WW2 - Eastern Europe

The Eastern front

On June 22, 1941, Hitler took his greatest gamble, unleashing Operation Barbarossa, a three million-man invasion of the Soviet Union. The invasion was spectacularly effective in its early stages. By September, the Red Army had sustained some 2.5 million casualties.

Hitler hoped to do three things by opening an Eastern Front in the war

  1. Knock Russia out of the war

  2. Gain access to Middle East oil and the farmlands of the Ukraine (Resources)

  3. Exterminate Slavs (the people of Russia)

The beginning of the end for the Third Reich

More combatants were killed on the Eastern Front than in all other theatres of World War II combined. These bitterly contested, racial battles (Adolf Hitler had vowed to exterminate the eastern Slavs) prevented Germany from mounting a more resolute defence against Allied armies in Normandy, and later, on the Reich’s western borders

To Do: The German invasion of Russia

  1. Briefly explain the German war aims for the invasion of Russia

  2. List the casualties for both sides

  3. Annotate a map to describe the German army's strategy

  4.  Use five images to describe conditions on the Eastern Front

Stalingrad - Sources

The German defeat at Stalingrad was the beginning of the end for Germany in WW2.

Note: See above for a background briefing on this topic.

Stalingrad was a large industrial city producing armaments and tractors, it was an important prize in itself for the invading German army.

Capturing the city would cut Soviet transport links with southern Russia, and Stalingrad would then serve to anchor the northern flank of the larger German drive into the oil fields of the Caucasus

Sources Analysis Answer Guide

Don’t forget: Quote often and begin your response with name of the author, not the Source number. Put the source number in brackets at the end of the quote/paraphrasing.

For example:

This is supported by Jones who states that 'History students would be more popular at parties if they used this method.' (Source 3) 

SACE Sources advice

More successful responses:

  • were well-structured

  • contained relevant evidence from sources when required.

Less successful responses

  • provided responses without reference to any evidence from the source

  • stated that sources are limited without reasoning

  • did not address the nature of sources clearly

  • did not explain how the nature and origin of the sources were a strength or limitation

  • did not include of the source in the response.

Source 1. Red Army troops storm a building 1943

Question

  1. What are two conclusions that can be drawn from Source 1 about conditions at the Battle of Stalingrad? (2)

Source 2.The Stalingrad Protocols. J. Hellbeck. 2014

The first-hand accounts also bring to life the terrifying ordeals suffered by both sides in the gruelling house-to-house street fighting which dominated much of the battle. In some cases the Red Army would find itself occupying one floor of a building while the Germans held another. "In this street fighting, hand grenades, machine guns, bayonets, knives and spades are used," recalls Lieutenant General Chuikov. "They face each other and flail at each other. The Germans can't take it."

Question 

2. Is source 2 a primary or a secondary source? Use evidence from the source to support your answer. (2)

 Source 3. Le general Hiver. Le Petit Journal 1917

Questions 

3. To what extent does the information in Source 3 support the information in Source 4? Justify your answer with evidence from each source. (4)

Source 5. The Stalingrad Protocols. J Hellbeck 2014

Major Zayonchovsky described the nature of the Germans as follows: "The robber mentality has become such second nature to them that they have to steal -- whether they can use it or not." An officer in the intelligence agency, who interrogated German prisoners, expressed surprise that attacks on civilians and thefts "have become such an integral part of the daily life of German soldiers that the prisoners of war occasionally told us about this without any compunction at all." Captain Nikolay Aksyonov reported that one could feel "how every soldier and every commander was itching to kill as many Germans as possible."

 Questions

4. Examine Sources 5. With reference to the origin and nature of the source, assess the strengths and limitations of the source for historians investigating the Eastern Front. (5) (See types of sources)

5. It was General Winter who defeated Hitler in WW2. Evaluate this statement with reference to all the sources. (6)

Source 5. Yeah...but who takes over..?’ PM Magazine. 1942

2. The Holocaust

The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews and other groups, by the Nazi regime.

 The Nazis, who came to power in Germany in January 1933, believed that Germans were "racially superior" and that the Jews, gypsies and Slavs, deemed "inferior," were an alien threat to the so-called German racial community.

Use the PowerPoint to answer the questions on a word document or in your books. There is a question for each slide starting on slide 2.

Download Holocaust questions document

Activity 3. Belair Bugle - Holocaust article

As a follow up to your article explaining the problems and possible outcomes of the Versailles Treaty outlined in your article from before the war.

You have been sent to Europe at the end of 1945 to document the emerging horror that is the Holocaust or Final Solution.

Your article should be written for an audience at the end of WW2 in 1945.

Use a minimum of three photos to illustrate your article documenting the events of the Final Solution.

For each photo include a description of the following points

  1. What is it? Or, what is happening?

  2. How do you think it relates to the Holocaust?

  3. Think about which stage each photo would be from. The beginning, middle or end.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower publicly expressed his shock and revulsion, and he urged others to see the camps firsthand lest “the stories of Nazi brutality” be forgotten or dismissed as merely “propaganda.”