The German Invasion of Russia

The German invasion of the Russia, code-named Operation Barbarossa, began on Sunday, 22 June 1941. On that day, roughly three million German troops crossed the border in the largest land operation in the history of warfare.

In initial six weeks of the campaign German armored units drop rapidly into Soviet territory. Tens of thousands of Red Army soldiers surrendered and large quantities of Soviet equipment fell into German hands. 

By mid summer, however, Soviet resistance began to stiffen. Following the German victory at Smolensk in the center of the front, Hitler ordered a pause in the drive towards Moscow, and commanded his forces to wheel south and north in order to capture Lenningrad and the Ukraine. This move delayed the German advance on Moscow until late September. Thanks to the fall rains and the onset of the Russian winter, the German advance on the Soviet capital did not proceeed as quicky as the German commanders anticipated. Nevertheless, by early December they were within 18 miles of the center of the city and it looked to many observers as if the Soviet regime was finished. But on December 5, 1941, Stalin launched an unexpected couter-offesive that drove the German Army back and by the end of the month, the threat to Moscow had ended.

Over the course of the next three and a half years, the fighting in the east would continue to rage, marked by the stunnning victory of the Red Army at Stalingrad in February 1943, followed by a second major victory at the battle of Kursk in August.

The entry of the Soviet Union into the war in June 1941 also provided the British with a much-needed ally at a crtical moment. Both Churchill and Roosevelt recognized this, and immediately offered help to the Russians as they desperately tried to defend their homeland.