Barbarossa - Hitler's Invasion Of Russia And Advance On Moscow

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BARBAROSSA - HITLER'S INVASION OF RUSSIA AND ADVANCE ON MOSCOW


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WWII* Chapter 12

From September 1939 until June 1941, the Second World War was, like the First, essentially a European war. Unlike the Great War of 1914-18, it was also a war founded on opposing concepts of politics, moral values and even religious outlook. The armies of both sides were not just patriotic and willing - they fought with a strong moral conviction.
Since 1924, when he dictated Mein Kampf to Rudolf Hess while imprisoned at Landsberg Prison, Hitler had made no secret of his loathing of Communism, and of his wish to annihilate the "Bolshevik Jews". By 1937, the principle of Lebensraum , of finding new "living space" to the East, was well established in Nazi philosophy, and it was generally assumed that this implied a threat to Soviet Russia - hence Churchill's reference to the signing of the Non-aggression Pact between Russia and Germany on August 23rd 1939 as "this unnatural act". The Pact seemed to indicate an uncharacteristic change of heart by Hitler - and yet it is clear that, when Britain was on the verge of defeat in 1940, Hitler hoped for an alliance with Britain against the Bolsheviks. As early as July 29th 1940, Colonel-General Alfred Jodl, chief of Operations, had announced to an assembly of staff officers that Hitler had decided to attack the USSR in the spring of 1941. On July 31st, Hitler himself said at a briefing "Wiping out the very power to exist of Russia! That is the goal!"
The simple truth was that the Non-Aggression Pact was no more than a device to buy time to defeat the Western democracies before turning East. It had always been Hitler's intention to attack Russia once all in the West had gone to plan. Now, in the summer of 1941, the whole of continental Europe with the exception of the neutrals (Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal) was either occupied or ceded to a puppet government - as was the case with Vichy France. Only Britain remained undefeated.
It seems likely that Hitler greatly underestimated both Britain's ability to recover from the military defeats she had suffered, and the extent to which the USA, even as a neutral, was prepared to supply arms and munitions. He also miscalculated totally the likelihood of the USA entering the war as a combatant, largely because his Japanese allies were not prepared to brief him in advance on their intentions.
Certainly, Hitler thought, at the end of 1940, when his Directive No. 21 - Barbarossa - was issued to the High Command, that he could expect to remain in control of the war despite opening a new front, that the British were now largely a spent force, and that there was no reason to expect an expansion of the geographical compass of the war beyond his own attack on his allies in Russia.
In fact, as we now know, 1941 was the year when the essentially European nature of the Second World War evaporated, and it became a genuinely worldwide conflict. The year was to see Asia, America and Africa plunged into war, and the first signs of the Axis being pointed inexorably towards defeat. It was also the year when much wider polarisation of beliefs and cultures entered into the conflict; the Communist versus the Fascist; the Oriental opposing the Occidental........................................ ..................