Senior Nazi officials meet at Wannsee near Berlin to coordinate the "Final Solution" to murder Europe's Jews.
The Red Army encircles and forces the surrender of the German Sixth Army, a decisive turning point on the Eastern Front.
Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murder some six million European Jews, along with millions of other victims.
Nazi Germany and its allies launch a massive invasion of the Soviet Union, opening the Eastern Front, the largest theatre of the Second World War.
German and Finnish forces besiege Leningrad for nearly 900 days; around a million civilians die, mostly from starvation.
Germany's last major offensive on the Eastern Front fails against Soviet defences in one of the largest tank battles in history.
The Royal Air Force repels a large-scale air campaign by the Luftwaffe, forcing Hitler to postpone his planned invasion of Britain.