1941 - 43

On June 22nd 1941, over 5.5 million troops of the Axis powers in three huge army groups invaded the USSR along an 1,800 mile front. The sudden attack, without a declaration of war, caught the Red Army by surprise. Attacked on the ground, the Red airforce was all but destroyed while enormous numbers of troops were encircled

encircled and destroyed in the bloodiest battle of WW2.

The Red Army now went on the offensive, driving the Germans back hundreds of miles from Stalingrad, only to be halted by elite Waffen SS divisions in a desperate battle around Kharkov. In the north the Red Army finally broke through to the starving citizens of Leningrad, while in front of Moscow, the threat to the capital was brought to an end.

As the Red Army recovered territory they discovered what defeat to Nazi Germany would have meant for the people of the Soviet Union. Millions had been transported to Germany to work as slaves, had died of starvation as the German army took all the available food, or had been slaughtered (in the case of the Jewish population).

In the Summer of 1943, the Germans launched operation Citadel, their final attempt to win the war on the Eastern front. 900,000 Germans equipped with the latest Tiger and Panther tanks attempted to destroy the Russian armies in the huge bulge in the front line created by the Russian offensive after Stalingrad around the city of Kursk.