Eastern Front (World War II)

Battlefront between the USSR and Germany during World War II. Initially running along the line of the Polish eastern border agreed between Germany and the Soviet Union in the Ribbentrop–Molotov pact 1939 (more or less where the border lies today), the front fluctuated wildly during the course of the campaign. At the time of the front's most eastern extent it ran from Petsamo in northern Finland, parallel with the Finnish border, skirted Leningrad, then ran southeast in front of Moscow, through Voronezh to Stalingrad, then down toward the Caucasus and looped back to the west to end on the Black Sea close to Novorossiysk.