The Great Patriotic War.

The WWII began in 1939. This country was forced into it two years later.

The Great Patriotic War broke out on the 22^nd of  June, 1941. Hitler Germany

invaded the Soviet Union without declaring war. Early in the morning when most soldiers on frontiers were sleeping the Nazi troops crossed the border after a mossed artillery preparation.

The Soviet army offered strong resistance to the Nazi troops but it was half disarmed and weakened by Stalin’s repressions and though soldiers showed remarkable courage , the enemy broke trough the Soviet defense. Most Soviet airplanes were destroyed on the earth, they had no time to take off.

Equipped with up-to-date weapons, the Nazi and their allies were advancing rapidly. Their advance was in three directions: towards Moscow,

Leningrad and Kiev. On the very first days of the war the Nazi artillery was shelling Leningrad, the enemy planes were bombing Ukrainian cities. The Soviet command had to surrender Odessa.

To end the war before the New Year the German command announced a drive on Moscow. However, the nearer the enemy drew to Moscow, the stronger became the resistance of  the Soviet people. All Soviet republics rallied in the face of common danger. Thousands of volunteers went to the font. Guerrilla detachments were operating behind the enemy’s lines. The civilians supplied the army with provision and munitions. The fighting army was reinforced with the reserve. Fresh reinforcements were brought up.

Though the Soviet troops had suffered heavy losses in dead and wounded, Moscow wasn’t captured.

The rout of the Nazis in the battle of Moscow was their 1^st major defeat in the WWII. The myth of the invincibility of the German army was shattered.

The victories of the Soviet army in the battles of Stalingrad, Kursk, Orel and other cities followed.

In 1941 the Congress of the USA debated president Franklin Roosevelt’s proposal that would allow him to sell or lease food, equipment and other supplies to countries that were at the were with Germany if it was vital to the security of the USA.

On the 10^th of March the proposal was finally accepted and the Lend-Lease act was passe. In June , when Germany attacked the Soviet Union, the Lend-Lease program was extended to this country. The USA shipped to the Soviet Union wheat, flour, sugar, canned meat, dried fruit, vegetables, powdered eggs  and milk, tones of shoe-leather and more than 7mln pairs of the american-made boots. It also sent military items: tanks, airplanes, trucks, machine guns. In 1944 the whole of the Soviet Union was liberated. On the 16^th

of April 1945 the Red army and the allied troops surrounded Berlin. On the 8^th of May the act of Unconditional Surrender of Nazi Germany was signed. The Soviet Union and the Allied countries won a historic victory.

On the 9^th of May Prague was liberated and the war in Europe was over. The capitulation of Japan on the 2^nd of September 1945 marked the end of the WWII