When was barbarossa

Skip to main content. Enter some words or an event code to find. This program is over. This decree also gave army officers the freedom to launch campaigns of reprisal and repression against civilians in response to the slightest suspicion, without any prior investigation. Operation Barbarossa marked a new stage in the Holocaust, with Jews the prime target for mass killings as German troops rampaged through Soviet territory. Even after those Allied victories, it was more than two and a half years of death and suffering before the Soviet soldiers raised the red flag over the Reichstag, surrounded by the smoke and ruins of an exhausted, defeated Berlin.

Daily newsletter Receive essential international news every morning. Take international news everywhere with you! Download the France 24 app. T hey established ghettos and other holding facilities to concentrate large numbers of Soviet Jews , often with assistance from German Army personnel.

The SS and police, supported by locally recruited auxiliaries, began to shoot entire Jewish communities there. Contributing to this decision were the rapid advances b oth on the military front and in the murder of the Soviet Jew s. The Soviet Union saw catastrophic military losses in the first six weeks after the German attack. However, the Soviet Union failed to collapse as anticipated by the Nazi leadership and the German military commanders. In mid-August , Soviet resistance stiffened.

This knocked the Germans off their timetabl e of winning the war by autumn Nevertheless, by late September , German forces reached the gates of the Russian city Leningrad today, St. Petersburg in the north.

German forces spilled into the Crimean Peninsula in the south. They reached the outskirts of Moscow in early December. After months of campaigning , however, the German army was exhausted. Having expected a rapid Soviet collapse, German planners had failed to equip their troops for winter warfare. They did not provide sufficient food and medicines , as they had expected their military personnel to live off the land of a conquered Soviet Union at the expense of the local population.

Consequently, the Germans forces—overstretched along the 1, mile Eastern Front—became vulnerable to Soviet counterattack. On December 6, , the Soviet Union launched a major offensive against the center of the front. This drove the Germans back from Moscow in chaos.

By the end of August, with German panzer divisions just miles from the Soviet capital, Hitler ordered—over the protests of his generals—that the drive against Moscow be delayed in favor of focusing on Ukraine to the south. Kiev fell to the Wehrmacht by the end of September. Instead, Hitler ordered his forces to starve Leningrad into submission, beginning a siege that would end up lasting some days.

The delay had given the Soviets time to strengthen the defense of their capital with some 1 million troops and 1, new T tanks. After a successful initial assault, the muddy roads of autumn—known as Rasputitsa, or quagmire season—literally stalled the German offensive outside Moscow, where they ran into the improved Russian defenses.

In mid-November, panzer divisions attempted a final attempt to encircle Moscow, getting within 12 miles of the city. But reinforcements from Siberia helped the Red Army beat back the attack, halting the German offensive for good as the brutal winter weather arrived. Soviet forces mounted a surprise counterattack in early December, putting the Germans on the defensive and forcing them into retreat. Despite its territorial gains and the damage inflicted on the Red Army, Operation Barbarossa failed in its primary objective: to force the Soviet Union to capitulate.

Though Hitler blamed the winter weather for the failure of the Moscow offensive, the entire operation had suffered from a lack of long-term strategic planning. Counting on a quick victory, the Germans had failed to set up adequate supply lines to deal with the vast distances and the harsh terrain. Fighting was far from over on the Eastern Front, and Hitler ordered another major strategic offensive against the Soviet Union in June