Operation Barbarossa
The German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 is perhaps one of the most crucial turning points of World War II, as hubris of Adolf Hitler and the German high command was rewarded with an unexpected defeat. Code-named Operation Barbarossa, after a medieval German ruler, the German invasion was doomed from the start, based as it was upon a number of assumptions regarding the Soviet ability to repel an attack and the estimated length of the operation. By examining the immediate context of Barbarossa as well as the planning and outcome of the operation, one is able to see how the catastrophic German defeat in the Soviet Union set the stage for the Nazi's eventual downfall.
The plans for Operation Barbarossa were first drawn up in February of 1941, but Hitler's desire to invade Russia had been made clear years before, such that one may view Barbarossa as the culmination of "nearly two decades of Nazi ranting about a Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy" (Kirchubel, 2007, p. 8). Although the Soviet Union and Germany had signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty in 1939, "which provided Germany with natural resources, strategic materials and a free hand in western and much of central Europe," both sides seemed aware that this treaty was only a means of forestalling the inevitable, considering Germany's ever-increasing need for natural resources and the fundamental oppositions between Nazi ideology and Communism (p. 8). Thus, while Hitler bid his time until he could invade the Soviet Union, the Soviets were simultaneously waiting for the German military to wear itself down in Europe before striking Germany (although this is not to suggest that the Soviet Union had any plans for a German invasion anywhere near as developed as Operation Barbarossa). As Hitler believed his efforts to control western Europe were largely a foregone conclusion, he directed his attention towards Russia.
Operation Barbarossa differed from other German invasions from the start, because during the initial planning stages Hitler demonstrated a loathing towards the general populace of Russia not previously seen (despite his obvious opinions regarding certain ethnic groups). Thus, the plan for Barbarossa consisted of three key elements. Firstly, "the Wehrmacht was to be ready to bring down the Soviet Union in a short campaign," with "the ultimate goal [being] to break up Russia into states handed over to civilian administration as and as extensively as possible" (Mineau, 2004, pg. 102-103). In order to accomplish this complete takeover, the responsibility for securing captured areas was taken from the Wehrmacht and handed over to the Sipo-SD as well as the SS, with the intention that these organizations would deal with "leading emigrants, saboteurs, terrorists" and other partisan resistors in such a brutal fashion as to discourage any further resistance on the part of the general populace (p. 103). These plans reveal two major assumptions underlying Operation Barbarossa that would eventually prove disastrous for the German campaign.
Firstly, Hitler assumed that the Red Army was simply not prepared to repel a German invasion, not least of all because Stalin's purges had included a number of military leaders (Steury, 2005). This, coupled with Germany's relatively easy domination of France, led to Hitler suffering "from what the Japanese, from bitter experience, would call "victory disease," such that "Germans overestimated their own capabilities, even as they underestimated the Soviet capacity to resist" (Steury, 2005). This assumption of Soviet weakness allowed Hitler to assume that the initial military operation would be over quickly, which was the second fatal overestimation, as the German military's complete lack of preparation for the Russian winter demonstrated. Thus, even as the initial date for the operation was pushed later and later, the Germans remained confident that they could secure the vast expanse of the Soviet Union before weather became an issue (Kirchubel, 2007, p. 10). This of course proved false, but even more basic errors on the part of the German military, and Hitler in particular, led to the failure of Barbarossa. Before examining these errors, however, one must briefly examine the Soviet side of the equation, and in particular the extent to which Stalin was or was not prepared for the invasion.
One of the most hotly debated historical aspects of Operation Barbarossa is the extent to which Stalin knew of the attack beforehand, considering that he apparently "ignore[d] the yearlong military buildup in eastern Europe and the (by one count0 87 separate, credible intelligence warnings of the German invasion that he received during 1940-1941" (Steury, 2005). This was despite the fact that Stalin seemed all to aware that Germany was intent on attacking Russia, and indeed, his diplomatic efforts...
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