What region did Germany and Italy control by December 1941?
1 Answer
In December, 1941, the European Axis powers were -- relative to their opponents -- at their peak strength. The German summer offensive in 1942 would capture a lot more territory in southern Russia.
Explanation:
In Russia in December of 1941, Army Group North had Leningrad surrounded and under desperate siege -- starvation was already rife in the city and the only supply rout was across the frozen Lake Ladoga. Army Group South had withdrawn slightly from the Don but was holding comfortably, and was still investing Sevastapol on the Crimea (although Russian troops have landed again on the eastern tip of the Crimean peninsula).
Army Group Centre had come within sight of Moscow, but the Soviet counter-offensive had pushed the Germans back from Klin, Kalinin, and Tula to the west of Moscow.
In North Africa, Rommel, the Afrika Korps and the Italian army were failing back to El Agheila, where they had been in February of 1941, everything they had gained earlier in the year was back in British hands. Ethiopia is now mostly liberated by the British and Ethiopian guerrillas.
Otherwise, at this time, all of continental Europe is in German hands, or in alliance with Germany. Spain is ostensibly pro-German and Portugal is being carefully neutral. Vichy France is being carefully pro-German, Switzerland and Sweden are still neutral.
In the USSR, all of Belorus, the Ukraine and the Baltic nations are under German control, as is much of Western Russia.
