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Aerial operations and battles of the Eastern Front (World War II)

  • East Prussian offensiveSome German units kept fighting in East Prussia until the whole country surrendered. That was May 9, 1945.
  • East Pomeranian offensiveSoviet forces paused before Berlin in 1945 to clear Pomerania first. Generals still debate that delay.
  • Smolensk operationOn the first day of the Smolensk operation, Soviet troops gained just 4 kilometers.
  • Crimean offensiveA large bomb fell into a Romanian destroyer's fuel tanks and never went off.
  • Battle of the DnieperIn 1943, Red Army soldiers crossed the Dnieper River on fishing boats and rafts made from barrels and trees.
  • Vienna offensiveThe Vienna offensive of 1945 reached a city that had already endured continuous bombardment for a full year. Many of its buildings and facilities were damaged or destroyed before a single Soviet soldier arrived. The assault was carried out…
  • Battle of StalingradHitler promoted Paulus to field marshal at Stalingrad, since no German field marshal had ever surrendered.
  • Operation MarsWas Operation Mars a real Soviet offensive or a costly diversion to protect Stalingrad? Historians still disagree.
  • Operation BagrationOperation Bagration began exactly three years after Germany invaded the Soviet Union.
  • Siege of LeningradBesieged Leningrad played a symphony on the day Hitler had picked for a victory banquet. It was aimed at enemy lines.
  • Second Jassy–Kishinev offensiveIn August 1944, a Soviet attack collapsed the German-Romanian front in Romania within two days.
  • Vistula–Oder offensiveWhy did the Red Army stop 43 miles from an essentially undefended Berlin in early 1945?

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