Operation Barbarossa

Operation Barbarossa

Operation Barbarossa was the German invasion of the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941, which opened the Eastern front theater of World War II. The Germans and Soviets had signed a nonaggression pact, the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact in 1939. The Germans broke this agreement in a surprise attack that devastated the Russian defenses. Many Soviet planes were caught on the ground and large Soviet troop formations were encircled and annihilated.

The operation was supposed to reach a line on the far side of Moscow, the Arkhangelsk–Astrakhan line, where it captured Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad. It failed in all three of these objectives. German forces came within a few dozen miles of Moscow but were driven back by fresh troops under Georgy Zhukov, transferred from Siberia.

Part of the reason for the failure of the German attack was the stubborn Allied resistance in Yugoslavia and Greece, which set back the timetable by several weeks. This allowed the brutal Russian winter to play a role in the defense of Moscow.