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Battles of World War II involving Germany

  • Battle of Alam el HalfaMontgomery knew Rommel's attack plan before the Battle of Alam el Halfa began. Ultra intercepts told him.
  • Battle of GazalaRommel used a decoy attack at Gazala, then swung his tanks south around the British line by night.
  • Battle of Nuremberg (1945)Nuremberg fell to US troops on Adolf Hitler's 56th birthday. The city had hosted his grandest Nazi rallies.
  • Battle of UmanIn just over three weeks in 1941, German forces destroyed two entire Soviet armies near Uman.
  • Second Battle of El AlameinA thousand guns opened fire at once at El Alamein on October 23, 1942. A 13-day battle had begun.
  • Omaha BeachAllied planners expected up to 1,000 defenders at Omaha Beach, but a full German division was waiting.
  • Operation SonnenblumeRommel was sent to Libya only to defend Tripoli, yet he drove the British back to Egypt.
  • Smolensk operationOn the first day of the Smolensk operation, Soviet troops gained just 4 kilometers.
  • Battle of Smolensk (1941)Germany largely won the Battle of Smolensk in 1941 but lost time it needed to reach Moscow.
  • First Battle of El AlameinThe First Battle of El Alamein was fought at a railway station with no value of its own.
  • Battle of the BulgeIn the Battle of the Bulge, an American general answered a surrender demand with one word: Nuts.
  • German invasion of GreeceHitler invaded Greece partly to protect Romanian oil from British bombers.
  • Battle of Białystok–MinskAfter the Western Front collapsed in 1941, the NKVD executed its commander, General Pavlov.
  • 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…
  • German invasion of the NetherlandsOn the day Germany invaded in 1940, the Netherlands had zero modern tanks.
  • Operation Northwind (1944)Operation Northwind, known in German as Unternehmen Nordwind, was the last major German offensive of World War II on the Western Front. It opened on the 31st of December 1944, across Rhineland-Palatinate, Alsace and Lorraine, and it ran…
  • German invasion of Denmark (1940)Germany's 1940 invasion of Denmark lasted approximately six hours. Danish forces surrendered before noon.
  • Battle of KurskBefore the Battle of Kursk, one Soviet front dug 4,200 kilometres of trenches. Stalin knew the attack was coming.
  • Battle of Kiev (1941)The 1941 Battle of Kiev played only a small role for the city itself. It trapped 452,700 Soviet soldiers.
  • Battle of KönigsbergKönigsberg, a fortress city built to resist huge siege guns, fell in four days in April 1945.
  • Invasion of YugoslaviaHitler attacked Yugoslavia in April 1941 after a coup toppled a government that had just allied with him.
  • Battle of BerlinThe famous photo of Soviet soldiers planting a flag on the Reichstag was a re-enactment.
  • Battle of CreteIn the 1941 Battle of Crete, a wrong guess about two lost companies left Maleme Airfield undefended.
  • Battle of the Kerch PeninsulaSoviet troops landing at Kerch in December 1941 had fishing trawlers and whaleboats, not landing craft.
  • Capture of HamburgThe Capture of Hamburg was one of the last battles fought on the Western Front of the Second World War. It unfolded in Lower Saxony between the 18th of April and the 3rd of May 1945. By then the Red Army was besieging Berlin, and the war…
  • Second Battle of KharkovA Soviet offensive at Kharkov in May 1942 ended with more than 250,000 troops trapped.
  • Dieppe RaidThe Dieppe Raid was over within ten hours of the landing. Of 6,086 men who landed, 3,623 were dead, wounded or captured.
  • Third Battle of KharkovA German counterstrike in February 1943 trapped Soviet spearheads that had just retaken Kharkov.

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