In between the Russian-German treks moved; 600,000 people fleeing the Red Army sought a deceptive security in eastern Germany. During their retreat, the German troops repeatedly used the “scorched earth” tactic. A Soviet attack on the Finnish front on the Karelian Isthmus (June 9, 1944) penetrated as far as the Finnish-Soviet border in 1940, but could be stopped with German help. Hundreds of thousands of people were forcibly evacuated, used to build positions or deported to Germany for forced labor. In between the Russian-German treks moved; 600,000 people fleeing the Red Army sought a deceptive security in eastern Germany. During their retreat, the German troops repeatedly used the “scorched earth” tactic. A Soviet attack on the Finnish front on the Karelian Isthmus (June 9, 1944) penetrated as far as the Finnish-Soviet border in 1940, but could be stopped with German help. Hundreds of thousands of people were forcibly evacuated, used to build positions or deported to Germany for forced labor. In between the Russian-German treks moved; 600,000 people fleeing the Red Army sought a deceptive security in eastern Germany. During their retreat, the German troops repeatedly used the “scorched earth” tactic. A Soviet attack on the Finnish front on the Karelian Isthmus (June 9, 1944) penetrated as far as the Finnish-Soviet border in 1940, but could be stopped with German help. During their retreat, the German troops repeatedly used the “scorched earth” tactic. A Soviet attack on the Finnish front on the Karelian Isthmus (June 9, 1944) penetrated as far as the Finnish-Soviet border in 1940, but could be stopped with German help. During their retreat, the German troops repeatedly used the “scorched earth” tactic. A Soviet attack on the Finnish front on the Karelian Isthmus (June 9, 1944) penetrated as far as the Finnish-Soviet border in 1940, but could be stopped with German help.

On the third anniversary of the German attack on the USSR, on June 22nd, 1944, the Red Army launched a major offensive against the German Army Group Center, thereby supporting the Western Allies in the invasion battle that had been initiated a good two weeks earlier. Hitler insisted on rigidly holding the front, with the result that the far superior Soviet armies succeeded in rubbing up the bulk of the army group in a few days (28 of a total of 36 divisions were destroyed) and tearing up the German front. They advanced to the East Prussian border and the central Vistula in the Warsaw area by the end of July before they were stopped again by newly brought in German troops. The advance of Soviet troops into the Riga area (occupation of the city on October 13, 1944) forced Army Group North to withdraw from Estonia and northern Latvia; in October it was finally cut off from land connections in Courland. Another Soviet offensive in Galicia, which began on July 13, reached the upper Vistula at the end of July,

According to INDEXDOTCOM,the establishment of the second front in the west: after months of preparation (bombing of the traffic lines and the launching ramps under construction for the German “V 1” weapons in northern France and Belgium) began on the morning of June 6, 1944 (“D-Day”) the Allied landings in Normandy (Operation “Overlord”) under the command of Eisenhower. The defense, which Rommel had prepared intensively, was completely taken by surprise as a result of the Allied deception. Allied air control made it impossible for German troops to move during the day and led to the failure of the counter-attacks.

The bombardment of London with “V 1” weapons, which began on June 12, did not achieve any resounding success (V-Waffen). The Allies were able to break through the German defense system on the coast (Atlantic Wall) and gradually expand their landing heads. After the German Normandy front had been able to hold out for several weeks with heavy losses, the American breakthrough at Avranches (July 30/31, 1944) brought about the transition to war of movement Falaise “worn out; remaining parts withdrew across the Seine from mid-August. On August 25, American and Free French troops marched into largely undamaged Paris. In the meantime, on August 15, allied forces had also landed on the French Mediterranean coast. The German troops in western France received the order to seek connection with the units withdrawing from the Rhône Valley, leaving crews behind in some Atlantic fortresses. This was essentially achieved in the western apron of the Vosges. On August 17, the Pétain government was forced by the German side to leave Vichy and move to Belfort (August 20), then to Sigmaringen (September 8).

In Paris, de Gaulle took over the government. The advance of the Allies through northern France and Belgium came to a halt at the beginning of September on the Scheldt estuary – southern Netherlands – German western border west of Alsace-Lorraine. Eisenhower followed Montgomery’s urge to advance across the Rhine into the Ruhr area in the northern section and thus to bring about a war decision before the start of winter Not. The air landing in the Eindhoven-Arnheim-Nijmegen area (Operation “Market Garden”, September 17-26, 1944) was therefore only successful to a limited extent. While the Americans were able to form the bridgeheads near the front at Nijmegen, the British (focus of the fighting on the Arnhem Bridge) were largely wiped out by an SS tank corps (only about 2,400 of the approximately 10,000 soldiers of the airborne troops escaped).