In the summer of 1944, Germany suffered perhaps the greatest military defeat of all time. But it did not come on the beaches of Normandy where the combined Western Allies faced less than 25% of the German Army. It came on the Eastern Front where the Soviet Union faced 75% of the German Army on its own.
This was Operation Bagration. An operation that, in the space of just three weeks, annihilated an entire German Army Group and captured hundreds of kilometres of territory. An operation on such a vast scale it challenges the limits of human understanding. If there is one battle from the Second World War that everyone should understand, its Operation Bagration – The Soviet Union’s greatest military victory.
Find out more:
Why did Hitler invade the Soviet Union: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/why-did-hitler-invade-the-soviet-union
Why Operation Barbarossa Failed: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/operation-barbarossa-and-germanys-failure-in-the-soviet-union
Daily life in the Warsaw Ghetto: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/daily-life-in-the-warsaw-ghetto
Liberating the Nazi Concentration Camps: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/liberation-of-the-concentration-camps
Explore and licence the film clips used in this video from IWM Film:
https://film.iwmcollections.org.uk/collections/4882
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