Three German Wehrmacht soldiers or in German “Soldaten” with snow and ice on them in Stalingrad, USSR

Hello, everyone! Today, I’ll be talking about the Eastern Front in WWII. Not on the Soviet side, but mostly through the German view. There were many fronts in WWII such as the Mediterranean front, Western front, Pacific theater, African front/campaign and of course, the Eastern front. So let’s get started!

On September 1st 1939, Germany invaded Poland and the Soviet Union. A famous pact was signed on September 28 1939 called the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and this pact would agree that the Soviet Union and Hitler would both split poor Poland’s land 50/50. Although Joseph Stalin (leader of the Soviet Union) and Adolf Hitler signed this pact to keep peace between the two countries, Hitler planned to take half of Poland first then make a direct invasion in to the Soviet Union in 1941. The code name for this operation was called “Operation Barbarossa”.  The Germans kept this a very good secret and caught the Soviets by surprise. The Soviet quickly put together an unstable and under trained fighting force compared to the Germans. The Germans advanced quickly. Encircle and capturing millions of Soviet men. Hitler had three objectives to capture on the Eastern front. 1. Moscow, 2. Leningrad and 3. Stalingrad. The German army was very close to taking Leningrad but the Soviets pushed them back. The closest the Germans ever came to Moscow was 12 miles, but the winter set in. Heavy snow and temperatures often dropping below zero caused the Germans to starve and usually just die to the cold. The Soviets had snow camouflage and used skis to move around just like the Finnish in the Russo-Finnish war. But the largest battle Tank and bloodiest battle in history took place on the Eastern Front. The largest tank battle was the battle of Kursk that lasted through July 5 1943 – August 23 1943. It may have only lasted a month but 6,000 tanks, 4,000 aircraft and over 1 million men participated in The Battle of Kursk. The battle of Kursk was a turning point in WWII with this time, the  Soviet Union pushing back the Germans. The Russians end up pushing the Germans through Poland and the Baltics to Berlin and win

German machine gunner and assistant machine gunner on the Eastern Front with their white snow camouflage jackets.

the battle of Berlin and force the Germans to surrender. The Germans were better trained but had less men. The Soviet Union had the largest army at the time but the men were rushed into uniform and sent to the front and there are many cases of the many not getting a rifle but a shovel or a knife. The Germans were very well equipped and no side showed mercy on the Eastern front except those who didn’t feel bound by their oath of the German army anymore. there were 150,000 Soviet casualties during the first 5 months of the invasion of the Soviet Union. The Germans utilized “Blitzkrieg” like they did in Poland with fast motorized infantry and tanks followed by the German Air Force or “Luftwaffe” giving air support. But as the months passed by, the Russian terrain became very muddy and the Germans got bogged down and this allowed the Russians time to resupply and set up better defensive positions. Then in Winter, the ground froze and the temperature plummeted below zero. The temperature even got to -58 degrees fahrenheit. No matter how well you think you handle the cold you’ll freeze, most likely to death with the clothing the Germans were wearing. The germans would wear their M41 feldbluse, M40 Feldbluse or M36 Feldbluse which is pretty much like the standard wool uniform. Those uniforms would be used all over the place in the German army like France and so on. Those were not made for the winter at all so the Germans issued long wool coat known and the “Greatcoat”. You would wear your actual uniform under this coat and of course your undershirt. But in Russia, that isn’t going to

A still image taken from Stalingrad 1993. You can see the German soldier in the middle of Russia while -0F and horrible winds from the lack of trees. Notice the men carrying the “Pak 40” or in German the “PanzerAbwehrKanone 40” Anti-tank gun.

keep you very warm, but Germany thought they’d take Russia before winter but the mud had slowed down the German advance very quickly and Germany hadn’t issued proper winter clothing for the German troops. The Germans ended making a camouflage, reversible and thicker jacket which was better but it wasn’t really issued to ordinary low ranking infantry but it was issued to the “Feldgendarmerie” or “Military police” and officers but some standard infantry got those jackets. Many Germans just wore russian gear like the “Bekesha Tulup” sheepskin coat that Soviet officers wore. So you’ll here this many times in history class by teachers but you should NEVER invade Russia in the winter. For example it’s -35 degrees F right now in the largest city in Siberia right now. But not only the Germans fought in Stalingrad. Actually a large amount of Romanian and also Italian soldiers fought in Stalingrad. But a small little country that half of the land is in the Arctic circle also invaded the Soviet Union after a little piece of land known as the Karelian Isthmus and a lake called lake Ladoga. But that’s for another post. Now i’m guessing most, if not all of you have seen a war movie or historical movie. Have you ever been able to point out the inaccuracies if you know a lot about whatever the movie is about? Well since I devote most of my free time watching and reading history videos I can point out most inaccuracies. I watched a two movies about Stalingrad, 1. Stalingrad 2013 and 2. Stalingrad 1993. Stalingrad 2013 is a modern hollywood graphics and CGI with explosions and Nazi killing all over it which I despise. On the hand Stalingrad 1993 is an amazing and very very historically accurate movie. The thing I like most about Stalingrad 1993 is that they humanize the Germans and show that the Germans were all humans too. It follows these men as they are on leave in Italy in 1941 from Africa and now after they fight in the scorching heat of Africa they fight in one of the least survivable climates on Earth. They start as straight standing men, closely tied to their oath to Nazi Germany and you slowly see these men decay and fall further away from the Nazi ideology. Anyway, you guys may be wondering what the purpose of this blog post is? Well I didn’t tell you at least I hope I didn’t, and the reason why i didn’t tell you was to hopefully change your mind about the Germans in WWII. From thinking of them as ruthless barbaric humans to humans who have a family back in Germany and you don’t believe the Nazi ideology but your parents fought in WWII and their parents in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871 so your family and ancestors look up to you. You just want to make them proud and have to do as the higher ranks tell you to do. I hope you enjoyed this blog post and took away something. Next blog post I might talk about the Kriegsmarine and the hunt for the Bismarck. See y’all later!