High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Below is the timeline of the events of the Eastern Front of World War II, the conflict between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1945. The Eastern Front of World War II (German: die Ostfront 1941?1945, der Rußlandfeldzug 1941?1945 (Russian campaign) or der Ostfeldzug 1941-1945 (Eastern Campaign)) was a theatre of war between the European Axis powers, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Croatia and Finland (not an Axis member), and the Soviet Union which encompassed central and eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945. Nazi propaganda dubbed the conflict Battle for Survival against Bolshevism or a Crusade against Bolshevism. In all Soviet and the majority of Russian sources, the military conflict in Eastern Europe is referred to as the Great Patriotic War, but sometimes that phrase also includes operations against Imperial Japan in 1945.