Overview+of+the+Invasion

OVERVIEW OF THE INVASION:

In all of history there has never been a war like it. In its scale of destruction, the war on the Eastern Front (Germany vs Russia) was unique; from Leningrad to the Crimea, from Kiev to Stalingrad, the Soviet Union was devastated - at least 25 million Soviet citizens died.

And in the end what did Germany have to show for it? Nothing but a broken, divided country, which had lost much of its territory, and a people burdened with the knowledge that they had launched a racist war of annihilation and, in the process, spawned the cancer of the Holocaust. But at the time of the attack there were many people - and not just Germans - who thought that the decision to invade the Soviet Union was a rational act in pursuit of German self-interest and, moreover, that this was a war the Germans would win.

 In the summer of 1940 Adolf Hitler had just easily overrun France. However, he faced a major problem. The British would not surrender. In Hitler’s mind, they should have. What were they thinking? It was only logical that they should- they were the only ones left, after all... the rest of Western Europe had already fallen to the German war machine; surely the British didn’t think that they could hold out forever?! Yet Hitler was frustrated by geography - in the shape of the English Channel – and could not swiftly crush the British as he had the French.

Hitler did in fact order preparations to be made for an invasion of England, but he was always half-hearted in his desire to mount a large seaborne landing. Germany, unlike Britain, was not a sea power and the Channel was a formidable obstacle. Even if Hitler could take out Britain’s Air Force (which he tried, unsuccessfully, to do), Britain still had the world’s most powerful Navy. And there was another reason why Hitler was not fully committed to invading Britain. For him, it would have been a distraction. Britain contained neither the space, nor the raw materials, that he believed the new German Empire needed. And he admired the British - Hitler often remarked how much he envied their achievement in conquering India (and most of the world, for that matter).

Furthermore, Hitler thought of the British people as related to the Germans (once upon a time Germanic tribes had settled Britain). Thus, if his goal was to eliminate all non-Germanic peoples, it wouldn’t make sense for him to attack the British. There was a much more hated enemy than the British, in Hitler’s eyes. To his east lay the gigantic Soviet Union, filled with people he thought of as ‘inferior’. According to the twisted Nazi views of Social Darwinism, he believed he had a duty to wipe out the Russian race. Worse, the Russians were Communists, and Hitler hated the Communists. Eastern Europe also had a large Jewish population, who Hitler sought to also wipe out. As an added bonus, the East contained vast farmlands that could easily feed his expanding German population.

Why waste strength and time trying to invade Britain, then, when his true enemy lay to the East? Especially if the Russians weren’t expecting such an attack (thanks to their previous Non-Aggression Pact). Furthermore, if he attacked Russia, he didn’t have to worry about any pesky bodies of water to cross. His tanks could easily roll across the flatlands of Russia. He could win the war in the East quickly, and __then__ maybe the proud British would make peace with him.

All this meant that, from Hitler's point of view, there was an alternative to invading Britain: he could invade the Soviet Union.

**Hitler invades ** 

The Germans invaded the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941, and it looked like they were about to take Moscow by October that year. With the benefit of hindsight, popular opinion has labelled Hitler as insane for invading the Soviet Union, but at the time many people - including those influential in both Britain and America - thought his decision was a smart one. Indeed, Hitler came much closer to pulling off his grand plan than the Soviet Union was ever prepared to admit.

The German //Blitzkrieg// technique was as devastating in Russia as it had been in the rest of Europe. The scene was set for a war of annihilation waged by the Nazis against the Soviets with no mercy shown by either side. One week into the German invasion, 150,000 Soviet soldiers were either dead or wounded. More died in that first week than during five months of battle in WWI. As the German armies swept further into the Russian heartland, one million Soviet troops were drafted to protect Kiev. But despite Stalin's ruthless order forbidding any city to surrender, Kiev fell and 600,000 Soviet soldiers were captured. By October 1941, three million Soviet soldiers were prisoners of war. New evidence now reveals that Stalin was seriously considering surrendering. He even organised a 'getaway' train to take him to safety as German guns started pounding Moscow. However, he finally decided to stay and fight. This decision turned the course of the war.

// (The above paragraphs are taken from chapter one of 'War of the Century' by Laurence Rees, published by BBC Publications, 1999. They were then edited by Mr. Bobsein) //