Operation Barbarossa Why Did Hitler Invade Russia

D-Day was the Allied invasion of German occupied France that was a major factor in the German defect. D-Day was the largest invasion fleet ever and the campaign created a second front which made the Germans split their resources between the west and east front. The Allies and Germanys suffered around 425,000 casualties during D-day. Operation Barbarossa was the German invasion of the Soviet Union which started on 22th of June 1941. The initial invasion took the Soviet leaders by surprise. The invasion had stalled because of the Russian winter which caused the German tanks and other vehicles to get bogged. Germany had invasion had failed to end the USSR and they were pushed back which helped create a two front war. The Germanys suffered 775,000 deaths and the Soviet Union suffered more than 800,000 deaths in

As Germany advanced on the city of Stalingrad, Hitler decided to rush the battle and try to finish it quickly. Because of this mindset, his army was severely underprepared to fight a drawn out battle in the Russian winter. German general Blumentritt recalled “The railheads (train tracks) were as much as 200 kilometers behind the front, and the bare nature of the countryside meant that there was little timber (wood) available for constructing defenses. There were no proper trenches or fixed positions” (Document 3). The Soviets had a major advantage over the Germans of the aspect of being resupplied. While they could receive support from nearby or within the city, Germany had to rely on supplies coming from a long way out. If supply shipments were cut off by the Soviets, the Germans were forced to continue fighting with limited resources. Also, the Battle of Stalingrad is a prime example of how much changed between the first and second world war. The vast majority of World War I was fought out of trenches, with soldiers moving very little. World War II was fought in the style of urban warfare, surrounded by streets and buildings, nearly the polar opposite of trench warfare. The Germans were not trained to fight an urban style battle, and thus struggled upon reaching the city of Stalingrad. When the cold Russian winter came, German suffering reached an all time high. A soldier named Wilhelm

While Germany controlled Stalingrad, “an estimated 15,000 civilians remained in the city, hungry and freezing. They bedded down among ruins and in holes in the ground.” (dw.com) All of this angered Joseph Stalin and the Red Army so they decided to retaliate. This action on the Soviet Union would also affect the Soviet's allies, This invasion was a ploy to defeat the axis

On September 3rd, 1942, Germans reach the outskirts of Stalingrad expecting not much of a fight. Russia, however brought a bigger fight than Germany was expecting. During the winter, as Germany blew Stalingrad to rubble, they were running short on food and ammunition. Germans were also freezing as well as hungry. Approximately, 150,000 Germans were killed during this battle.

In order for the two front war to be a success, maintaining a coalition with Stalin and the Soviets was critical (“D-Day as a Parable”). Another key element that was critical to the opening of the second front was the Barbarossa Campaign. The Barbarossa Campaign was a massive battle between Germany and Russia (“D–Day as a Parable”). Germany wanted to destroy the Soviet Union and permanently eliminate the Communist threat on them while also seizing prime land within Soviet borders for the expansion of German territory ("Invasion of the Soviet Union,”). This major offensive maneuver moved more than a million troops to the Eastern front, leaving fewer numbers of German troops in Western Europe and Germany making a second front in Western Europe more plausible.

This was the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. The Germans only hope was with the invasion because with no maritime due to the British navy and no trust in Stalin to supply the needed petrol the Nazis would run out of vital

The battle of Stalingrad raged from August 1942 until the German surrender on 2 February 1943. Significantly, it was the first catastrophic defeat to befall the Wermacht Army who not only lost the battle but were severely humiliated. Indeed, the German Army never fully recovered from this blow to its morale. Upwards of 270,000 troops were killed and 91,000 prisoners were taken by the Red Army; included in this latter number were 23 German Generals. Conversely, morale in the Red Army soared as a consequence of Stalingrad giving the Russians increased strength and confidence. This battle represented a turning point in the Second World War.

In the first stages of the Russian counter attack against the German army, led by General Friedrich Paulus, the German plan for strategic retreat was stopped by Hitler himself who, in a radio message to Paulus, would say that surrender is not an option and to continue fighting until the German’s were unable to continue. This evidently selfish and stubborn behavior from the leader of Nazi Germany forced the German army to brave the Russian winter and later force their surrender in 1943 by restricting the power of his generals on the front lines. The loss of manpower from this defeat would start the downfall of the power of Nazi

Hitler had two aims while he was in the USSR, which were capturing Stalingrad and capturing the oil fields in Caucasus. As he had these two aims, he decided to split the German Army into two parts where one could take on Caucasus and the other take Stalingrad. The division that had gone to Stalingrad, the 6th Army, lacked enough resources and knowledge to defeat the Soviet Army. The army consisted of 1,000,000 men, 675 tanks, 1,200 aircrafts, and 10,000 guns and mortars, where a lot of the men were poorly trained. The lack of knowledge of the 6th Army was a tactical error, as they did not know how to fight in Stalingrad, nor were they thought how to. The 6th Army were used to fighting in the open and wide areas of the USSR, but Stalingrad consisted of many buildings and streets, and the German Army made another tactical error by bombing Stalingrad prior to the 6th Army’s entrance, as they thought that it would have weakened Russian resistance, but the opposite had occurred. The bombing had caused buildings to collapse and large pieces of cement to fall, which were used by the Soviet Army as cover. In To the Gates of Stalingrad: Soviet-German Combat Operations Historian David M. Glantz states, “The Luftwaffe’s rubbling of the city only exacerbated things,” reinforcing the fact that it was a

The Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939 shocked the world, but no one knew what Hitler really desired from the Soviets until he commenced Operation Barbarossa in June, 1941. The War in the East began with much confusion on the Soviet side, but in the end, they prevailed and the Germans were unable to achieve Lebensraum. Upon examination, the different levels of planning and strategies employed by both leaders guaranteed a Soviet victory, as Hitler overestimated his own forces, while Stalin focused on effective methods.

The German Army never fully recovered from the beating it took in Russia around Moscow and elsewhere during the winter of 1941-42 when it suffered over a million casualties. For a time, the entire Eastern Front had teetered on the verge of collapse as division upon division of well-equipped Russians materialized seemingly out of nowhere and attacked.

Hitler’s unconscious mistake of invading Soviet Union in the wintertime caused his men to become crippled. The Nazi-German army weakened as the weather in Soviet Union decreased drastically. Hitler’s men did not have enough clothing to keep warm, so many suffered from frostbite. Tanks and other weaponry broke down due to the intense cold. Germany’s failure in Operation Barbarossa later on had them fighting on the Eastern Front and Western Front.

one of the biggest reason would be Hitler's overconfidence near the end of the war. At the beginning of the war Hitler's first couple of idea worked so successfully that he got too over confident and thought of himself as a military genius which led him to stop listening to his generals. For example in the Battle Of the Bulge in December 1944 Hitler's generals advised him not to send out any men but Hitler overturned their decision and sent his men out, which then cost them valuable men and resources that they really needed at the time as the allies were closing in on them and their factories were being liberated. Also Hitler underestimated the USSR and thought that they could invade them before the harsh russian winters, once they failed taking over moscow they lost most soldiers from the cold weather as they were in their summer uniform and their tanks and other vehicles failed to drive or work in the cold conditions.

Germany did not have a numerically superior force on the western front, but bold strategy, careful planning and blitzkrieg tactics set the foundation for the French defeat. In June 1940 Hitler invaded Paris, eight days later the French surrendered. After the French surrender, Hitler attempted to end the war with Britain. Speaking to the Reichstag in June, he said, “I can see no reason why the war need go on.” But Hitler was already had his sights set on invading Russia. He now aimed to end the war in the west so he could concentrate on attacking communist Russia in the east. Hitler knew that invading Britain would be difficult, but still he informed his military to leaders to prepare for the operation, Operation Sea Lion, and proceeded in planning a landing operation against Britain.

Then, in the winter of 1941 and beginning of 1942, extremely cold temperatures were occurring all over Soviet Russia. The Nazi Army begged Hitler to stop for the winter, but Hitler ordered them to keep going. Many Nazi and Soviet soldiers died due to the harsh conditions. However, the Soviets had the advantage. Special trained Soviets soldiers were taught to fight in the extreme cold. Stalin ordered these troops to fight the Nazi soldiers who decided to keep going. They were no match for the Soviets, and key victories at Stalingrad and other major cities were key to the Soviet Union for pushing the Nazis all the way out of their territory. For Stalin, it was a great victory, for Hitler, it was a terrible