1941: Invasion of the Soviet Union

The German invasion of the Soviet Union was preceded by lengthy planning, the foundation of which was formed in Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” with his expressed intention to conquer “Lebensraum (“living space”) in the East”. The concrete military preparations began in the middle of 1940, and due to the Red Army’s territorial expansion and great strength, there were doubts even at the start about the successful implementation of the operation. The duration of the campaign, whose aim was the destruction of the enemy's military forces, was planned to take six to a maximum of eight weeks. Alongside its military components, the operation was planned from the outset as a war of extermination targeting the Jewish population, the intelligentsia as well as functionaries and members of the country’s Communist Party. To prepare for this, a series of orders contravening international law were issued (e.g. The Commissar Order) that German troops followed almost fully. Although the German attack on June 22, 1941 hit the Soviet Union unprepared, German troops did not succeed at decisively defeating the retreating enemy. Subsequently, the attack continued far beyond its actual temporal and spatial goal before the German troops, their forces and supply lines overstretched, got caught in a “winter crisis” in December 1941.