How many soviets fought in ww2

Operation Barbarossa was intended to deal a total defeat to the Soviets in only three to six months, but in the early days of the invasion, many thought the fall might come even sooner. German troops killed or wounded , Soviets in the first week of the campaign, while the Luftwaffe—the Nazi air force—destroyed over 2, Soviet planes in just the first two days.

As German tanks and troops swarmed through Soviet territory in a three-pronged attack, most outside analysts began predicting that a Soviet defeat was only weeks or even days away. While the invaders succeeded in knocking several million Soviet soldiers out of the war by November , they had also suffered more than , casualties of their own.

Following a series of ferocious counterattacks by the Soviets, the Nazis were forced to abandon all hope of a swift victory. The war would drag on for another three and a half years. Still clad in their summer uniforms, the German Wehrmacht had to resort to using newspaper and straw to insulate themselves against subzero temperatures.

They soon faced frostbite in epidemic proportions. Some , cases were reported by end of , resulting in the amputation of nearly 15, limbs. The cold also wreaked havoc on Nazi heavy machinery. Tanks and jeeps refused to start, and guns and artillery often froze and failed to fire. The Soviets were more accustomed to the chill, and used specially designed rifles, skis and camouflage to continue fighting even in some of the most inhospitable conditions.

The annual deep freeze proved to be a thorn in the side of the German armies for the rest of the war, but the warmer months were only nominally better.

Soviet-era Communism tended to embrace the equality of the sexes, and perhaps nowhere was this more apparent than in the attitude toward female soldiers. Bellamy, Chris. New York: Knopf, Also analyzes the politics and inner workings of the uneasy Alliance with the UK and US grand strategy and the influence on postwar politics.

Boog, Horst. Germany and the Second World War. Oxford: Clarendon, Germany and the Second World War is valuable and authoritative and also includes excellent maps. Another volume in the Germany and the Second World War series see Boog , Volume 6 has an appended volume of maps, such as German administration in occupied western Russia.

Erickson, John. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, Unsurpassed in detail, sometimes graphic, covers the period when the Germans overran the western Soviet Union and advanced to the Volga. This was the first history of the — war to use Soviet rather than predominantly German sources. In the same style as Erickson , the definitive account of the Soviet retaliation, which took the Red Army to Berlin.

Ends abruptly with the Prague operation, without analyzing the social and economic effects of the war on the Soviet Union. Krivosheyev, Grigoriy F. London: Lionel Leventhal, Translation of Krivosheyev see General Overviews in Russian. The most reliable survey available of Soviet losses, with scientific definition of how these losses are calculated. Mawdsley, Evan. London: Hodder, Concise history of the Soviet-German war, embracing higher-level military, economic, and political issues.

Notes the importance of all factors: military, economic, and demographic. In his book Inferno: The World at War, , British military historian Max Hastings notes that each of the victorious nations "emerged from the Second World War confident in the belief that its own role had been decisive in procuring victory. Who the key player was in the defeat of the Nazis in Europe remains an issue — canceled celebrations and the pandemic notwithstanding.

In contrast, Americans, Germans and the French believe the U. An estimated 25 million to 31 million Russians were killed in the conflict — 16 million of them civilians, and more than 8 million from the Red Army. The Allied victory was more complicated than the heroic sacrifice of Soviet soldiers.

They just threw away a quarter of a million lives. The U. American war production — its ability to churn out astounding numbers of bombers, tanks and warships — was possibly the key war-winning factor, say some historians, who point out American factories produced more airplanes than all of the other major war powers combined. And without U. America supplied Stalin with , trucks, 2, locomotives, more than 10, rail rolling stock and billions of dollars' worth of warplanes, tanks, food and clothing.

At the same time, the U. We were together during the war. It was not a victory of just one country over Hitler. It was a victory of the whole world over him.