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I am sure there probably is. I read most stuff online trying to find cool places around Slovakia to see while I am here working.

Very cool. Thanks for sharing.

Wow! great pictures

Yes. I used to have a couple. Wish I could remember the names.

Fascinating...... Thanks for posting that. The Eastern Front is the side of WW2 history I know the least about, but stuff like that ignites my interest.

CZ and Slovakia united as Czechoslovakia was aligned with Germany in ww2. At the end of the war, the one time united Slovakia and the Czech republic (Czechoslovakia) rebelled against Germany. Russia was to support them, but they allowed the Czechoslovakia soldiers to fight Germany without the promised support. This helped destroy the CZ-SL forces and German forces, and made for an easier russian/soviet post war occupation. Same thing was done in Poland.
It is interesting because loyalties were split. Naturally at the time corruption decided a good amount of the loyalty. Lot of suffering to go around.
As far as the Dukia pass, it has been in many wars for hundreds of years due to the importance as a trade route.

Yes. Look at the series written for Osprey by Prit Buttar, a Brit. They are very readable. I've read Between Giants, Battleground Prussia and Splintered Empires (ww1).
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/prit%20buttar/_/N-8q8

Stalin was very well known for playing his enemies off against one another. Or even allies if it suited his purpose. I can see that he'd "accidentally" fail to help the Slovs so as to weaken any resistance to himself later on.
He was a ruthless SOB, every bit as bad as Hitler.
Truman, when he was a senator, said of supporting the Soviets vs the Germans that we should support whichever side was losing.
I've read a few bios of German soldiers and their service on the Eastern Front. As I said, the little I know of it comes from these or Anthony Begor's Stalingrad".
I know enough to know that it was brutal and bloody.
I've always thought that Hitler's biggest mistake was his treatment of civilian Poles and Russians on the eastern front. Had he treated them better, they'd have been happy to support him over the murderous Stalin.
With less troops tied down in the east, he'd have been a lot tougher nut for the U.S. And Britian.
Montana, it's an interesting story, but I'm curious as to what are you doing over I. That part of the world.
Care to share details, or is it a "nunya"?
7mm

The battle was another masterful defense conducted by Heinrici.

Just a slight correction for those trying to find the book mentioned--It's actually Antony Beevor. I'm currently reading his work on the Spanish Civil War, which both sides deserved to lose.
You're right about that being Hitler's mistake, but it couldn't be any other way. The whole war was about expanding Germany eastward for Lebensraum (living room). He thought of Slavs as subhuman and only a small step above the Jews and gypsies. He just wanted them for slave labor. He couldn't wrap his mind around them maybe being potential allies.

Damn auto correct.
You put in something, and it thinks you want something else.
Gotta proof read everything 3 or 4 times, and I still miss it!
And I used to bitch about a speel chacker!
Good catch. "Stalingrad" is a good book. I love American History, and it's a little outside my realm, but I got it on a friend's recommendation.
7mm

This is the definitive book about the Eastern Front by which all others are measured:

https://www.amazon.com/Barbarossa-Russian-German-Conflict-Alan-Clark/dp/0688042686

The distances, the numbers involved, and the casualties on the Eastern Front were unimaginable. There were dozens of battles on the Eastern Front bigger than the battle of the Bulge.

Hitler made plenty of mistakes but one thing he did right was in that first winter when the attack stalled and the Russians counterattacked, he forbid any sort of retreat and made his troops stand. His generals wanted to pull back and retreat, but Hitler understood that any sort of retreat in that weather under pressure from the Russians would have instantly devolved into a rout and a repeat of the destruction of Napoleon’s Grand Armee.

I worked with an Austrian gentleman who had been conscripted into the German army and saw service on the Russian front during the brutal winter offensive. He told stories of how he knew he would die one way or the other if he had fought or if they had retreated. This led him to the decision to desert, he told of walking for days in sub-zero temperatures constantly trying to evade capture, sleeping only when exhaustion overtook them awaking with their hair frozen and their clothing so frozen it took tremendous effort to get moving again.

I always recommend The Chief Culprit by Viktor Suvorov.

dukla was a battle that was suppose to last for maybe a week, but turned into a bloodbath. I am a history buff, and fairly well acquainted with dukla pass that being in eastern slovakia, and not very far from my grandmother's village of novot, slovakia.
There are still t34 tanks parked around some of the villages in that area, where they got holed.
my understanding is a a lot of forest in that area is off limited due to left over ordance still laying around.
auschwitz is also not far from there.
if you are in krackow, check out the wedel chocolate factory, which was started by a family member in the 1800's. ethnic german, but migrated to poland. plant was bombed out during the war, rebuilt, and confiscated by the communists, when they got kicked out it was sold to cadbery and now owned by south koreans.
famous chocolate in europe.
that area in north eastern slovakia in the carpathians is ski country these days. Interesting enough to me just outside of novot, are some quarterhorse ranches where they do typical western stuff such as roping, cutting cows out of a herd etc.
The borders have changed hands in that area many times, sometimes poland, sometimes austro hungarian, sometimes czech, now slovakian. Right next to the Ukraine too.

For Anyone with an interest more in Stalingrad.

however, Mr. Beevor does explain all the different German Army group roles, North ,South and Centre,

I won't give my remarks on the book, Enough to say that after Stalingrad it urged me to read
Ardennes 1944 , Berlin: the downfall 1945, etc

best you just scan through some of the 500 + online reviews of Stalingrad.
The author had rare special access to Soviet archives at the time , which the Russian gov. then closed off.
because they were expressly not happy with the content of the book.

https://www.amazon.com/Stalingrad-Fateful-1942-1943-Antony-Beevor/dp/0140284583

I suggest reading Ardennes 1944 as well as Stalingrad, to give one a better overall perspective of the
war in Europe waged between the eastern and western front.

...and you could throw in Beevors 'D-DAY' as well ..which covers Normandy right up to the liberation of Paris.

there are a number of video's on youtube on dukla

I work here for a company that owns a Blackhawk, I am their TI.

one of the interesting things to me, is the number of those countries formerly under the thumb of the soviets now part of N.A.T.O.: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_states_of_NATO

there is a youtube video floating around of a arms manufacturer in the eastern part of the Ukraine. Using 3d technology among other things to make rifles and sniper systems. They showed some dillon equipment in the plant. I know it's not far from slovakia.