84 years ago, on June 22, Nazi Germany and its allies invaded the Soviet Union. The Great Patriotic War, which lasted four years, claimed the lives of 25-27 million people. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Sputnik Kazakhstan.
Germany started World War II in September 1939. At that time, armed conflicts were taking place in Europe. No one expected the war to reach the Soviet Union. On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the USSR. They were joined by Romania, Hungary, Finland, as well as volunteer formations from Croatia, Slovakia, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and other European countries. Germany's allies – Italy and Japan – also opposed the USSR.
According to archival data, about five and a half million enemy soldiers and officers crossed the border of the Soviet Union that day. The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army had just over five million personnel. In total, at the start of the Great Patriotic War, the German army and its allies numbered over 11 million. The USSR was not prepared for this war.
The Nazi invaders began the war against the USSR on June 22 at exactly 4:00 a.m. However, according to archival materials, attempts to breach the border began earlier. At 3:30 a.m., enemy aircraft struck the Belarusian cities of Brest, Grodno, Baranovichi, Kobrin, and others. A few minutes later, German planes began bombing Ukraine. Then the Baltic states were attacked. Around 5:00 a.m., Commander-in-Chief Joseph Stalin was informed that German infantry was advancing toward the West and the Baltics. Around the same time, fascist artillery opened fire on the Brest Fortress.
The then-leader of the USSR, Stalin, did not immediately believe that Germany and its allies had started the war. At a meeting of Politburo members in the Kremlin at 4:30 a.m., he said he considered the situation on the border a provocation by Germany. Only half an hour later, the German ambassador to the USSR, Count von Schulenburg, handed People's Commissar Molotov a "note from the German Foreign Ministry to the Soviet government." The document stated that Germany viewed the USSR as a major threat on Europe's eastern border, and therefore Hitler had ordered the elimination of this threat. At noon on June 22, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Vyacheslav Molotov announced the start of the Great Patriotic War on the radio.
During the Great Patriotic War, about 1.5 million people from Kazakhstan went to the front. Every second compatriot who took up arms gave their life for the Victory. More than 600,000 did not return home. In Kazakhstan, 12 rifle divisions, 7 rifle brigades, 4 cavalry divisions, and separate units of various branches of the armed forces were formed.