The Soviet Union and the Great Patriotic War Quiz

Answer: Lake Ladoga

The Siege of Leningrad, lasting from September of 1941 until January of 1944, was the longest (known) siege of a city since Biblical times. Death toll estimates range from 600,000 to over one million for the city's inhabitants.

Answer: Vyacheslav Molotov

Molotov announced the commencement of hostilities with Germany to the Russian people. Stalin did not make a public speech until July 3, 1941. He spoke amid tears, and it widely believed that he'd had a nervous breakdown. In their memoirs, both Krushchev and Marshal Zhukov describe how Stalin was almost paralyzed by the news, having not expected a German attack till 1943 at the earliest. Stalin's refusal to act on the news of the German invasion played a large role in the German's early rout of the Soviet Army.

Answer: The large scale relocation of major industry.

The Soviet Union managed to successfully relocate over 2500 factories before Germany gained control of western Soviet territories. The salvaging of industrial potential played a huge role in the Soviet's later ability to outproduce the Germans in tanks, armaments and airplanes by the end of the war.

Answer: General Andrei Vlasov

Having become disillusioned with Stalin's regime because of the military purges of the 1930s, General Vlasov saw the war as a chance to free Russia from Stalinist oppression. In 1942, he organized an army to fight on the side of the Soviet Union. He was captured at war's end by the Americans and turned over to the Soviets. He was executed in 1946.

Answer: False

Although the government was evacuated to Kuibyshev, Stalin chose to remain in Moscow. Historians argue that it was Stalin's continued presence in the city which helped stiffen resistance to the German offensive.

Answer: True

As the war progressed, Stalin realized increasingly that an appeal to Communist ideology alone would not motivate the people to support the war. To gain the support of the Russian Orthodox Church for the war effort, Stalin restored the Holy Synod and allowed churches to reopen. Metropolitan Sergius, the head of the Russian Church, delivered the church support Stalin desperately needed to galvanize the people.

Answer: Order 270

Order 270 was issued in July, 1941. Stalin's own son, Yakov, was to fall victim to this order. Shortly after his capture in July, Yakov's wife was arrested and sentenced to two years in a labor camp. In addition, Stalin refused a German offer to exchange Yakov for a high-ranking German officer. Yakov died in a German prisoner-of-war camp in 1943.

Answer: False

In two days, in a ravine at Babi Yar, outside Kiev, 33,771 Jews were killed. But this was not the largest slaughter. At Odessa, an estimated 75,000 to 80,000 Jews were killed by Germany's Romanian allies and a German Einsatzgruppe.

Answer: The need to de-Nazify Germany.

The de-Nazification of Germany was the one thing that the Allies could all agree on. Other issues which affected relations included Great Britain's and American's repeated postponement of a cross Channel invasion, and the personality clash between Truman and Stalin after Roosevelt's death.

Answer: Reims, France

On the morning of May 7, 1945, General Jodl was authorized by Admiral Doenitz, Hitler's successor, to sign a surrender with General Eisenhower in Reims, France. The Soviet representative was General Susloparov. Susloparov was caught offguard; he had no instructions from Moscow.

But if he did not sign, he risked a German surrender without Soviet participation. Susloparov signed under the condition that Moscow would be able to repeat the ceremony if desired. Stalin was infuriated. He accused his Western allies of having concluded a "shady deal." A second ceremony was held on May 9, 1945 in Berlin.