Invasion of the Soviet Union

Operation Barbarossa
Part of the Eastern Front of World War II
Clockwise from top left: German soldiers advance through Northern Russia, German flamethrower team in the Soviet Union, Soviet planes flying over German positions near Moscow, Soviet prisoners of war on the way to German prison camps, Soviet soldiers fire at German positions.
Date 22 June – 5 December 1941 (5 months, 1 week and 6 days) Location Eastern and Northern Europe Result See Aftermath
Belligerents
Germany  Romania  Finland  Italy  Hungary  Slovakia	Soviet Union
Commanders and leaders
Adolf Hitler Hermann Göring Franz Halder Walther von Brauchitsch Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb Fedor von Bock Gerd von Rundstedt Ion Antonescu Gustaf Mannerheim	Joseph Stalin Georgy Zhukov Aleksandr Vasilyevskiy Semyon Budyonny Kliment Voroshilov Semyon Timoshenko Markian Popov Fyodor Kuznetsov Dmitry Pavlov  Ivan Tyulenev Mikhail Kirponos †
Units involved
Axis armies Army Group North 16th Army 18th Army 4th Panzer Army Army Group Center 4th Army 9th Army 2nd Panzer Army 3rd Panzer Army 2nd Army Army Group South 6th Army 11th Army 17th Army 1st Panzer Army Romanian 3rd Army Romanian 4th Army Army Norway Finnish Army	Soviet armies Northern Front 7th Army 8th Army 48th Army 52nd Army 54th Army 55th Army Northwestern Front 11th Army 27th Army 34th Army Western Front 3rd Army 10th Army 13th Army 16th Army 19th Army 20th Army 22nd Army 24th Army 28th Army 40th Army 50th Army Southwestern Front 5th Army 6th Army 12th Army 21st Army 26th Army 37th Army Southern Front 9th Army 18th Army Coastal Army
Strength
Frontline strength (initial) 3.8 million personnel 3,350 tanks 2,770 aircraft 7,200 artillery pieces	Frontline strength (initial) 2.6–2.9 million personnel 11,000 tanks 7,133–9,100 military aircraft
Casualties and losses
Total military casualties: 1,000,000+ Breakdown Casualties of 1941: According to German Army medical reports (including Army Norway): 186,452 killed 40,157 missing 655,179 wounded in action 2,827 aircraft destroyed 2,839 tanks destroyed Other Axis losses 114,000+ casualties (at least 39,000 dead or missing) 8,700 casualties +5,000 casualties	Total military casualties: 4,973,820 Breakdown Casualties of 1941: Based on Soviet archives: 566,852 killed in action 235,339 died from non-combat causes 1,336,147 sick or wounded via combat and non-combat causes 2,335,482 missing in action or captured c. 500,000 Soviet reservists captured while still mobilizing 21,200 aircraft lost 20,500 tanks destroyed

Frontline strength (initial)

Frontline strength (initial)

Total military casualties:
1,000,000+

According to German Army medical reports (including Army Norway):

Other Axis losses

Total military casualties:
4,973,820

Based on Soviet archives:

Operation Barbarossa (German: Unternehmen Barbarossa) was the code name for Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II, which was launched on Sunday 22 June 1941. The operation was driven by an ideological desire to conquer the Western Soviet Union so that it could be repopulated by Germans, to use Slavs as a slave labour force for the Axis war-effort, to seize the oil reserves in the Caucasus and the agricultural resources throughout the Soviet territories.

In the two years leading up to the invasion, the two countries signed political and economic pacts for strategic purposes. Nevertheless, the German High Command began planning an invasion of the Soviet Union in July 1940 (under the codename Operation Otto), which Adolf Hitler authorized on 18 December 1940. Over the course of the operation, about four million Axis personnel invaded the western Soviet Union along a 2,900-kilometer (1,800 mi) front, the largest invasion force in the history of warfare. In addition to troops, the Wehrmacht employed some 600,000 motor vehicles, and between 600,000 and 700,000 horses for non-combat operations. The offensive marked an escalation of the war, both geographically and in the formation of the Allied coalition.

Operationally, the German forces achieved major victories and occupied some of the most important economic areas of the Soviet Union, mainly in Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, and inflicted, as well as sustained, heavy casualties. Despite their successes, the German offensive stalled in the Battle of Moscow and was subsequently pushed back by the Soviet winter counteroffensive. The Red Army repelled the Wehrmacht's strongest blows and forced the unprepared Germans into a war of attrition. The Wehrmacht would never again mount a simultaneous offensive along the entire strategic Soviet–Axis front. The failure of the operation drove Hitler to demand further operations of increasingly limited scope inside the Soviet Union, such as Case Blue and Operation Citadel – all of which eventually failed.

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Wikipedia