Russia Marks Anniversary Of Nazi Invasion As Memory And Sorrow Day

[Purveyor]

Vladimir Putin lays wreath at Tomb of Unknown Soldier

MOSCOW, June 22 (Itar-Tass) - June 22 in Russia is Memory and Sorrow Day. It was established under a presidential decree of June 8, 1996 to mark the anniversary of the 1941 Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union - the beginning of what at once would be called the Great Patriotic War.

Seventy two years ago today, in the small hours of a peaceful summer Sunday, June 22 Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union without a declaration of war. Its warplanes bombed airdromes, railway stations, naval bases, army garrisons and sleeping cities 250-300 kilometers deep inside the country’s territory. The USSR had to fight against a combined force of Hitler’s Germany, Italy, Hungary, Finland and Romania.

The Soviet Union’s losses in the World War II were immeasurably heavier than those of all other countries in the anti-Hitler coalition.

The Defense Ministry has told Itar-Tass “the overall losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War, which lasted 1,418 days and nights, totaled 26.6 million, including 8,668,400 officers and men killed in action.”

At the moment of Nazi invasion the Red Army numbered 4.826 million. A total of 29.5 million were mobilized over the war years.

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[dipsydoodle]

1. Massive fail that one.

The Germans failed to account for the winter weather.

The German's also managed to fuck up in the summer. Read this when you have time : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kursk

[RedstDem]

2. the russians put Hitler out of business

the beginning of the end and colossally stupid strategy

[WVU]

3. Amazing how many young men died in those few, short years.

I wish I could find the exact statistic, but I seem to remember reading somewhere that (caveat, I'm estimating from memory here) only ~10-15% of boys born in 1922-23' ever lived to see 46'

Talk about putting things in perspective.

One wonders how differently things would have turned out had Stalin not sat on his hands and vegged out few a week or two after the first reports of the German invasion.

A very interesting time, for sure.