June 1941: German invasion of the USSR

On 22 June 1941, Germany broke the nonaggression pact they had signed with the USSR in 1939 and invaded the Soviet Union. Germany managed to defeat large sections of the Soviet army and managed, by Winter 1941, to capture vast portions of Soviet territory and threaten Leningrad. This was followed by a repeated offensive in Spring 1942 that captured large parts of Ukraine and the Caucasus, threatening Soviet control of Stalingrad and Baku.

Hitler’s prime goal, from the very beginning, was the invasion and destruction of the USSR. This would accomplish both of his major political objectives: the destruction of Jewish power, as represented by Soviet Communist; and the domination of the Slavs by the Aryan race, enabling a massive colonial project in eastern Europe. As soon as he felt prepared, which was around a year after his defeat of France, Hitler invaded the USSR.

Although large on paper and one of the most mechanized armed forces in the world, the Soviet army had severe weaknesses in 1941. The USSR was coming out of a period of severe internal difficulty occasioned by the ‘Great Terror’ of Joseph Stalin. The period of the Terror, taking place roughly from the expulsion of Leon Trotsky in 1929 until 1938, had been a concerted campaign by Stalin to rid Soviet government and society of all elements disloyal to Communist or to himself. Over this decade, at least 15 million people were executed, with several million more expelled from the CPSU or removed from positions of authority. The Terror also affected the Soviet military and resulted in the most capable generals and officers of the USSR being killed or removed from their positions. As a result, when Germany attacked, the Soviets had very few capable commanders, low morale, and operated in an environment of paranoia.

Although the USSR managed to evacuate much of its industry to behind the Ural Mountains and to hold the German line between Stalingrad and Leningrad, the German offensive brought the Soviets perilously close to defeat. The German threat to Stalingrad and Baku was particularly serious, as it would have threatened the Soviet oil supply, as Baku was the largest oilfield on Earth at the time.

The German attack on the USSR was also important in greatly expanding the scope of the war. Although the USSR knew that, at some point, it would have to go to war with Germany, Stalin did not expect any war to break out prior to Germany’s defeat of Britain. The fighting on the Eastern Front became the bloodiest outside of Asia, with an estimated 30 million people dying during military operations between 1941 and 1945. Soviet entry into WWII is certainly one of the most significant events of the entire war.