Nazi Germany invades the Soviet Union

Germany Opens an Eastern War

Before dawn on June 22, 1941, German forces and allies launched an invasion of the Soviet Union. Operation Barbarossa opened a front stretching from the Baltic toward the Black Sea. The attack broke the German-Soviet nonaggression pact of 1939. Nazi planners expected the campaign to destroy Soviet military power quickly and make large eastern territories available for occupation and exploitation. The invasion was therefore a military operation with an ideological purpose. Its objectives cannot be understood solely as the movement of armies toward cities, because German authorities had already planned policies that would determine what happened to people behind the front.

Three Principal Axes and a Problem of Distance

German army groups advanced toward Leningrad, Moscow and Ukraine on different axes. Early operations trapped large numbers of Soviet troops in encirclements and took enormous numbers of prisoners. Success at the front did not shorten the roads and rail lines behind it. Vehicles, troops and animals still needed fuel, food, maintenance and replacements across increasing distances. Soviet units continued to fight, and the government mobilized resources and relocated industry. An advancing line on a map can suggest steady progress while concealing the increasing effort required to keep the front supplied and the ability of an opponent to form new units.

The Occupation Was Designed to Kill

German military and civilian authorities implemented policies of plunder, forced deprivation and mass murder. Mobile killing units and other formations murdered Jews and others in occupied areas, while enormous numbers of Soviet prisoners of war died in German custody. Different organizations shared responsibility, and the scale of violence increased over the course of the campaign. The crimes were not an accidental consequence of troops reaching an unfamiliar place. They reflected decisions about who was to be killed, displaced or denied resources. This makes June 22 a date in the history of the Holocaust and occupation as well as in the military chronology of World War II.

Why the Campaign Did Not End That Year

The German advance failed to destroy the Soviet state or force a settlement. A Soviet counteroffensive near Moscow began in December, after months of losses on both sides. Weather affected operations, but winter alone does not explain the result. Resistance, mobilization, attrition and logistical strain had already changed what Germany could accomplish. The invasion produced a war of immense duration and cost rather than the rapid conclusion planners sought. Its first day is best understood through that gap: German leaders chose to open a war whose intended scale was enormous while making assumptions that its decisive military phase would be short.