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Dietrich Von Saucken
Friedrich Wilhelm Eduard Kasimir Dietrich von Saucken (16 May 1892 – 27 September 1980) was a German general during World War II who commanded the 2nd Army and the Army East Prussia. Turning down an offer to escape by air, he surrendered to the Red Army in May 1945. Saucken was the last officer to be awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds of Nazi Germany. Early life and career Saucken was born on 16 May 1892 in Fischhausen, East Prussia. He was the son of ''Landrat (''the chief administrative officer of a '' Landkreis)'' Wilhelm Eduard Hans George Erich von Saucken. As a child, Saucken attended the Collegium Fridericianum, a prestigious gymnasium in Königsberg, present-day Kaliningrad, where he graduated with his ''Abitur'' ( university-preparatory high school diploma) in 1910. As a student, Saucken showed aptitude as an artist, a talent supported by his mother and the director of the Fridericianum, Georg Ellendt. He often vi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fischhausen
Primorsk (; ; ; ) is a town in Baltiysky District of Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia, located on the Vistula Lagoon. Its population is compared to . Geography The town is located in the southwest of the Sambia Peninsula. It is situated by a bay on the northern shore of the Vistula Lagoon, about west of the administrative centre Kaliningrad. History The site has been associated with the name of St. Adalbert of Prague, who was sent with soldiers of Bolesław I the Brave of the newly established Poland to Christianize Prussia. St. Adalbert was beheaded nearby in 997 by the pagan Sambians after he destroyed their sacred oak grove. Several further attempts of conquest by Poles followed, but were successfully repelled. In 1254 Sambia was conquered by forces of the Teutonic Order, led by King Ottokar II of Bohemia, during the Prussian Crusade. Upon the division of the conquered lands, the Bishop of Sambia had a castle erected at the site named ''Schonewik'' (derived from Old Pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2nd Army (Wehrmacht)
The 2nd Army () was a field army of the German Army during World War II. History 1939–1941 The 2nd Army headquarters was briefly established in Berlin from Group Command 1 on 26 August 1939 and at the beginning of the Invasion of Poland it was renamed Army Group North on 2 September. The 2nd Army was reestablished on 20 October 1939, with '' Generaloberst'' Maximilian von Weichs in command, by renaming the 8th Army, which had been moved from Poland to the west. After the beginning of the Battle of France the army was assigned to Army Group A in June 1940, when it fought across the Aisne and around Reims. In April 1941, the army was involved in the invasion of the Balkans, capturing Belgrade in a rapid offensive. 1941–1945 From 1941 until the end of the war the army was deployed in the Eastern Front, starting with the Operation Barbarossa as part of Army Group Centre. It advanced from Białystok to Mogilev, Gomel, Chernigov, Bryansk successively and defended ag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Bagration
Operation Bagration () was the codename for the 1944 Soviet Byelorussian strategic offensive operation (), a military campaign fought between 22 June and 19 August 1944 in Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Byelorussia in the Eastern Front (World War II), Eastern Front of World War II, just over two weeks after the start of Operation Overlord in the west. It was during this operation that Nazi Germany was forced to fight simultaneously on two major fronts for the first time since the war began. The Soviet Union destroyed 28 of the divisions of Army Group Centre and completely shattered the German front line. The overall engagement is the largest defeat in German military history, with around 450,000 German casualties, while setting the stage for the subsequent isolation of 300,000 German soldiers in the Courland Pocket. On 22 June 1944, the Red Army attacked Army Group Centre in Byelorussia, with the objective of encircling and destroying its main component armies. By ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Kursk
The Battle of Kursk, also called the Battle of the Kursk Salient, was a major World War II Eastern Front battle between the forces of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union near Kursk in southwestern Russia during the summer of 1943, resulting in a Soviet victory. The Battle of Kursk is the single largest battle in the history of warfare. It ranks only behind the Battle of Stalingrad several months earlier as the most often-cited turning point in the European theatre of the war. It was one of the costliest battles of the Second World War, the single deadliest armoured battle in history, and the opening day of the battle, 5 July, was the single costliest day in the history of aerial warfare in terms of aircraft shot down. The battle was further marked by fierce house-to-house fighting and hand-to-hand combat. The battle began with the launch of the German offensive Operation Citadel (), on 5 July, which had the objective of pinching off the Kursk salient with attacks on the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle For Moscow
The Battle of Moscow was a military campaign that consisted of two periods of strategically significant fighting on a sector of the Eastern Front during World War II, between October 1941 and January 1942. The Soviet defensive effort frustrated Hitler's attack on Moscow, the capital and largest city of the Soviet Union. Moscow was one of the primary military and political objectives for Axis forces in their invasion of the Soviet Union. The German Strategic Offensive, named Operation Typhoon, called for two pincer offensives, one to the north of Moscow against the Kalinin Front by the 3rd and 4th Panzer Armies, simultaneously severing the Moscow–Leningrad railway, and another to the south of Moscow Oblast against the Western Front south of Tula, by the 2nd Panzer Army, while the 4th Army advanced directly towards Moscow from the west. Initially, the Soviet forces conducted a strategic defence of Moscow Oblast by constructing three defensive belts, deploying newly raised ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and several of its European Axis allies starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. More than 3.8 million Axis troops invaded the western Soviet Union along a front, with the main goal of capturing territory up to a line between Arkhangelsk and Astrakhan, known as the A-A line. The attack became the largest and costliest military offensive in history, with around 10 million combatants taking part in the opening phase and over 8 million casualties by the end of the operation on 5 December 1941. It marked a major escalation of World War II, opened the Eastern Front—the largest and deadliest land war in history—and brought the Soviet Union into the Allied powers. The operation, code-named after the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa ("red beard"), put into action Nazi Germany's ideological goals of eradicating communism and conquering the western Soviet Union to repopulate it w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front, also known as the Great Patriotic War (term), Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union and its successor states, and the German–Soviet War in modern Germany and Ukraine, was a Theater (warfare), theatre of World War II fought between the European Axis powers and Allies of World War II, Allies, including the Soviet Union (USSR) and Polish Armed Forces in the East, Poland. It encompassed Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Northern Europe, Northeast Europe (Baltic states, Baltics), and Southeast Europe (Balkans), and lasted from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945. Of the estimated World War II casualties, 70–85 million deaths attributed to World War II, around 30 million occurred on the Eastern Front, including 9 million children. The Eastern Front was decisive in determining the outcome in the European theatre of World War II, European theatre of operations in World War II, eventually serving as the main reason for the defeat of Nazi Germany and the Axis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of France
The Battle of France (; 10 May – 25 June 1940), also known as the Western Campaign (), the French Campaign (, ) and the Fall of France, during the Second World War was the Nazi Germany, German invasion of the Low Countries (Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) and French Third Republic, France. The plan for the invasion of the Low Countries and France was called (Case Yellow or the Manstein plan). (Case Red) was planned to finish off the French and British after the Dunkirk evacuation, evacuation at Dunkirk. The Low Countries and France were defeated and occupied by Axis troops down to the Demarcation line (France), Demarcation line. On 3 September 1939, French declaration of war on Germany (1939), France and United Kingdom declaration of war on Germany (1939), Britain declared war on Nazi Germany, over the German invasion of Poland on 1 September. In early September 1939, the French army began the limited Saar Offensive but by mid-October had withdrawn to the start line ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Invasion Of Poland
The invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, Polish Campaign, and Polish Defensive War of 1939 (1 September – 6 October 1939), was a joint attack on the Second Polish Republic, Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak Republic (1939–1945), Slovak Republic, and the Soviet Union, which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week after the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, and one day after the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union had approved the pact. The Soviet invasion of Poland, Soviets invaded Poland on 17 September. The campaign ended on 6 October with Germany and the Soviet Union dividing and annexing the whole of Poland under the terms of the German–Soviet Frontier Treaty. The aim of the invasion was to disestablish Poland as a sovereign country, with its citizens destined for The Holocaust, extermination. German and Field Army Bernolák, Slovak forces ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many nations mobilising all resources in pursuit of total war. Tanks in World War II, Tanks and Air warfare of World War II, aircraft played major roles, enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, first and only nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II is the List of wars by death toll, deadliest conflict in history, causing World War II casualties, the death of 70 to 85 million people, more than half of whom were civilians. Millions died in genocides, including the Holocaust, and by massacres, starvation, and disease. After the Allied victory, Allied-occupied Germany, Germany, Allied-occupied Austria, Austria, Occupation of Japan, Japan, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Finnish Civil War
The Finnish Civil War was a civil war in Finland in 1918 fought for the leadership and control of the country between Whites (Finland), White Finland and the Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic (Red Finland) during the country's transition from a Grand Duchy of Finland, grand duchy ruled by the Russian Empire to a fully independent state. The clashes took place in the context of Aftermath of World War I, the national, political, and social turmoil caused by World War I (Eastern Front (World War I), Eastern Front) in Europe. The war was fought between the Red Guards (Finland), Red Guards, led by a section of the Social Democratic Party of Finland, Social Democratic Party with backup of the Russian bolsheviks and the White Guard (Finland), White Guards of the Senate of Finland, senate and those who opposed socialism, with major assistance by the German Army (German Empire), German Imperial Army, along the German goal to control Fennoscandia. The paramilitary Red Guards, which wer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
