MAPS OF HISTORY · ON THIS DAY · June 22 · 1941
ON THIS DAY · 22 JUNE 1941
Barbarossa: 3.6 million men invade the USSR on a 2,900 km front —…
Barbarossa: 3.6 million men invade the USSR on a 2,900 km front — the largest invasion ever mounted, on the exact anniversary of France’s 1940 armistice.
THE MOMENT IN CONTEXT
At 03:15 on 22 June 1941, betraying the pact, 3.6 million Axis soldiers cross the Soviet border on a 2,900-kilometer front — the largest invasion in history. Three spearheads: north to Leningrad, center to Moscow, south to Kiev and the grain and oil beyond.
From Chapter 6 — Barbarossa: The War of Annihilation of The War Room — WW2, 1936–1945 (DEC 1941).
OPEN THE INTERACTIVE MAP →TEACH THIS IN 5 MINUTES
- Why it happened — Ideology: Lebensraum and the “Jewish-Bolshevik” enemy. For Hitler this was always the real war — colonial conquest of the East, enslavement of Slavs, annihilation of Jews and communists. The economic and…
- The turn — The gates of Moscow, 5 December. Zhukov — informed by his Tokyo spy Richard Sorge that Japan would strike south, not at Siberia — has quietly massed reserve armies. Their winter…
- What it changed — A war of attrition Germany cannot win. From December 1941 the contest becomes factories, oil and manpower — categories in which the USSR (plus Lend-Lease) dwarfs the Axis. Every later…
Then ask the room: Every military expert — including most Allied ones — predicted Soviet collapse within weeks. Why were they all wrong? The argued answer is on the chapter page →
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