In one of the most crucial campaigns during World War 2, historians try to find the most credible information presented for the Russian campaign. We try to see how a once unstoppable force with highly advanced technology and brilliant commanders could be bogged down in the miserable wasteland of Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union. The perspectives that will be discussed in this paper include Russia’s huge population size and the determination of the people not to give in to the brutal occupation from the invading Germans. Through the analysis presented by the four authors, these documents present a structured view of how the Second World War would be won in the East which was the key to the Allies winning strategy. The first book presented is Charles Messenger's book, The Second War in the West which involves a military history that discus the strategy used on both sides. The second book, War of Annihilation: Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front by Geoffrey Megargee is a social history that reflects on what the civilians are going through in Russia. This differs from Messenger's book because Megargee focuses on the occupation of Russia. The book also deals with the racism and sub species attitude that many Germans brought on not only with the Jews but also peasants and communist. Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder studies the key decisions made by the leaders of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Snyder's book details the popular opinion that Hitler and Stalin were similar in how they would run their countries and military campaigns. The final book, Soviet Women in Combat, by Anna Krylova is a female perspective that uses information about the 800,000 women who served in the Soviet military during the Second World War. This book ...
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...en the Germans seemed likely to win in Russia. These two books discuss the hatred of the Jews by the Germans and their subsequent plans to exterminate them. The final book Soviet Women in Combat deals with women who were able to become part of the outcome that sent the German forces back over the border against the odds. The women in this book achieve the same combat intensity as their male peers do. Krylova examines that Women in their positions could perform their duties that would alter the war in defense for their motherland.
Works Cited
Krylova, Anna. Soviet Women in Combat. Cambridge press 2010.
Megargee, Geoffrey. War of Annihilation. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007
Messenger, Charles. The Second War in the West. London: Cassell, 2002.
Snyder, Timothy. Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. New York City: Basic Books, 2010.
In World War II the Allied Forces had a "Europe First" campaign of invading the Atlantic countries before the Pacific. This is because Germany served as a bigger threat than Japan to the Allied Powers. In the United States, Franklin Delanor Roosevelt was the President. He kept America neutral at first, but later entered in after Pearl Harbor. George Patton was a popular U.S. Army leader who started tank warfare in America. Bernard Montgomery commanded the 8th Army which had victories in Europe including D-Day. At the near end of the war Omar Bradley toured through Germany notifying the rest of the world what had gone on there with all of the death camps during the Holocaust, which was where the murder of over 6 millioin Jewish people took place.
The events of World War II have established a new public perspective on women. Through women’s accomplishments, they justified females were capable of achieving high standards that existed once as only attainable by men. Once vulnerable to prejudices, they’ve given an opportunity for all to comprehend there can be a life when the populaces aren’t segregated by race or gender. Women have rehabilitated the faded thought of their rights and responsibilities, bringing history closer to a more righteous and responsible dawn.
INTRODUCTION Wendy Lower in Hitler’s Furies interrelates the adventures of 13 women who travelled to East Germany in search of jobs, fortune, romance, and even power. These young women (mostly secretaries, wives, teachers and nurses) saw the “wild east” as an exciting opportunity to acquire what most women in Germany dreamed about which were career advancement, marriage and valuable possessions. Hitler’s Furies attacks the claim that women in Germany were largely innocent and hardly participated in Nazi party’s devilry by using examples of seemingly “ordinary” German women who committed heinous crimes under the guise of patriotism. Their crimes were as low as being indignant bystanders to as high as been the perpetrators who were only too
With the spread of the Nazi’s “national community” or Volksgemeinschaft ideology in the 1930s, came strict definitions from the Nazi party of what it meant to be German. Opposing the independent “new women” promoted in the 1920s by the Weimar Republic, the Nazi’s idea of womanhood was centered around creating a strong nation by pushing women to be mothers and maintain the household. In this way, those mothers could raise strong soldiers that could serve and protect Nazi Germany. While in contrast, Elsa Herrmann description of a “new woman” in a 1929 book, describes a woman focused on the present and actions such as entering the workforce. Most importantly, and the main reason the Nazis rejected the image of the “new woman,” is that the “new
Following the beginning of the Second World War, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany and Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union would start what would become two of the worst genocides in world history. These totalitarian governments would “welcome” people all across Europe into a new domain. A domain in which they would learn, in the utmost tragic manner, the astonishing capabilities that mankind possesses. Nazis and Soviets gradually acquired the ability to wipe millions of people from the face of the Earth. Throughout the war they would continue to kill millions of people, from both their home country and Europe. This was an effort to rid the Earth of people seen as unfit to live in their ideal society. These atrocities often went unacknowledged and forgotten by the rest of the world, leaving little hope for those who suffered. Yet optimism was not completely dead in the hearts of the few and the strong. Reading Man is Wolf to Man: Surviving the Gulag by Janusz Bardach and Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi help one capture this vivid sense of resistance toward the brutality of the German concentration and Soviet work camps. Both Bardach and Levi provide a commendable account of their long nightmarish experience including the impact it had on their lives and the lives of others. The willingness to survive was what drove these two men to achieve their goals and prevent their oppressors from achieving theirs. Even after surviving the camps, their mission continued on in hopes of spreading their story and preventing any future occurrence of such tragic events. “To have endurance to survive what left millions dead and millions more shattered in spirit is heroic enough. To gather the strength from that experience for a life devoted to caring for oth...
Westwood, J. N., “Endurance and Endeavour: Russian history, 1812-1980”. 2nd ed. Oxford University Press, 1981.
During World War II, Germany’s military was superior to anyone else in the world, with far more advanced technology, tactics, and weaponry. They had a fearless leader who would stop at nothing to make his country great again. Their closest rival, the Soviet Union, was almost out of the picture with a death toll of over 26 million. On top of that, Germany had nothing to lose, and would not conceivably stop. So how then, with all odds against them, did the Allies win the war? A combination of factors affected Germany’s downfall, such as lack of morale, unwieldy weapons, and failure to work with its so-called allies.
Harris, Carol. "Women Under Fire in World War Two." BBC News. BBC, n.d. Web. 16 Apr. 2014.
“Stalingrad is the scene of the costliest and most stubborn battle in this war. The battle fought there to its desperate finish may turn out to be among the decisive battles in the long history of war…In the scale of its intensity, its destructiveness, and its horror, Stalingrad has no parallel. It engaged the full strength of the two biggest armies in Europe and could fit into no lesser framework than that of a life-and death conflict which encompasses the earth”
By December 1914 the First World War had reached a dilemma on the western front that neither the triple entente nor the triple alliance had expected. The war had reached a stalemate, a state where both sides are so evenly balanced that neither can breakthrough against the enemy. The advances in Technology played a big role in creating the stalemate through strong defensive weaponry such as Machine Guns and Artillery, this caused ‘trench warfare’ (BOOK 48). Trench war is when troops from both sides are protected from the enemy’s firepower through trenches. Many advances in technology also attempted to break the stalemate throughout the war with tanks, gas and aircraft, these however failed. Eventually the stalemate was broken through a combination of improved technology, new strategies and the blockading of the German ports.
Michael Cherniavsky main focus of his article was to examine how and why the Germans lose in Russia. According to Cherniavsky ” Unlike Hitler, the generals did not understand ( and still do not) that their great victories in the West were due mainly to non-military factors, that armament production, morale, and training are not militarily determined." ( Cherniavky, par.33). Within this article , Cherniavsky goes into detail about how and why the Germans lost. Some examples given by Cherniavsky were the Russian Climate, the inexhaustible manpower, the primitiveness of Russian communicators, and the Russian himself as a human being. The main point of this article was to share more information about the war and how there is much more to the defeat then shown. It was not all obvious and not all military problems that occurred, "Both Hitler and his generals, however, underestimated hopelessly the resources available to the Russians for their attack."( discussion post). Three myths that Cherniavsky claims that are present when defending the loss of the Germans is because of the climate ( they were not prepared to fight during winter, the number of causalities, and errors made by Hitler himself such as inexhaustible man power Russian
Rueschemeyer, M. (1998) Women in the politics of postcommunist Eastern Europe. New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc.
A Reversal of Fortunes? Women, work and change in East Germany. Rachel Alsop. Berghahn Books. 2000
...men are not discriminated anymore. Women are not expected to be just a plain housewife, taking care of her husband and children. They get high education and nice jobs with promising salaries. But, some women are still treated the same way they were treated in 1940’s. Paternalistic tradition still occurs in Russia along with other countries. This confirms that there are some similarities and differences for treating women in today’s society compared to the early days.
It is beyond uncertainty that the Warsaw Uprising which took place 70 years ago in 1944 is one of the most significant, heroic and tragic events in the 20th century of Polish history. During 63 days of patriotic uprising many thousands of predominantly young Poles were killed in an imbalanced battle with the German occupiers. This investigation will focus on the areal support for the Home Army (AK) during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. The essay will discuss the causes and consequences of the action taken by the authority of Great Britain, United States of America and Soviet Union as well as the Polish government in exile regarding the Warsaw Uprising.