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German Occupation Of Estonia During World War II
In the course of Operation Barbarossa, Nazi Germany invaded Estonia in July–December 1941, and occupied the country until 1944. Estonia had gained Estonian War of Independence, independence in 1918 from the then-warring German Empire, German and Russian Empires. However, in the wake of the August 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Nazi-Soviet Pact, the Soviet Union had Occupation of the Baltic states, invaded and occupied Estonia in June 1940, and the country was formally annexed into the USSR in August 1940. In the summer of 1941, the German invaders were at first seen by most Estonians as liberators from Soviet terror, since the Germans arrived only a week after the June deportation, mass deportation of tens of thousands of people from Estonia and other territories Soviet occupation of the Baltic states (1940), occupied by the USSR in 1939–1941: Territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union, eastern Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Soviet deportations from Bessarabia and Nor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and several of its European Axis allies starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. More than 3.8 million Axis troops invaded the western Soviet Union along a front, with the main goal of capturing territory up to a line between Arkhangelsk and Astrakhan, known as the A-A line. The attack became the largest and costliest military offensive in history, with around 10 million combatants taking part in the opening phase and over 8 million casualties by the end of the operation on 5 December 1941. It marked a major escalation of World War II, opened the Eastern Front—the largest and deadliest land war in history—and brought the Soviet Union into the Allied powers. The operation, code-named after the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa ("red beard"), put into action Nazi Germany's ideological goals of eradicating communism and conquering the western Soviet Union to repopulate it w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Mistreatment Of Soviet Prisoners Of War
During World War II, Soviet Union, Soviet prisoners of war (POWs) held by Nazi Germany and primarily in the custody of the German Army (Wehrmacht), German Army were starved and subjected to deadly conditions. Of nearly six million who were captured, around three million died during their imprisonment. In June 1941, Germany and Axis powers, its allies Operation Barbarossa, invaded the Soviet Union and carried out a war of extermination with complete disregard for the laws and customs of war. Among the Criminal orders (Nazi Germany), criminal orders issued before the invasion was for the Commissar Order, execution of captured Soviet commissars and disregard for Germany's legal obligations under the 1929 Geneva Convention. By the end of 1941, over 3 million Soviet soldiers had been captured, mostly in large-scale encirclement operations during the German Army's rapid advance. Two-thirds of them had died from starvation, exposure, and disease by early 1942. This is one of the high ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
22nd Rifle Corps
The 22nd Rifle Corps was a corps of the Red Army, formed thrice. It was initially formed from the Estonian Army after the Soviet occupation of that country in June 1940. The corps was destroyed during the Baltic Operation. After large-scale desertions of its troops, the corps disbanded in September 1941. Its soldiers were used in construction battalions in the Urals, where many of them died. The corps was reformed in November 1942 with the Transcaucasian Front. It fought in the Dnieper–Carpathian Offensive, Lvov–Sandomierz Offensive, Sandomierz–Silesian Offensive and the Prague Offensive during the war. The corps was disbanded in the summer of 1945. Reformed in 1949 in the Transcaucasian Military District, it was disbanded in 1956. 22nd Territorial Rifle Corps The 22nd Territorial Rifle Corps was originally formed after the Soviet occupation of the Baltic States. Originally based upon the Estonian Army, reorganised as the 180th and 182nd Rifle Divisions, part of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harju County
Harju County ( or ''Harjumaa''), is one of the fifteen counties of Estonia. It is situated in northern Estonia, on the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland, and borders Lääne-Viru County to the east, Järva County to the southeast, Rapla County to the south, and Lääne County to the southwest. The Capital (political), capital and largest city of Estonia, Tallinn, is situated in Harju County. Harju is the largest county in Estonia in terms of population, as almost half (45%) of Estonia's population lives in Harju County. History Ancient history The territory of modern Harju County consists mostly of two ancient Estonian counties: Revala, around what is now Tallinn, and Harjumaa (ancient county), Harjumaa, which was situated south of Revala and presently rests mostly in Rapla County. Lindanise, then a small trading post at the Gulf of Finland, served as the capital of Revala. It eventually grew into the mostly Germans, German-populated Hanseatic league, Hanseatic town of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People's Commissars to oppose the military forces of the new nation's adversaries during the Russian Civil War, especially the various groups collectively known as the White Army. In February 1946, the Red Army (which embodied the main component of the Soviet Armed Forces alongside the Soviet Navy) was renamed the "Soviet Army". Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union it was split between the post-Soviet states, with its bulk becoming the Russian Ground Forces, commonly considered to be the successor of the Soviet Army. The Red Army provided the largest land warfare, ground force in the Allies of World War II, Allied victory in the European theatre of World War II, and its Soviet invasion of Manchuria, invasion of Manchuria assisted the un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Siege Of Leningrad Eastern Front 1941 06 To 1941 12
A siege () . is a military blockade of a city, or fortress, with the intent of conquering by attrition, or by well-prepared assault. Siege warfare (also called siegecrafts or poliorcetics) is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict characterized by one party holding a strong, static, defensive position. Consequently, an opportunity for negotiation between combatants is common, as proximity and fluctuating advantage can encourage diplomacy. A siege occurs when an attacker encounters a city or fortress that cannot be easily taken by a quick assault, and which refuses to surrender. Sieges involve surrounding the target to block provision of supplies and reinforcement or escape of troops (a tactic known as "investment"). This is typically coupled with attempts to reduce the fortifications by means of siege engines, artillery bombardment, mining (also known as sapping), or the use of deception or treachery to bypass defenses. Failing a military outcome, sieges can often be d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guerrilla War In The Baltic States
The guerrilla war in the Baltic states was an insurgency waged by Baltic ( Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian) partisans against the Soviet Union from 1944 to 1956. Known alternatively as the "Forest Brothers", the "Brothers of the Wood" and the "Forest Friars" (, , ), these partisans fought against invading Soviet forces during their occupation of the Baltic states during and after World War II. Similar insurgent groups resisted Soviet occupations in Bulgaria, Poland, Romania and Ukraine. Soviet forces, consisting primarily of the Red Army, occupied the Baltic states in 1940, completing their occupation by 1941. After a period of German occupation during World War II, the Soviets reoccupied Lithuania from 1944 to 1945. As Soviet political repression intensified over the following years, tens of thousands of partisans from the Baltics began to use the countryside as a base for an anti-Soviet insurgency. According to some estimates, at least 50,000 partisans (10,000 in Estoni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soviet Destruction Battalion 1941
Extermination battalions or destruction battalions, colloquially istrebitels (истребители, "exterminators", "destroyers") abbreviated: istrebki (Russian), strybki (Ukrainian), stribai (Lithuanian), were paramilitary units under the control of NKVD in the western Soviet Union, which performed tasks of internal security on the Eastern Front and after it. After the Fall of the Soviet Union the battalions were deemed by the Riigikogu (Parliament of Estonia) to be a criminal entity.Okupatsioonirežiimi kuritegudest Eestis n Crimes of the Occupational Regime in Estonia |
Scorched Earth
A scorched-earth policy is a military strategy of destroying everything that allows an enemy military force to be able to fight a war, including the deprivation and destruction of water, food, humans, animals, plants and any kind of tools and infrastructure. Its use is possible by a retreating army to leave nothing of value worth taking, to weaken the attacking force or by an advancing army to fight against unconventional warfare. Scorched earth against non-combatants has been banned under the Additional Protocol II, 1977 Geneva Conventions. Origin of the term The term was found in English in a 1937 report on the Second Sino-Japanese War. The retreating Chinese forces burned crops and destroyed infrastructure, including cities, to sabotage the logistics of the advancing Japanese forces. Military theory Clausewitz wrote in ''Principles of War'': Clausewitz wrote in ''On War'': Historic examples Notable historic examples of successful scorched-earth tactics include the fai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1922 to 1952 and as the fourth Premier of the Soviet Union, premier from 1941 until his death. He initially governed as part of a Collective leadership in the Soviet Union, collective leadership, but Joseph Stalin's rise to power, consolidated power to become an absolute dictator by the 1930s. Stalin codified the party's official interpretation of Marxism as Marxism–Leninism, while the totalitarian political system he created is known as Stalinism. Born into a poor Georgian family in Gori, Georgia, Gori, Russian Empire, Stalin attended the Tiflis Theological Seminary before joining the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He raised f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Continuation War
The Continuation War, also known as the Second Soviet–Finnish War, was a conflict fought by Finland and Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union during World War II. It began with a Finnish declaration of war on 25 June 1941 and ended on 19 September 1944 with the Moscow Armistice. The Soviet Union and Finland had previously fought the Winter War from 1939 to 1940, which ended with the Soviet failure to conquer Finland and the Moscow Peace Treaty. Numerous reasons have been proposed for the Finnish decision to invade, with regaining territory lost during the Winter War regarded as the most common. Other justifications for the conflict include Finnish President Risto Ryti's vision of a Greater Finland and Commander-in-Chief Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim's desire to annex East Karelia. The following paragraph contains a bundle of cites for the Finnish participation in the siege of Leningrad, which is a commonly debated complex issue in the article (see talk).--> On 22 June 1941 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reichskommissariat Ostland
The (RKO; ) was an Administrative division, administrative entity of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories of Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1945. It served as the German Civil authority, civilian occupation regime in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and the western part of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, Byelorussian SSR during the Eastern Front (World War II), Eastern Front of World War II. ''Ostland'' was established after the success of the ''Wehrmacht''s Baltic operation and an initial period of Military occupation, military administration by Army Group North Rear Area based on the equivalent in German planning documents. It was divided into ''Generalbezirk Estland'' (Estonia), ''Generalbezirk Lettland'' (Latvia), ''Generalbezirk Litauen'' (Lithuania), and ''Generalbezirk Weißruthenien'' (Belarus) each with its own Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, Nazi collaborationist government and Schutzmannschaft, Auxiliary Police under the contro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
