Irgendwann im Herbst 1942 rücken sowjetische Soldaten durch die Trümmer Stalingrads vor.
Die Kämpfe an der Ostfront stellten die größte militärische Auseinandersetzung der Geschichte dar. Sie waren geprägt von beispielloser Grausamkeit, totaler Zerstörung, Massendeportationen und enormen Verlusten an Menschenleben durch Kampfhandlungen, Hunger, Kälte, Krankheiten und Massaker.
Die Ostfront war Schauplatz nahezu aller Vernichtungslager, Todesmärsche, Ghettos und der meisten Pogrome und spielte daher eine zentrale Rolle im Holocaust.
Im Laufe von vier Jahren stießen in einer Reihe von Operationen entlang einer über 1.600 Kilometer langen Front mehr als 400 Divisionen der Roten Armee und der Deutschen zusammen.
In diesen Jahren der Brutalität verloren an der Ostfront etwa 27 Millionen sowjetische Soldaten und Zivilisten und fast vier Millionen deutsche Soldaten ihr Leben.
Der Kommandant einer Kosakeneinheit im aktiven Dienst in der Region Charkow, Ukraine, beobachtet am 21. Juni 1942 den Vormarsch seiner Truppen.
Um die Sache noch komplizierter zu machen, waren die Kräfte innerhalb der Sowjetunion oft untereinander zerstritten. Zu Beginn des Krieges hatten einige Gruppen die Deutschen sogar willkommen geheißen und gegen die Rote Armee gekämpft, in der Hoffnung, dass Hitlers Truppen sie von Stalin befreien würden.
Später, als die Kämpfe immer verzweifelter wurden, erließ Stalin den Befehl Nr. 227 „Kein Schritt zurück!“, der den sowjetischen Streitkräften den Rückzug ohne direkten Befehl verbot.
Kommandeure, die einen Rückzug versuchten, sahen sich vor Gericht gestellt, und Fußsoldaten sahen sich mit „Sperrkommandos“ ihrer eigenen Kameraden konfrontiert, die bereit waren, jeden Fliehenden niederzuschießen.
Die Ostfront war ausschlaggebend für den Ausgang des europäischen Teils des Zweiten Weltkriegs und diente letztendlich als Hauptursache für die Niederlage Nazideutschlands.
Die Besatzung eines deutschen Panzerabwehrgeschützes, einsatzbereit an der russischen Front Ende 1942.
Dieses Foto, aufgenommen in den Wintermonaten 1942, zeigt Leningrader Bürger, die während der fast 900-tägigen Belagerung der russischen Stadt durch deutsche Invasoren aus einer kaputten Hauptleitung nach Wasser schöpfen. Da es den Deutschen nicht gelang, Leningrad (heute Sankt Petersburg) einzunehmen, schnitten sie es von der Außenwelt ab, unterbrachen die Versorgung und beschossen die Stadt mehr als zwei Jahre lang schwer.
Ein Abschied in Leningrad im Frühjahr 1942. Die deutsche Belagerung Leningrads führte zu weitverbreitetem Hunger unter der Bevölkerung, und der Mangel an medizinischer Versorgung und Einrichtungen machte Krankheiten und Verletzungen weitaus tödlicher. Während der Belagerung starben in Leningrad etwa 1,5 Millionen Soldaten und Zivilisten – fast die gleiche Zahl wurde evakuiert, und viele von ihnen überlebten die Reise aufgrund von Hunger, Krankheit oder Bombenangriffen nicht.
Beweise für die erbitterten Straßenkämpfe, die während der Besetzung Rostows in Russland durch deutsche Streitkräfte im August 1942 stattfanden.
Eine deutsche motorisierte Artilleriekolonne überquert am 31. Juli 1942 den Don über eine Pontonbrücke. Während der Überquerung liegen zerstörte Ausrüstungsgegenstände und allerlei Kriegsmaterial verstreut herum.
Eine Russin beobachtet irgendwann im Jahr 1942 ein brennendes Gebäude.
An execution of Jews in Kiev, carried out by German soldiers near Ivangorod, Ukraine, sometime in 1942. This photo was mailed from the Eastern Front to Germany and intercepted at a Warsaw post office by a member of the Polish resistance collecting documentation on Nazi war crimes. The original print was owned by Tadeusz Mazur and Jerzy Tomaszewski and now resides in Historical Archives in Warsaw. The original German inscription on the back of the photograph reads, “Ukraine 1942, Jewish Action [operation], Ivangorod”. More info about this picture
A German soldier with a machine gun during the Battle of Stalingrad, 1942.
German soldiers crossing a Russian River on their tank on August 3, 1942.
This picture, received by the Associated Press on September 25, 1942 through a neutral source, shows a bomb falling after it has just left the plane on its descent to Stalingrad below.
Three Russian war orphans stand amid the remains of what was once their home, in late 1942. After German forces destroyed the family’s house, they took the parents as prisoners, leaving the children abandoned.
A German armored car amidst the debris of the Soviet fortress Sevastopol in Ukraine on August 4, 1942.
Stalingrad in October of 1942, Soviet soldiers fighting in the ruins of the factory “Red October”.
Antitank gun crews of the Red Army prepare to fire against approaching German tank units, on an unknown battlefield, on October 13, 1942, during the German invasion of the Soviet Union.
In October of 1942, a German Junkers Ju 87 “Stuka” dive bomber attacks during the Battle of Stalingrad.
A German tank rolls up to its defeated enemy tank which burns near the edge of a patch of woods, somewhere in Russia, on October 20, 1942.
German soldiers advance outside Stalingrad late in 1942.
Sometime in the Autumn 1942, a German soldier hangs a Nazi flag from a building in downtown Stalingrad.
While Russian forces drive around behind them, threatening encirclement, the Germans continue their attempt to take Stalingrad. A Stuka raid on the factory district of Stalingrad is seen in this photo, taken on November 24, 1942.
A scene of devastation as an abandoned horse stands among the ruins of Stalingrad in December of 1942.
A tank cemetery which the Germans are stated to have established at Rzhev on December 21, 1942. Some 2,000 tanks were said to be in this cemetery in various stages of disrepair.
German troops pass through a wrecked generating station in the factory district of Stalingrad, on December 28, 1942.
Ruins of part of the city of Stalingrad, on November 5, 1942, following huge battles, with wrecked shells of buildings on either side.
Standing in the backyard of an abandoned house in the outskirts of the besieged city of Leningrad, a rifleman of the Red Army aims and fires his machine gun at German positions on December 16, 1942.
In January of 1943, a Soviet T-34 tank roars through the Square of Fallen Fighters in Stalingrad.
Soviet soldiers in camouflage winter uniforms line up along the roof of a house in Stalingrad, in January of 1943.
Soviet soldiers find cover in piles of rubble from blasted buildings while engaging German forces in street fighting on the outskirts of Stalingrad in early 1943.
German troops involved in street fighting in the destroyed streets of Stalingrad in early 1943.
Red Army soldiers in camouflage gear on a snow-covered battlefield, somewhere along the German-Russian war front, as they advance against German positions on March 3, 1943.
Soviet infantrymen move across snow-covered hills around Stalingrad, on their advance to lift the German siege of the city in early 1943. The Red Army eventually encircled the German Sixth Army, trapping nearly 300,000 German and Romanian soldiers in a narrow pocket.
In February of 1943, a Soviet soldier stands guard behind a captured German soldier. Months after being encircled by the Soviets in Stalingrad, the remnants of the German Sixth Army surrendered, after fierce fighting and starvation had already claimed the lives of some 200,000.
Germany’s Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus at Red Army Headquarters for interrogation at Stalingrad, Russia, on March 1, 1943. Paulus was the first German Field Marshal taken prisoner in the war, defying Hitler’s expectations that he fight until death (or take his own life in defeat). Paulus eventually became a vocal critic of the Nazi regime while in Soviet captivity, and later acted as a witness for the prosecution at the Nuremberg trials.
Red Army soldiers in a trench as a Russian T-34 tank passes over them in 1943, during the Battle of Kursk.
Soviet soldiers, on their backs, launch a volley of bullets at enemy aircraft in June of 1943.
In mid-July of 1943, “Tiger” tanks of the German Army during the heavy fighting south of Orel, during the Battle of Kursk. From July until August of 1943, the region around Kursk would see the largest series of armored battles in history, as Germans brought some 3,000 of their tanks to engage more than 5,000 Soviet tanks.
Huge numbers of German tanks concentrate for a new attack on Soviet fortifications on July 28, 1943, during the Battle of Kursk. After taking months to prepare for the offensive, German forces fell far short of their objectives – the Soviets, having been aware of their plans, had built massive defenses. After the German defeat at Kursk, the Red Army would effectively have the upper hand for the rest of the war.
German soldiers march before a “Tiger” tank during the Battle of Kursk in June or July of 1943.
A Russian anti-tank gun crew advances towards the German positions under cover of a smoke screen, somewhere in Russia, on July 23, 1943.
Captured German tanks southwest of Stalingrad, shown on April 14, 1943.
A Soviet lieutenant hands cigarettes to German prisoners somewhere near Kursk, in July of 1943.
Die Ruinen Stalingrads, fast vollständig zerstört nach etwa sechs Monaten brutaler Kriegsführung, gesehen aus einem Flugzeug nach dem Ende der Feindseligkeiten, Ende 1943.
