About the German Invasion of the Soviet Union About the German Invasion of the Soviet Union Gerd R. Uebersch�r Barbarossa, German codename for the invasion of the USSR which took place on 22 June 1941 (see Map 14). Launched by Hitler in violation of the existing non-aggression treaty with Stalin, it was designed to provide the Reich with 'living space in the East'. The German dictator had advocated the conquest of the USSR as early as 1924 in his book, Mein Kampf. At the same time, the campaign was to lay the foundations for the expected conflict with the two Anglo-Saxon powers for primacy as a world power and to free Germany of the economic warfare the Allies were waging against it. The first operational studies for the invasion of the USSR were started as early as the summer of 1940 and corresponding map exercises took place that autumn. Finally, Hitler was briefed on the results of both on 5 December 1940, and even at this early stage the first serious differences became apparent.

It was a question of deciding whether the main thrust was to be directed against Moscow or the two flanks in the north and south of the field of operations. Hitler wanted the forces to wheel north and south from the centre after piercing the enemy line; the Army High Command (OKH) favoured Moscow as the point of main effort. As a basis for operations, Directive No. 21, Operation BARBAROSSA, and the Army High Command Deployment Directive were issued on 18 December 1940 and 31 January 1941 respectively. Their objective was 'to crush Soviet Russia in a swift campaign' which involved rapid offensive operations to destroy Soviet troops located in the west of the USSR. The OKH assumed that it would be able to defeat the Red Army west of the Dvina-Dnieper rivers. Subsequently, both the Donets basin, important to the war economy, in the south and Moscow were to be seized. However, the question of how the war was to be terminated after reaching the 'line Volga (Astrakhan)Archangel' if the Wehrmacht did not succeed in destroying the Red Army west of the Dvina and Dnieper remained unanswered.

After Hitler had ordered the invasion of the Soviet Union on 20 June 1941 by issuing the codeword DORTMUND, the German formations launched a surprise attack on a wide front between 0300 and 0330 hours on 22 June 1941. With almost 3.6 million German and other Axis soldiers, around 3,600 tanks and over 2,700 aircraft, the largest force in European military history, crossed the border with the USSR between the Baltic and the Black seas. Under the overall command of Field-Marshal von Brauchitsch, it was organized into three army groupsNorth, Centre and South (commanded by Field Marshals von Leeb, von Bock, and von Rundstedt)and three tactical air forces (commanded by General Alfred Keller, Field Marshal Kesselring and General Lohr). The assault by the 153 divisions succeeded.

It had been delayed at least twice and opinions differ among scholars as to whether the postponements were caused by the German intervention in Greece or for other reasonsa late thaw was probably a prime causebut Brauchitsch's troops were able to pierce the Soviet frontier positions and conduct their operations according to plan. The Luftwaffe achieved air supremacy over the theatre of operations within the first few days. The Red Army formations in the western military districts, comprising about 140 divisions and 40 brigades totalling about 2.9 million men, 10-15,000 tanks, some of which were obsolescent, and 8,000 aircraft, suffered heavy defeats. The Soviet High Command was surprised by the force of the German assault. Despite numerous warnings by his agents, Stalin had not reckoned with such an attack by Hitler at this time, expecting instead a new political reconciliation of interests with Berlin. The German invasion marked the beginning of a rapacious war of annihilation and conquest in which a scorched earth policy was employed by both sides. Hitler intended a 'ruthless Germanization' of the occupied eastern territories, conducted with great severity.

Orders violating international law, such as the Kommissarbefehl, the order to execute all Red Army political commissars, and the 'Barbarossa jurisdiction Decree', which exempted German soldiers from prosecution if they committed a crime against any Soviet civilian, meant a departure from traditional military conduct for the Wehrmacht. At the same time, Einsatzgruppen were to carry out the murder of Jewish and Slav elements of the population. When Stalin had regained his composure after this embarrassing surprise, he called upon his people to mount a 'relentless struggle' against the German intruders. On 3 July he proclaimed the 'patriotic war' against the Germans, calling for scorched earth actions and partisan warfare behind German lines. As a result of the military successes of the first few weeks, Hitler and OKH expected a swift campaign with the victory parade taking place in Moscow as early as the end of August. OKH was already occupied with new, large-scale operations against the industrial region in the Urals. Hitler ordered that Moscow and Leningrad were to be razed to the ground; their inhabitants were to be annihilated or driven out by starvation. These intentions were part of the 'General Plan East'.

Drafts for a future settlement and regional planning in the East were hastily drawn up. They envisaged gigantic resettlement schemes involving more than 30 million inhabitants who were to be exchanged for 'German and Germanic' peoples. At a conference on 16 July, Hitler was already distributing the spoils. He said it was obvious that the Third Reich would never again leave the conquered regions of the USSR. He stated that the main objectives of German occupation policy were: 'firstly to rule, secondly to administer, and thirdly to exploit'. In order to implement this policy against all opposition by the inhabitants, 'a simple solution' was recommended: the best way to pacify the conquered territories was 'to shoot dead anyone looking askance'. In addition, Hitler intended to have the Jews in the conquered eastern territories and throughout Europe systematically annihilated. Accordingly, on 31 July, Goring gave the instruction to make 'all preparations necessary' for a 'total solution to the Jewish question in the German sphere of influence in Europe'. Despite the initial large-scale battles of encirclement at Bialystok-Minsk and Smolensk, it became apparent that the Germans were mistaken in their low opinion of the Soviet military potential.

The Red Army's will to defend and readiness to perform remained unbroken. With increasing frequency, the Wehrmacht had to ward off vigorous counter-attacks. In August, Goebbels and Hitler admitted that they had 'obviously underestimated completely Soviet striking power and, above all, the equipment of the Soviet Union'. They were forced to realize that Moscow had succeeded in creating a new industrial base in the far east of the country, which enabled the Soviet leadership to make good very quickly the heavy materiel losses in the battles of encirclement. Despite severe losses of personnel, materiel, and terrain, the Red Army defended stubbornly and with growing skill. In this way, it was able to prevent the rapid conquest of Leningrad, Moscow, and the industrial region in the Donets basin as planned by the Germans. German logistics in the hinterland were also hampered by partisan actions following Stalin's appeal. Another reason for difficulties in the bringing-up of supplies was that the Germans had failed to provide sufficient materiel and transportation for lengthy, force-consuming operations. After the victory at Smolensk, Hitler reverted to his old concept of concentrating the main effort on the wings.

He ordered his forces to wheel south and north in order to capture rapidly the regions in the Ukraine and around Leningrad containing raw materials and industries vital to the war effort; Army Group Centre was to go on to the defensive for the time being. As a result, the Soviet forces before Moscow gained time for fierce counter-thrusts and for the development of new defensive positions. On the other hand, the completion of the encirclement of Kiev on the southern sector of the front at the end of September was an overwhelming success for the Wehrmacht. Hitler was convinced that the military strength of the USSR was now exhausted. For this reason, the advance to Moscow was to take place after all, in order to capture the city, before the onset of winter. However, the Germans had great difficulty in bringing up the most urgently required replacements for this new attack (TYPHOON). With no more strategic reserves, the offensive strength of the German divisions was bound to diminish thenceforth. Late in September, the attack on Moscow was launched by Army Group Centre with six armies or panzer groups, supported by one tactical air force with three air and antiaircraft artillery corps.

In an address on 2 October, Hitler called this operation 'the last large-scale decisive battle of this year'; he said it would 'shatter the USSR'. He placed particular stress on the idea of a European 'crusade against Bolshevism'; all the nations of Europe, he went on, saw this struggle as a combined action to 'save the most valuable continent of civilization'. At first it looked as though Hitler's predictions were to come true. In the course of the massive twin battles of Briansk-Vyazma, Army Group Centre was able to encircle and capture almost eight Soviet armies. Hitler was already busy working out the details of the planned destruction of the Soviet capital. However, the Soviet forces quickly managed to construct new defensive positions and bring up fresh forces. In addition, the onset of muddy weather hampered the mobility of the German troops and favoured the defenders. In the period that followed, both sides suffered from the difficult autumn weather conditions. However, for the German side, the effects of the weather on the supply situation, which was already strained, were devastating.

Nevertheless, in mid-October the Army High Command decided that the attack on Moscow was to be continued towards Vologda in the north and Voronezh in the south. However, after initial penetrations, the Red Army's resistance stiffened noticeably, with the result that the advance by the German formations came to a standstill. By bringing up new formations from Siberia and the Far East (where by now it was apparent that Japan was going to attack southwards and not into the USSR) and by activating militia divisions and battalions of labourers recruited from the population of Moscow, the Moscow leadership was able to reinforce the defensive front. Just how seriously the Soviet leaders took the threat to Moscow is shown by the relocation of most government, party, and military authorities to Kuibyshev, 800 km. (500 mi.) away on the Volga, from mid-October onwards. In addition, about a million inhabitants of Moscow were evacuated, the Kremlin was prepared for demolition and Lenin's coffin was removed from its mausoleum and taken to a safe place; but Stalin remained in Moscow.

When German panzer formations conquered Mozhaisk on 18 October, thereby penetrating the Moscow defensive position, Stalin declared the capital a fortress. Moreover, the Kremlin dictator exhorted the units marching to the front straight from the traditional military parade commemorating the 24th anniversary of the October Revolution to withstand the impending threat with all their might. In the course of the fierce fighting, there was an intensification of the ruthless conduct of war on both sides. Special inflammatory orders and orders of the day issued by German commanders revealed their willingness to play a part in Hitler's war of annihilation, based on racial ideology, against the USSR. This also applies to the assistance they gave to the campaigns of terror and murder conducted by SS units against the civilian population in the conquered territories. However, not all German officers accepted or morally supported this involvement in the executions of Jews as easily as was expressed, for instance, in the army orders issued by Generals von Reichenau, Hoth, and von Manstein. They called upon their soldiers to make 'the merciless extermination of alien insidiousness and brutality' the goal of their struggle.

At a conference chaired by the Chief of the General Staff, Halder, on 13 November 1941 at Orsha near Smolensk, the differences of opinion of the German staffs concerning the continuation of the operations became apparent. Given the exhausted condition of their units, the field commanders were opposed to further attacks. On the other hand, Hitler and OKH decided to resume the offensive and, by making a supreme effort, risk an attempt to conquer Moscow. This 'final effort of willpower' was regarded as decisive in the effort to vanquish the already teetering Red Army. The Germans staked their all on one throw. Once again, they were able to drive the Red Army back. The German panzer formations came to within 30 km. (18 mi.) of the city. By the end of the month, however, German offensive strength was exhausted, and the attack came to a standstill. The Quartermaster General, Edward Wagner, stated: 'we are at the end of our personnel and materiel strength.' Early in December, the German panzer armies finally had to discontinue their attack.

They hoped that this would be followed by a lengthy breathing-space until the next spring, for the German Army was not adequately equipped to fight a winter war. On 5/6 December 1941, however, the Red Army launched a surprise counteroffensive which broke through the weak German lines, with the result that large gaps appeared in the front and it seemed that several German formations might become encircled. As the Germans were not able to withdraw reserves from any other theatre of war, the Eastern Front threatened to collapse. Only a few days later, on 15 December, the Soviet authorities were able to return from Kuibyshev to Moscow. Although the German front commanders several times demanded the withdrawal of the troops, Hitler refused and ordered instead that not an inch of ground was to be surrendered. Over the next few days, several Cs-in-C and generals were replaced or dismissed by him or asked to be relieved of their command. On 19 December 1941, Hitler assumed the additional function of C-in-C of the army from Brauchitsch, making an example of those who were to blame for the defeat.

But while Hitler was forced to realize that his military concept had failed, the looming disaster before Moscow was overshadowed by the surprise Japanese attack on the US fleet at Pearl Harbor on 7 December. In keeping with earlier assurances, Hitler entered the war against the USA on Japan's side. By the end of December, the Red Army had finally eliminated the threat posed to Moscow by the German divisions. The Wehrmacht had been repelled up to 280 km. (175 mi.) from Moscow and had suffered heavy casualties. BARBAROSSA had failed. At the same time, the myth of invincibility of the Wehrmacht, which had grown accustomed to victory, was shattered. By 31 January 1942, it had lost almost 918,000 men, wounded, captured, missing, and dead28.7% of the 3.2 million soldiers involved. The Wehrmacht never recovered from these heavy personnel and materiel losses. The Red Army, too, suffered heavy casualties.

By the end of 1941, 3.35 million Soviet soldiers had been taken prisoner by the Germans, but the USSR had not collapsed militarily. The Red Army's victory before Moscow also considerably enhanced the politico-military importance of the USSR. The successful warding off of the German attackbefore Lend-Lease had started on a large scalestrengthened the morale of the Red Army and the Soviet population. It also enhanced the international reputation of the USSR, which on 1 January 1942 was a major co-signatory of the United Nations Declaration. For Hitler's political objectives, the defeat before Moscow was a serious setback, an indisputable failure of the blitzkrieg concept. Hitler's plans and aims for Lebensraum and its rapacious exploitation had also failed totally. Subsequently, Berlin had to fight the war against the Soviet Union at the same time as it was fighting the UK and the new enemy, the USA. It was now a question of how long the Third Reich and its Axis partners would be able to withstand the superior resources of the Allied powers.

Bartov, O., The Eastern Front, 1941-1945: German Troops and the barbarisation of war (London, 1985). Boog, H., et al., Germany and the Second World War, VoI. 4: The Attack on the Soviet Union (Oxford, 1994). Clark, A., Barbarossa. The Russian-German Conflict 1941-45 (New York, 1965). Erickson, J., The Road to Stalingrad (London, 1975). from The Oxford Companion to World War II. Copyright � I.C.B. Dear and Oxford UP, 1995. Operation Barbarossa | European history | Britannica.com Operation Barbarossa Georgy Zhukov Operation Barbarossa, original name Operation Fritz, during World War II , code name for the German invasion of the Soviet Union , which was launched on June 22, 1941. The failure of German troops to defeat Soviet forces in the campaign signaled a crucial turning point in the war. German soldiers fighting in the Soviet Union as part of Operation Barbarossa, 1941. NARA/U.S.

Department of Defense Germany invading the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, June 22, 1941. Contunico © ZDF Enterprises GmbH, Mainz Background Although Adolf Hitler had congratulated himself on the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact of 1939 as a matter of expediency, anti-Bolshevism had remained his most profound emotional conviction as World War II entered its second year. Following the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states and of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina in June 1940, which put Soviet forces in proximity to the Romanian oil fields on which Germany depended, Hitler’s long-standing interest in overthrowing the Soviet regime was heightened. He became acutely suspicious of the intentions of the Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin , and he began to feel that he could not afford to wait to complete the subjugation of western Europe, as he had originally planned, before dealing with the Soviet Union. Normandy Invasion For the campaign against the Soviet Union, the Germans allotted almost 150 divisions containing a total of about three million men.

Among those units were 19 panzer divisions, and in total the Barbarossa force had about 3,000 tanks, 7,000 artillery pieces, and 2,500 aircraft. It was in effect the largest and most powerful invasion force in human history. The Germans’ strength was further increased by more than 30 divisions of Finnish and Romanian troops. The Soviet Union had twice or perhaps three times the number of both tanks and aircraft as the Germans had, but their aircraft were mostly obsolete. The Soviet tanks were about equal to those of the Germans, however. A greater hindrance to Hitler’s chances of victory was that the German intelligence service underestimated the troop reserves that Stalin could bring up from the depths of the U.S.S.R. The Germans correctly estimated that there were about 150 divisions in the western parts of the U.S.S.R. and reckoned that 50 more might be produced. But the Soviets actually brought up more than 200 fresh divisions by the middle of August , making a total of 360. The consequence was that, though the Germans succeeded in shattering the original Soviet armies by superior technique, they then found their path blocked by fresh ones.

The effects of the miscalculations were increased because much of August was wasted while Hitler and his advisers were having long arguments as to what course they should follow after their initial victories. Another factor in the Germans’ calculations was purely political, though no less mistaken; they believed that within three to six months of their invasion, the Soviet regime would collapse from lack of domestic support. Initial offensive Ringling Bros. Folds Its Tent On June 22, 1941, the German offensive was launched by three army groups under the same commanders as in the invasion of France in 1940. On the left (north), an army group under Gen. Wilhelm von Leeb struck from East Prussia into the Baltic states toward Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). On the right (south), another army group, under Gen. Gerd von Rundstedt , with an armoured group under Gen. Paul Ludwig von Kleist , advanced from southern Poland into Ukraine against Kiev, whence it was to wheel southeastward to the coasts of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov . Last, in the centre, north of the Pripet Marshes , the main blow was delivered by Gen.

Fedor von Bock ’s army group, with one armoured group under Gen. Heinz Guderian and another under Gen. Hermann Hoth, thrusting northeastward at Smolensk and Moscow. Newsreel about the mobilization of the Soviet people upon invasion by Germany, 1941. Stock footage courtesy The WPA Film Library Scenes from the Siege of Leningrad, 1941. Stock footage courtesy The WPA Film Library World Wars The invasion along a 1,800-mile (2,900-km) front took the Soviet leadership completely by surprise and caught the Red Army in an unprepared and partially demobilized state. As part of the southern flank of Bock’s group, Guderian’s tanks raced 50 miles (80 km) beyond the frontier on the first day of the invasion and were at Minsk, 200 miles (320 km) beyond it, on June 27.

At Minsk they converged with Hoth’s tanks, which had attacked from the northern flank, but Bock’s infantry could not follow up quickly enough to complete the encirclement of the Soviet troops in the area; though 300,000 prisoners were taken in the salient , a large part of the Soviet forces was able to escape to the east. The Soviet armies were clumsily handled and frittered their tank strength away in piecemeal action like that of the French in 1940. But the isolated Soviet troops fought with a stubbornness that the French had not shown, and their resistance imposed a brake by continuing to block road centres long after the German tide had swept past them. The result was similar when Guderian’s tanks, having crossed the Dnieper River on July 10, entered Smolensk six days later and converged with Hoth’s thrust through Vitebsk; 200,000 Soviet prisoners were taken, but some Soviet forces were withdrawn from the trap to the line of the Desna, and a large pocket of resistance lay behind the German armour.

By mid-July, moreover, a series of rainstorms were turning the sandy Russian roads into clogging mud, over which the wheeled vehicles of the German transport behind the tanks could make only very slow progress. The Germans also began to be hampered by the scorched-earth policy adopted by the retreating Soviets. The Soviet troops burned crops, destroyed bridges, and evacuated factories in the face of the German advance. Entire steel and munitions plants in the westernmost portions of the U.S.S.R. were dismantled and shipped by rail to the east, where they were put back into production. The Soviets also destroyed or evacuated most of their rolling stock (railroad cars), thus depriving the Germans of the use of the Soviet rail system, since Soviet railroad track was of a gauge different from that of German track and German rolling stock was consequently useless on it. In June 1941, German armoured divisions roll deep into the Soviet Union, but by winter they find … Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest Nevertheless, by mid-July the Germans had advanced more than 400 miles (640 km) and were only 200 miles (320 km) from Moscow.

They still had ample time to make decisive gains before the onset of winter, but they lost the opportunity, primarily because of arguments throughout August between Hitler and the OKH about the destination of the next thrusts thence. Whereas the OKH proposed Moscow as the main objective, Hitler wanted the major effort to be directed southeastward, through Ukraine and the Donets Basin into the Caucasus, with a minor swing northwestward against Leningrad (to converge with Leeb’s army group). German tanks in the Soviet Union preparing for an attack as part of Operation Barbarossa, July 21, … AP Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies In Ukraine, meanwhile, Rundstedt and Kleist had made short work of the foremost Soviet defenses, stronger though the latter had been. A new Soviet front south of Kiev was broken by the end of July, and in the next fortnight the Germans swept down to the Black Sea mouths of the Bug and Dnieper rivers to converge with Romania’s simultaneous offensive.

Kleist was then ordered to wheel northward from central Ukraine and Guderian southward from Smolensk for a pincer movement around the Soviet forces behind Kiev; by the end of September the claws of the encircling movement had caught 520,000 men. These gigantic encirclements were partly the fault of inept Soviet high commanders and partly the fault of Stalin, who as commander in chief stubbornly overrode the advice of his generals and ordered his armies to stand and fight instead of allowing them to retreat eastward and regroup in preparation for a counteroffensive. Later actions As winter approached, Hitler stopped Leeb’s northward drive on the outskirts of Leningrad. He ordered Rundstedt and Kleist, however, to press on from the Dnieper toward the Don and the Caucasus. Bock, meanwhile, was to resume the advance on Moscow. Bock’s renewed advance began on October 2, 1941. Its prospects looked bright when Bock’s armies brought off a great encirclement around Vyazma, where 600,000 more Soviet troops were captured. That left the Germans momentarily with an almost clear path to Moscow.

But the Vyazma battle was not completed until late October; the German troops were tired; the country became a morass as the weather got worse; and fresh Soviet forces appeared in the Germans’ path as they plodded slowly forward. Some of the German generals wanted to break off the offensive and to take up a suitable winter line. But Bock wanted to press on, believing that the Soviets were on the verge of collapse, while Brauchitsch and Halder tended to agree with his view. As that also accorded with Hitler’s desire, he made no objection. The temptation of Moscow, now so close in front of their eyes, was too great for any of the topmost leaders to resist. On December 2 a further effort was launched, and some German detachments penetrated into the suburbs of Moscow; however, the advance as a whole was held up in the forests covering the capital. The stemming of this last phase of the great German offensive was partly due to the effects of the Russian winter, the subzero temperatures of which were the most severe in several decades.

In October and November a wave of frostbite cases had decimated the ill-clad German troops, for whom provisions of winter clothing had not been made, while the icy cold paralyzed the Germans’ mechanized transport, tanks, artillery, and aircraft. The Soviets, by contrast, were well clad and tended to fight more effectively in winter than did the Germans. By this time German casualties had mounted to levels that were unheard of in the campaigns against France and the Balkans; by November the Germans had suffered about 730,000 casualties. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin addressing troops in Red Square, in Moscow, on November 7, 1941, urging … Stock footage courtesy The WPA Film Library Trending Topics Eyjafjallajökull volcano In the south Kleist had already reached Rostov-na-Donu, gateway to the Caucasus, on November 22 but had exhausted his tanks’ fuel in doing so. Rundstedt, seeing the place to be untenable , wanted to evacuate it but was overruled by Hitler. A Soviet counteroffensive recaptured Rostov on November 28, and Rundstedt was relieved of his command four days later.

As the German drive against Moscow slackened, the Soviet commander on the Moscow front, Gen. Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov , on December 6 inaugurated the first great counteroffensive, with strokes against Bock’s right in the Yelets (Elets) and Tula sectors, south of Moscow, and against his centre in the Klin and Kalinin (now Tver) sectors, to the northwest. Levies of Siberian troops, who were extremely effective fighters in cold weather, were used for these offensives. There followed a blow at the German left, in the Velikiye Luki sector, and the counteroffensive, which soon took the form of a triple convergence toward Smolensk, was sustained throughout the winter of 1941–42. Operation Barbarossa had begun to miscarry in August 1941, and its failure was patent when the Soviet counteroffensive started. Although the Red Army experienced greater losses than the Germans during the campaign, the inability of German forces to defeat the Soviet Union marked a significant setback for the German military effort. Why did Hitler order the German invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941?

- GCSE History - Marked by Teachers.com Why did Hitler order the German invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941? Extracts from this document... Introduction History Coursework Why did Hitler order the German invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941? During the Second World War Hitler had taken over most of Western Europe, but after being defeated by Great Britain and stopped from taking over the country, he turned his attention to Russia. So on the 22nd of June 1941, Hitler ordered German troops to invade Russia under the intensions of taking over Russia. Hitler intended to take over Russia because Russia is and was a large country and has many resources, fuels and also it was more space for Germany to develop their empire. Another reason Hitler invaded Russia was because in previous decades other German dictators e.g. Napolean Bonaparte, had attempted to invade and take over Russia, but had failed and Hitler wanted to prove that it could be done. ...read more. Middle Another reason Hitler wanted to invade Russia was because Hitler disliked communism. This hatred for communism was so strong that it seemed to be almost innate.

His hatred for communism was shown in his book "Mein Kampf" (My Struggle) that he wrote while in prison for trying to over throw the German Government in the late 1920's and early 1930's. Obviously this hate for communism was a strong motivation for Hitler to invade Russia because the majority of the Russian population were communists. Hitler wanted to take over Germany and then would attempt to enforce his policies upon the German population and hopefully eliminating Communism in Russia. Hitler also wanted to invade Russia for its natural resources. Russia is an enormous area of land and so it contains large amounts of different natural resources and fuels such as coal, oil and iron. ...read more. Conclusion The German Aryan means the "superior race" and Hitler believed that there were two distinct groups of people that existed. The German Aryan (superior race) and what he called the Russian Slavs, which he thought to be the inferior race in terms of intellect and he also believed that the Russian Slavs were born inferior to the German Aryan. This narrow-minded belief, lead Hitler to believe that he could take over Russia and it would be justified because they were apparently an "inferior race" to the Germans.

Hitler had prepared and thought out this attack on Russia well and he used excellent tactics to make sure that Germany had a good chance of defeating Russia, unlike that attack on Britain. If Hitler had left the attack any longer the chances of Germany raking over Russia would become more and more unlikely due to the preparation and the rearmament of Russia. ?? ?? ?? ?? Clive Shaw ...read more. The above preview is unformatted text This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE Russia, USSR 1905-1941 section. Found what you're looking for? Start learning 29% faster today 150,000+ documents available WWII Glossary - B WWII Glossary Operational codename for Soviet strategic offensive against the German Army Group Centre, June 1944. Barbarossa Operational code name for the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.

(Barbarossa, or "Red Beard" was the nickname for Emperor Frederick I, who attempted to unify Germanic states in the 12th century.) Battleaxe Operational code name for the British offensive in North Africa intended to relieve Torbuk, June 1941 Baytown Operational code name for the Allied landings in southern Italy, September 1943 BCRA Bureau Centrale de Renseignements et d'Action - de Gaulle's secret intelligence service BEF Code name for British Jamming equipment to counter German "Y-Beams" Bernhard Operational code name for German scheme to counterfeit British bank notes and put them into circulation - began in 1942.

Bertram Operational code name for the British deception operations prior to El Alamein offensive, North Africa October 1942 Bestrafung Operational code name for German "punishment" air attacks on Belgrade, April 1941 Blitzkrieg "Lightning War" - a term used to describe the rapid German invasions using fast, piercing armoured formations Bodenplatte "Base Plate" - Operational code name for the German air offensive against Allied airfields in north-western Europe, January 1945 Bodyguard Operational code name for the deception operations intended to conceal Allied intentions in north-west Europe from 1944 Bolero Operational code name for the build up of US forces in Britain prior to the invasion of France Bomb, The Slang term for the computers used at Bletchley Park, England, to decode German Enigma messages Brevity Operational code name for the British offensive in the Halfaya Pass, May 1941 Brimstone Operational code name for the proposed Allied invasion of Sardinia, 1944 Bromide Code name for British Jamming equipment used to counter German "X-Beams" Bulge, Battle of the Term used to describe the actions following the German offensive

 through the Ardennes forests in December 1944.

Buzz Bomb Nickname for the German V-1 flying bomb The German Invasion of the Soviet Union, June 22, 1941-December 1941 | The World War II Multimedia Database The World War II Multimedia Database Day of the Kamikaze Teachers' Guide Day of the Kamikaze DVD The Sinking of USS Princeton DVD The German Invasion of the Soviet Union, June 22, 1941-December 1941 Submitted by Jason McDonald on Mon, 2014-05-26 11:27 Adolf Hitler had convinced himself by December 1940 that England lay prostrate before German air power. November had seen the worst of the air attacks; acres of England ’s cities were reduced to rubble. Hitler believed she would never rise again to threaten Germany . Before invading Poland , Germany signed the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact , securing the eastern border of Germany . Limited trade, mostly on the part of the Russians, was part of the agreement. But everyone involved knew that it was a measure on both sides to buy time. Ideologically, both nations despised the other.

Hitler had devoted much of Mein Kampf to his believe in the menace of Communism. Nazism was against everything Communism stood for. Part of the operational planning of the German high command involved a possible invasion of the Soviet Union . On July 21, 1940, a month after the fall of France , Hitler summoned Generalfeldmarshal Walther von Brauchitsch and instructed him to plan for an invasion of the Soviet Union . The bad blood between the two countries began to be evident during Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov ’s Berlin visit of November 12-13, 1940. Molotov pressed the Nazis to honor their treaty obligation to distance themselves from Finland . Hitler dropped tacit suggestions to look towards Asia and not Europe for the expansion of Soviet interests and power. The High Command developed plans for an invasion as part of their routine operations. First called Fritz and then Directive 21, Hitler seized on the idea of invading Russia and issued the directive, renaming it Operation Barbarossa in honor of Frederick I, the twelfth century Prussian King who was prophesied to rise from his grave and restore Germany to world power.

Operational orders were given in January 1941. The plan called for a ten-week campaign that would start on May 15, 1941. But events around the world changed the plan; the Afrika Korps landed in North Africa in February; Yugoslavia , a supposed ally of Germany , threw back the offer of German assistance; and Italy needed help to conquer Greece . The invasion was pushed back five weeks to June 22. Almost everyone knew it was coming except the Red Army soldiers about to meet the onslaught. Josef Stalin was warned by his intelligence services. The buildup of German forces on the Soviet line in Poland was obvious, and even the British warned Stalin, but he stubbornly refused his commanders permission to prepare defenses. Trainloads of iron ore left Russia bound for Germany even hours before the invasion. This came out of a long-standing Russian ideological belief that war should be fought on the enemies’ soil, and a misguided hope that the invasion could be stalled if Hitler was not provoked. Hitler was not going be dissuaded, however. Luftwaffe commander Hermann Goering and Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop , among others, tried to convince Hitler that significant gains could be made politically.

Goering felt the Luftwaffe would be taxed trying to attack England and Russia at the same time; Ribbentrop saw the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact as the crowning achievement of his career. The Wehrmacht Generals that would carry out the operation wanted an all-out drive on Moscow . Hitler, in a uncharacteristic show of orthodox military strategy, insisted on a three-pronged, broad frontal assault on three major areas before driving on the Soviet Capital. The German military attachÈ in Moscow was alone in the belief that Soviet industrial capacity beyond the Urals was underestimated. Oberkommando des Heeres ( OKH ), the German High Command on the Eastern Front, massed the greatest army ever assembled to invade the Soviet Union . One hundred forty-eight divisions (114 infantry, fifteen motorized, and nineteen panzer;) 67,000 German Norwegian garrison troops and 500,000 Finns; and 150,000 Rumanians were recruited to take up the invasion.

A total of 3,050,000 men, 7184 artillery pieces, 3,350 tanks, 2,770 aircraft , 600,000 vehicles, and 625,000 horses (one quarter of the Wehrmacht was horse-drawn) were arrayed in three prongs aimed at the Soviet Union . Generalfeldmarshall Wilhelm von Leeb ’s Army Group North attacked through Finland and Poland , targeting the Baltic States and Leningrad . Generalfeldmarshall Fedor von Bock ’s Army Group Center leapt from Poland and East Prussia against Minsk and Smolesk. Generalfeldmarshal Gerd von Rundstedt ’s Army Group South left from Czechoslovakia for the Ukraine and the Caucasus Mountains. Ten thousand tanks and 2,300 aircraft operated by 2,300,000 men stood against this coiled armada. While most of the equipment was old or obsolete, the Soviet T-34 and KV-1 heavy tanks were better than the Germans ’ best.

Unlike the Germans , who were flush with success and experience, the Red Army was quixotic. It was surprised by the resistance of the Finns and the failure of its junior officers in 1939, but smashed the Japanese in a border dispute in China . The Red Army was paralyzed by Stalin’s purges. Officers would not move without direct orders, stifling imaginative tactics and leadership. The High Command had more political than military ability. When the barrage opened on the morning of June 22, 1941, Red Army units were slow to react. Officers radioed for permission to fire back. Tanks numbering in the hundreds were knocked out of action by superior tactics backed by superior morale. The Red Air Force was destroyed on the ground. Only seven Red Army divisions opposed Army Group North as it swept down from Finland . Quickly the Baltic states fell, and the populations celebrated the German columns marching in, thinking they were their liberators. By July 1 Army Group North reached the Dvina River . Army Group Center moved around the north edge of the Pripet Marshes and encircled first Bialystok and then Minsk by the second week.

290,000 prisoners were taken in this operation. Army Group South was marching on Kiev despite heavy rains. Stalin was paralyzed by Hitler’s betrayal of the Nazi-soviet nonaggression Pact and by the destruction and did not react to the crisis in time. While he sat in Moscow paralyzed by the rapid advance, the Red Army was bleeding to death. Across a huge front of 1400 miles, the Germans started advancing rapidly. The Red Army fought fiercely partly out of fear of being shot for cowardice and partly because they feared a German occupation. But many Soviet units were deployed badly and their commanders would not mount a mobile defense for fear of the firing squad. The Germans destroyed Russian units and rounded up large numbers of prisoners. OKH believed the Russians could not sustain this level of casualties. On July 3, Colonel General Franz Halder announced that the Germans would encounter only token resistance beyond the Dnieper and Dvina Rivers. Hitler concluded that the Russians had lost the war. As the Germans advanced as much as twenty miles a day, the Red Army slowly began to reorganize in the face of the enemy.

On June 30, Stalin appointed himself the head of the State Defense Committee, and assumed all political, military and economic power in the country. On July 10, the Russians also split their forces into a three-group command structure, designated Northwest, West and Southwest Forces. These were nothing like the Germans ’ Army Groups, since their officers lacked the expertise or authority to direct large-scale operations. Each border military district was converted into a “front” which was the largest effective command the Russians could coordinate. For the first time, the Russian people heard the voice of their leader. Stalin addressed the entire country on July 3. He welcomed aid from the West and proclaimed a scorched-earth policy, denying the Germans everything and calling for the Russians already under occupation to fight hard against the invaders. He also appealed not only to communist ideals but to Russian nationalism. Throughout July and August, the Germans continued to advance. Army group North planned to launch their final drive for Leningrad on August 10. Army Group Center took its two panzer groups out of action for a refit on August 8 after capturing 138,000 prisoners in one week.

Army Group South destroyed twenty Soviet divisions that were trying to escape across the Dnieper. On August 25, units from two Army Groups surrounded 665,000 Red Army soldiers who were 150 miles east of Kiev . The Finnish Army reoccupied their 1940 border on August 31 and was within 30 miles of Leningrad . Leningrad was cut off on September 8. Hitler transferred Army Group North ’s armor south for a drive on Moscow . The Germans were surprised by the Red Army ’s equipment, especially the T-34. German 37mm and 50mm guns could not even dent the T-34 sloping frontal armor. Guns of 105mm had to be employed to stop them. As a stopgap measure, the Germans retooled and mounted captured Russian 75mm guns on Panzer pzkpfw I chassis. On September 8 Hitler had decided to concentrate his forces on Moscow . His generals believed the Soviets would bring together all their remaining forces to defend the capital, and there the decisive battle could be fought. For six weeks, the men of Army Group Center were rested and refitted.

A first-class unit, within two weeks of engaging battle, it had completed three large encirclements near Bryansk and Vyazma. Six hundred sixty-three thousand prisoners of war were taken. The population of Moscow went to the outskirts of the city and dug antitank ditches. This action ended the first phase of the War in the West. The Soviet Red Army lost some 3,000,000 killed and millions more captured. Colonel General Alfred Jodl , Chief of operations for Oberkommando des West (OKW), predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union in the near future. Two perennial allies of the Soviet Union were beginning to be felt by both sides. Torrential rains turned the roads into quagmires, slowing the advance on Moscow . “General Mud” had slowed Napoleon in 1812, and it slowed the German advance in 1941. The second was the expansive Soviet territory. The great distance the Germans had to travel began to extend their supply lines over great distances. Partisans, first disorganized and cut off, then later with plainclothes officers of the Red Army , began to harass these supply lines.

Without enough soldiers to protect the supply lines and fight the main engagement, the Germans used innovative means to protect trains and columns advancing to the front. Still, the guerrillas were a constant threat. Army Group South still managed to encircle Sevastapol by November. Rostov fell on November 20, but in their first successful counteroffensive, the Russians took it back by the beginning of December. Army Group Center advanced on Tikhvin and took the town on November 8, but again mud bogged down the attack, and the Russians attacked on three sides. By the middle of December the Russians forced them back to Volkhov . Everybody knew that the key to the war was Moscow . Stalin was still in a panic when German reconnaissance units advanced on Moscow ’s outskirts in November. But “General Winter,” the Russians’ other ancestral ally, froze the Germans ’ equipment in the mud. Army Group Center Commander von Back argued for a winter advance, despite questions of whether or not to wait for the spring to advance on the city. The Germans ’ supply issues were becoming critical.

Like the Americans in Belgium in 1944, the length of their supply lines meant that winter uniforms had to sacrificed for food, ammunition and fuel on the trains and supply wagons. The German Armies before Moscow were fighting in December 1941 with the same uniforms that they had in the summer. With only 40 miles between von Bock and the Soviet capital, the Germans had only a few days of good weather to complete their occupation of Moscow . The capital was in terror. Armed troops tried to keep order and prevent a mass evacuation. Stalin himself left the city. But by December 5 Heinz Guderian, hero of France and commander of the panzer spearhead from the South, reported that his troops were exhausted and could not continue. The German general charged with taking Moscow , Colonel General Heinz Reinhardt, said he could only hold if the Russians did not attack. Stalin feared that the Japanese would attack his East flank if he withdrew his troops there to fight the Germans . The Siberian units were snow-equipped, battle-experienced, and ready for combat.

But Stalin did not bring them over to the European front until Richard Sorge, the Soviet spy in Tokyo , revealed the Japanese plans to attack the Western powers in the south Pacific. Meanwhile, the German front-line units were reporting previously unrecognized Red Army unit designations in radio transmissions and POW debriefings. Clearly the Soviets were rebuilding the Red Army , and initial reports of its size were wrong. OKH took these reports in stride and stuck to their assessment that the war would be over soon. In fact, the Red Army was rebuilt under three powerful generals that would fight through the entire conflict. At dawn on December 6, the Red Army counterattacked along three fronts that intersected Moscow . General Georgi K. Zhukov’s West Front , the Kalinin Front under Colonel General Ivan S. Konev, and the Southwest Front under Semyon k. Timoshenko exploded in artillery fire and the great counteroffensive began. The Army Group commanders and Brauchtisch resigned after clamoring for Hitler to permit a retreat. They all went off to retirement, and Hitler took command personally. He was growing tired of the professional military men and wanted to motivate the troops with the knowledge that he was personally commanding them.

On December 18 Hitler ordered that all units were to fight to the death. Without proper plans for defense, or even the ability to dig into the hard frozen Russian soil, the Germans could not mount an effective resistance. On January 15, 1942, Hitler authorized the first German retreat of the war. Army Group Center moved its line 85 miles to the West of Moscow , not far enough to escape the growing danger of encirclement. A gap 160 miles wide tore open the German lines between Army Group North and Army Group Center . One hundred thousand German troops were surrounded in February and supplied by air. A year later this convinced Hitler to believe Goering ’s claim that he could supply the Sixth Army besieged at Stalingrad . The Red Army did not have the military ability to complete the encirclement of Army Group Center . By mid-February the Soviets had lost the momentum, and both sides used the early spring to stabilize their lines while the rains and mud prevented serious operations. Stalin and Hitler had something in common: they took complete command of their armies, limiting their generals’ range of mobility without specific orders. Two totalitarian leaders made the war take on their own personalities.

More and more, nationalism and ideology described the mission of each side as the total destruction of the other. The soldiers of both sides began to regain their confidence in their own abilities and that of their absolute rulers. On April 5, Hitler outlined his spring and summer plans to his subordinates at his Eastern command post in Rastenberg, East Prussia . While units of Army Group North would attempt top link up with the Finns and knock Leningrad out of the war, the major offensive would be in the south. Its objective was a city named for the Soviet leader, and both sides would pour the life’s blood of their army into its streets. Stalingrad was the key to the oil-rich Caucasus . First, Army Group South would take the Crimea , then they would advance on the city. It would be the battleground that would break the power of the Third Reich. Operation Barbarossa More Info Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa (Unternehmen Barbarossa) was the German codename for Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II , which commenced on June 22, 1941.

It was to be the turning point for the fortunes of Adolf Hitler 's Third Reich, in that the failure of Operation Barbarossa arguably resulted in the eventual overall defeat of Nazi Germany. The Eastern Front, which was opened by Operation Barbarossa, would become the biggest theater of war in World War II, with some of the largest and most brutal battles, terrible loss of life, and miserable conditions for Russians and Germans alike. The operation was named after the emperor Frederick Barbarossa (11221190). Mein Kampf (My Struggle) was a book written by Adolf Hitler, which spelled out his political ideology, National Socialism. Readers of Hitler's screed should not have been surprised to see him invade the Soviet Union. In that book, he made clear his belief that the German people needed lebensraum (living space), an idea that was used to justify the expansionist policies of Nazi Germany, and that it was to be looked for in the East. It was the stated policy of the Nazis to kill, deport, or enslave the Russian population, whom they considered to be inferior, and to colonize the land with German stock.

The Hitler-Stalin Pact, or Nazi-Soviet pact, was a non-aggression treaty between the Soviet Union and the Third Reich. It was signed in Moscow on August 23, 1939, by the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. A few days later, Hitler attacked Poland on September 1, 1939. Britain stepped in to honor its allegiance to Poland and gave Hitler an ultimatum: If he did not withdraw in the next two days, Britain would declare war on Germany. World War II had begun. The Nazi-Soviet pact lasted until Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941, when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Operation Barbarossa was largely the brainchild of Hitler himself. His general staff advised against fighting a war on two fronts, but Hitler considered himself a political and military genius. Indeed, at that point in the war, he had achieved a series of lightning victories against what appeared to be insurmountable odds.

Hitler was overconfident because of his rapid success in Western Europe, as well as the Red Army's ineptitude in the Winter War against Finland (1939-1940). He expected victory in a few months and did not prepare for a war lasting into the winter; soldiers lacked adequate clothing. He hoped a quick victory against the Red Army would encourage Britain to accept peace terms. In preparation for the attack, Hitler moved 2.5 million men to the Soviet border, launched many aerial surveillance missions over Soviet territory, and stockpiled vast amounts of material in the East. Yet the Soviets were still taken completely by surprise. That had mostly to do with Stalin's unshakeable belief that the Third Reich would not attack only two years after signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. He also was sure the Germans would finish their war with Britain before opening a new front. Despite repeated warnings from his intelligence services, Stalin refused to give them credence, believing the information to be British misinformation designed to spark a war between the Nazis and the U.S.S.R. The German government also aided in this deception. They told Stalin that the troops were being moved to bring them out of range of British bombers.

They also explained that they were trying to trick the British into thinking they were planning to attack the Soviet Union, while in fact the troops and supplies were being stockpiled for an invasion of Britain. It has been established that Communist spy Dr. Richard Sorge gave Stalin the exact launch date; also Swedish cryptanalysts led by Arne Beurling knew the date beforehand. The ultimate strategy Hitler and his assistants in the German high command decided upon, involved three separate army groups assigned to capture specific regions and large cities of the Soviet Union, once the invasion began. Army Group North was assigned to march through the Baltics, into northern Russia, and either capture or destroy the city of Leningrad. Army Group Center would take a straight line to Moscow, marching through what is now Belarus and through the west-central regions of Russia proper. Army Group South was poised to strike the heavily populated Ukraine region, taking Kiev, continuing eastward toward the steppes of Southern Russia, all the way to the Volga River. Soviet preparations Coming into the 1940s, the Soviet Union was by no means a weak country.

Rapid Soviet industrialization in the 1930s had resulted in industrial output second only to that of the United States, and equal to that of Nazi Germany. Production of military items grew steadily, and in the prewar years the economy became progressively oriented toward military production. In 1941 the Soviet armed forces outnumbered their German counterparts by a great margin. Although the actual figures remain classified even today, estimates are that the Soviet Union had from 4.4 million to nearly five million men in arms at the inception of Operation Barbarossa. However, the Soviet numerical advantage was more than offset by the superior quality of German tanks and planes, along with the superb training of German forces.

The Soviet officer corps and high command also had been gutted by Stalin's Great Purge (19351938), during which nearly all experienced Red Army officers and generals were executed or shipped to Siberia, then replaced with officers deemed more "politically reliable." As a result, although the Red Army in 1941 seemed on paper at least the equal of the German army, the reality in the field was far different; incompetent officers, as well as lack of equipment, poor quality of equipment, and poor training placed the Red Army at a severe disadvantage when facing the Germans. One exception was the T-34 tank, which was coming into service with the Red Army in 1941. The T-34 was a revolutionary tank design, setting new standards for maneuverability, firepower, and armor protection. It came as a rude surprise to the German army in 1941, and the T-34 remained arguably superior to any German tank clear up to 1943.

However, few T-34s were at the front in 1941; the crews of those that did exist had received little training; and early versions of T-34s had frequent engine and drive train breakdowns. Therefore, the T-34 was not a significant factor in the opening months of Operation Barbarossa. Soviet propaganda in prewar years invariably averred that the Red Army was strong and could easily defeat any aggressor. Having fielded officers that were certain to tell Stalin only what he wanted to hear, together with having an ill-founded confidence in the non-aggression pact, Stalin was led to believe that the position of the Soviet Union in early 1941 was much stronger than it actually was. In the spring of 1941, Stalin's own intelligence services gave regular and repeated warnings of an impending German attack. Stalin's belief in his officers and military strength was so strong that he and his general staff refused to consider the possibility that the warnings were true. Consequently, no significant preparations were made by the Soviet armed forces, and they were simply not ready when the German attack came.

The attack of June 22 On June 22, 1941, the Axis Forces attacked. The operation encompassed total troop strength of about four million men, making it the biggest single land operation ever. The surprise was complete, stemming less from the timing of the attack than from the sheer number of Axis troops who struck into Soviet territory all at once. Aside from the three million Germans, the attacking force also included 250,000 Italian, 300,000 Romanian and several hundred thousand troops from such other allied Axis nations as Bulgaria. Arrayed against them were 4.5 million Red Army troops, including 2.3 million in the western border regions at the time of the invasion. While they were initially successful, the Germans ultimately ran out of time  by the time they reached the outskirts of Moscow in early December, the Russian winter had set in. It is often proposed that the fatal design flaw of the operation was the postponement from the original date of May 15 because Hitler wanted to intervene against an anti-German overthrow in Yugoslavia , and British advances against Mussolini's Italy in Greece. That cut five weeks off the already short Russian summer.

However, it was just one of the reasons for the postponement; the other was the late spring of 1941 in Russia, compounded by particularly rainy weather during June 1941, which made a number of roads in western parts of the Soviet Union impassable to heavy vehicles. During the campaign, Hitler ordered the main thrust that had been heading toward Moscow to be diverted southward in order to help the southern army group capture Ukraine. That move delayed the assault on the Soviet capital, although it also helped to secure Army Group Center's southern flank. By the time they turned their sights on Moscow, the fierce resistance of the Red Army, assisted by the mud following the autumn rains and eventually the winter snowfall, ground their advance to a halt. Thus they were prevented from much further gain. In addition, resistance by the Soviets, who proclaimed a Great Patriotic War in defense of the motherland, was much fiercer than that German command had expected it to be. The border fortress of Brest, Belarus, illustrates that unexpected tenacity: Approached on the very first day of the German invasion, the fortress was to be captured by surprise within hours.

Instead, German forces, and the Soviet garrison inside the besieged fortress, fought bitterly for an entire month. Meanwhile, on the main front, ever-more Soviet conscripts were thrown into suicidal assaults against German positions. Thus, bloody fighting at Smolensk, located on the road to Moscow, delayed the German offensive for several weeks. German logistics also became a major problem, as supply lines became extremely long and vulnerable to Soviet partisan attacks in the rear. The Soviets carried out a "scorched earth" policy on any land they were forced to abandon, in order to deny the Germans the use of food, fuel, and buildings on occupied land. The Germans continued to advance despite those setbacks, however, often destroying or surrounding entire Soviet armies and forcing them into surrender. The battle for Kiev was especially brutal. In mid-October, Army Group South seized control of the city and took more than 650,000 Soviet prisoners. Kiev was later awarded the title Hero City for its valorous defense. Army Group North, which was to conquer the Baltic region and eventually Leningrad, advanced as far as the southern outskirts of Leningrad by August 1941. There, fierce Soviet resistance stopped it.

Since capturing the city seemed too costly, the German command decided to starve the city by a blockade, beginning the Siege of Leningrad. The city held out, however, despite several attempts by the Germans to break through its defenses, unrelenting air and artillery attacks, and severe shortage of food and fuel, until the Germans were driven back again from the city's approaches in early 1944. Leningrad was the first Soviet city to receive the title Hero City. The reason that the Soviet Army was so badly defeated in 1941 was simple: They did not expect the German attack and were not prepared for it. Even worse, the largest part of the Soviet Army was concentrated at the GermanSoviet border, and so was overrun and destroyed in the first hours of war. Initially, numerous Soviet units also were hampered by a stand-and-fight order from Moscow, which left them vulnerable to German encirclements, a lack of experienced officers, and bureaucratic inertia. Outcome The decisive climax of Operation Barbarossa came when Army Group Center advanced within sight of the spires of the Kremlin in late 1941.

It was as close as they would ever get, for Stalin's troops defended Moscow ferociously in the Battle of Moscow, and drove the Germans back into the frozen wastes of Russia as winter advanced. Not surprisingly, the bulk of the counteroffensive was directed at Army Group Center, which was closest to Moscow. Moscow later also received the honorary distinction of Hero City. The main cause of German failure was faulty planning. The objectives of Operation Barbarossa were quite unrealistic from the beginning. The start of the war was the most favorable for Germans as they took Russians by surprise and destroyed a large part of the Soviet army in the first weeks. And even in those favorable conditions they failed. Victor Suvorov in his book Suicide has argued that, even if the Germans had met no resistance at all, still their troops could not move fast enough to meet the objectives of Operation Barbarossa on time. The broken German forces were eventually driven by Soviet armies all the way to Berlin. Off-site search results for "Operation Barbarossa"...

Invasion of the Soviet Union > Eastern Front > Key Moments > WW2History.com Invasion of the Soviet Union Adolf Hitler had long dreamt of acquiring 'living space' in the East Just before dawn on 22 June 1941 the largest land invasion in the history of the world began. Over three million German soldiers and their allies pushed forward in three massive thrusts into the Soviet Union. Army Group North, commanded by Field Marshal Leeb, headed for the Baltic States and Leningrad; Army Group Centre, led by Field Marshal Bock, pushed straight into the Soviet Union on the Minsk/Smolensk/Vyazma axis; and Army Group South, under Field Marshal Rundstedt, advanced into the rich agricultural land of Ukraine. In retrospect, given that it was the decision to invade the Soviet Union that was largely to lead to the German defeat in the Second World War, it’s easy to see why Hitler is seen today as almost insane for gambling on victory over Stalin. But that was not how it was seen at the time. The German leadership had been buoyed by the victory over France the previous year, and the Red Army seemed a much less serious adversary than the French.

After all, hadn’t the Soviets performed badly against the Finns in the winter war the year before? And so, as a result, the view of many of the German High Command was summed up by General Jodl, who said: ‘The Russian colossus will be proved to be a pig’s bladder. Prick it and it will burst.'i And this confidence that the Germans could win the war against the Soviet Union was shared by analysts in other countries. ‘The American intelligence forces thought that this [war] would [last] between three and six weeks,’ says Professor Sir Ian Kershaw. ‘They reckoned that the Red Army was in no position to withstand the Wehrmacht. And British intelligence also thought this was a foregone conclusion and the Germans would win in the Soviet Union. So nobody really at that time, inside or outside Germany, thought that the Soviet Union would withstand this assault from so powerful a force.’ Hitler, of course, had long had a deep desire to confront the Soviets. ‘The aim was there from the 1920s, the mid-1920s at the latest, that Germany would have to tackle the Soviet Union to gain territory,’ says Sir Ian.

‘That was an idea which seems to have been planted in Hitler’s head no later than about the end of 1922, the first time that it occurs, this idea. By 1926 when he finished the second volume of Mein Kampf that idea is plainly there, and the next three years – two or three years – he speaks repeatedly about this idea of acquiring space, living space, and so that is an idea that’s there ideologically. And it fits, of course, into the race idea as well, the idea of destroying the Jews who are, in his warped vision, the power behind Bolshevism – so you destroy Bolshevism, you destroy the Jews and you acquire living space all in the same activity. So that’s the ideological aim. But the political, military decision came much later and that decision comes more or less immediately following the great victory over France in 1940. 'So already by the end of June and beginning of July 1940 Hitler’s talking in private to his leading generals about the feasibility of this.

By the 31st of July 1940 he gets his generals together at his alpine retreat, the Berghof near Berchtesgaden, and he announces to them that they must prepare for an invasion of the Soviet Union the next year. Even that isn’t the actual decision, because it is an indication of serious intent for which then various planning moves were made subsequently. But that was converted then into a military directive only in December 1940, so that basically from December 1940 you could say that the points had been switched to an attack on the Soviet Union the following spring, and from then on it was very difficult to diverge from that. And even then the actual decision [to invade], the initial decision from May [1941] was then postponed to June, so you’ve got a whole series of steps. But, essentially, I’d say it was in the summer of 1940 [that Hitler militarily decided on an invasion of the Soviet Union] and there the crucial thing was if we’re not going to get Britain to the conference table how are we going to get them out of this war?

And Hitler had this notion, which sounds really odd today, but the idea that he put forward: we defeat London via Moscow, knock out the Soviet Union in a quick blitzkrieg war, take about four or five months, by the end of the year we’ll destroy the Soviet Union, Britain will then be bereft of its only potential ally in Europe and the Americans will now keep back to their own hemisphere. So by another route we will have won the war.’ Hitler’s practical justification for the invasion of the Soviet Union – ‘we defeat London via Moscow’ – may have had a bizarre logic to it at the time, but, as Professor Adam Tooze says, once the Nazis began to think hard about the ‘operational logic’ of Operation Barbarossa (the code name for the invasion) they found that, ‘defeating Russia is a complex business. You can, indeed, inflict military defeats on the Russians, but whether you can actually comprehensively defeat the Russian state, which is something that they actually also failed to do in 1918, is a far more open question.

Fundamentally, when they start to think hard about the Barbarossa Operation they realise that they have to inflict a really all-encompassing military defeat, as they had just done on France, on the Red Army, but within a limitless geographical space. And hence the sort of totemic significance of the Dnieper/Dvina River Line where all of the operational thinking has essentially to achieve its ultimate outcome within the 500 kilometre depth of the first wave of the invasion. Beyond that, frankly, the German plans quite rapidly begin to lose their coherence. Which is also what Ludendorff and Hindenburg experienced in 1918, that you can win in western Russia but whether that really allows you to establish all-encompassing dominance over the entire expanse of Russia is a completely different question….’ And, crucially, this was to be a very different war from the one fought in Western Europe. ‘The general notion about the war in the East was that one was going to fight a war against a Bolshevik regime that was ruled by ‘Judeo-Bolshevism’, as it was called,’ says Professor Omer Bartov, ‘so it was ruled by Jews.

And that the people ruled by this regime were Slavs who were generally considered to be ‘Untermenschen’ or sub-humans. So the general view of that war was that it would be, as Hitler called it, a war of ‘keine Kameraden’, a war in which there would be no comrades in arms. It would not be fought according to the rules of war as the German army itself had followed to a large extent during the fighting in the West, but rather a war of extermination, a war in which one side would have to entirely eradicate the other in order to win. But the fact of the matter is that the German army marched into the Soviet Union with very specific orders as to how to behave, despite what German generals said in their memoirs after the war. These orders were handed down to the smallest units; soldiers were aware of them. So, for instance, the Commissar Order basically gave directions that every Soviet Commissar who fell into German hands should be taken aside and shot without trial, without hearing, without anything, just because they had a red star on their cap.

The same was seen to a greater extent with crimes regarding the [Soviet] prisoners of war, and the German army’s own way of planning war. The German war plan was for battles of encirclement – expecting and anticipating large numbers of prisoners of war. Then the question would be what do you do with these prisoners of war? And what they did with them was practically nothing, they just surrounded them with barbed wire and let them die, or they marched them, having often taken off their boots or their coats and marched them hundreds of miles to the rear during which they were hardly fed, hardly clothed, hardly sheltered and they died in vast numbers. So there was clearly a view that in this war the kind of rules that applied to and had been applied to wars in the past or even during that war would not apply at that front.’ German economic planners even anticipated mass starvation across the occupied Soviet Union as a result of the invasion.

The Wehrmacht central economic agency stated on 2 May 1941 that ‘the entire German army’ would have to be ‘fed at the expense of Russia.’ As a consequence, ‘Thereby tens of millions of men will undoubtedly starve to death if we take away all we need from the country.’ii Another economic document, dated 23 May says explicitly that ’30 million people in the northern part of the Soviet Union might die of starvation’ as a direct consequence of the Nazi policy of taking away their food.iii ‘One essential element is no doubt that the Germans are convinced that this kind of war is being waged against them,’ says Professor Tooze of the German plan to starve the population of the occupied Soviet Union. ‘It is common sense amongst Germans of all political dispositions in the 1920s, for instance, that the British blockade imposed on Germany in World War One killed 600,000 to 750,000 people, mainly women and children. So the Germans understand the war in a very comprehensive sense and as one that is bent on indiscriminate annihilation by both sides and without distinction, necessarily, between the West and the East.

They experienced themselves as victims of an annihilatory war in World War One… because food is seen as this fundamental variable. Without it the home front can’t survive, and if the home front doesn’t survive Germany will become victim to yet another effort by the West to starve it into submission. And so what you see in the rhetoric of 1940-42 is this sort of inverting move where we say ‘somebody’s going to starve but it isn’t going to be us this time’. And that, I think, is an absolutely fundamental rhetorical device. Furthermore, we know that this had persuasive power because unlike the Holocaust which, as generations of historians have shown, is euphemised about, it’s not spoken about openly, the Hunger Plan is explicitly documented in instructions issued to the German occupying forces.’ It was to be no accident, therefore, that in this war of ‘annihilation’ the Soviets would suffer a death toll of 27 million people, nor that it would be in the context of this conflict in the East that the Nazis’ so called ‘Final Solution’ would emerge in its full exterminatory form.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- i Quoted in Laurence Rees, The Nazis: A Warning from History, BBC Books, 2005, p. 158 ii Quoted in Laurence Rees, Auschwitz: The Nazis and the ‘Final Solution’, BBC Books, 2005, pp. 67-68 iii Ibid., p. 68

Question: What was the codename for the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941?
Answer: Operation Barbarossa