Curated playlist
1941 in the Soviet Union
- Anglo-Soviet AgreementBritain and the Soviet Union signed a two-clause alliance in Moscow on the 12th of July 1941.
- Battle of UmanIn just over three weeks in 1941, German forces destroyed two entire Soviet armies near Uman.
- Hunger PlanIn May 1941, German officials planning the Hunger Plan wrote that tens of millions would starve.
- Continuation WarFinland fought beside Nazi Germany but insisted it was not an ally. Its leaders said "co-belligerent" instead.
- Battle of Smolensk (1941)Germany largely won the Battle of Smolensk in 1941 but lost time it needed to reach Moscow.
- Soviet–Japanese Neutrality PactStalin personally saw off Japan's foreign minister at a train station.
- Anglo-Soviet invasion of IranIn 1941, Britain and the Soviet Union invaded neutral Iran. The Shah was gone within a month.
- First Battle of KharkovThe First Battle of Kharkov was settled within a single week, from the 20th to the 24th of October 1941. Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy, the famous Soviet writer, later described what the city had become: "I saw Kharkiv. As if it were Rome…
- Siege of Sevastopol (1941–1942)By July 1942, only eleven buildings were undamaged in Sevastopol. The siege lasted 250 days.
- Soviet occupation of the Baltic states (1940)In 1940, one Estonian army unit on Raua Street in Tallinn fought back against the Soviet takeover.
- Occupation of the Baltic statesIn August 1940, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were absorbed into the Soviet Union. Sham elections came first.
- Winter campaign of 1941–1942Soviet troops retook Tikhvin, Klin and Rostov in 1941 but failed to trap German units. The Germans pulled back in order.