1941 - OPERATION BARBAROSSA OVER SOVIET UNION

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Under the codename Operation "Barbarossa," Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 in the largest German military operation of World War II.

The destruction of the Soviet Union by military force, the permanent elimination of the perceived Communist threat to Germany, and the seizure of prime land within Soviet borders for long-term German settlement had been a core policy of the Nazi movement since the 1920s. Adolf Hitler had always regarded the German-Soviet nonaggression pact, signed on August 23, 1939, as a temporary tactical maneuver. In July 1940, just weeks after the German conquest of France and the Low Countries, Hitler decided to attack the Soviet Union within the following year. On December 18, 1940, he signed Directive 21 (code-named Operation "Barbarossa"), the first operational order for the invasion of the Soviet Union.

• Courtesy - www.ushmm.org

Discover now some information about the German operation Barbarossa over Soviet Union with the following numeric report made by HISTORIUM Observatorium on WEB 2.0 - Carpe diem passengers - GEO 66

• Operation Barbarossa Original reports and pictures from The Times
• Relationship between the campaigns in the Balkans and the invasion of Russia and associated timeline in The German Campaigns in the Balkans a publication of the United States Army Center of Military History
• Multimedia map—Covers the invasion of Russia including Operation Barbarossa
• Operation Barbarossa—Detailed analysis of the operation by author Bevin Alexander.
• Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Current Intelligence. The Soviet History of World War II, 28 October 1959.
• Huge very detailed online map on 22 June 1941. Dislocation of Soviet and German airforce and ground units in one hour before invasion.

OPERATION BARBAROSSA

Phase 1: The Frontier Battles (22 June 1941–3 July 1941)

At 03:15 on Sunday, 22 June 1941, the Axis bombed major cities in Soviet-occupied Poland. It is hard to pinpoint the opposing sides' strength in this initial phase, as most German figures include reserves allocated to the East but not yet committed, as well as several other comparability issues between the German and USSR's figures. Roughly three million Wehrmacht troops went into action on 22 June, and they faced slightly fewer Soviet troops in the border Military Districts.

The contribution of the German allies would generally not make itself felt until later. The surprise was complete: though the Stavka, alarmed by reports that Wehrmacht units were approaching the border, had at 00:30 ordered that the border troops be warned that war was imminent, only a small number of units were alerted in time.

Aside from the roughly 3.2 million German ground troops engaged in, or earmarked for the Eastern Campaign, about 500,000 Romanian, Hungarian, Slovakian, Croatian, and Italian troops accompanied the German forces, while the Army of Finland made a major contribution in the north. The 250th Spanish "Blue" Infantry Division was a formation of volunteered Spanish Falangists and Nazi sympathisers.

Luftwaffe reconnaissance units worked frantically to plot troop concentration, supply dumps, and airfields, and mark them for destruction. The Luftwaffe's task was to neutralize the Soviet Air Force. This was not achieved in the first days of operations, despite the Soviets having concentrated aircraft in huge groups on the permanent airfields rather than dispersing them on field landing strips, making them ideal targets. The Luftwaffe claimed to have destroyed 1,489 aircraft on the first day of operations.

Hermann Göring — Chief of the Luftwaffe — distrusted the reports and ordered the figure checked. Picking through the wreckages of Soviet airfields, the Luftwaffe's figures proved conservative, as over 2,000 destroyed Soviet aircraft were found. The Luftwaffe lost 35 aircraft on the first day of combat. The Germans claimed to have destroyed only 3,100 Soviet aircraft in the first three days. In fact Soviet losses were far higher: some 3,922 Soviet machines had been lost (according to Russian Historian Viktor Kulikov). The Luftwaffe had achieved air superiority over all three sectors of the front, and would maintain it until the close of the year. The Luftwaffe could now devote large numbers of its Geschwader (see Luftwaffe Organization) to support the ground forces.

Invasion musical theme

Each Nazi invasion of a foreign country had an official musical theme that was frequently played for the purposes of Nazi propaganda over the totally government controlled radio stations after the invasion was officially announced to whip up enthusiasm for the military operation among the populace of Nazi Germany. The theme song for Operation Barbarossa was Les preludes by Franz Liszt.

• Read more on en.wikipedia.org

German infantry during the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.