The war against the Soviet Union begins

Early on the morning of 22 June 1941 – to Moscow’s complete surprise – the German incursion into the Soviet Union begins („Barbarossa Incident“). The Wehrmacht forms its line of incursion from Finland to the Black Sea with close to three million soldiers, over 3,000 panzers and close to 2,000 aircraft. The attack is supported by Finland, which was the victim of a Soviet attack in December of 1939, by Rumania and Hungary as well as through the dispatching of Italian, Slovakian and Spanish infantry divisions.

© Gregorovich German Wehrmacht and Tanks advancing through the burning Ukrainian village of Nyzhny Nanoichyk in 1941

Hitler’s objective is the “destruction of Bolshevism” and the „control and utilisation of Russian territory up to the Astrakhan-Archangelsk line“ – an insane undertaking. The „Fuehrer&Ldquo; puts his faith in a renewed “Blitzkrieg”, an undertaking which will fail completely.

From the very beginning the war against the Soviet Union was conceived by Nazi leadership as an „ideological conflict of worldviews and a racial-biological war of destruction“. The troops of the Wehrmacht, advancing into the country, are immediately followed by „special deployment squads“ which have orders to murder the Jewish population and elite members of the Soviet leadership. A further motive of Nazi leadership is the economic exploitation of the conquered regions and use of the people living there as forced labourers. By 1945 the war will cost the Soviet Union alone ca. 20 million human lives.