On the morning of June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany attacked the USSR. On her side were Italy, Romania, Austria-Hungary, Finland. The Germans sent troops to the Eastern Front numbering over 5,500,000 people, about 5,000 aircraft, about 4,000 tanks and 47,000 guns.
Back in 1940, the Nazis developed the "Barbarossa" plan, according to which the Nazi troops were to seize the territory of the USSR from Arkhangelsk to Astrakhan in a short period of about two months. The Great Patriotic War began. But the Nazi blitzkrieg was drowned out, meeting the desperate resistance of the Soviet troops. The first period of the Second World War began.
The first period of the Second World War
This stage was the most difficult for the USSR, it began on June 22, 1941 and ended on November 18, 1942. The Nazi troops were many times superior to the Soviet ones, both in the number of weapons and in manpower. Thanks to this, as well as the surprise of the attack, the Germans achieved success. The Soviet army retreated, losing new territories every day, leaving the dead on the battlefield. By the time the fascists reached Leningrad, Rostov-on-Don, almost approached Moscow, the Soviet army had already lost almost 5,000,000 of its soldiers. Some of them were killed, others were missing. Most of the weapons, aircraft and tanks were lost.
The main goal of Germany was the capture of Moscow, but the defense of the capital began on September 20, 1941 and lasted until April 20, 1942. In 1941, on December 5 and 6, Soviet troops launched an offensive and thwarted the Nazi plans. They were thrown at a distance of 100 to 250 km from the capital. The Blitzkrieg was a complete failure.
Second period of the Second World War
From November 19, 1942 until the end of 1943, the second period of the war lasted. The enemy was exhausted and drained of blood, defending himself against the Soviet troops. And on November 19, the Soviet army launched a counteroffensive. The Wehrmacht troops were surrounded at Stalingrad. Over 300,000 people from 22 divisions were eliminated, General Paulus was taken prisoner. In the same period, the troops of the fascists were driven out of the Caucasus, where they strove to establish control over oil production in the Caspian Sea. Already in the summer of 1943, the front stabilized.
A radical change took place in the rear, since the military industry provided the front with more tanks, aircraft and guns than Germany during the same period. Italy withdrew from the "Axis countries", the fascist bloc began to fall apart.
The third period of the Second World War
This period began at the end of 1943 and ended with the complete surrender of Nazi Germany on May 8, 1945. The year 1944 was marked by the fact that the country's economy reached its maximum recovery for the entire war period. The evacuated factories were installed in new places and began to provide products to the front. In many types of weapons, the USSR surpassed Germany from 1, 3 to 1, 5 times.
The Nazi troops were thrown back outside the USSR, from which the Soviet army began to liberate Europe. Romania and Finland withdrew from the war. Bulgaria joined the anti-Hitler coalition. On April 25, 1945, the famous meeting took place on the Elbe, when the Anglo-American and Soviet troops united. On April 30, the Red Banner was hoisted over the Reichstag; on May 8, Germany signed an act of surrender.
And on June 24, 1945, Moscow's Red Square hosted the Victory Parade.
