Red Army
Tag
(195)1939
September
October
November
December
- 07
- The Battle of Suomussalmi beginsOn 7 December 1939 the Soviet 163rd Division reached Suomussalmi, burnt by the Finns. The Finnish command sent Colonel Hjalmar Siilasvuo's brigade there.
- The Battle of Kollaa beginsOn 7 December 1939 the Soviet 56th Rifle Division attacked Finnish positions on the Kollaa river in Ladoga Karelia. The Finns held them to the end of the war.
1940
January
- 07
- The destruction of Soviet divisions on the Raate roadIn the first week of January 1940 Colonel Siilasvuo’s Finns cut the Soviet 44th Division into pockets on the Raate road and destroyed it, taking tanks and guns.
- Timoshenko takes command in FinlandOn 7 January 1940 Moscow formed the North-Western Front under Komandarm Timoshenko. After the defeats of December, he was to break the Mannerheim Line.
February
March
June
1941
June
July
- 03
- Stalin’s speech of 3 JulyOn 3 July 1941, in his first radio address since the German attack, Stalin called for a patriotic war, partisan warfare and scorched earth.
- The Summer War in EstoniaFrom 3 July 1941 the Estonian Forest Brothers attacked Soviet units in the south. The Germans entered Estonia on 7 July and the front halted on the Emajõgi.
August
September
October
November
- 28
- The Red Army retakes RostovOn 28 November 1941 the Germans began leaving Rostov under attack by three Soviet armies; next day it was free. Rundstedt fell back to the Mius and was sacked.
- The Germans reach the Moscow–Volga CanalOn the night of 27–28 November 1941 a 7th Panzer Division battlegroup crossed the Moscow Canal at Yakhroma. A 1st Shock Army counter-attack threw it back.
December
- 02
- The Germans at KhimkiOn 2 December 1941, some authors say, a German patrol reached Khimki outside Moscow. In the bitter cold the attacks of Army Group Centre were collapsing.
- The evacuation of HankoOn 2 December 1941 the last convoy left the Soviet base at Hanko. That night the transport Iosif Stalin, with 5,500 troops, hit mines in the Gulf of Finland.
1942
1943
1944
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
- 13
- The capture of WilnoOn 13 July 1944 the Red Army, supported by Home Army units, took Wilno. Days later the NKVD arrested the Wilno Home Army command and disarmed its soldiers.
- The Lwów–Sandomierz offensive beginsOn 13 July 1944 Marshal Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front advanced on Rawa Ruska and Lwów, opening the offensive that drove the Germans out of Eastern Galicia.
- 24
- The fall of NarvaOn 24 July 1944 the Leningrad Front attacked Narva. It was repulsed at Auvere, but the Germans fell back to the Tannenberg Line; on 26 July it took the ruins.
- Key eventThe liberation of MajdanekDuring the fighting for Lublin, Soviet soldiers entered the abandoned camp at Majdanek. Its gas chambers and crematorium were left almost intact.
August
- 01
- Key eventThe Warsaw Uprising beginsAt 5 p.m. on 1 August 1944 Home Army units attacked the Germans in Warsaw to liberate the capital before the Red Army entered it.
- The capture of KaunasOn 1 August 1944 the 5th Army of the 3rd Belorussian Front took Kaunas, Lithuania's former capital, weeks after the Germans liquidated its ghetto camp.
September
October
- 06
- At the Dukla PassOn 6 October 1944 troops of the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps and the 38th Army crossed the Dukla Pass into Slovakia after a month of bloody fighting.
- The Battle of Debrecen beginsOn 6 October 1944 the 2nd Ukrainian Front advanced on Debrecen. Pliyev's group broke the Hungarian Third Army, but the Germans held Oradea.
November
December
1945
January
February
- 13
- The end of the siege of BudapestOn 13 February 1945 the last units in Buda surrendered. Of 28,000 soldiers in the breakout of 11 February, only some 700 reached the German lines.
- The siege of Breslau beginsOn 13 February 1945 troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front closed the ring around Breslau (Wrocław). The siege of Festung Breslau lasted until 6 May.
March
April
May
- 02
- The flag over the ReichstagOn 2 May 1945 the German garrison of the Reichstag surrendered. The red banner had flown on the roof since 30 April; Khaldei's famous photograph was staged.
- Key eventThe surrender of BerlinOn 2 May 1945 General Helmuth Weidling surrendered Berlin to General Chuikov and ordered the garrison to lay down arms. Krebs's talks the day before had failed.
- The breakout from the bunkerOn the night of 1–2 May 1945 the occupants of Hitler's bunker tried to break out of Berlin. Krebs and Burgdorf shot themselves; Bormann died while fleeing.
- 09
- Victory Day in the USSRA decree of 8 May 1945 made 9 May Victory Day in the USSR. That evening Stalin announced the end of the war with Germany, and Moscow fired a 30-salvo salute.
- The Red Army in PragueOn the morning of 9 May 1945 Konev's tanks entered Prague. By 11 May Army Group Centre had surrendered, while the Americans halted on a line near Plzeň.
- The surrender on BornholmOn 9 May 1945 a Soviet landing party accepted the surrender of the German garrison of the Danish island of Bornholm, a day after air raids on Rønne and Nexø.