How Wehrmacht and SS soldiers became famous Soviet actors Some had to go through the camps first; others managed to hide their murky past.
People’s Artist of the Estonian SSR
Kaljo Kiisk in Death under sail . Ada Neretniece/Riga Film Studio, 1976
In 1944, 19-year-old Estonian Kaljo Kiisk was mobilized into the 20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Estonian). After completing three months of training at the SS Heidelager military training base in Poland, he was sent to the Tannenberg defensive line in eastern Estonia, where that summer saw a series of bloody battles against the advancing Red Army.
Militärgeschichte: Mit Wüstenfuchs Rommel nach Afghanistan - Kultur tagesspiegel.de - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from tagesspiegel.de Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The Battle of Kursk Doomed Hitler s Eastern Conquest (And Nazi Germany)
The final tally of the losses on each side would seem to have favored the attackers the Germans lost 343 tanks while the Russians sustained staggering losses: 177,847 men, 1,600 armored vehicles and 460 aircraft. Yet the Soviets, with the assistance of American industrial might, proved able to replace all the tanks and aircraft in short order.
In 1939, and again in 1940, Adolf Hitler ignored the advice of his cautious generals and decisively ordered bold, creative plans to invade Poland and France, respectively. Hitler felt vindicated, as the German army conquered both nations in mere weeks. By the spring of 1943, however, stung by the crushing loss to the Soviet army at Stalingrad, Hitler’s indecision and loss of nerve at the Battle of Kursk doomed Germany to defeat. Germany would never again mount an offensive in the east.
World War II History: How the Soviets Failed at Operation Gallop
The combination of Soviet ambition and von Manstein’s brilliant handling of the battle culminated in a bloody defeat for the Red Army. The stage was now set for one of von Manstein’s greatest accomplishments the recapture of Kharkov which would take place in mid-March.
As Adolf Hitler’s vaunted Sixth Army lay in its death throes in the ruins of Stalingrad, German forces to the west of the city faced their own kind of hell. The inner ring of the Russians’ iron grip at Stalingrad was tasked with the total destruction of German and other Axis troops within the city, but Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin wanted more. In conjunction with the Soviet High Command (STAVKA), Stalin set forth an ambitious plan designed to liberate the Don Basin from Kursk in the north to the Sea of Azov in the south, bringing the vital agricultural and mineral-rich area once more under Russian control.