Intro:
- In June 1941, Adolf Hitler ordered his armed forces to launch an attack on the Soviet Union. This invasion was known as Operation Barbarossa and saw 3.8 million Axis soldiers being deployed in the largest invading force in history.
- Hitler was confident that his armed forces would quickly defeat the USSR. ("We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.")
- Stalin was caught off guard by the attack and initially, the USSR forces retreated and gave up many cities to the Germans.
- But the German attack was blunted by the vastness of Russia and the brutally cold winter which the Germans were not fully prepared for.
How the involvement of USSR led to a two front war
- Germany's defeat in the Second World War was due to the involvement of the USSR. Taking on the USSR created an Eastern Front and this led Germany to fighting a war on two fronts. This would prove disastrous as the war progressed.
- The German armed forces were well-trained, highly motivated and had large numbers of soldiers (by the end of World War 2, more than 17 million soldiers had served in the German army), fighting a war on two front stretched its capabilities.
- The Soviet Army was even larger than the German army (34 million soldiers) and this made the USSR a vastly formidable army.
- Hitler declared war on the United States in December 1941. This meant that Germany was at war with two nations with far superior industrial capability.
- The Allied Forces attacked Germany from the Western Front (American and British forces) and the Eastern Front (Soviet forces). Germany was unable to withstand this and surrendered in May 1945.
- Hitler did not trust his generals, he often directly intervened in military operations.
- Hitler lacked command experience at a senior level,
- One example of Hitler's blunder was his order to German troops to stop advancing on Dunkirk in May 1940. This gave British forces the opportunity to regroup and evaluate.
- Another example of Hitler's blunder: Stalingrad (He overruled his generals' recommendations to withdraw and insisted on a fight to the death)
- The Germans invested much resources in building giant battleships like Bismarck and Tirptz instead of airraft carriers.
- The Germans never developed heavy bombers. The German planes could not carry a lot of bombs
Conclusion
- External and internal factors contributed to Germany's defeat
- For much of 1940, the war was favourable to Germany.
- Operation Barbarossa was the beginning of the end for Germany.