A Brief Note On Operation Barbarossa

Submitted By petebrocunt
Words: 1443
Pages: 6

Year 12 Modern History Assessment Task:

OPERATION BARBAROSSA

The operation Barbarossa was a very significant part of History because it was a major turning point for war, before the German invasion of Russia, the axis powers (Germany, Italy, Japan) seemed unstoppable.
Furthermore, despite the heavy factors Nazi Germany received, if they happened to defeat Soviet Russia, than there would be a very high chance Europe would have still been under Nazi-Reign and would have been entirely occupied by the Axis powers.

The German invasion of the soviet Union on the 22nd of June 1941 was called Operation Barbarossa, an order the German Army received by Hitler , to invade neighbouring Soviet Union, due to his desire to destroy Communism, his hope to expand bigger living space(lebensraum) for the Aryan Germans(perfect German) and wanted to occupy Russia’s mass industrial production sources for his own benefit , such as oil and raw materials ,to make himself able to produce weapons and supplies , so he can fuel his army during the war. After recently defeating the French Army, which was considered one of biggest super powers in Europe; Hitler was very confident that his army would be successful in their invasion on the East. Hitler believed if he wanted to conquer the large Soviet Union, he would need his army to make rapid advances and wanted to quickly dominate Russia before the Russian army could get themselves organized for retaliation. The German Commanders estimated that their campaign in Russia would last no longer than 3 months to achieve victory.
Hitler wasn’t looking for a long, hard-earned war. Hitler preferred victory to come with short, strategic attacks, this tactic was known as “Blitzkrieg” or lightning war.

It was believed that Adolf Hitler was far too focused on his desired attack on the Soviet Union, that he lost interest in the battle of Britain, due to their supremacy during in the intense Air battle, which started in the summer of 1940 and ended in October that same year.
The battle of Britain was a very significant battle in history, because it was the first turning point in war for the allies. The Russians weren’t particularly ready to defend from Germany because Stalin believed Hitler was going to wait until he concurred Britain, before he turned his Army to Russia. Stalin didn’t believe Hitler would be stupid enough to invade Russia and to be open to two fronts, which also left Hitler more vulnerable to being defeated in the long term, Stalin was wrong.

Hitler believed his combined force was of, 4 million soldiers, 4800 tanks, 600,000 motor vehicles, 2000 planes and nearly a million horse-riders was enough to dominate over Russia.
In the operation, Hitler assigned three different army squads, Army group north, army group centre, and army group south. Their plan was to simultaneously spread throughout Russia, to occupy their designated target locations.
Army group North, a combined force of 20 German army divisions, were ordered to advance through northern Russia to Seize Leningrad, while simultaneously army group South, a combined force of 55 German, Rumanian and Hungarian army divisions advanced into the Ukraine, where they had the battle of Kiev which ended up with Germans surrounding the Russians Red army, where the Germans captured approximately 700,000 Russian troops. It was arguably the biggest war capture in history.
On the other side, Hitler sent Army group Centre, into Moscow due to being one of his main targets due to being the capital of Russia.

Hitler thought if he occupied most of Russia’s most iconic territories, such as Stalingrad, Leningrad or Moscow, it will be easier for him to make Joseph Stalin surrender over to him.
Estimately Russia had lost a total of about