Eastern Front of WWII animated: 1941

Europe summer 1941 Germany had secured most of Central and Western Europe with only Great Britain remaining defiant on the islands the only potential threat to Germany in Europe was its formal Ally the Soviet Union in order to break the stalemate with Britain and make Germany's strategic position Indisputable Hitler decided to cripple the military capabilities of the Soviet Union and seize its natural resources Germany planned to achieve this goal by capturing most of the European part of the Soviet Union before the onset of winter 1941 the main attack would take place in the center and be directed towards Moscow with auxilliary attacks in the north and south By the middle of June 1941 the Germans had almost completed the preparations and the invasion was about to begin Meanwhile, the Soviet forces were unaware of what was coming and were ill-prepared to resist the German invasion first we'll look at the southern sector the Soviets had deployed their strongest units in the south having 1 million and 200,000 men between the prepared marches and the Black Sea They were to be confronted by the Army Group South that was afraid flee the same strength The first objective of the axis troops was securing the western ukraine On June 22nd the invasion began The Soviets immediately gathered their armed forces and met the German spearhead with a massive counter-attack in the area of tube noir and Brody But due to the lack of combat readiness of the units involved it failed and the Soviets lost most of their tanks the German advance Continued and this created a threat to pincer comment to the Soviet troops in the south and they have to be withdrawn from the exposed position after the main attack had tied down the Soviet reserves the Axis forces in Romania joined the offensive the main Spearhead now made a dash towards the east and this made Soviet command think that the main German effort was directed towards Kiev however The Germans had stuck to their original plan and turned south when the so it's realized the German intentions was already too late to withdraw their forces and the Germans encircled and destroyed many of the Soviet formations near the town of Amman the Soviets now abandoned Western Ukraine and retreated to the eastern bank of the river neva They deployed the first wave of freshly Mobilised troops to establish a strong defense on the river line and also cling to the port of Odessa at the same time Operations were being carried out in the north Where one and a half million German soldiers from army groups north and center were facing a million Soviet soldiers in the beginning of the invasion the Army Group center was to encircle Soviet forces at the Porter and then Advanced toward Smolensk and Moscow meanwhile Army Group North was to advance directly towards Leningrad threatening to trap the Soviet forces between them and the sea On June 22nd the Germans attacked the saw at Western Front was deployed forward and during the first days of the war the German forces encircled most of its formations near the towns of Bialystok and Minsk in the Baltics the Soviet Counter-attacks were defeated in the Battle of lasagna and then they attempted to pull back and establish a defensive line and Daugava River but the Germans reached the river before them and pushed onwards threatening the Soviet units in the West with encirclement at The same time Army Group centre had finished Encircling the Soviet Western Front and its infantry units began to reduce the pockets while its armored forces advanced eastwards almost unopposed The Soviets attempted to plug the gap by deploying most of their pre-war reserves to counter them But it was not enough and as the German offensive continued their armor broke through the Soviet lines and trapped these units near Smolensk by that time the first wave of Soviet mobilization was complete and the Soviets used these formations to block further German advance and attempted to free the encircled troops however the performance of these newly created units was lackluster and they were unable to liberate the pocket the Germans managed to close it up and Eliminate it the Germans had gained the upper hand in the central part of the front and now they were faced with two options They could continue the push towards Moscow immediately or secure the flanks of Army Group center first And then continue the offensive eastwards They decided to do the latter and the armored formations of Army Group center were sent to a neighboring army groups During this time battles had been raging in the north where Army Group North had failed to pull out lots Encirclements and their progress was slowed down by the Soviet counter-attacks and bad infrastructure nevertheless They were making slow but steady progress and after securing their left flank They reached the approaches to Leningrad when the help from Army Group center arrived They were able to perform the final push and cut off the land-based communications to the city Through the north Finland had entered the war against the Soviet Union and June 25th And the Finnish troops took advantage of the Soviet defeats by taking back the lands lost in the Winter War after that They established forward defensive positions between the lakes Even further north the Finnish and German troops attempted to capture the Soviet port city of borman's and caught the Murmansk Railway in order to sever the allied supply route to the Soviet Union However, their attacks became bogged down in the rough terrain short of their objectives the front became static meanwhile, the other armored units of the Army Group centre were sent to help Army Group south the Soviets had anticipated that the Germans would continue their attack towards Moscow and concentrated their troops on this direction which allowed the German armored formations to push back the weaker Soviet units on their southern flank the German advance southwards Forced the Soviets to abandon their forward positions in the Pripet marshes to shorten the line In Ukraine the Soviet troops were occupying a strong defensive position With their flanks resting on the Dnieper River in the west and south and the marshes in the north yet the Panzers from Army Group centre were bypassing the marshes from the east and Advanced into the Soviet rear the Soviets thought that the Germans bear head was overextended and could be contained however Unbeknownst to them the armored formations of the Army Group south had secretly crossed the Dnieper from the south into a German Beachhead and now broke through towards north to link up with the spearhead as the group's met most of the Soviet units in the central Ukraine became encircled 750 thousand men trapped in the pocket when the pocket had been liquidated the Soviet forces in Ukraine had been severely weakened After these operations, the flanks of Army Group center was secured But now the Germans didn't have enough time to reach the objective Set in the beginning of the campaign and they decided to go for more limited goals in order to reach them They began a full-scale attack along the whole front in the south The Soviet resistance had been crippled with the recent encirclement and this allowed the Germans to carry out another encirclement trapping part of the Soviet forces on the coast of the Black Sea Then they pushed onwards and established their control over the resource-rich areas of the eastern, Ukraine and conquered the Crimean Peninsula With Soviets abandoning Odessa, but clinging on to the port of Sevastopol At the same time the German forces were pursuing their objectives in the north Their goal was to sever the remaining supply routes to Leningrad and link up with the Finnish forces The initial advance was successful and reached its first goal by cutting the railway lines supplying the city The main German effort was in the center all this time. The Soviets had anticipated an attack on Moscow and had deployed 1,250,000 mobilized troops to the sector during the German operations on the flanks They had even somewhat managed to bush Army Group centre back to improve their defensive perimeter But by the end of September the German army had finally returned to the center and proceeded to carry out the new attack once again Near the towns of be asthma and bryant's the Soviet troops were encircled and this resulted in having the Soviet strength on the front after reducing the pockets The Germans closed their distance to Moscow then they attempted to encircle Moscow with a two-pronged attack But by that time the long advance had exhausted their offensive capabilities and the weather had become severely cold The Soviets managed to halt their advance and although they didn't have large Superiority in numbers the Soviet proficiency in winter combat allowed them to carry out a counter-attack the Germans were forced to abandon their vulnerable forward positions on the flanks and pulled back in order to shorten the front line during the retreat they had to abandon some of Their heavy equipment at the same time the German attempt to cut off Leningrad had also failed and they had to retreat to their starting positions and the supply line to Leningrad was Restored in the south. The German advance was also checked by the Soviets forcing the Germans to abandon their forward positions in Rostov The first year of the war was over the Soviets had stopped the Germans far from their initial goals but at the great cost to their own military Capabilities the Red Army had been decimated and it would take a year or more to fully rebuild and we equipped the army The Germans wanted to use this window of opportunity And were sending most of their available forces to the Eastern Front to deliver a knockout punch in the following year 1942 would be the decisive year of the war

Channel: Eastory

Views: 3,578,016

Rating: 4.8951473 out of 5

Keywords: history, second world war, ww2, eastern front, Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, 1941, Barbarossa, Operation Barbarossa, Great Patriotic war, Battle of Uman, Battle of Kiev, Siege of Leningrad, Battle of Moscow, Battle of Smolensk, Bialystok, Minsk, Military history, Documentary

Id: wu3p7dxrhl8

Length: 9min 51sec (591 seconds)

Published: Sun May 20 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Altair72]

One of the greatest mappers I have ever seen. Keep up the good work!

[u/shoot_dig_hush]

There's quite a huge logistical problem in capturing so large numbers of POWs (5.7 million Soviet POWs). These need to be housed, fed, and disease-free so as to avoid mass-deaths. How did the Germans think they would realistically do this? Or had they already decided by 1941 to just... kill the POWs?

[u/thatguyx2]

There's a movie on the Eastern Front called "Come and See".

It is more disturbing than any movie I have seen before but it doesn't show any battles. What makes you feel uneasy is the atmosphere of fear that is hard to describe, a true masterpiece. Here's an analysis of the movie but I would suggest to watch it without background knowledge. You can easily find it on Youtube.

[u/TheSirusKing]

Very interesting detailed video. Odd how despite the clear logistical aims pointed out by numerous generals, the overall plan was still to try and punch into the northern cities, instead of focusing on the southern advance.

[u/Jesuismieux412]

30 million Soviets dead—16 million were civilians. The Eastern Front aka "The Bloodlands"—where the Holocaust began. The lands pushed and pulled by Hitler and Stalin. The lands where no state existed...the lands where psychopaths waged their ideological battles.

[u/[deleted]]

[removed]

[u/SimBroen]

This had me glued to my screen. Can’t wait for the next part.

[u/Draxyr]

This was one of the coolest videos I've ever seen.

[u/pinguz]

I have a sudden urge to play Panzer General