On the 22nd of June 1941, Adolf Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union. It was the beginning of a campaign that would ultimately decide the Second World War. More than 3 million German and Axis troops invaded the Soviet Union along a 1,800-mile-long front, launching Operation Barbarossa. It was Germany’s largest invasion force of the war, representing some 80 percent of the Wehrmacht, marking the largest military operation in human history and shattering the fragile non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
The massive assault commenced in the early hours of 22 June with devastating force. Nineteen panzer divisions, 3,000 tanks, 2,500 aircraft, and 7,000 artillery pieces pour across a thousand-mile front as Hitler’s war machine turned eastward. 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.
The invasion caught Soviet forces completely off guard. Soviet forces were largely caught unprepared when the invasion began, with many units positioned poorly and understrength. Stalin’s purges of the Red Army leadership in the late 1930s had left the military weakened and demoralised, whilst intelligence warnings of the impending attack had been dismissed by the Soviet leader.
Under the codename Operation “Barbarossa,” Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. This was the largest German military operation of World War II. The operation was named after Frederick Barbarossa, the medieval Holy Roman Emperor who had led the Third Crusade. Hitler’s objectives were ambitious: the complete destruction of the Soviet state, the capture of Moscow, Leningrad, and the Ukraine’s industrial heartland, and the enslavement or elimination of the Slavic population.
At first, the Germans enjoyed stunning success, the panzers forged ahead, while the Luftwaffe achieved air superiority across vast stretches of the front. Entire Soviet army groups were encircled and destroyed in massive cauldron battles. Within weeks, German forces had advanced hundreds of miles into Soviet territory, capturing millions of prisoners and destroying thousands of tanks and aircraft.
However, Operation Barbarossa ultimately failed to achieve its strategic objectives. The Wehrmacht became bogged down in a war of attrition that Germany could not sustain. The vast distances, harsh winter conditions, and fierce Soviet resistance gradually wore down the German war machine. What Hitler had planned as a swift campaign lasting mere months became a grinding four-year struggle that would consume Nazi Germany.
The invasion marked a turning point in World War II, opening the Eastern Front that would become the war’s bloodiest theatre. Soviet soldiers—more than any other—were responsible for Hitler’s final defeat. The failure of Operation Barbarossa began Germany’s inexorable march toward defeat and marked the beginning of the end for the Third Reich.
newshub finance
Recent Comments