Hitler invades the USSR
Operation BarbarossaJune 1941-1944Hitler invades the USSR
Why did Hitler want to invade Russia and the USSR?
Why did Operation Barbarossa the plan to conquer Russia and
USSR) fail?
On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany and its Axis allies began a
massive invasion of the Soviet Union named Operation Barbarossa --
some 4.5 million troops launched a surprise attack deployed from
German-controlled Poland, Finland, and Romania. Hitler had long had
his eye on Soviet resources. Although Germany had signed a
non-aggression pact with the USSR in 1939, both sides remained
suspicious of one another, and the agreement merely gave them more
time to prepare for a probable war. Even so, the Soviets were
unprepared for the sudden blitzkreig attacks across a border that
spanned nearly 2,900 km (1,800 mi), and they suffered horrible
losses. Within a single week, German forces advanced 200 miles into
Soviet territory, destroyed nearly 4,000 aircraft, and killed,
captured, or wounded some 600,000 Red Army troops. By December of
1941, German troops were within sight of Moscow, and they laid
siege to the city. But, when the notorious Russian winter
(nicknamed "General Winter") set in, German advances came to a
halt. By the end of this, one of the largest, deadliest military
operations in history, Germany had suffered some 775,000
casualties. More than 800,000 Soviets had been killed, and an
additional 6 million Soviet soldiers had been wounded or captured.
Despite massive advances, Hitler's plan to conquer the Soviet Union
before winter had failed, at great cost, and that failure would
prove to be a turning point in the war.
A German infantryman walks toward the body of a killed Soviet
soldier and a burning BT-7 light tank in the southern Soviet Union
in in 1941, during the early days of Operation Barbarossa
A German half-track in front of German tank units, as they
prepare for an attack, on July 21, 1941, somewhere along the
Russian warfront, during the German invasion of the Soviet
Union
German soldiers cross a river in a stormboat, sometime in 1941,
during the German invasion of the Caucasus region in the Soviet
Union.
With a burning bridge across the river in the background, a
German sentry keeps watch in the recently-captured city of Kiev, in
1941
German infantrymen watch enemy movements from their trenches
shortly before an advance inside Soviet territory, on July 10,
1941.
German Stuka dive-bombers, in flight heading towards their
target over coastal territory on November 6, 1941.
Machine gunners of the far eastern Red Army in the USSR, during
the German invasion of 1941.
Russian soldiers, left, hands clasped to heads, marched back to
the rear of the German lines on July 2, 1941, as a column of Nazi
troops move up to the front at the start of hostilities between
Germany and Russia.
Russian men and women rescue their humble belongings from their
burning homes, said to have been set on fire by the Russians, part
of a scorched-earth policy, in a Leningrad suburb on October 21,
1941.
Red Army soldiers examine war trophies captured in battles with
invading Germans, somewhere in Russia, on September 19, 1941
A view of the destruction in Riga, the capital of Latvia, on
October 3, 1941. The Russians had withdrawn and it was in Nazi
hands
Some of the 650,000 Russian prisoners which were captured at
Bryansk and Vyasma. They are here seen waiting to be transported to
a prisoner of war camp somewhere in Russia.
German infantrymen in heavy winter gear march next to
horse-drawn vehicles as they pass through a district near Moscow,
in November 1941. Winter conditions strained an already thin supply
line, and forced Germany to halt its advance - leaving soldiers
exposed to the elements
Part of Operation Barbarossa
1941-1944The siege of Leningrad
The Siege of Leningrad 1941 -44The city of Leningrad was
surrounded by the German army for ________________ years. Nearly
_____ million people lived there.The Germans shelled the city
continuously and stopped food and supplies from getting in._______
million Russians died there.The food in the city lasted only until
November ________ despite rationing. The people of Leningrad
survived by
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