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Soviet response

Photograph showing troops crossing the ruins of Stalingrad Boxing of Stalingrad, 1942 © The attack came as a complete surprise to the leader of the Soviet Matrimony, Joseph Stalin. Despite repeated intelligence warnings, which included the precise twenty-four hour period and hour of Germany'due south incipient assail, Stalin remained convinced that Hitler would non risk an eastern war every bit long equally the British Empire remained undefeated. It has been argued that Stalin in fact planned a pre-emptive attack on Germany for the early summer of 1941, and was then thrown off-balance past the German language invasion.

For two years Soviet forces pushed the German language army back into Germany ...

The evidence makes articulate the defensive posture of the Soviet Spousal relationship in 1941. Stalin did non want to run a risk state of war, though he hoped to profit from the German language-British struggle if he could. In the event, the stupor of attack about unhinged the Soviet state, and past the autumn German language forces had destroyed well-nigh of the Red Army and the Russian air force, surrounded and besieged Leningrad - where over one million people died of starvation and common cold - and were approaching the outskirts of Moscow.

The Red Army had sufficient reserves to finish the German ground forces from completing the rout in December 1941, but the following summer German offensives launched far to the south of Moscow, to seize the rich oilfields of the Caucasus and to cut the Volga shipping route, created further chaos.

Hitler hoped that German forces would capture the oil and sweep on through the Heart Eastward to meet up with Axis forces in Arab republic of egypt. The Volga was to be blocked at Stalingrad, later on which German language forces could wheel northwards to outflank Moscow and the Soviet line.

The southern attack failed at Stalingrad. After weeks of chaotic retreats and piece of cake German victories, the Ruddy Army solidified its defence and against all the odds clung on to the dilapidated metropolis. In Nov 1942 Operation Uranus was launched by the Soviets, and the German language Sixth Army at Stalingrad was encircled.

Some historians have seen this as the turning point of the war. Merely non until the Red Army had decisively defeated German forces in the more favourable summer atmospheric condition of 1943 did the tide really turn.

The Battle of Kursk in July 1943 was one of the greatest set-piece battles in military history. The Red Army withstood a massive German assault, so counter-attacked. For two years Soviet forces pushed the German army back into Germany, until in May 1945 Soviet forces accepted the surrender of the relic of Hitler'south ground forces in Berlin.

Turnaround

The central question of the German-Soviet war is why, after two years of defeats, and the loss of more than five 1000000 men and two-thirds of the industrial chapters of the country, the Red Ground forces was able to blunt, and then drive back, the German language attack.

Camouflage, surprise and misinformation were brilliantly exploited to go on the German army in the dark ...

The thought that the USSR had limitless manpower, despite its heavy losses, is inadequate as an answer. Germany and her allies likewise possessed a large population, and added to it the peoples of the captured Soviet areas - men and women who were forced to piece of work for the German regular army or were shipped back to work in the Reich. Soviet armies were always desperately short of men.

Above all, Soviet tactics in 1941-2 were extremely wasteful of manpower. If the Red Army had continued to fight the same fashion, it would simply take sustained escalating losses for piffling proceeds.

Nor did the USSR enjoy an reward in economic resources. Later the German attack, Soviet steel production fell to eight million tons in 1942, while German production was 28 million tons. In the same twelvemonth, Soviet coal output was 75 1000000 tons, while High german output was 317 one thousand thousand. The USSR still out-produced Frg in the quantity (though seldom in the quality) of most major weapons, from this much smaller industrial base.

The impressive production of weapons was achieved by turning the whole of the remaining Soviet surface area into what Stalin called 'a single armed campsite', focusing all efforts on military production and extorting maximum labour from a workforce whose only guarantee of food was to turn upwardly at the manufacturing plant and work the arduous 12-hour shifts. Without Lend-Lease help, however, from the United States and Britain, both of whom supplied a high proportion of food and raw materials for the Soviet war effort, the loftier output of weapons would still not have been possible.

The chief explanation lies not in resources, which Deutschland was more generously supplied with than the Soviet Spousal relationship, during the two key years of the war earlier American and British economic power was fully exerted. It lies instead in the remarkable reform of the Cherry Army and the Russian air force, undertaken slowly in 1942.

Every surface area of Soviet military machine life was examined and changes introduced. The army established the equivalent of the heavily armoured High german Panzer divisions, and tank units were amend organised - thank you to the introduction of radios. Soviet army tactics and intelligence-gathering were also overhauled.

Camouflage, surprise and misinformation were brilliantly exploited to keep the German army in the night about major Soviet intentions. The air strength was subjected to effective key control and improved communications, so that it could back up the Soviet army in the same manner as the Luftwaffe backed up High german forces.