C21: The Great Patriotic War and its impact on the Soviet Union, 1941-1945

Barbarossa, Leningrad, Kiev, peace, Moscow, 1942, Caucasus, Rostov

Stage 1, June 1941 – summer 1942:

June 1941: Operation ________; German Invasion of USSR

Sept 1941: Siege of _________; fall of _____ and loss of Ukraine

Oct “1941: Stalin offers negotiations for compromise ______, but ignored by Hitler

Dec 1941: Battle of _________; German advance halted

June ____: Renewed German offensive, south towards _________ oil fields

July 1942: Fall of ______ on the Don

665k, 500k, October, Japan, Molotov and Beria, negotiations, Caucasus, Stalingrad, 9/10, October

Stage 1, June 1941 – summer 1942: Details of Key events

• ____ soviet troops captured near Kiev and ____ surrendered after fall of Kiev.

• By _______ 1941, huge territories had been lost and German forces advanced towards Moscow and Stalin believed _____ was likely to invade from the east — thus he authorised _______ and _____ to begin ________ which was kept open until early 1942

• Advance towards _________ sidetracked by Hitler who chose to focus on capturing _______ — a symbolic battle that saw many losses(In later summer of 1942 it seem certain the city would be taken by Germany with ____ in their hands, but by ______ 1942 they were on the defensive)

Rostov, evacuate, they will fight harder for a live city than for a dead one, October, German sixth Army

Stage 1, June 1941 – summer 1942: Significance

• Fall of _______ was one of lowest points for USSR

• Stalin put in immense efforts to keep Stalingrad, refusing to _______ the civilian population — “____ ____ ___ _____ __ _ ___ ____ __ _ __ ____”

• Stalingrad became a symbolic battle — in Aug and Sept of 1942, Soviet forces desperately defended the city but by ______ the balance change and the ________ _____ ____ was cut off and encircled

late, 1943, Prokhorovka, Kurks

Stage 2, Summer 1942 – summer 1943:

____ 1942: Balance changed and German forces began retreating

Feb ____: Surrender of German army at Stalingrad; Rostov liberated by Red Army

July 1943: Battle of _________; Battle of ____; start of long German retreat

1943, Citadel, Prokhorovka

Stage 2, Summer 1942 – summer 1943: Details of Key events

Hitler made a mistake by persisting with Stalingrad, proving to be a catastrophic German defeat and leading to the long war he hoped to avoid. In early ____, he was running out of men, resources, and time. He launched Operation ______, a great offensive near Kursk in July, which was halted by the Battle of ________, the biggest tank battle in history, decisively won by the Soviet’s massed force of T-34 tanks. 

losses, change, Prokhorovka

Stage 2, Summer 1942 – summer 1943: Significance

Hitler’s stubbornness to persist with Stalingrad led to great _____ for the Germans and this phase of the war saw the tides ______. The Soviets started pushing the Germans back and the Battle of ________ proved to be a massive springboard for a Soviet counter-attack.

1943, summit conference, 1944, Leningrad, 1945, Battle for Berlin

Stage 3, Summer 1943 – summer 1945:

Nov ____: first ______ _______ of the ‘Big Three’ in Tehran

Jan ____: End of ________ siege

May _____: Soviet victory in the ________ ___ _______

1944, Berlin, 1945, 1943, Stalin, Roosevelt, Churchill

Stage 3, Summer 1943 – summer 1945: Details of Key events

Though Soviet forces were able to push the Germans back, the road to Berlin was not easy — when Stalin and Churchill met in Moscow in Oct ____, victory was still far off. The reds would reach _____ by April 1945.

In Nov ____, ______, ________ and ______ met at Tehran for the first time to discuss what to do with the inevitable Allied victory.

Kursk, rebounding, 1943-44, Ukraine, Leningrad, Poland, Lithuania, Romania, Hungary

Stage 3, Summer 1943 – summer 1945: Significance

After ____, final Soviet victory was all but certain. The war was no longer about the desperate defence of the USSR, but ________ into a great Soviet offensive that would drive the Germans all the way back to Berlin. Between Aug ____ to Dec ____, there was a chain of Soviet victories stretching across Eastern Europe: reconquering ______, lifting the siege of ________, invading _______, _________, _________ and ________

June, 2, patriotism, religion, nationalities, friendship, hatred

• After invasion in ____ “41, it took Stalin __ weeks to make a radio speech to the nation in 3 July

  • Used a startling tone from the terror of the 1930s — appeal to _______ and ______, and to unity among the ________

  • Replaced ‘_______’ with Germany with ideological _____ and made a new brind with W. Churchill

This new tone, of a Great Patriotic War, was to be a lasting feature of Soviet war propaganda

leadership, inferior, retreat, 1941, Stavka, Richard Sorge

• Stalin guilty of mistakes early in the war:

  • Panic attack after invasion, failing to give ______; he prepared to move the gov. from Moscow to Samara but changed his mind at the last minute

  • Relied heavily on ______ commanders promoted after the military purges 

  • Denial for _____ led to massive defeat in Kiev in Sept ____ and lacked urgency to defence Leningrad after benign besieged

• But Stalin learned from his mistakes, turning his ‘war cabinet’, _____, into an effective mechanism for war

• helped by advance info on Japan’s intentions, provided by a ‘master spy’, ______ ____. Thus was saved from two-front war

scorched earth tactics, 12m civilian deaths by 1945, crack down on poor morale, deportations of nationalities, harsh treatment of POWs and German collaborators, propaganda

Social impact of GPW

scorched earth,

devastation reigned as the Soviets deployed their “______ _____” tactics in retreat, and as areas were lost and retaken

• Kharkiv, Ukraine: first overrun in Oct “41, briefly recaptured in Feb “42, and lost again in March “42 but finally liberated in “43

• 70k villages and 1.7k Soviet towns and cities devastated

600k

1941-4: _____ died of hunger and cold in Leningrad

commissars and secret police cracked down on ‘slackers’, ‘deserters’, and ‘defeatists’

How did the regime crack down on poor morale?

liberating, alienated, 34k

Nazi leaders spoke for ‘_______’ the subject nationalities of the USSR from communism such as in parts of Ukraine or the Baltics, but this didn’t 

• Local populations _________ by repressive and atrocious actions of the german occupiers

• Thousands of Soviet POWs never came home and thousands of soviet workers were conscripted to work in German factories

• ___ jews executed in Babi Yar near Kiev

Chechens and Crimean Tatars, 1944, 240k, Central Asia

Regime deported ethnic minorities it suspected of German collaboration, e.g. ________ and _______ _______ expelled to Central Asia in ____

• CTs considered themselves a nation since the 1500s and many had died in the CW, under collectivisation, and the Great Famine of the 1930s. Yet, Stalin was suspicious of their separate national identity — ____ were deported to ____ ____ in “44 by Beria

National myth of a united Soviet people pulling together through shared sacrifices, following the Great Leader, massive propaganda campaign forged deep patriotism that united people

What kind of propaganda did the Soviet war effort include?

T-34 Tank

• The Red Army became equipped with this following the mobilisation of the Russian economy by 1943 which saw a surge in military production

• Its practicality and lack of sophistication laid the foundation of Soviet victory in the great tank battle at Kursk in 1943

20k, Urals, 3k, steel, 3k, electrical, 25k, week, Ukraine, 80k, 500, command, matched, 1942

Mobilisation and evacuation of industry:

– The war could have been lost after the loss of most of Russia’s productive capacity and industry built up in the 1930s in 1941-2

– Solution: ___ trains relocated whole factories to the east in the _____ far from German reach — a vital success

• __ wagons per day took ______ factory equipment from Dnieper area; ___ per day the ______ industry; ___ in one _____ shifted factories from _____; ___ moved ___ factories from Moscow

– the _________ economy proved to be inefficient in the 1930s, but _______ the needs of total war

– _____: SU began to build huge industrial base for war production

Andrei Tupolev

(d.1972): a talented engineer who had a prominent role in the design and development of Soviet military aircraft. He laid the foundations of a Soviet aircraft industry in the 1920s and 30s.

500m, lend-lease, 300k, Studebaker Us6 models, rail,

– Immense foreign aid: US sent $_____ worth of ____-_____ supplies to the USSR in 1943 via the Arctic convoys and Persian Corridor

• One vital aspect was the ___ American trucks(________ __ ____), as the Soviet ___ network was hit badly early in the war and heavy duty truck were essential for transportation