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Operation Barbarossa Day One First Hour

1

March 17, 2015

Remind.com Code

Text the number 81010 and enter "@wars1st" as the message.

Have time on your hands? Check out Operation Barbarossa LITE on your Android

device. Have an Apple? Sorry!


2

March 17, 2015

Remind.com Code

Text the number 81010 and enter the code "@wars4th" to get messages about class.

Have time on your hands? Check out Operation Barbarossa LITE on your Android device. Have an Apple? Sorry!


3

March 17, 2015

Costs and Casualties

• Luftwaffe: 1,900 planes, 2,500 aircrew

• RAF: 544 pilots

• RAF: 1,000 bomber aircrew

• 40,000 civilian deaths


4

March 17, 2015

Images of the Aftermath

http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2011/10/worldwariiafterthewar/100180/#img17

http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2011/07/worldwariithebattleofbritain/100102/

http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2011/10/world-war-ii-after-the-war/100180/#img17

http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2011/07/world-war-ii-the-battle-of-britain/100102/


5

March 17, 2015

Big Picture Results

• Operation Sealion is Cancelled

• Britain Survives

• American support for Britain grows

• Hitler turns his attention East, decides to take out Russia before coming back to Britain

• This decision will be his downfall


6

March 17, 2015

Why does he do it?

• Lebensraum!

• "What India was for England the territories of Russia will be for us... The German colonists ought to live on handsome, spacious farms. The German services will be lodged in marvellous buildings, the governors in palaces... The Germans this is essential will have to constitute amongst themselves a closed society, like a fortress. The least of our stablelads will be superior to any native." Hitler


7

March 17, 2015

Wait, who are the natives?

• The Slavs

• They are nonAryan

• Therefore, subhuman

• Hitler plans to put the "Hunger Plan" into effect, starving or killing all the Slavs until the "living space" is free.


8

March 17, 2015

Also, the Jews


9

March 17, 2015

Also because Hitler believed that...

"we have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down."

Russian setbacks in Finland lead to German overconfidence.


10

March 17, 2015

Operation Barbarossa

• German Invasion of the Soviet Union

• Set to begin on June 22, 1941

• 3 army groups, 150 divisions

• 3 million German soldiers

• 2,000mile front

• Largest military operation in history


11

March 17, 2015

Three Objectives for the Germans

• North: Baltic states and Leningrad

• Center: Moscow

• South: Ukraine, southern Russia


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March 17, 2015


13

March 17, 2015

Stalin was warned!

• Churchill warned him in a telegram

• A spy in Japan warned him

• A German sergeant defected and told him!

• Stalin thought it would happen in 1942...

My Bad


14

March 17, 2015

Was planning on his own offensive against Germany.


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March 17, 2015


16

March 17, 2015

Problems for the Russians

• Remember the Great Purge?

• Stalin killing or exiling everyone?

• That included 400 generals in the Red Army

• That is too many!

• Crippled Leadership :(


17

March 17, 2015

So, How Did it Go?

• Overwhelming German Success

• Some units advance 50 miles on Day 1

• Luftwaffe has neartotal victory

• Destroy 3,922 Russian aircraft

• Lose 35 planes


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March 17, 2015


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March 17, 2015

Stalin goes into seclusion

• Molotov is the one who addresses the nation

• Stalin does not speak until July 3rd

• Russia is in serious trouble


20

March 17, 2015

So, How Did It Go, Part 2?

• Panzers encircle Minsk (250,000)

• Smolensk (180,000)

• Hundreds of thousands of prisoners


21

March 17, 2015

http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2011/07/worldwariioperationbarbarossa/100112/#img43

http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2011/07/world-war-ii-operation-barbarossa/100112/#img43



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March 17, 2015


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March 17, 2015


24

March 17, 2015

September and October

• Battle of Kiev

• Battle of BryanskVyazma

• 600,000 Russian prisoners at each!


25

March 17, 2015

Russians start to slow them down

• Heavy rains turn road to mud

• Russian "scorchedearth" policy

• Germany badly underestimates Russian reserves (THERE ARE SO MANY)

• Hitler's Meddling

http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2011/07/worldwariioperationbarbarossa/100112/#img15



26

March 17, 2015

Closing in on Moscow

• Hitler diverts tanks away from Moscow push

• Attack resumes October 2nd, by start of December, Germans can see spires of Moscow


27

March 17, 2015

Attack Stalls on Moscow, Leningrad

• Why?

• Reason #1:


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March 17, 2015


29

March 17, 2015

We have hats for our eyebrows!


30

March 17, 2015

Never, ever, ever invade Russia in the winter

• All of your men will die

• Germans have no winter gear

• No antifreeze for tanks

• Insufficient supplies

• Guns, tanks, trucks, men, horses all freeze


31

March 17, 2015

Moscow, Leningrad Attacks Stall

• Reason #2

• The T34 tank


32

March 17, 2015

Best tank of World War II


33

March 17, 2015

Really?

Armor is so strong, Panzer III and IV rounds bounce off.

Germans forced to use heavy artillery, antiaircraft guns as tankstoppers

have time on your hands? check out operation barbarossa...

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