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67 years passes since the Nazi aggression against the Soviet Union

22 June 2008 10:17 (UTC +04:00)

It was the largest theatre of war in history and was notorious for its unprecedented ferocity, destruction, and immense loss of life.
On June 22, 1941, at dawn, fascist Germany treacherously attacked the Soviet Union. Its aviation delivered mass air strikes on Soviet airfields, railway hubs, naval bases, places of dislocation of military units and major cities.
At 21.00 on June 21, a German soldier, Alfred Liskov, was detained when he crossed to the USSR territory.
Liskov said that he crossed the border voluntarily to say that Germans was going to move on the offensive at dawn.
Major Bychkovsky, commander of the 9th border group, immediately briefed Army #5 Commander Major General Potapovu about the information. However, Potapov doubted the report.
Mayor Bychkovsky remembers: "Because our translators were not good at German, I called a German teacher from the town. Liskov repeated his words that the Germans were preparing to move. Hardly had we finished questioning the soldier when I heard artillery fire. I realized that the Germans opened fire on our territory. Immediately, I stood up to report by telephone, but the link has been broken ..."
at 12.00 am on June 22, Molotov appealed to the nation on radio on behalf of the leadership and the Soviet Union to officially announce the start of the war.
The bloodiest war in human history began. It lasted for 1, 418 days and nights.
The German blitzkrieg, known as Operation Barbarossa, nearly succeeded in breaking the Soviet Union in the months that followed. Caught unprepared, the Soviet forces lost whole armies and vast quantities of equipment to the German onslaught in the first weeks of the war.
By the end of 1941, however, the German forces had lost their momentum. German movements were increasingly restricted by harsh winter weather, attacks from bands of partisans, and difficulties in maintaining overextended supply lines. After the Soviet victory at Stalingrad, the Germans lacked the strength to sustain their offensive operations against the Soviet Union. With a decisive superiority in troops and weaponry, Soviet forces drove into eastern Germany, capturing Berlin in May 1945. The war with Germany thus resulted in triumph for the Soviet Union.