Hitler's war against the USSR

The Germans used the Blitzkrieg tactics against the Soviets and their effects were devastating. Germany gained control of the Ukraine and reached Crimea and Moscow. At this stage, Stalin considered surrendering. Yet, the Germans were stopped by the winter so the Red Army took advantage of this time to reorganise and survive.

This reorganisation was based on German's ideas which had been copied and improved. The Red Army gave the officers more freedom and independence and used harsh discipline known as 'not a step back’. They had new effective weapons (e.g. T-34 tanks) and adopted radio communications. Furthermore, they created specialist units to listen and disrupt German radio signals.

Apart from this reorganisation, the Soviets were spending all raw materials and resources on arms production and they had dismantled major industries complexes and then moved them to the East where they would be safe. Despite the Soviet leaders' will to succeed, we cannot ignore that the Russians lived in awful conditions during the war.


Why did the Soviets finally win?

Regarding weapons, the Soviet victory was a combination of Germany's weaknesses and the Allies' contribution.

Hitler used to interfere with the generals' ways of conducting the war and was still overconfident; soldiers did not have the right equipment for the winter and not only were the Germans efficient in supplying their troops but they used more raw materials and produced fewer weapons.
The Allies' contributed by supplying food, raw materials and equipment but mostly helped by bombing Germany. In this way, they were capable of partly interrupting Germany's arms production.

As regards the battlefields, there were two decisive turning points:

1-The Battle of Stalingrad.

In the suburbs of Stalingrad, this battle was carried our hand-to-hand. Although the Germans held on, part of the army was finally encircled after a counter-attack of the Soviets. At that time there were two different opinions: Paulus wanted to retreat and link up with reinforcements while Hitler wanted to fight on.

In the end, Paulus surrendered after the Soviet air power had cut off German supplies, the Soviet artillery had pounded German positions and the Katyusha Rocket Launcher had been used to rain down explosives over the Germans.

2-The Battle of Kursk.

The Germans launched a huge counter-attack against the Red Army but the latter already knew that this was going to happen so they had been preparing for it. Consequently, the Red Army was better equipped and had the possibility of replacing tanks and aircrafts lost in battles while Germans did not because of the allied bombing.

This battle was a turning point due to the fact that Germany started to retreat and the siege of Leningrad, which had started in 1941, was lifted. The Red Army could reach Poland and finally Berlin. Hitler committed suicide minutes before he was reached by the Soviet troops.