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Getting through Ukraine doesn't figure prominently in the history of the Eastern Front. We mostly read about Stalingrad, Leningrad, Moscow and Kursk. Once again, Russia is fighting in Ukraine again and not having a lot of luck. I am wondering how Germans did considering that their supply lines were much farther than the Russians are today. Moderator cut: This isn't the Current Events forum.
Last edited by mensaguy; 04-24-2022 at 12:06 PM..
Reason: Discussing current events in Ukraine
Getting through Ukraine doesn't figure prominently in the history of the Eastern Front. We mostly read about Stalingrad, Leningrad, Moscow and Kursk. Once again, Russia is fighting in Ukraine again and not having a lot of luck. I am wondering how Germans did considering that their supply lines were much farther than the Russians are today. Moderator cut: This isn't the Current Events forum.
Ukraine was on the border of the German occupied frontier, and it's allies in Romania, at the time so the Wehrmacht just plowed through Ukraine and easily pushed the Red Army back during Barbarossa, except for the fortress at Odessa. No real supply line issue until they got past Ukraine. Ukraine was divided then as well, with the Eastern part more aligned with Russia and the western part more aligned with Germany. Both sided recruited manpower heavily from Ukraine. German's in the western part were welcomed as liberators, at least at first. The country suffered heavily in the war, from both Germany and Russian occupation.
Last edited by mensaguy; 04-24-2022 at 12:07 PM..
Reason: Quoted post edited.
Getting through Ukraine doesn't figure prominently in the history of the Eastern Front. We mostly read about Stalingrad, Leningrad, Moscow and Kursk. Once again, Russia is fighting in Ukraine again and not having a lot of luck. I am wondering how Germans did considering that their supply lines were much farther than the Russians are today. Moderator cut: This isn't the Current Events forum.
Ukraine was one of the largest battlegrounds on the Eastern Front. The First Battle of Kiev was the German name for the operation that resulted in a huge encirclement of Soviet troops in the vicinity of Kiev (Kyiv) during World War II. This encirclement is considered the largest encirclement in the history of warfare (by number of troops). The operation ran from 7 August to 26 September 1941.
The Second Battle of Kiev was a part of a much wider Soviet offensive in Ukraine known as the Battle of the Dnieper involving three strategic operations by the Soviet Red Army and one operational counterattack by the Wehrmacht, which took place between 3 November and 22 December 1943. This battle involved 730,000 Russian/Ukrainian troops with 118,000 casualties.
The first battle was a German victory and the second a Soviet victory.
Last edited by mensaguy; 04-24-2022 at 12:08 PM..
Reason: Quoted post edited.
They did well actually. They managed to overrun and occupy the sizable territory of Ukraine in about 3 months time.
The Nazi occupation is another matter, and of course a few years later after being routed farther east in Stalingrad, German forces were on the retreat.
Stalin was widely hated in the Ukraine and the Wehrmacht at the beginning were welcomed as liberators which probably aided them to a degree in advancing towards Russia proper at the beginning. However Hitler's mindset that "All Slavs were inferior people" and the treatment and abuse they were subsequently subjected to soon swung opinion the other way.
The other thing was that the Red Army in June 1941 was in poor shape. Stalin had purged the Army of many of it's professional officers in the 1930s and subsequently morale, motivation and discipline were at a low point
In 1941, the Wehrmacht had the advantage of nearly two years worth of useful experience - Poland, Denmark/Norway, France/Belgium/Netherlands/Luxembourg, as well as extensive air operations against the United Kingdom. They were well down the military learning curve at that point. Comparatively, the Soviets had only a short operation against an already prostrate Poland, getting their nose badly bloodied by Finland, and overrunning the hopelessly small and defenseless Baltic states. Also, Stalin was in deep denial that the invasion was coming. Finally, the military of the USSR was a top-down organization where no one took initiative for fear of offending a commissar, whereas the Wehrmacht taught and applied initiative in the ranks. (sound familiar?)
The problem in 1941 and afterward was that German simply bit off far more than it could chew, especially in light of the fact that Moscow had western allies who were willing and able to ply it with near-endless amounts of aid.
Getting through Ukraine doesn't figure prominently in the history of the Eastern Front. We mostly read about Stalingrad, Leningrad, Moscow and Kursk. Once again, Russia is fighting in Ukraine again and not having a lot of luck. I am wondering how Germans did considering that their supply lines were much farther than the Russians are today. Moderator cut: This isn't the Current Events forum.
General Ludendorff sometime during WWI said something like: "we created Ukraina now ww need to create Ukrainians".
This way Germany tried to partitian Red Russia and create ally state.
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