Pursued by the Red Army, the Nazis were forced to withdraw from the banks of the Volga River and the Caucasus region, which was considered the breadbasket and oil of the Soviet Union; abandon the Rzhev arc to no longer be able to threaten the capital Moscow. In addition, the Red Army took advantage of the victory to break the siege in Leningrad.
After the Soviet-German front stabilized in the spring, the sides began to prepare for a decisive battle at the Kursk arc. The offensive nicknamed Operation Citadel, carried out in the summer of 1943, was considered Hitler’s last attempt to regain the initiative on the Eastern Front.
The Kursk arc caused Nazi Germany to completely lose the initiative on the Eastern Front. Image; Ryan
1944: Soviet-style Blitzkrieg
After the victory at the Kursk arc, the Red Army was almost unstoppable. In early 1944, the Soviet Army completed the liberation of the Crimean peninsula and almost the entire right bank of the Dnieper River. On March 26, the Red Army reached the Romanian border.
In the summer of 1944, the Red Army demonstrated to the Wehrmacht the bitter lessons of 1941 by using Blitzkrieg (lightning war) tactics to counterattack very effectively. On June 23, the Red Army launched a campaign to liberate Belarus called Operation Bagration.
In just two months, the Red Army launched a rapid attack with a depth of 550-600km to the West, destroying 17 German divisions and liberating all of Belarus and a significant part of Eastern Poland. Nazi Germany suffered heavy losses of about half a million troops.
[1945:Destroyedthefascistlair
In early 1945, the Red Army fought a fierce battle with the Nazis in the city of Budapest, preparing to liberate Warsaw. Although Nazi Germany suffered heavy losses in the battles of 1944, it was still determined to fight to the end. Despite the loss of key industrial sites and nearly all key allies, the Wehrmacht continued to fight.
During the Vistula-Oder attack in early February 1945, the 1st Belarusian Front commanded by Marshal Georgy Zhukov approached the city of Berlin about 70km. As the Red Army prepared its decisive assault on the Nazi capital, the Wehrmacht launched its last large-scale offensive.
Nazi prisoners of war are led through the Brandenburg Victory Gate in Berlin. Photo: Rian
About 400,000 German and Hungarian troops participated in Operation Spring Awakening in the Lake Balaton and Velence areas in March 1945. However, the fascists could only advance a few dozen kilometers into the depth of the Red Army’s defense line. After the fascist offensive failed, the way to Vienna was opened for the Red Army.
Then there was the battle to liberate Berlin and a number of large-scale battles in Europe even after Nazi Germany surrendered.
TUAN SON (aggregated by vpk, rbth)
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