Russian history: The great patriotic war
THE outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 found the Soviet Union unprepared for the conflict ahead. Political purges had stripped the army of many of its experienced commanders while industrial production was slow in adapting to military needs.
After signing the non-aggression pact with Germany in 1939, Hitler’s invasion of June 1941 was unexpected. By the end of the year, the Nazi seized most of the Soviet Union western territory and surrounded Leningrad.
Leningrad’s horrific siege was one of the most lethal in world history. It lasted for 900 days, from September 1941 to January 1944. The city’s civilian population of almost three million refused to surrender, even though they were completely surrounded.
By the first winter of the siege there was no heating, no water supply, almost no electricity. Food was scarce. With non-stop air and artillery bombardment the city’s greatest enemies were hunger and bitter cold.
Exhausted people collapsed and died. The streets were littered with dead bodies. The only lifeline to the mainland was the ice of Lake Ladoga — known as the “Road of Life”.
The city survived. The blockade took the lives of at least 670 000 people, although some estimates indicate that as many as 1,5 million people died.
The city became the symbol of the Soviet resilience and invincibility.
Defending the capital
In 1941, the Nazi German army advanced as far as Moscow reaching the outskirts. Hundreds of young recruits were preparing to defend the capital. But none could imagine that before going to battle they would march on the Red Square in front of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and top Communist Party officials. Against the advice of his generals, with the Nazi pushing on, Stalin held the military parade in the Red Square on November 7 to mark the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.
The parade was kept secret until the last moment. That day the Soviet air force managed the unimaginable — not a single bomb was dropped on the capital. The troops left the Red Square to head straight to the frontline.
The parade had a tremendous impact on the morale in Moscow and throughout the Soviet Union. The capital never surrendered and for the first time the Nazi were thrown back.
The siege of Stalingrad
Slowly, the industrialisation of the 1930s, driven by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic vast resources and workforce, started paying off. The tide turned in February 1943, when the Germans suffered a devastating defeat in the battle of Stalingrad. One of the most brutal stand-offs in human history, it began the previous year, in the summer of 1942.
A major industrial centre on the Volga River in southern Russia, Stalingrad (now Volgograd), was a coveted prize in itself. Control over it opened the way to the vital Caucasus oil fields.
The city’s very name drove Hitler’s obsession with it. Seizing Stalingrad — “Stalin’s City” — would deal a disastrous blow to the Soviet morale.
The horror of Stalingrad lasted for 199 days, costing an estimated 1,5 million lives from both sides. The besieged city quickly turned into a meat grinder. The Soviet losses were so great that, at times, the life expectancy of a newly arrived soldier was less than a day.
Battles raged for every street, house, basement and staircase. Areas captured by the
Nazi troops by day, were re-taken by the Soviet army at night.
One of the buildings the Nazi German army failed to take was the so-called “Pavlov’s House”. In September 1942, a Red Army platoon led by Yakov Pavlov turned an apartment block in the city centre into an impenetrable fortress.
Penned in and surrounded by the Nazi, a little more than a dozen men rebuffed assault after assault. They held out for two months, until they were relieved by counter-attacking Soviet forces.
Another Stalingrad legend was a sniper Vassily Zaitsev (the main character in the Hollywood movie “Enemy at the Gates” starring Jude Law). During the battles in and around the city, he picked off more than 200 German troops.
The Soviet press lost no time in spreading the news of his exceptional shooting skills. The story goes that the Nazi decided to send a super-sniper of their own to kill him. After a dramatic cat-and-mouse game, lasting several days, Zaitsev finally outwitted his adversary.
The cost of victory
The Soviet troops held out against the enormous Nazi German army, decimating and wearing it out, until a relieving force encircled the city compelling the invaders to surrender. The crushing defeat at Stalingrad was unmatched in scale, spurring the Soviet drive towards the victory . . . In May 1945 German capital Berlin fell.
The famous photo of two Soviet soldiers unfurling the Red Flag over the Reichstag (the Parliament) became an iconic image of World War II.
This is a symbol of the USSR’s triumph . . . the victory that came at a colossal cost.
The number of Soviet deaths was at first grossly distorted — the figure Stalin gave in 1946 was seven million. The USSR losses are now estimated at about 26,6 million, accounting for half of all war casualties.
The memory of the war, referred to as the Great Patriotic War, is particularly venerated in Russia.
The date of May 9 when the Nazi surrendered took effect has become a national holiday — Victory Day — and is commemorated in a grand military parade on the Red Square in Moscow. This year due to the coronavirus pandemic it was postponed. — russiapedia. rt.com.