On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, a major offensive against the Soviet Union. At that time the command of the Soviet Union was in the hands of Stalin.This was the biggest military attack in history. This was also a risky gamble that Adolf Hitler played in an attempt to decisively turn the Second World War in his favor.The woman who 'tasted poison' for HitlerHitler got married, had a party and then got shotBut things did not happen as Germany's leader Hitler wanted. Historians consider the failure of this operation to be a turning point in the Second World War and also the beginning of the end of German superiority.Operation Barbarossa started a fierce six-month long war between the two totalitarian superpowers. This was a competition which was going to bring the decisive outcome of the Second World War.Operation Barbarossa was named afterthe 12th century Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. With Germany's attack on the Soviet Union, the German-Soviet pact signed in 1939 also broke down.
The armies of the Axis countries divided 3 million people into three groups and targeted Leningrad, Kiev and Moscow.
The Soviet army was stunned by this surprise attack and suffered heavy losses in the first battle. It is believed that several lakh people died. Cities like Kiev, Smolensk and Vyazma were conquered by the Nazis.
However, they too had to pay a heavy price. The German infantry advance halted in December due to gradually improving Soviet defenses and severe Russian winter.
Although the German army had reached Moscow at that time. Meanwhile, Hitler decided that the German army would not take offensive action in Leningrad but would conduct a long siege.
Although the Soviet army survived the initial attacks, the German army launched a new attack in 1942 and penetrated deep into the Soviet Union. The Battle of Stalingrad between 1942 and 1943 changed the situation and ultimately the German forces had to retreat.
With the German attacks, citizens of the Soviet Union were tortured on a large scale. Among these, the Jews were most affected. More than 1 million Jews were killed. Hitler had planned the complete
destruction of the Jews.
Now, almost 80 years after that operation, British historian Antony Beevor, an expert in military history and the Second World War, has answered 10 questions from BBC History and tried to understand Hitler's biggest mistakes.
1. Did Hitler have a long-term plan to attack the Soviet Union?
Image Source:Getty Pictures
Adolf Hitler quickly changed his attitude towards big business, but I think his attack on the Soviet Union is something that goes back to the end of the First World War.
His hatred of Bolshevism was deep-rooted. But it was also influenced by the German occupation of Ukraine in 1918 and the perception that Bolshevism might grow further in the future.
World War II: The mysterious army that helped defeat Hitler's Nazi army
How Israel caught Aichman who killed Jews
There was also a thought that controlling this area could prevent the British blockade, which had caused drought in Germany during World War I. Therefore, this was not only a strategic decision but also a natural one.
The reality was that the plan was not completely ready till December 1940. Interestingly, Hitler had justified the attack on the Soviet Union in front of his generals by saying that this was the only way to remove Britain from this war.
If the Soviet Union lost, Britain had no other option but to surrender. Which was a special analysis of the conditions of that time.
2. Was the German-Soviet Pact more than a temporary solution for Hitler?
Image Source:Getty Pictures
image caption,
Joachim von Ribbentrop (left), Stalin and Viacheslav Molotov (right) during the signing of the agreement on August 23, 1939.
This was done deliberately. Hitler understood that he had to defeat the Western alliance first.
And this shows his extraordinary self-confidence, especially if one considers that the French army was considered the most powerful at that time.
The story of friendship between Hitler and a minor Jewish girl
This is how the news of Hitler's death came to light
More than half of Europe had to suffer for decades due to the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact between the Nazis and the Soviet Union.
Stalin had high hopes that the capitalist nation and the Nazis would end up fighting each other in bloodshed.https://www.highcpmrevenuegate.com/et08tr06u9?key=1f02d85034e7486ac606af70fc504de1
The German-Soviet pact was also a necessity for Stalin, as he had recently disbanded his Red Army and had to prevent any possible conflict with Germany.
3. It is often criticized that Germany waited too long to launch the attack. Do you agree with this?
Undoubtedly, it is true that Operation Barbarossa started quite late and there is a lot of discussion as to why it was so delayed.
An old belief is that it had to be stopped because of the attack on Greece in April 1941, but by that time it was known that the main reason was time.
'Secret' love story blossomed in Hitler's death camp
That dangerous shooter whom even Hitler's army was afraid of
There was a lot of rain during the winter of 1940-1941 and this caused two problems. The first problem was that the forward airfield of the German military aviation Luftwaffe was completely filled with water and until this airfield dried up, there could be no movement of planes here.
The second problem was that due to bad weather there was a delay in the deployment of transport vehicles on the Eastern Front. Another interesting fact was that 80 percent of the people of Germany's motor transport division came from the defeated French army.
This was the reason why Stalin hated the French. He argued at the Tehran Conference in 1943 that they should be treated as traitors and collaborators. The fact that they did not destroy their vehicles when they surrendered. And for Stalin, this was a very serious thing against him.
4. Everyone knows that Stalin was a crazy personality. How could they ignore so many warnings about a German attack?
This is one of the biggest paradoxes in history. Stalin, who doubted everything, was betrayed by Hitler. Because of this, many kinds of rumors were raised, one of which said that Stalin was planning to attack Germany first.
However, there does not seem to be any point in this. Actually, this is based on the emergency document of the Soviet Union dated 11 May 1941. In this document General Zhukhov and others familiar with Nazi attack planning discussed a possible counter-attack.
The Hindu woman who was crazy about Hitler
Do you know where Hitler was born?
One of the things they had considered was a pre-emptive attack, but Stalin's Red Army was in no position to do so at that time. One of these problems was that the tractors with which their artillery was transported were being used for harvesting crops.
But it is quite interesting how Stalin dismissed all the warnings. He had not only received this warning from Britain, but his own diplomats and spies had also alerted him. Perhaps the explanation for this is that since the Spanish Civil War they were convinced that everyone living abroad was corrupt and anti-Soviet.
Soviet soldiers examining the items found after the attack on German soldiers.
So when he received the information from Berlin, he ignored it. Even when he was sent a small dictionary of German soldiers, which contained expressions like 'Take me in your communal form'. But Stalin was convinced that this was a provocation by the British to force war with Germany.
Yet it is notable that Stalin also accepted Hitler's assurances that many troops were being moved to the east, away from the attack of British bombers. However, at that time they were so weak that they were unable to make a dent in the opposing army.
5. What was Germany's objective? Did Germany really want to completely conquer the Soviet Union?
Image Source:Getty Pictures
The plan was to advance towards the AA line from Archangel to Astrakhan. If this had happened, it would have helped the German troops to advance from Moscow and the Volga.
So as the Battle of Stalingrad approached, many German soldiers thought that only by capturing the city and reaching the Volga would they win the war.
The secret meeting in which the plan to defeat Hitler was made
Daughter of Hitler's companion in German intelligence
The idea was that Soviet Union troops, who had survived major fighting at the beginning of the invasion, would be isolated and bombed and cornered.
Meanwhile, the conquered territories of Russia and Ukraine would be opened up for German colonization and settlement. According to the German Hunger Plan, people of many major cities will die of hunger. It was also estimated that the death toll would be 3 crore 50 lakh.
But this entire project depended on a rapid advance on the AA line and, above all, on the complete destruction of the Red Army by a major encirclement.
Some of these things also happened. For example, Kief proved to be one of the world's largest wars in terms of prisoners captured in human history.
6. Did Germany have any chance of success?
Image Source:Getty Pictures
In late 1941, in a moment of panic, Stalin told the Bulgarian ambassador that he thought perhaps Moscow would be captured and everything would fall apart.
But Ambassador Stamenov replied, "He is a lunatic and if he retreats to the Urals, he will win."
This is how Soviet dictator Stalin ended
When Americans secretly flew Stalin's daughter out of India
To me, this points to an important point as to why Operation Barbarossa was going to fail. Looking at the size of the country, it was clear that the German army and its allies Romania and Hungary did not have enough soldiers to conquer and occupy a country with such a large area.
Secondly, Hitler had not learned any lessons from the Japanese action on China, in which a highly mechanized and technologically superior country attacked a country that was vast in size.
It showed that you might win initially, but the shock and terror caused by the brutality that Hitler used against the Soviet Union creates as much resistance as the terror and anarchy do.
Hitler never considered this. He always used this idiom that if you kick the door, the entire structure will collapse. But he underestimated the patriotism of the majority of the Soviet Union, their age, and their commitment to continuing the war.
7. Would it be correct to say that Stalin was an obstacle to Soviet security?
Especially due to not being allowed to leave the siege of Kief, lakhs of people lost their lives. This was an order to resist or die. There was very little scope for change in this order.
Only in the final stages of the retreat towards Moscow did Stalin allow some more leeway. It was right that they did so, because it saved enough soldiers to defend the city.
8. Was there any danger of the collapse of the Soviet regime in the early stages of the attack?
Image Source:Getty Pictures
There was no possibility of any rebellion or anything like that leading to the fall of the Soviet regime.
In fact, there was no special criticism of the Soviet regime, because no one knew what was really happening. At that time people were angry at the betrayal by Germany and the German-Soviet agreement.
Stalin: The journey from revolutionary politics to becoming a 'brutal dictator'
Why did his daughter hate Stalin so much?
There was a time when some Soviet leaders came to meet him, when he was living in his cottage in complete depression.
When Stalin saw the Soviet leaders coming there, he thought that they had come to arrest him. But they soon realized that they were as scared as they were. He assured Stalin that he had to move forward.
9. How decisive was the Russian winter in the Battle of Moscow?
Image Source:Getty Pictures
image caption,
Russian winter troubled German soldiers a lot
There is no doubt that the harsh cold was very important.
It was extremely cold at that time and sometimes the temperature would go down to minus 40 degrees. The Germans were not prepared for this, nor were their weapons and clothing suitable for this environment.
The secret of Stalin's lonely photograph
Stories you don't know about Hitler's British girlfriend
For example, German machine guns often froze. Soldiers had to urinate on it to make it workable.
The tracks of Panzer tanks were very narrow and hence they could not move properly in the snow, whereas the Soviet Union had T-34 tanks and due to this they had the advantage.
The bitter cold of Russia had slowed down the advance of the German infantry. The mud caused by the rain had already slowed the advance of the German troops, now the cold made the conditions worse.
They had to keep a fire under the engines of the planes overnight, so that they could work when they got there the next morning.
10. Was the attack on the Soviet Union Hitler's biggest mistake?
Of course it was. If, after the defeat at the hands of France, Germany had maintained the status quo and strengthened its army with the resources of the countries that Hitler had earlier conquered, Germany's position would have been much stronger.
Therefore, if Stalin had attacked earlier in 1942 and 1943, it would have been quite disastrous for the Soviet Union.
There is no doubt that this was the turning point of the war. 80 percent of the German army's losses were on the eastern front. It was Operation Barbarossa which broke the backbone of the German army.