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On the Eastern Front Campaign

Historical background

A few days before World War II started, August 23rd 1939, Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop signed a Treaty of Non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The agreement renounced warfare between the two countries and pledged neutrality by either party if the other were attacked by a third party. The treaty included also a secret protocol dividing the independent countries of Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Romania into Nazi and Soviet spheres of influence.

Two years later, June 22nd 1941 the German army broke the Treaty and attacked the Soviet Union starting the biggest front in history: The Eastern Front was the largest theatre of war in history and was notorious for its unprecedented ferocity, destruction, and immense loss of life. More people fought and died on the Eastern Front than in all other theatres of World War II combined. With over 30 million dead, many of them civilians, the Eastern Front has been called a war of extermination. It resulted in the destruction of the Third Reich, the partition of Germany and the rise of the Soviet Union as a military and industrial superpower.

The Eastern Front ended on 8 May 1945 with capitulation of Nazi Germany.

Armorama Campaign

22nd June 2008 – exactly 67 years after the start of fighting on the Eastern Front, 121 modellers started their work on depicting weapons used by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during the war between these two countries. On The Eastern Front campaign has very simple rules resulting in many different entries focused on miscellaneous types of vehicles and weapons – from tanks through cars, motorcycles and artillery to Panzerfausts and heavy machine guns. The rules of the campaign allowed scales from 1/6 to 1/72.

The campaign officially finished 16th February 2009. Fifty five modellers finished and presented their entries. Some of them were able to build more than one model. Several dioramas were presented as well, since there was no restriction on the method of presenting the models. Many more builds were started but - unfortunately - not finished before the campaign’s end.

Each participant who presented a finished model on the over-670-comment-long forum or in the campaign gallery received an OTEF award: a ribbon showing the German Iron Cross on the left side and Soviet Order of the Patriotic War on the right.

The succesful participants

AirLedge, Anirudharun, ant88, anti-hero, blackbug67, Buzz, c5flies, CaptainA, crossiron, curseoftheundead, Desmoquattro, endrju007, FAUST, foose54, FredRMA, gbyrnsie, grayghost666, GregCloseCombat, Guardian, Gvoakes, gwyndaffandy, Hederstierna, integraguy95, jaypee, JeepLC, Jupiterblitz, Kastanova, KAYELL, Kladivo, Mobious, monkybutt, MSGsummit, musicwerks, muttley, Nito74, PanzerKiel, pdelsoglio, plstktnkr2, pzkfwmk6, REMEARMR, Roy, rtvmodeler, SGTJKJ, sourkraut, SsgtMack, Tarkus, tread,_geek, troubble27, TuomasH, vindicare_assassin, wanagun, WARLORD, warreni, William_Bradley, and yeahwiggie.