Operation Barbarossa June 22, 1941
Under the code name Operation Barbarossa, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union June 22, 1941, in the largest German military operation of World War II.
The destruction of the Soviet Union by military force, the permanent elimination of the communist threat perceived in Germany, and the seizure of prime land within the Soviet borders for long-term settlement was German policy base of the Nazi movement since the 1920s Adolf Hitler always considered the German-Soviet non-aggression pact signed August 23, 1939, as a temporary tactical move in July 1940, a few weeks after the German conquest of France and country- down Hitler decided to attack the Soviet Union in the year following 18 December 1940, he signed the directive 21 the operation code name Barbarossa, the first operational order for the invasion of the Soviet Union.
From the beginning of operational planning, German military and police authorities for conducting a war of annihilation against the communist state and the Jews of the Soviet Union, which they described as forming racial basis for Soviet state during the winter and spring months of 1941, officials of the high command Oberkommando Army Heeres -OKH and the central Bureau Reich security Reichssicherheitshauptamt -RSHA negotiated to deploy Einsatzgruppen behind the front lines to physically annihilate the Jews, communists and other people deemed dangerous for establishment of German domination in the long term on Soviet territory Often known as mobile units killing, Einsatzgruppen special units of the security police and service Sicherheitsdienst of -SD security.
With 134 divisions at full fighting force and 73 other divisions for deployment behind the front, German forces invaded the Soviet Union June 22, 1941, less than two years after the Nazi-Soviet pact was signed three groups of army, more than three million German soldiers, supported by 650,000 allied troops from Germany Finland and Romania, and later augmented by Italy units, Croatia, Slovakia and Hungary have attacked the Soviet Union on a broad front the front stretched the Baltic sea in the north of the southern black sea.
For months, the Soviet leadership had refused to heed the warnings of the Western powers in the accumulation of German troops along its western border Germany and its Axis partners thus achieved almost complete tactical surprise Much of force existing Soviet air was destroyed on the ground Soviet armies were initially overwhelmed the German units encircled millions of Soviet soldiers, who, cut off from supplies and reinforcements, had few options other than surrender.
As the German army advanced deep into Soviet territory, the SS and police units followed the troops the first to arrive were the Einsatzgruppen responsible RSHA these units to identify and eliminate people who could organize and carry good resistance to German occupation forces, identification and concentration of groups hostile to the German domination in the East, the creation of information networks, and security documents and key equipment.
The Einsatzgruppen launched mass murder operations, mainly against Jewish men, leaders of the Communist Party and the state, and the Soviet Roma often with the help of the staff of the German army, they established ghettos and other facilities into focus a number of Soviet Jews.
From the end of July, with the arrival of representatives of Himmler Leaders of the SS and the police and the significant strengthening of the SS and police, backed by auxiliaries recruited locally, began to physically annihilate the Jewish communities whole in the Soviet success both on the military front and Union in the murder of Soviet Jews have contributed to Hitler's decision to deport the German Jews in occupied Soviet Union beginning October 15, 1941, initiating what would become policy final solution physical annihilation of the European Jews.
Despite the catastrophic losses during the first six weeks of the war, the Soviet Union failed to collapse as predicted by the Nazi leaders and German military commanders in mid-August 1941, the Soviet resistance stiffened , knock the Germans out of their unrealistic timetable However, in late September 1941, German forces reached the gates of Leningrad in the north They took Smolensk in the center and Dnepropetrovsk Dnipropetrovs k in Ukraine They spilled into the Peninsula Crimea in southern German units reached the outskirts of Moscow, in early December.
Yet after months of campaigning, the German army was exhausted after waiting a rapid Soviet collapse, German planners were able to equip their troops for winter warfare They failed to provide sufficient food and medicine German planners expected their military personnel to live off the land of a conquered Soviet Union at the expense of the local population, which in the German calculations starvation in the millions German troops advancing rapidly, also outran their supply lines this fact their thin flanks defended against vulnerable to Soviet attack along the section of 1,000 miles from Berlin to Moscow.
On December 6, 1941, the Soviet Union launched a major attack against-against the center of the front, push the Germans back from Moscow in chaos Just weeks later, the Germans were able to stabilize the eastern front Smolensk in the summer of 1942, Germany has taken the offensive with a massive attack in the south and southeast toward the city of Volgograd Stalingrad on the Volga river and toward the oil fields of the Caucasus as the Germans reached the outskirts of Stalingrad and approached Groznyj Groznyy in the Caucasus, about 120 miles from the shores of the Caspian sea in September 1942, the German domination of Europe reached its geographic expansion the most.
Invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, invasion, Soviet Union.