Operation Barbossa By Mallory Early
Adolf Hitler(Germany) VS. Joseph Stalin (Soviet Union)
Operation Barbarossa was not a single battle. It was when Germany invaded the Soviet Union and kept fighting until the end of the war when Germany was defeated.
- Operation Barbarossa was fought on land
- The operation was driven by a desire to conquer the Western Soviet Union so that it could be repopulated by Germans, to use Slavs as workers for the Axis war-effort, seize the oil resources in the Caucasus, and to seize the grain supply in Ukraine.
- Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II (a.k.a. Operation Barbarossa) was launched on Sunday 22 June 1941. The war ended with the total defeat of Nazi Germany in May 1945.
- With 730,000 causalities on the German side after Operation Barbarossa, the German military experienced a huge setback in their military power and the soldiers moral.
- Like Hitler's "Final Solution" to get rid of all Jews in Europe, he also had a "Hunger Plan". The Nazis deliberately starved 3.1 million of the 5,000,000 prisoners gained during Operation Barbarossa to death as part of the "Hunger Plan". It aimed to reduce the population of Eastern Europe and then to re-populate it with ethnic Germans.
- Stalin's reputation as a brutal dictator contributed the Nazis' justification of their assault and their faith in success. Many experienced Russian military officers were killed in the Great Purge of the 1930's, leaving the Red Army with inexperienced leadership compared to the Germans. The Nazis often emphasized the Soviet's brutality when targeting the German people with propaganda.They also claimed that the Red Army was preparing to attack the Germans.
- Hitler knew that taking and controlling western Russia would be "more of a drain than a relief for Germany's economic situation"
