War on the Eastern front--from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea--was the widest and deadliest theater in World War II. Germany's goal was to take Leningrad in the North, Moscow in the heart or middle of the front, and Ukraine and Caucasus in the south at the Black Sea. This was Hitler's initial folly, a two-front war, followed by supply lines that could not reach his advancing armies.

In the south was Ukraine and the Caucasus, rich in resources needed by Hitler for Germany. As with the Operation Barbarossa attacks in the North and Central fronts, Ukraine and Red Army "Ivans" were not ready for the initial onslaught from Germany. Historian Alexander Werth, in Russia at War, 1941–1945: A History, notes:

"The greater part of the Russian air force was wiped out in the first few days; the Russians lost thousands of tanks; hundreds of thousands, perhaps as many as a million Russian soldiers were taken prisoner in a series of spectacular encirclements during the first fortnight, and by the second week of July [1941] some German generals thought the war as good as won." ¹

Sean McMeekin, in Stalin's War: A New History of World War II, adds that "In less than four weeks, the Germans, had conquered 450,000 square kilometers of European Russia--more than twice the area they had conquered in Poland, and three times more land than they had taken in France and the Low Countries in May 1940."²

But the Soviet Union did ultimately rally against Germany, beginning with the victory at Stalingrad, viewed by many historians as a major turning point in the War. Estimates range from 80-93% of all German losses in World War II occurred on Eastern Front. 

(Photo at right: The city of Kiev, or Kyiv as it is known today, destroyed during War on the Eastern Front.)

^{1. Alexander Werth, Russia at War, 1941–1945: A History (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017), 131.}

^{2. Sean McMeekin, Stalin's War: A New History of World War II (New York: Basic Books, 2021), 302.}

Scott Lyons, 2022.