The Irish Times - Fri, Jun 20, 2014 - D- Day was important - so were the battles against the Nazis in Russia and the East.

  Irish Times article comparing the well-known battles against Nazi Germany in Western Europe with the often overlooked battles on the Easter Front - where the Russians suffered horrific casualties in a war Hitler described as a 'war of annihilation'.  

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Time for Bagration commemoration: looking to the Eastern front - European News | Latest News from Across Europe | The Irish Times - Fri, Jun 20, 2014



 In Normandy, the Germans deployed 11 divisions against the initial D-Day landings. In the east, the Germans had 228 divisions. The casualties of this operation were equally staggering. The German historian Karl-Heinz Freiser has calculated German casualties at more than 399,000 killed, wounded, missing and POW. A conservative estimate of Russian casualties is more than 180,000. Total Russian wartime deaths still remain unclear with estimates ranging from 18 to 24 million, both military and civilian. The worst damage inflicted on the Germans occurred on the eastern front but at a huge cost to the Russians. The Bagration campaign also saw a further hardening of the attitudes between the combatants on the eastern front. The scene was set for the merciless campaigns of 1945, culminating in the brutal battle of Berlin.