World War 2:
German Invasion of the USSR
The summer of 1940, after France had surrendered, found
Adolf Hitler in a quandary. He had won three whirlwind campaigns, but
the next in logical order, the reckoning with Great Britain, was one
for which he had little stomach. By his own admission he was a lion
on land but a coward on water, and he began planning for an invasion
of the British Isles with scant enthusiasm. At the same time he toyed
with other projects: the capture of Gibraltar or the Suez Canal, a landing
at Haifa, a North African campaign. None of these was significant enough
to resolve any of his major problems: how to dispose of Britain; how
to secure the Lebensraum (space for living) for which the war was ostensibly
being fought; how to end the war on German terms before the United States
could arm and intervene; how to deal with the Soviet Union, a "friend"
he neither liked nor trusted.
Most pressing at the moment was the question of Britain.
Poland, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and part
of France were occupied, but the British showed no inclination to quit.
The more he thought it over, the more Hitler became convinced that the
British hoped eventually to find an ally in the USSR. If that were true,
then the way to bring the British to heel quickly was to remove their
last hope.
GERMAN
PLANS AND ATTACK: 1941
Preparation of Operation Barbarossa
Opposing Forces
German Campaign: June 22 - Dec. 5, 1941
SOVIET
AND GERMAN OFFENSIVES: 1941-1943
First Soviet Winter Offensive: December 1941-March
1942
German Summer Offensive of 1942
Second Soviet Winter Offensive: November 1942-March
1943
Operation Citadel
GERMAN
WITHDRAWALS: 1943-1944
Soviet Summer and Fall Offensives: August - November
1943
Offensives on the Outer Flanks
Western Ukraine and the Crimea: March - May 1944
SOVIET
VICTORIES: 1944-1945
Collapse in the Center: June-August 1944
Operations on the Southern Flank
Operations on the Northern Flank
Advance into the Reich: January-April, 1945
Last Soviet Offensive
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