1945 ~ 2010 ~ 65 years
of multicultural world peace and freedom...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We owe our freedom to the Allies of the
Second World War (WWII) the Soviet Union
sacrificed most heavily with the loss of
over 20 million civilian and military lives...
...follow the course of the Soviet liberators...
...1941 to 1945 fighting back the Wehrmacht...
...and liberating Europe from the Nazi menace.
Moscow ~ Stailingrad ~ Smolensk ~ Warsaw ~ Auschwitz ~ Berlin

A 7 November 1941 parade by the Soviet troops
on the Red Square depicted on this 1949 painting by
Konstantin Yuon vividly demonstrates the
symbolic significance of the event.

The Soviet winter counter-offensive,
5 December 1941 to 7 May 1942

Soviet soldier waving the Red Banner over
the central plaza of Stalingrad in 1943.

A detail of the Smolensk liberation offensive,
showing the concave shape of the Soviet front line.
The Smolensk operation was a decisive Soviet victory
and a stinging defeat for the Wehrmacht.

After the Smolensk offensive, the central part of the Soviet-German
front stabilized again for many months until late June 1944,
while the major fighting shifted to the south for the Dnieper line
and the territory of Ukraine. Only during January 1944 would the
front move again in the north, when German forces were driven back
from Leningrad, completely lifting the siege which had lasted for 900 days.
Finally, Operation Bagration in summer 1944 allowed the Red Army to
clear almost all the remaining territory of the USSR of Wehrmacht troops,
ending German occupation and shifting the war into Poland and Germany.

Deployments during Operation Bagration.
The encirclements of Fourth Army east of Minsk and
Ninth Army near Bobruisk are clearly shown, as is the encirclement
of the LIII Corps of Third Panzer Army in Vitebsk.

On January 27, 1945, the Soviet army entered Auschwitz and liberated
more than 7,000 remaining prisoners, who were mostly ill and dying.
It is estimated that at minimum 1.3 million people were deported to
Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945; of these,
at least 1.1 million were murdered.