Good Example Of The Response Of The Soviet Union To Germany And The Holocaust In World War II Research Paper

On September 1, 1939, forces from Nazi Germany invaded Poland, marking the start of World War II. Before this day, however, on August 23, 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany penned a nonaggression pact, to last for ten years. The pact stated that each signatory pledged not to launch attacks on the other (Roberts 93). Contained in the pact was a secret protocol that allowed for the division of Poland and the remainder of Eastern Europe into German and Soviet domains of influence. On September 3, 1939, France and Britain, having assured to defend Poland's boundaries around five months previously, declared war on Nazi Germany. These events signified the start of conflicts of World War II.As per the pact, the Soviet army annexed and occupied eastern Poland towards the end of 1939 (Roberts 95).
On November 30, 1939, the Soviet Union launched an attack on Finland, triggering a four-month war that led to the annexation of Finish territories by the Soviet Union. The locations of many of the annexed territories were near Leningrad. Germany helped the Soviet Union to safeguard its sphere of influence in Eastern Europe in mid-1940.The Soviet Union occupied and unified the Baltic States. The Soviet-German nonaggression Pact allowed Germany to attack Polish territory on September 1, 1939, without worrying about any Soviet intervention (Roberts 95).
The main beneficiary of the Polish campaign was the Soviet Union. It suffered no casualties. The Soviet army seized Polish regions that had been taken by Russia in the 18th century but reverted to Poland control after World War I. The regions were unified to form part of the Soviet Union (Roberts 96).
On December 1941, the Soviet Union carried out a significant counterattack against the center of the German front, pushing back the Germans from Moscow. In mind-1942, Germany continued with its offensive with a major attack close to the city of Stalingrad, and near the oil fields of the Caucasus. The 1942 battle for Stalingrad saw the German domination of Europe reach its farthest geographical point (Brooks 547). In the middle of November 1942, the Red Army launched a major counter attack against the German Sixth Army that had over a quarter million soldiers. The soldiers’ task was to overcome Stalingrad in vicious hand-to-hand combat. The Red Army encircled and surrounded the German Sixth Army. After six weeks of brutal fighting that saw both sides lose many men, over 90,000 surviving German soldiers laid down their arms and surrendered from January 31 to February 2, 1943 (Brooks 547).
In mid-1944, the Red Army carried out another significant offensive that freed the remainder of Belorussia, Ukraine, eastern Poland, and most of the Baltic States from the Nazis. By August 1944, the Soviet army had traversed the German border, setting foot on East Prussia. They engaged in a new offensive in January 1945 that brought them to the Oder River, located 100 miles from Berlin. In April 1945, the Red Army began its last attack on Nazi Germany, seizing Vienna on April 13 and surrounding Berlin on April 21. On April 25, American troops met Soviet troops at Torgau, located on the Elbe River in central Germany, effectively dividing the country into two regions. After over a week of fierce fighting on the streets of Berlin, the Red Army units approached Hitler's bunker. Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945. On May 2, 1945, Berlin surrendered to the Red Army. The German armed forces surrendered unreservedly in the east on May 9, 1945, and in the west on May.
After the defeat of Nazi Germany, Stalin did not withdraw his troops from the regions they had crossed into when they fought the Germans. Stalin’s intention was to control the Baltic States.

Works Cited

Brooks, Jeffrey. "The Battle of Stalingrad." The Russian Review 52.4 (1993): 547.
Koch, H. W. "Hitler's ‘Programme’ and the Genesis of Operation ‘Barbarossa’." The Historical Journal 26.4 (1983): 891-920.
Roberts, Geoffrey. "Stalin, the Pact with Nazi Germany, and the Origins of Postwar Soviet Diplomatic Historiography." Journal of Cold War Studies 4.4 (2002): 93-103.