All we have to do is kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come tumbling down

Adolf Hitler, Spring 1941

On Sunday morning, June 22, 1941 at 3:15 a.m., the greatest war ever fought began.  Over 3 million German soldiers (later augmented by contingents of Finns, Hungarians, Romanians, and Italians) on an 1,800 mile front, burst into the Soviet Union. (Ominously enough June 22 was the date in which Napoleon attacked Russia in 1812.) The intention was not just to take territory and natural resources, but to physically liquidate a nation and its people. Adolf Hitler had always feared and hated communism and in Mein Kampf he made plain his plans of a war of annihilation against the U.S.S.R (called “Operation Barbarossa“, named after a red bearded German (Frederick Barbarossa) crusading monarch of the 12th century). Hitler’s pact with Stalin in August 1939 when they agreed to divide up Poland, followed by his conquest of Western Europe put his plans on hold but he always wanted to settle the score with the Bolsheviks (whom he also identified as Jews). The German armed forces had 150 divisions, 3,600 tanks, 4,400 aircraft and 46,000 artillery pieces at their disposal. The Soviet armies had almost 5, 500,000 men, 15,000 tanks and 11,000 aircraft.

German aircraft attacked Soviet airfields and within a matter of a few days, pretty much destroyed the Red Air Force on the ground. Three massive German Army Groups (North, Center, and South) headed for their objectives which were Leningrad, Moscow and the wheat fields of the Ukraine and the oilfields of the Caucasus respectively. The Soviets despite being given ample warnings by British and other intelligence services were taken by surprise. The German panzers struck deep within the USSR and within a fortnight had encircled vast numbers of Soviet soldiers in a pocket around Minsk (eventually capturing 300,000 of them). In the North the Germans quickly over ran the Baltic states and headed for Leningrad. In the South, the Germans made slower progress as the Soviet forces there were better prepared and were resisting more fiercely.

Already despite the massive gains that the Germans were making, things were starting to go off course for them. First there were more Soviets then they had counted on. The German General command figured on 200 Soviet divisions and they had already counted  by summer 1941 360 Red Army divisions. Secondly, the USSR was enormous and the Germans  were having trouble supplying their men. The German Army still relied on the  horse to move supplies as they did not have enough trucks. Third, Stalin was able to make this not into a war for the survival of communism but for the defense of the Russian motherland. This appealing to Russian patriotism rather than communist dogma played a key role in keeping the fighting spirit going. Fourth, after the savage purges of the Red Army in 1937-38, a new generation of talented Soviet generals was starting to emerge, lead by Georgi Zhukov. It was Zhukov who was sent to Leningrad to lead the defenses there (more Russians died during the 3-year siege of Leningrad then the combined war dead of Britain and the United States).

After mopping up the Bialystok-Minsk and Smolensk pockets (bagging a combined  total of over 600,000 prisoners), Hitler despite the urgings of his generals did not launch an attack on Moscow. He decided to send Guderian’s  Panzer Army south to help the Germans destroy the Soviet Southwestern Front and seize Kiev and the wheat fields of the Ukraine. On September 17, 1941 the two wings of the German panzer forces linked up and in effect destroyed the Soviet forces defending Kiev, killing or capturing almost 500,000 men. The Soviet Southwestern Front was virtually destroyed and had to be rebuilt.  Army Group South pressed on and captured Kharkov.  Yet Soviet resiliency in the face of such dreadful defeats was starting to amaze the Nazis and after the Germans captured Rostov in November 1941, for the first time the Soviets launched a well planned and well executed counterattack and liberated Rostov (an ominous portent of what was to happen in front of Moscow and later at Stalingrad).  With Kiev captured the next major  phase (which was intended to be the final one) of Barbarossa began – Operation Typhoon, the attack on Moscow. (Hitler was right to eliminate the Kiev pocket before attacking Moscow, as he could not afford such an enormous, well equipped, Soviet  force to be on his southern flank). On Oct. 2., 1941 the Nazis launched their Moscow offense. Quickly they encircled two more pockets of Soviet troops at Vyazama and Bryansk killing or capturing another 500 -600,000 men. Yet the first snows started to fall around Moscow in early October. The German Army was not prepared for a winter campaign and their equipment did not have proper lubricants. More soldiers  were casualties from frostbite then enemy action. On the day that the first snows fell around Moscow, their defenders received a new commander – Zhukov. A fact that German intelligence did not deem important enough to tell Hitler although Zhukov had been leading Leningrad’s defense with enormous energy.

The German Army however pushed on and took several towns near Moscow, yet Soviet resistance was increasing and finally Stalin was  told by his spy in Tokyo that Japan had no intention of attacking the Soviet Union in the Far East. Therefore across the Trans-Siberian railroad, over 30 divisions of well trained, well equipped Soviet Far Eastern troops were sent to Moscow to be held in reserve for a counter attack.  The German Army finally halted on December 5, 1941, however on that day Zhukov unleashed his Siberians in a ferocious counter attack lead by swarms of T-34 tanks and preceded by Katyusha rocket barrages. Eventually the Germans were pushed back 200 miles from Moscow and the fear was of another utter rout as that suffered by Napoleon’s Grand Armee in 1812, but the Soviets lacked the ability to utterly destroy Army Group Center. In the Southern Front the Soviets also halted the Germans on the Mius River line. A furious Hitler sacked all three Army Group commanders and took over command of the German Army personally.  Another ominous note for Germany was that two days after the Moscow counteroffensive, Japan attacked Perl harbor and four days after that, Hitler declared war on America. So within 6 months in 1941 Hitler chose to go to war with three of the greatest industrial powers on earth.

Operation Barbarossa was a campaign of unimaginable brutality. Over 3 million Soviet prisoners were taken in 1941 alone and only 3% ever saw the Soviet Union again.  Behind the lines the Germans ruthlessly shot partisans, civilians or anyone who opposed them. Einsatzgruppen squads shot hundreds of thousands of Jews in mass graves. Hitler considered Slavs to be subhuman and the term mercy was not in his vocabulary.

Barbarossa failed because it never had an “end game” strategy. Even had Moscow been taken, the Soviet resistance would have continued from Central Asia. Also Germany had no plans to win over the conquered populations, preferring to use them as slave labor. Their lack of motorized  transport for a nation as vast as the USSR was another factor. The war continued for three more years and the next year Germany was able to make impressive gains in the South until their defeat at Stalingrad, but never again was Germany able to attack simultaneously on all fronts. The Soviet Union had suffered a disaster in 1941 (she had lost essentially three armies after suffering over 6 million casualties) which I doubt that any other nation could have suffered and survived, but she had not been defeated, and now she was allied with the British Empire and the United States. With the U.S.S.R.’s ast resources, and America and Britain’s industrial might, the ultimate defeat of Nazi Germany now became  inevitable.

Operation Barbarossa – a detailed map

German soldiers battle the Russians after the start of Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of Soviet Russia.

Soviet prisoners being sent to the rear

Jews on their way out of the city of Kiev to the Babi Yar ravine pass corpses in the street.

December 1941. Soviet troops in winter gear, supported by tanks, counter-attack German forces.