78 years ago today in 1941, German artillery opened fire across the dividing line of Occupied Poland
78 years ago today in 1941, German artillery opened fire across the dividing line of Occupied Poland, their shells instantly followed by an onslaught of troops and Panzers along with gull-winged Stukas confidently bombing their helpless Soviet targets. Within hours almost all Soviet border defences would be eviscerated and the Wehrmacht and its allies would be knifing their way into the USSR. The Eastern Front had just begun, by the time the two blood-craving titans of totalitarianism had finished with each other tens of millions would be dead and millions more left homeless, displaced and dehumanized in what was not only one of the most devastating campaigns in terms of human life ever fought but was also the decisive front of the Second World War. Ever since they had signed their devilish pact back in 1939 the two mutually admiring and mutually despising dictators had known that war between them would eventually come. The truce which allowed both of them to devour Poland had bee...