Timeline of the Eastern Front of World War II

Below is the timeline of the events of the Eastern Front of World War II, the conflict between the Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1945.

1941

* 1941-06-22 Operation Barbarossa launched — Axis invasion of the Soviet Union
* 1941-06-22–? Battle of the Baltic (1941)
* 1941-06-22–1941-07-09 Battle of Western Ukraine — destruction of Soviet tank armies
* 1941-06-22–1941-07-09 Battle of Bialystok-Minsk — Soviet 3rd and 10th armies encircled
* 1941-07-10–1941-09-10 Battle of Smolensk — Soviet 16th and 20th armies encircled
* 1941-07-10–1941-08-08 Battle of Uman — Soviet 6th and 12th armies encircled
* 1941-08-08–1941-09-19 Battle of Kiev — Soviet Southern Front encircled
* 1941-08-08–1944-01-18 Siege of Leningrad— the city of Leningrad and armies of the Leningrad Front encircled
* Operation Silver Fox German and Finnish forces advance north of Leningrad on Murmansk.
* Battle of Roslavl
* 1941-10-24–1942-01-07 Operation Typhoon — German advance on Moscow
* 1941-10-21–1941-10-27 Battle of Rostov — Germans initially occupied Rostov but were over-extended and driven back along shore of Sea of Azov by the Red Army.
* Battle of Vyazma-Bryansk— see Battle of Moscow
* 1941-10-10— Battle of Vyazma- occupied by Germans
* 1941-10-06— Battle of Bryansk- occupied by Germans
* 1941-10-02–1942-01-07 Battle of Moscow — Soviet Winter counter-offensive with Siberian troops
* Battle of the Crimea
* First Battle of Kharkov— Germans occupy Kharkov
* 1941-11-16–1942-07-04 Siege of Sevastopol — Germans are claimed by some to have used poison gas to flush Soviet defenders from bunkers and caves
* Demyansk Pocket — trapped German troops supplied by air drop

1942

* January–April Rzhev-Vyazma Offensive (1942) — disastrous Soviet attempt to cut off the Rzhev salient
* 1942-05-12–1942-05-30 Second Battle of Kharkov — Red Army take city but are cut off by 1st Panzer Army
* July Battle of Voronezh (1942)
* 1942-06-28 Operation Blue launched — from the Don to the Volga
* July First Rzhev-Sychevka Offensive
* 1942-07-23–1943-02-01 Battle of the Caucasus — Austrian troops climb Mount Elbrus but Axis cannot fight their way through to the Caspian Sea oilfields
* 1942-09-01–1943-02-02 Battle of Stalingrad — Bloodiest battle in history
* 1942-11-19 Operation Uranus launched — Romanian and Hungarian armies destroyed; 300,000 Axis troops trapped at Stalingrad
* November–December Second Rzhev-Sychevka Offensive — another disastrous Soviet attempt to cut off Rzhev salient; Georgy Zhukov's worst defeat
* 1942-12-12–1942-12-29 Operation Winter Storm — fails to relieve Stalingrad
* 1942-12-16–1943-02-25 Operation Saturn — soviet offensive destroys the Axis position in the Caucasus and Donbass

1943

* March Rzhev-Vyazma Offensive (1943)
* 1943-02-16–1943-03-15 Third Battle of Kharkov — Erich von Manstein traps over-extended Red Army
* 1943-07-05–1943-08-01 Battle of Kursk — largest tank battle in history; Germans defeated by defense in depth
* 1943-07-30 Battle of the Mius
* August Battle of Belgorod
* August Fourth Battle of Kharkov
* Battle of Smolensk (1943)
* September–November Battle of the Dniepr
* October Battle of Lenino
* November Battle of Kiev
* December–August 1944 Battle of the Ukraine

1944

* January — Korsun Pocket
* 1944-01-18 — Siege of Leningrad raised
* June–August — Operation Bagration — destruction of German Army Group Centre
* July–August — Lvov-Sandomir Offensive — destruction of German Army Group South
* July–August — Battle of Narva — Baltic Offensive brought to a halt by German forces including Estonian conscript formations
* August — Operation Iassy-Kishinev (German "Operation Jassy-Kischinew") — defeat of German forces in Romania and switching of sides of Romania
* 1944-08-23 — Romania switches sides
* August–September — Warsaw Uprising — failed due to lack of outside support
* 1944-08-29–1944-10-28 — Slovak National Uprising — Failed coup of slovak-soviet irregular forces in Slovakia
* August–October — Battle of the Baltic (1944) — German Army Group North trapped in Courland
* 1944-10-06–1944-10-28 — Battle of Debrecen — German Army Group Fretter-Pico surrounded and destroyed Soviet Mobile Group Pliyev of the 2nd Ukrainian Front
* 1944-09-04 — Soviet Union agrees armistice with Finland
* October — Battle of Belgrade
* 1944-12-29–1945-02-13 — Battle of Budapest

1945

* 1945-01-12–1945-02-02 — Vistula-Oder Offensive — Soviet advance from Poland to deep within the borders of Germany (seen from the location of the borders then)
* 1945-03-06–1945-03-17 — Lake Balaton Offensive — Last German offensive of the war
* 1945-04-02–1945-04-13 — Vienna Offensive
* 1945-04-16–1945-04-19 — Battle of the Seelow Heights — Zhukov's costly frontal assault on Berlin
* 1945-04-16–1945-05-02 — Battle of Berlin — One month of street-by-street fighting
* 1945-04-24–1945-05-01 — Battle of Halbe — Elements of German 9th Army escape to the west
* 1945-04-30 — Death of Adolf Hitler
* 1945-05-07 — Unconditional surrender of Germany in Rheims
* 1945-05-08 — Unconditional surrender of Germany in Berlin
* 1945-05-08 — End of World War II in Europe
* 1945-05-06–1945-05-11 — Prague Offensive

See also

* List of Military operations on the Eastern Front European Theater during WW2
* Strategic operations of the Red Army in World War II
* Timeline of the Second World War