Historical Organization
Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
Details
Organization Timeline
Germany invades Poland, opening the European war
📅 1 September 1939Nazi Germany invaded Poland on 1 September, claiming fabricated border incidents as pretext. The invasion combined conventional warfare with terror against civilians and plans for racial conquest....
Germany invades the Soviet Union
📅 22 June 1941Operation Barbarossa began a war of conquest framed by Nazi leaders as a racial and anti-Bolshevik campaign. Einsatzgruppen, police units, military formations, Romanian forces, and local collaborators...
Nazi Germany launches the invasion of the Soviet Union
📅 22 June 1941Operation Barbarossa began as a war of annihilation, not simply a military campaign. German plans tied conquest to racial hierarchy, mass starvation, enslavement, and the murder of Jews and Soviet...
German and Serbian formations arrest civilians around Kragujevac, including Roma
📅 18 October 1941From 18 to 21 October, German forces and Serbian collaborating formations arrested about 2,700 civilians in and around Kragujevac after partisan attacks on Wehrmacht units. Most victims were Serbs,...
German and Serbian police begin mass arrests of Roma in Belgrade
📅 28 October 1941Between 28 October and 3 November, Wehrmacht soldiers and Serbian police units arrested Roma in Belgrade and the surrounding area and imprisoned them at Topovske Šupe as hostages for reprisals. Around...
Soviet forces encircle Axis armies at Stalingrad
📅 19 November 1942The Red Army launched Operation Uranus, encircling German and allied forces around Stalingrad. Soviet victory drew on the labor, sacrifice, and mobilization of a multiethnic state whose peoples had...
Soviet forces defeat the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad
📅 2 February 1943The last German troops in Stalingrad surrendered after months of siege, street fighting, hunger, and extreme cold. Soviet victory turned the eastern front but came at enormous cost to soldiers and...
The Battle of Kursk reaches its largest armored clash
📅 12 July 1943At Prokhorovka, Soviet and German forces fought one of the largest tank engagements of the war. The wider Kursk campaign ended in a strategic Soviet victory, shifting initiative on the Eastern...