Axis conquered vast areas of the Soviet Union and inflicted heavy losses on the Red Army, but failed in its overall strategic goal of defeating the USSR in a Blitzkrieg campaign
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for NaziGermany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a 2900 km front. In addition to the large number of troops, it also involved 600,000 motor vehicles and 750,000 horses. Planning for Operation Barbarossa started on 18 December 1940 and was implemented in 22 June 1941. The campaign came to its conclusion on 5 December of the same year, with the German defeat outside Moscow.
Operation Barbarossa's failure led to Adolf Hitler's demands for further operations inside the USSR, all of which eventually failed, such as continuing the Siege of Leningrad, Operation Nordlicht, and Battle of Stalingrad, among other battles on the occupied Soviet territory.
Barbarossa was the largest military operation in human history in both manpower and casualties. Its failure was a turning point in the Third Reich's fortunes. Most important, Operation Barbarossa opened up the Eastern Front, to which more forces were committed than in any other theatre of war in world history.
Operation Barbarossa was reaching its climax outside of Moscow when JapaninvadedHawaii in late 1941. The invasion and Japan's rampage throughout the Pacific Ocean pushed the news of the Germans' defeat off the headlines of newspapers around the United States.
Operation Barbarossa resulted in the defeat of the Soviet Union and the annexation of its territories by Germany. Field Marshal Walther Model had participated in its final battle outside of Moscow.
Operation Barbarossa was launched in May 1941, and was a success partly due to the fact that many senior Soviet generals, including Georgy Zhukov and Ivan Koniev, had been killed in Joseph Stalin'spurges in the 1930s.
Operation Barbarossa was still fresh in the minds of many Germans and Russians when the Raceinvaded in mid-1942. Many Germans fumed over the defeat while the Russians still remembered it as a sign of German treachery.
As late as 1964, Vyacheslav Molotov, who has been Soviet Foreign Commissar at the time of the initial invasion, still looked back on 22 June 1941 as the worst day of his life.