Operation Barbarossa Essay

During the spring of 1941, Hitler initiated his eastern European allies into plans to invade the Soviet Union. Hitler had always regarded the German-Soviet nonaggression pact as a tactical and temporary move. On December 18, 1940, he signed Operation Barbarossa, “its code name is Directive 21”, the first operational order for the invasion of the Soviet Union. From the beginning of operational planning, German military and police authorities intended to wage a war of annihilation against the Communist

to end the war in the west so he could concentrate on attacking communist Russia in the east. Hitler knew that invading Britain would be difficult, but still he informed his military to leaders to prepare for the operation, Operation Sea Lion, and proceeded in planning a landing operation against Britain. The battle of Britain was fought between July and October in the skies of southern England 1940. The German airforce attacked British targets from bases in France and northern

To what extent were Hitler and Stalin similar? Hitler and Stalin were both cruel dictators around the time of WW2, but to what extent were these two men similar? Firstly they were both dictators throughout WW2; however they were both of different beliefs. Hitler was a fascist and Stalin was a communist, however they were both such extreme versions of these beliefs that they were, in many ways alike. Starting with childhood, Adolf Hitler was born on April 20th 1889 in a small Austrian town called

In the Book, Leningrad; State of Siege by Michael Jones, it tells a story about the surrounding of the Soviet city from September 8th 1941 until January 27th 1944. For a total of 872 days, Nazi Germany and Finish armies surrounded the city and chocked them of anything getting out or in. Hitler wanted to starve the citizens until they eventually would surrender. Jones show through the beginning, during and the end of the siege through various mean to get the idea of how they survived. Jones best use

In Anthony’s Beevor’s book on “The Fall of Berlin 1945” his forward opens with a statement from Albert Speer, the so called architect of Nazi Germany. He states the following: “History always emphasizes terminal events.” Ironically, his text should refer to the Cold War between the two former Allies. However, if one steps back at time during the Treaty of Versailles, it is very apt. The conditions for World War II were drawn from the experiences, defeats and conditions of the Treaty of Versailles

colonization and agricultural settlements was the most important aspect of going east; the native Slavs were seen as unimportant “Redskins” by Hitler as he compared his policy towards them to the U.S. treatment of Native Americans. Under Operation Barbarossa the violent treatment of the Slavic people established itself militarily, specifically with the pre-invasion “Commissar Order”. The orders given to German soldiers stated that they were not to follow any international rules of warfare in regards

covered a front from the North Cape to the Black Sea, a distance of two thousand miles. By this point German military was the best at everything they did, the forces invading Russia represented the best and strongest army to fight during that time. Barbarossa was the crucial turning point in World War II, for its failure forced Nazi Germany to fight a two-front war against a coalition possessing immensely superior resources. In Barbarossa’s opening month, German armies bit

000 men from the beaches of Dunkirk. Britain now stood alone with its empire against Germany. Hitler believed that Britain had to be defeated before he could turn his attention to the USSR and so in the invasion of Britain codenamed Operation Sealion, two German armies (totalling 100,000 men) would be transported across the English Channel. However this crossing could be blocked by the Royal Navy, which was protected by the RAF. The Luftwaffe had to eliminate the RAF in

Joseph Stalin was born 18th December 1878 and died on 5th March 1953, was the leader of the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953. Holding the post of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he was effectively the dictator of the state. Stalin was born in Gori in the Tiflis Governorate of the Russian Empire, to Besarion Jughashvili, a Georgian cobbler who owned his own workshop, and Ketevan Geladze, a Georgian who was born a serf

According to MI5, espionage refers to “a process which involves human sources (agents) or technical means to obtain information which is not normally publically available [and]…seeking to influence decision makers and opinion-formers to benefit the interests of a foreign power.” For many historians, espionage has long been “the missing dimension” of diplomatic, political, and military history. The declassification of documents and greater political transparency over recent decades however has