Germans were able to pull out out of the salient.
The Red Army wasn’t able to catch and destroy their units.
It now switched its focus to the South and launched an attack towards the sea, catching
the Germans off balance.
Soon the Red Army reached the sea cutting Army Group North off in Courland, but they
were unable to finish the German forces off.
The Soviet forces now extended their attack further South, but the Germans had had the
time to reestablish a solid front and the offensive bogged down.
October marked the end of the Red Army’s summer campaign in the North and Center.
The Soviet forces now began a long preparation for the second phase of their plan - the invasion
of Germany.
During the Soviet offensive in the Center heavy fighting was taking place on the Western
front.
The Germans had deployed their forces along the French coast in anticipation of the allied
landings.
With their forces spread out, their immediate coastal defences in Normandy were unable to
deny the Allies a beachhead.
The Germans combined their troops for an effort to push the Allies into the sea.
However they ended up only having the strength to contain them.
For most of June and July both the Allies and the Germans deployed more and more forces
to Normandy, but, as the Germans had also to deal with a crisis on the Eastern front,
they were unable to allocate enough troops and in August the Allies broke out of the
beachhead.
The Germans still hoped to contain them and didn’t retreat.
This was a mistake.
Part of the German forces were destroyed and others had to conduct a quick withdrawal.
With their troops disorganized, the Germans were unable to take advantage of the defensive
river positions in Northern France and could check the Allied advance only in the hilly
terrain in front of the German border.
The Allies began preparations to carry their advance into Germany itself.
As the Allied forces were breaking out of Normandy, the Soviets were about to begin
the final part of their plan - an attack against the army Group South.
During the summer more and more forces were diverted from the Army Group South in order
to deal with the crisis in the Center.
Despite that the Army Group had retained its forward deployment in front of the river lines.
In late August the Red Army launched its offensive on the southern part of the front.
It took advantage of the vulnerable deployment of the Axis forces and managed to encircle
part of them.
Romania had long seeked an opportunity to withdraw from the conflict and now, when a
large part of the German forces was neutralized, they made peace with the Allies and soon declared
war on Germany.
The Red Army now moved South unopposed.
The surviving German units attempted to reestablish the front in the Carpathian mountains, however
the Red Army moved west along the plains to outflank them.
As the Soviet units entered Bulgaria, this country too joined the war against Germany
and began mobilizing its army.
In the Carpathians the Germans were now joined by the Hungarian army and attempted to reestablish
a solid front along the mountain range.
However they didn’t have enough time and with the help of the Romanian units north
of the mountains, the Red Army was able to cross the passes into the Hungarian plain
with little opposition.
Now the Axis presence in the mountains became a liability and the Red Army attempted to
cut off these forces with a two-pronged attack.
However the Northern attack was unable to push through the mountains and this allowed
the Axis forces to concentrate on the southern Soviet spearhead and destroy it.
This slowed the Red Army's advance enough for the Axis forces to withdraw their units
from the salient in time.
The defection of Bulgaria and the Soviet advance into Hungary threatened to cut off the German
occupation force in Greece.
This area wasn’t considered important by the Red Army and they decided to commit their
limited resources to Hungary.
This gave the Germans time to gather their units from the islands to the mainland and
soon they began the withdrawal from Greece.
They were able to extract much of their units intact.
Until the end of the war the southernmost part of the Eastern front was of secondary
importance for the Red Army and fighting there would be relegated to local formations.
By October the first phase of the Soviet plan was complete.
They were able to deny the Axis the Romanian oil supplies, deal heavy damage to Army groups
Center and South and, while they were unable to destroy the Army Group North, it was trapped
in Courland.
Germany itself was now vulnerable to an invasion.
The forces in the North would undertake large scale preparations, while the units in Hungary
were to continue their advance.
The Soviet forces continued their push, but by that time the Axis had recovered from their
prior disasters and the Red Army’s advance was checked between the Carpathians and the
Danube.
With the central front quieting down, the Germans began deploying more forces to Hungary.
The Soviets were able to extend their southern flank further west over the Danube but the
progress in the North was far slower.
Facing difficulties, the Red Army concentrated on a smaller objective - taking Budapest,
where the Axis had deployed a large garrison.
During December the Soviet forces slowly moved to encircle the city and after its communications
with the main Axis front had been cut, began a costly operation to clear the city of the
defenders.
With the northern part of the front still quiet, the Germans had brought up reinforcements
and attempted to reestablish the land connection with the Budapest garrison.
In the following month they achieved some progress, but were eventually unable to reach
the city.
In the last months of 1944 most of Soviet forces were preparing for an offensive into
Germany and the fronts were relatively quiet.
The Germans misinterpreted this as a sign that the Red Army had exhausted itself.
They sent freed up forces west in their last hope to inflict a decisive defeat on the Western
Allies by encircling their forces in Belgium.
However the attack was fought to a standstill in the Battle of the Bulge and the Western
Allies began to push the Germans back.
With their reserves used up, there was little that could be spared for the eventual battle
for Germany, which now began on the Eastern Front.
During the pause in the fighting the Germans had an opportunity to evacuate their forces
from Courland, but they decided to keep them there, so, after the Western Allies had been
defeated, they would be able to use the Courland position to conduct an encirclement.
Now there wasn’t much opportunity left to evacuate them.
By mid January the Soviets were making final preparations for their massive attack in Poland.
They had created three large concentrations of forces.
The central force would advance directly towards Berlin, while the others would secure the
flanks.
At the same time the German forces in East Prussia would be encircled and destroyed.
The setup of the German troops in Poland was unfavourable, with their reserves expended
and a lot of their forces deployed away from the main direction of the Soviet attack.
The offensive began in mid January.
The weak German defence in the south and center was pushed aside and the Soviet troops advanced
quickly, but the northern attack got bogged down in Prussia and was unable to advance.
As a result the central force outran the northern and its flank was becoming increasingly overextended.
The Germans threw all of their forces east to halt the Soviet attack.
After the Soviet forces had reached the Oder river in front of Berlin, they had to make
a decision, whether to keep moving towards the capital of the Reich immediately and risk
encirclement from the flanks.
Or to secure the flanks first and then continue the offensive from a better position.
They decided for the latter option.
With the Germans scrambling their forces and the Soviet logistics extended, the operations
proceeded in a slower pace.
In February the Soviets expanded their flanks to the sea in the north and to the mountains
in the south and pushed the German forces in Prussia into small pockets near the sea.
This delay allowed the Germans to reestablish a solid front line before Berlin and the Soviets
would need more time to continue their advance west.
Meanwhile the Red Army had cleared up Budapest and had made preparations to resume the offensive.
By this time the Germans had switched their focus back on the Eastern front to defend
the Reich.
They had deployed a large force in front of Berlin, but Hungary was the last area, where
they could hope to conduct offensive warfare and had sent their last Panzer forces there
to conduct an encirclement.
The Red Army had learned of their plan and had decided to let the Germans attack first
before starting its own offensive.
The Germans were too weak by this time to conduct even limited offensives and soon their
attack was absorbed by the Soviet defences.
The Red Army then attacked and pushed the Axis forces back, making them abandon all
captured territory.
The Axis resistance was soon greatly reduced and the Soviet forces moved into Austria.
After they had captured Vienna and secured their occupation zone in Eastern Austria,
the advance was stopped.
With a large part of the German forces scrambled to the East, they lacked the troops to properly
hold the Rhine river line.
In mid March the Western Allies crossed the river in several places and moved into the
German rear.
They pinned most of their immobilized forces in place and then proceeded with an encirclement
of the German troops in the Ruhr area.
Having neutralized a large part of the German forces, the Allies spread out and moved through
North Germany almost unopposed.
By mid April their forces had reached the Elbe river - a line dividing the areas of
responsibility of the Red Army and the Western Allies.
Here they stopped and waited for the Red Army to take Berlin.
At the same time the Red Army destroyed most of the German forces left on the Prussian
coast and deployed the freed up units to the Berlin direction.
In the middle of April the offensive was launched.
The Red Army wanted to avoid costly urban combat in the city and moved directly towards
Berlin, encircling the capital.
Most of the German forces were left outside the city.
Hitler then ordered them to move into Berlin but they were too weak and were only able
to fight their way out west.
Thus the Red Army was able to clear Berlin only in about 10 days.
Soon the Soviet forces made contact with the Western Allies.
By that time Germany had lost most of its territory and with the loss of the capital,
the last Axis forces on the Eastern Front were to surrender soon.
In the last operation of the Soviet-German war the Soviet forces cut off the path west
of the German forces in Czechoslovakia and secured their surrender to the Red Army.
During this time the general German surrender was declared and soon after that the last
remaining pockets of Axis resistance in Europe were liquidated.
With that World War Two in Europe ended and so do the series on the Eastern Front.
We would like to thank our Patrons for making these videos possible.
(paus 2 sekundit) During these series we looked into one aspect of fighting on the Eastern
front.
If you’d like to see it from a more personal perspective we’d like to recommend some
reading:
“Against the Odds: Survival on the Russian Front” are a memours a German soldier, fighting
during the last year of the war.
“Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army” attempts to give a picture of the war through
a perspective of a Red Army soldier.
And for truly hardcore tactics fans I can recommend my favorite: “Small Unit Actions
During the German Campaign in Russia” that is a study consisting of detailed descriptions
of many small actions written for the US army by former German officers.
In order to read these books, you can sign up for a free monthly trial in Amazon’s
Kindle Unlimited and gain access to these and many more books.
By doing so you would also be supporting the channel.
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Thank you for watching and see you next time!