The Eastern Front — 1942

In Russia the Germans survived the crisis of the Russian winter counteroffensive, and in April 1942 Hitler issued orders for Operation Blue, a major offensive in the south aimed at the oilfields of the Caucasus. In June the attack began well, with scenes reminiscent of victories the previous year, and the Germans pushed deep into the Caucasus. But by mid-September the offensive had stalled, and German 6th Army was making heavy weather of its attack on Stalingrad, on the Volga. On November 19, the Russians launched carefully husbanded reserves to began the attack which led to the encirclement of the 6th Army in one of the war's most terrible battles. Above, a Russian heavy machine-gun in the snow, winter 1941-42.

The Russian winter not only caught the Germans without proper clothing but caused serious difficulties for vehicles not designed with this climate in mind. Here a tank drags an assault gun from a snowdrift.

Although the Germans occupied the Crimea in 1941, the naval base of Sevastopol held out. It was eventually taken in July 1942 after heavy bombardments which reduced the city to rubble.

In early August 6th Army destroyed most of a Russian army in the bend of the Don north of Kalach. This is the apocalyptic scene on the river bank in the first week of August.

Operation Edelweiss, initiated when Hitler cancelled Operation Blue in July, sent Army Group A deep into the Caucasus. Here a German anti-tank unit is silhouetted by smoke from burning oilfields at Maikop, fired by their defenders, in the last week of August.

Operation Heron saw Army Group B drive for the Volga with the aim of taking Stalingrad and extending down the river as far as Astrakhan. Here German infantry move up as Stalingrad burns on the horizon.

The bitter fighting at Stalingrad placed overwhelming emphasis on the courage and determination of small groups of men fighting in what soon became a blighted landscape. Here a German machine-gun detachment — the empty ammunition boxes to its rear are evidence of heavy fighting — defends the ruins of suburban cottages.

A German infantry officer, whose decorations include the Iron Cross 1st Class and the infantry assault badge, issues orders. The soldier on the left has equipped himself with a captured Russian sub-machine gun.

After the encirclement of Stalingrad Hitler gave Manstein command of the newly created Army Group Don and ordered him to break into the pocket. Here a German tank hits a Russian mine during an abortive counterattack, December 20.

Friedrich Paulus, commander of 6th Army, was promoted to field-marshal on 30 January in Hitler's expectation that he would commit suicide rather than capitulate. However, he surrendered the following day. These Russian officers — the term was reintroduced by Stalin in 1942 — are still wearing collar rank badges, soon to be replaced by tsarist-style shoulder boards, all part of an attempt to restore the army's morale and efficiency.

The Germans lost some 200,000 men at Stalingrad: most of their prisoners of war did not survive captivity. Here a column of prisoners winds its way across the frozen steppe. Those in white fur hats are Romanians: defeat at Stalingrad struck a chill into Germany's allies.

The Siege of Leningrad

Leningrad, now known by its old name of St Petersburg, was encircled by the advancing Germans, and in the ensuing siege perhaps one million soldiers and citizens died. These civilians have been killed by German shelling.

The Russians kept Leningrad supplied by running trucks across the frozen Lake Ladoga.

The Russian Winter — 1941

The Russian counterattack of December 1941 used troops trained and equipped to operate in the sub-zero conditions. German commanders were badly shaken, and Hitler assumed personal command of the army, ordering his men to hold on regardless of cost.

A nation at war: members of the Moscow Young Communists digging an anti-tank ditch outside the Russian capital.

German prisoners captured during the Russian winter offensive. It is unlikely that any of the soldiers depicted here survived the war.

Murder in Russia

This photograph, released by the Russians in January 1942, shows the bodies of civilians shot by the Germans in a schoolyard at Rostov-on-Don.

German occupation was harsh and helped alienate national groups who had initially welcomed the Germans. This undated photograph, attributed by its original caption to a captured German soldier, shows a German officer hanging a prisoner.

Much of the city was reduced to rubble by the German forces who occupied it twice during the Great Patriotic War — in 1941 and 1942. The first occupation was in the autumn 1941. It lasted seven days. In the plans of Hitler's generals Rostov was a city of special importance, a strategic railway junction and a river port, a gateway to the Caucasus, rich in minerals, especially in oil. The city was badly damaged by bombing. The best units of the Nazi tank army were driven out of Rostov. But in summer the 1942, the Nazi army managed to occupy the city for the second time. The second occupation lasted seven months. It took ten years to raise the city from the ruins.

Barbarrosa in the Ukraine

A German machine gun post (above) covers a street in the Ukrainian city of Kharkov, which was taken by Rundstedt's German Army Group South in October 1941.

During World War II, Kharkov was the site of several military engagements. The city was captured by the German Army on October 24, 1941, and its military allies, recaptured by the Red Army, captured a second time by the Germans on May 24,1942; retaken by the Soviets on February 16, 1943, captured for a third time by Germans on March 16, 1943 and then finally liberated on August 23, 1943. Seventy percent of the city was destroyed and tens of thousands of the inhabitants were killed. It is mentioned that Kharkov was the most populous city in the Soviet Union occupied by Nazis, since in the years preceding World War II, Kiev was the smaller of the two by population.

Between December 1941 and January 1942, an estimated 30,000 people (mostly Jewish) were killed by the Germans. They were laid to rest in a large mass grave that located at Drobitsky Yar.

The Eastern Front — Part II

In Russia in 1941 the Germans profited, as they had in Poland in 1939 and France and the Low Countries in 1940, from very effective air support. This shot shows a camouflaged Russian airfield under what the original caption terms “a hail of bombs.”

The reality of the advance through Russia, September 1941. Most German soldiers, like their fathers and grandfathers, went into battle on foot, with horse-drawn transport.

The German armoured thrusts into Russia linked to create vast pockets whose occupant defenders were captured: the Germans claimed over 400,000 prisoners by July 11, 1941.

The Eastern Front

Despite his 1939 rapprochement with Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler never abandoned plans for an attack on Russia, which he planned to reduce to “a German India.” In December 1940 he issued a directive for Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. His army was not ready for a long war: many units had French or Czech equipment and were below strength, and operations in the Balkans delayed the attack. Stalin had some warning of invasion, and the disposition of Russian forces, concentrated on the frontier, induces some historians to suggest that he planned an offensive of his own. The attack, on June 22, proved brilliantly successful, but ran out of steam in December, when the Russians launched serious counteroffensives. German tanks (above) form up for the attack on the open terrain that characterized much of the Eastern Front, July 1941.

The cameraman's location and lack of uniformity amongst the gun detachment suggests that this shot of a German anti-tank gun taking on Soviet armour in July is authentic.

The German army remained two-tier, with its panzer and Panzergrenadier divisions representing the tip of a spear whose shaft comprised units which would not have looked out of place a generation earlier. German cavalry crosses a bridge in Russia, summer 1941.

The Russian Invasion of Finland

When Russia invaded Finland on November 30 1939, the Finns fought back hard. Well-trained ski troops, nicknamed "White Death" inflicted enormous casualties on the Russians, but eventually, weight of numbers and machinery told: in February 1940, the Russians breached the Mannerheim Line between Lake Lagoda and the Gulf of Finland, forcing the Finns to come to terms on March 12, 1940. The image above shows Finnish ski troops passing through a small town, December 20, 1939.

German-Russian Happy Times

The best of friends? Russian and German officers chat at Brest-Litovsk on September 18, 1939. The Russians show their rank on collar badges: the traditional epaulettes, hated symbol of the tsarist officer class, were to appear after the German invasion. The black-uniformed German is a panzer officer. In less than two years, these men would be trying to kill each other.

The Russian Campaign Bogs Down

On January 4, 1942, the German Sixth Army meteorologist recorded a temperature of 42 degrees below zero. Severe frost and deep snowdrifts badly hampered the supply lines. Hitler’s vaunted “Blitzkrieg” invasion of the Soviet Union had ground to a halt. Not even the most up-to-date technology could cope with the unusual weather conditions. As a result, horses came into their own once again, and had to be requisitioned throughout the Third Reich. They were not enough, however, to effect any improvement in the terrible transport conditions.

Seeking Divine Guidance

In an example of both sides of a conflict feeling that God is on their side, German Sixth Army troops are seen attending a divine service in the field before going into battle against Soviet forces — June 1941.

Fugitives from a New War

“After consolidating her gains in Poland, Russia — for strategic reasons — made certain territorial demands on Finland, and when these were refused, launched her army and air force against that small country. Bombs fell on Helsinki, the capitol, and other towns on the first day, and a stream of refugees fled across the frontier into Sweden. The pathetic picture above shows a sorrowing Finnish family taking a last look at their homeland before the train bears them into exile.”

Source: Pictorial History of the Second World War