Source #2 - This video clip from the German movie Generation War. This clip shows the fighting on the Eastern Front (in the Soviet Union) from the perspective of German soldiers. This clip shows the war in 1941 as the Germans are invading the Soviet Union. The two main characters are Lieutenant Wilhelm Winter and Private Friedhelm Winter, who serve in the same unit of the German army - click here
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Source # 3 - Video about the experience of how experience of the people of the Soviet Union during the war and the Battle of Leningrad - click here
Biography - Lyudmyla Pavlychenko
Lyudmyla Pavlychencko was born outside of city of Kyiv, Ukraine in the Russian Empire in 1916. She joined a shooting club when she was young after she heard a boy in her neighborhood talk about how he was such a good shot. She said started shooting to “show that a girl could do as well.” Even though she described her own school years by saying that she was “unruly in the classroom”, she enrolled at Kyiv University to be a teacher. While in university she also worked in a military factory.
Pavlychenko was vacationing in the coastal city of Odessa when the Germans invaded in the Soviet Union in June 1941. She volunteered to join the army, but enlistment officers wanted to make her a nurse. When Pavlychenko insisted that she was good with a rifle, they forced to prove her ability during the battle of Odessa as the Germans attacked the city. They brought her to the front and handed her a rifle and ordered her to shoot two enemy soldiers on a nearby hill. They were her first two kills. However Pavlychenko did not include them in her battlefield tally because “they were test shots”.
After the Germans captured Odessa, Pavlychenko was assigned to the defense of the Sevastopol in Crimea. It was in the brutal battle to defend Sevastopol that Pavlychenko demonstrated her effectiveness as a sniper. She killed 309 enemy soldiers, including 100 German officers. Because of her ability, she was assigned to be a counter-sniper, which meant that she had to hunt enemy snipers on the battlefield. Operating as a counter-sniper was extremely dangerous since it required her to stay in position in the center of battlefield for hours, and sometimes days. She killed 36 German snipers. She said that killing Germans did not bother her because, “Every German who remains alive will kill women, children and old folks. Dead Germans are harmless. Therefore, if I kill a German, I am saving lives.”
After the Germans captured Sevastopol, the Soviet army took Pavlychenko out of combat because she was too valuable to lose. She had already been wounded four times and the Germans had specifically begun to try to find and kill her. The Soviet Union honored her by putting her on a postage stamp.In 1942, Pavlychenko was sent by the Soviet government to United States to get American support for the war against Germany. She was the first Soviet citizen to be a guest at the White House and went on to tour the United States with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Roosevelt and Pavlychenko became friends and Roosevelt helped her with silly comments from the American media such as the New York Times which called her the “girl sniper” and said that she “wore no lip rouge, or makeup of any kind” and that “there isn’t much style to her olive-green uniform”. Pavlychenko replied to such comments by replying that “I wear my uniform with honor” and “who has time to think of her shiny nose when a battle is going on?”
When she returned to the Soviet Union she became an instructor for snipers and then served as a researcher in the Soviet Military after the war. She and Roosevelt remained friends and met again in 1957 when Roosevelt visited the Soviet Union. Pavlychenko died in 1974 in Moscow.
Source # 4 - Video from the Russian-Ukrainian film Battle for Sevastopol about Lyudmyla Pavlychenko. This video clip shows Pavlychenko in training to be a sniper and her first experience in battle - click here
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Biography - Gregory Zhukov
Georgy Zhukov was born in 1896 to a family of peasants. In 1915, Zhukov was drafted into the Russian army and fought in World War One. He was awarded for his bravery and was badly wounded in battle. After the October Revolution, Zhukov joined Lenin's Bolshevik Party and became an officer in the Red Army in the Russian Civil War. After the Civil War, Zhukov became an army commander of the Soviet Army in Siberia (far eastern Russia). Because he was so far away from the capital of Moscow, Zhukov was able to survive Stalin's "Great Purge" of the army (When Stalin ordered the secret police to arrest and kill the leaders of the army). As the commander of the Soviet Army in Siberia, Zhukov defeated the Japanese is a short war between the Soviet Union and Japan over the region of Mongolia in 1939. Stalin rewarded Zhukov by making him a commander of the overall Soviet Army in January 1941.
When the German army invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Stalin ordered Zhukov to attack the Germans and not retreat. While he disagreed with Stalin's orders, Zhukov obeyed the orders and the result heavy Soviet losses. Stalin removed Zhukov from command when Zhukov argued against defending the city of Kyiv and instead recommended that the Soviet Army retreat. Stalin ignored Zhukov's advice and the Germans captured 600, 000 Soviet soldiers when they captured Kyiv. After the loss of Kyiv, Stalin changed his mind about Zhukov and put Zhukov in command of the defense of Moscow, the Soviet capital. By December of 1941, the Germany army was closing in on Moscow and it looked as if they might capture the city. Even Stalin made plans to evacuate the city.
The Battle of Moscow was one of the largest and most crucial battles of the whole war. Zhukov had to organize the defense of the capital of the Soviet Union with a badly beaten army with not enough weapons or supplies - some units went in to battle with only one rifle for every ten soldiers. Zhukov was able to bolster the defense of Moscow by convincing Stalin to move the Soviet army in Siberia to the defense of the city. The Siberian soldiers were equipped and experienced with fighting in winter conditions. They were able to stop the German advance and pushed the Germany army back 150 miles - saving Moscow from being captured. This was the first major defeat for the German army in the war and destroyed Germany's chance for a quick victory in the war. However, the cost of the battle was enormous - the Soviet lost more than 1.9 million soldiers. When Zhukov's deputy showed him the numbers of losses he told him to "hide it and don't show it to anybody!"
After the successful defense of Moscow, Zhukov was put in command of organizing the defense of the city of Stalingrad. The battle of Stalingrad was one of the most important battles of World War Two. Zhukov developed and led and attack on the German army at Stalingrad that surrounded the Germans and forced them to surrender in February 1943 - which eliminated an entire German army. The in the summer of 1943, Zhukov lured the German army into the battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle of the war, which was another crushing defeat for the Germans. The combined defeats of Stalingrad and Kursk broke the power of the German army.
After the victories at Stalingrad and Kursk, Zhukov lead the Soviet Army as it drove the Germans out of the Soviet Union. Stalin was so pleased with Zhukov's military ability that he gave him the special distinction of leading the Soviet attack on the Nazi capital of Berlin in 1945. After a ferocious battle to capture the city, which ended when Hitler committed suicide before the Soviets could capture him, Zhukov oversaw the surrender of the remains of the Nazi German government.
After the war, Stalin was threatened by Zhukov's popularity with the Soviet military and the general population. Ever paranoid, Stalin removed Zhukov from his position as supreme military commander and assigned him to run the military in region in the southwest of the Soviet Union. After Stalin died, Zhukov was elevated to the position of defense minister in the Soviet Union. He died in 1974.
Source # 4 - Video clip from the opening scene from the movie Enemy at the Gates about the Battle of Stalingrad. This was one of the most important battles of World War Two and was the first major defeat for Germany in the war. This scene follows a Soviet soldier as he arrives at Stalingrad and is sent into the fighting - click here
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Source # 5 - Video about the Battle of Kursk - American aid for Soviet war effort - click here
Source # 6 - Video clip from the German movie "Generation War which shows the war in 1943, after the Germans have lost the Battle of Stalingrad, and follows a group of German soldiers has they participate in the Battle of Kursk - click here
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