Author(s): Charles Winchester

Second World War

The Eastern Front was the decisive theatre of World War 2. On a 1,200-mile front from the Arctic Circle to the Caspian Sea, in baking summer heat and winter temperatures of -40.C, millions of men and women fought the most vital battle of the war. Had the Germans won in the East, a Nazi victory in World War 2 would have been almost inevitable. In 1941 the Germans suffered their first significant defeat at the gates of Moscow. Twelve months later their army was decisively defeated at Stalingrad. In April 1945 the Red Army stormed Berlin itself and ended the war in Europe. Hitler's flawed dream of conquest in the East brought about the end of the Thousand Year Reich, and all in little over a thousand days.