I am interested in World War 2, and have a series of books I've read about, explaining the many battles and atrocities that occurred. One thing that interested me was: what exactly is Operation Barbarossa? Why did the Nazis decide to suddenly attack the Soviet Union without warning? How did it play out in the end? I decided to research the issue and write about it.
When war in Europe crept closer, August 1939 marked the signing of a non-agression treaty between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, a shock to the world since the each country had many ideologies that the other country didn’t have. They both worked together the following month to invade and divide Poland and created both a land and ideological split in the country. The Nazis got the western half and the Russian got the eastern, the dividing point being the Bug river. Nazi Germany worked hard to make a good economy for the next year and a half as they gave the Soviets manufactured goods and the Soviets gave the Nazis grain and oil in return.
The cooperation between the 2 enabled Hitler to do many things, like take over France and the low countries in 6 weeks, but Hitler still insisted on more Lebensraum, or living space, for his people. Once France fell, Hitler began drawing up plans for his next move, the invasion of the Soviet Union. He thought of Stalin’s “Jewish Boshelvik” regime as a place where he could use “Germanisalation” and make the country a Nazi hegemony. He wanted to economically exploit the “racially inferior” Slavic peoples of the Soviet Union and gain control in the country that was concidered the natural enemy of Nazi Germany.
On December 18 1940, Hitler signaled that it was time to begin the invasion of the Soviet Union. The plan of the military called to advance to a line from Archangel, a port in the north of the Soviet Union to Astrakhan, a port on the Caspian Sea, a line that was referred to as the A-A line. After a delay took place, as operations in Greece and Yugoslavia were finished, Operation Barbarossa was launched on the date of June 22 1941. On a 1,800 mile front, the Nazis had 148 divisions of troops, 3,400 panzer tanks, and 2,700 aircraft of the Luftwaffe. It was a huge force, and the largest invading force used to date.
These forces under German command were split into 3 army groups, all with separate goals to capture different regions. Army Group North would go through the Baltic states and take Leningrad. Army Group South would attack the Ukraine region and end up in Kiev and the industrial Donbas area. Army Group Centre would move to Minsk, Smolensk, and then the mighty capital of Moscow. Hitler thought this would all be achieved in 10 weeks. The Soviets had a large amount of forces on their western frontier, but when the Germans struck, the Red Army wasn’t ready.
The Germans had a start like clockwork, with Panzers pushing to their objectives and Russian troops in confusion. The Luftwaffe helped with bombing Soviet airfields, troop concentrations, and artillery positions. On just the first day of the invasion, 1,800 soviet aircraft were destroyed, most of them on the ground, causing the Nazis to quickly gain air superiority. Army Group North, under Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb, rocketed towards Leningrad. General Erich Hoepner’s Panzer Group 4 was in the lead. This sector’s Russian troops were thinly spread, causing the Panzers to move 500 miles in only 3 weeks. In mid July they were but 60 miles from their objective.
Army Group Centre, commanded by Field Marshal Fedor von Bock, made some rapid progress as well. June 28 marked Panzer Group 2 and 3 making the Bialystok-Minsk pocket, trapping 3 Soviet armies and over 320,000 troops. They pressed on and linked up near Smolensk on July 27 in a double envelopment. 2 more Soviet armies were gone, and 300,000 more prisoners fell into German hands. Army Group South, headed by Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, had to go the furthest and against the most Soviet resistance. The Soviet armour was mostly on this front. Though faced with such circumstances, he pushed past the pre-1939 Polish border in early July. Panzer Group 1 was slowed by flanking attacks as they advanced toward Kiev, the key to the rich in coal Donets Basin. On August 8th, the Germans encircled 2 armies, captured 100,000 men, and made it to the Dnieper river. They also besieged the port of Odessa on the Black Sea.
Up to that point, all was going quite well. The only problem was waiting for the infantry to march up to the position of the tanks and mop up the remaining Russians in pockets of resistance. Though losses were catastrophic for the Soviets, the resistance began to stiffen. A salient the Germans held around Yelnya was retaken in a counterattack that cost many lives but succeeded. Meanwhile Army Group Centre couldn’t be supplied, so Hitler decided to halt the group to reinforce Army Groups North and South with Army Group Centre’s tanks. Germans in high command didn’t agree with this move since the Panzers were a mere 220 miles from Moscow, but Hitler thought of Ukraine as more important as it was resource-rich. He decided to give priority to capturing the Crimea and Donets Basin.
The Soviets didn’t expect this bold move and 5 Soviet armies were trapped in a pocket around Kiev. By September Kiev was in German hands and 650,000 troops were killed or captured. The Germans moved on and laid siege to Sevestapol in the Crimea. They took Kharkov in October, but the Germans were tired, as the fighting had depleted their ranks and stretched their supply lines. The Southern front stayed in place for now. In the north, the Germans stopped as well, and instead of taking the city of Leningrad that they had surrounded with their Finnish allies, they decided to starve the city. The siege would end up lasting 890 days.
Meanwhile Hitler had decided it was time to resume the march towards Moscow. On October 2nd he decided to unleash Operation Typhoon, as he believed they had weakened the Russians enough to take their capital with one push and win. In reality, the capital had been reinforced with rings of defences, and around a million troops were left defending their capital. The offensive was carried out by Army Group Centre with 1 million men and 1,700 tanks. The Luftwaffe was weak and the weather was beginning to turn, though.
The assault began as usual, a success. 2 pockets near Bryansk and Vyazma caused another 600,000 Soviet troops to be captured. The Russians were down to around 90,000 men, a bad sign for the Soviets. When German forces approached the capital, Fall rains caused the dirt roads to turn into muddy swampy patches. This caused the Germans to chose to halt operations for the time being. With the ground frozen hard and temperatures dropping, the Germans made a last-ditch pincer movement in an effort to capture the city. The closest the Germans got was when a reconnaissance unit came 5 miles outside the city. The deep snow froze the Germans into inactivity. The Soviets then counterattacked, something that pushed the army 150 miles back away from Moscow.
Operation Barbarossa ultimately failed in causing the Russians to be defeated. Though it reduced the strength of the Red Army and gained lots of land, the Russians lived on and Moscow was still standing. I liked to learn about this topic, as so much happened in Operation Barbarossa. It was a costly gamble that caused the beginning of the end for the 3rd Reich. I hope you enjoyed it and learned a lot!
References:
Ian Carter
Wednesday 27 June 2018
iwm.org.uk
Accessed 2/2/2020
<https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/operation-barbarossa-and-germanys-failure-in-the-soviet-union>
When war in Europe crept closer, August 1939 marked the signing of a non-agression treaty between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, a shock to the world since the each country had many ideologies that the other country didn’t have. They both worked together the following month to invade and divide Poland and created both a land and ideological split in the country. The Nazis got the western half and the Russian got the eastern, the dividing point being the Bug river. Nazi Germany worked hard to make a good economy for the next year and a half as they gave the Soviets manufactured goods and the Soviets gave the Nazis grain and oil in return.
The cooperation between the 2 enabled Hitler to do many things, like take over France and the low countries in 6 weeks, but Hitler still insisted on more Lebensraum, or living space, for his people. Once France fell, Hitler began drawing up plans for his next move, the invasion of the Soviet Union. He thought of Stalin’s “Jewish Boshelvik” regime as a place where he could use “Germanisalation” and make the country a Nazi hegemony. He wanted to economically exploit the “racially inferior” Slavic peoples of the Soviet Union and gain control in the country that was concidered the natural enemy of Nazi Germany.
On December 18 1940, Hitler signaled that it was time to begin the invasion of the Soviet Union. The plan of the military called to advance to a line from Archangel, a port in the north of the Soviet Union to Astrakhan, a port on the Caspian Sea, a line that was referred to as the A-A line. After a delay took place, as operations in Greece and Yugoslavia were finished, Operation Barbarossa was launched on the date of June 22 1941. On a 1,800 mile front, the Nazis had 148 divisions of troops, 3,400 panzer tanks, and 2,700 aircraft of the Luftwaffe. It was a huge force, and the largest invading force used to date.
These forces under German command were split into 3 army groups, all with separate goals to capture different regions. Army Group North would go through the Baltic states and take Leningrad. Army Group South would attack the Ukraine region and end up in Kiev and the industrial Donbas area. Army Group Centre would move to Minsk, Smolensk, and then the mighty capital of Moscow. Hitler thought this would all be achieved in 10 weeks. The Soviets had a large amount of forces on their western frontier, but when the Germans struck, the Red Army wasn’t ready.
The Germans had a start like clockwork, with Panzers pushing to their objectives and Russian troops in confusion. The Luftwaffe helped with bombing Soviet airfields, troop concentrations, and artillery positions. On just the first day of the invasion, 1,800 soviet aircraft were destroyed, most of them on the ground, causing the Nazis to quickly gain air superiority. Army Group North, under Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb, rocketed towards Leningrad. General Erich Hoepner’s Panzer Group 4 was in the lead. This sector’s Russian troops were thinly spread, causing the Panzers to move 500 miles in only 3 weeks. In mid July they were but 60 miles from their objective.
Army Group Centre, commanded by Field Marshal Fedor von Bock, made some rapid progress as well. June 28 marked Panzer Group 2 and 3 making the Bialystok-Minsk pocket, trapping 3 Soviet armies and over 320,000 troops. They pressed on and linked up near Smolensk on July 27 in a double envelopment. 2 more Soviet armies were gone, and 300,000 more prisoners fell into German hands. Army Group South, headed by Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, had to go the furthest and against the most Soviet resistance. The Soviet armour was mostly on this front. Though faced with such circumstances, he pushed past the pre-1939 Polish border in early July. Panzer Group 1 was slowed by flanking attacks as they advanced toward Kiev, the key to the rich in coal Donets Basin. On August 8th, the Germans encircled 2 armies, captured 100,000 men, and made it to the Dnieper river. They also besieged the port of Odessa on the Black Sea.
Up to that point, all was going quite well. The only problem was waiting for the infantry to march up to the position of the tanks and mop up the remaining Russians in pockets of resistance. Though losses were catastrophic for the Soviets, the resistance began to stiffen. A salient the Germans held around Yelnya was retaken in a counterattack that cost many lives but succeeded. Meanwhile Army Group Centre couldn’t be supplied, so Hitler decided to halt the group to reinforce Army Groups North and South with Army Group Centre’s tanks. Germans in high command didn’t agree with this move since the Panzers were a mere 220 miles from Moscow, but Hitler thought of Ukraine as more important as it was resource-rich. He decided to give priority to capturing the Crimea and Donets Basin.
The Soviets didn’t expect this bold move and 5 Soviet armies were trapped in a pocket around Kiev. By September Kiev was in German hands and 650,000 troops were killed or captured. The Germans moved on and laid siege to Sevestapol in the Crimea. They took Kharkov in October, but the Germans were tired, as the fighting had depleted their ranks and stretched their supply lines. The Southern front stayed in place for now. In the north, the Germans stopped as well, and instead of taking the city of Leningrad that they had surrounded with their Finnish allies, they decided to starve the city. The siege would end up lasting 890 days.
Meanwhile Hitler had decided it was time to resume the march towards Moscow. On October 2nd he decided to unleash Operation Typhoon, as he believed they had weakened the Russians enough to take their capital with one push and win. In reality, the capital had been reinforced with rings of defences, and around a million troops were left defending their capital. The offensive was carried out by Army Group Centre with 1 million men and 1,700 tanks. The Luftwaffe was weak and the weather was beginning to turn, though.
The assault began as usual, a success. 2 pockets near Bryansk and Vyazma caused another 600,000 Soviet troops to be captured. The Russians were down to around 90,000 men, a bad sign for the Soviets. When German forces approached the capital, Fall rains caused the dirt roads to turn into muddy swampy patches. This caused the Germans to chose to halt operations for the time being. With the ground frozen hard and temperatures dropping, the Germans made a last-ditch pincer movement in an effort to capture the city. The closest the Germans got was when a reconnaissance unit came 5 miles outside the city. The deep snow froze the Germans into inactivity. The Soviets then counterattacked, something that pushed the army 150 miles back away from Moscow.
Operation Barbarossa ultimately failed in causing the Russians to be defeated. Though it reduced the strength of the Red Army and gained lots of land, the Russians lived on and Moscow was still standing. I liked to learn about this topic, as so much happened in Operation Barbarossa. It was a costly gamble that caused the beginning of the end for the 3rd Reich. I hope you enjoyed it and learned a lot!
References:
Ian Carter
Wednesday 27 June 2018
iwm.org.uk
Accessed 2/2/2020
<https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/operation-barbarossa-and-germanys-failure-in-the-soviet-union>
Very good Mati!!!
ReplyDeleteWe are also interested in WWII and enjoyed reading your article.
It is well written and very informative.