Azerbaijan in World War II
[2] Operation Pike was a plan developed by the United Kingdom and France to bomb Baku in a surprise long-range raid from airbases in Iraq and Syria in order to hinder this oil delivery to Germany.
As later shown by the limited effects of strategic bombing during the war, the plan's potential impact was greatly overestimated, while it risked negative diplomatic and other results for the Allies.
The region also possessed large reserves of strategic raw materials such as tungsten and molybdenum ore. Loss of the Caucasus would have proved devastating for the USSR: not only would they lose a substantial amount of oil production, which fueled the Red Army, they would also lose a valuable source of precious metals and the increasingly vital crop of grain.
The Germans also wanted to overcome the Dividing Ridge in the central part of the Caucasus Mountains in order to allow an entrance into Soviet Georgia using a bypass maneuver.
[7] To protect the Azerbaijani oil fields, Joseph Stalin organized the North Caucasian Front along the German route of advance in the southern Caucasus.
The Axis divisions, consisting of German and Romanian troops, suffered heavy losses before they could reach the foothills on the Terek River and the Caucasus Mountains.
This invasion was intended to secure and defend the Allied supply lines through the area[11] along with overthrowing the king of Persia, Rezā Shāh, who was suspected of sympathizing with the Axis.
After failed negotiations between allied forces and king Rezā Shāh, the Red Army marched into Tehran on September 17.
[14] The Trans-Iranian Lend-Lease route was the pathway used to get American and British supplies from the Persian Gulf through Persia and into the Soviet Union via Azerbaijan.
The previous route of entering supplies to the Soviet Union; the North Atlantic Sea Lane, closed in July 1942 following the debacle of Convoy PQ 17.
The successful transport of Allied supplies through Iran and the Caucasus into the Soviet Union was instrumental in the defense of Russia against the Germans.
Azerbaijan played a major role in the Battle of the Caucasus with Azerbaijani civilians providing resistance to the German advance.
Transportation of wood and bread to the Caucasus and Middle Asia, which were delivered through the Caspian Sea via the Volga and the Urals, also influenced the high level of cargo-turnover.
[31] Despite ongoing military actions, Baku remained the main provider of fuels and lubricants, sending 23.5 million tons of oil in the first year of the war alone.
slogan, Azerbaijani oilmen were awarded a Red challenge banner of the State Defense Committee, All-Union Central Council of Professional Unions and National Commissariat of Oil Industry of the USSR, which was indicative of a high level of work in the region.
Nikolai Baibakov, a citizen of Baku, was in charge of a special headquarters coordinating the supply of military units with fuel.
In 1941, The State Defense Committee decided to relocate parts of the oil enterprises of Baku, evacuate residents, and reorganize transportation flows.
Equipment, specialists and their families were sent to "The second Baku" districts (Bashkortostan, Samara and Perm Oblasts) for creation of new oil enterprises and factories there.
In autumn, the "Azneftrazvedka" trust was transferred to the Volga Region and A. F. Rustambeyov, a prominent oilman of Azerbaijan, was engaged in the organization of its activity in the new place.
Terminal stations, which were located on the shore of the Caspian Sea and The Volga River, and other great population aggregates, and which adjoined railway roads, were created.
Being a non-frontline city, the capital of Azerbaijan was hourly connected with acting units of the Red Army with its oil arteries, as a frontline part of its fronts."
Soldiers of our front under Stalingrad, in Don and Donbass, on the shores of the Dnepr and Dnestr, in Belgrad, under Budapesht and Vienna remember Azerbaijani oilmen with gratitude and greet brave workers of oily Baku."
[36] In February 1942, the Central Inquiry Office under the Soviet of Evacuation carried out a general census of the number of internal refugees that fled Azerbaijan to the rest of the USSR.
The census reported that 2745 people in total were evacuated from the Zagatala, Beylagan, Imishli, and Bilasuvar Ragions of the Azerbaijan SSR, among which 2545 were Jews, 114 Russians, 65 Ukrainians, 15 Poles, along with some Armenians, Tatars, Moldovans, and Georgians.
These refugees included 387 Russians, 386 Jews, 168 Ukrainians, 73 Armenians, 5 Georgians, 7 Azerbaijanis, 11 Poles, 8 Tatars, and a minority citizens from other nations.
