Operation Barbarossa: The History of Nazi Germany's Invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II
ISBN: 9781539836520
$9.99
*Includes pictures
*Includes soldiers' accounts of the fighting
*Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading
*Includes a table of contents
In the warm predawn darkness of June 22, 1941, 3 million men waited along a front hundreds of miles long, stretching from the Baltic coast of Poland to the Balkans. Ahead of them in the darkness lay the Soviet Union, its border guarded by millions of Red Army troops echeloned deep throughout the huge spaces of Russia. This massive gathering of Wehrmacht soldiers from Adolf Hitler's Third Reich and his allied states – notably Hungary and Romania – stood poised to carry out Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's surprise attack against the country of his putative ally, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
At precisely 1:00 a.m. that morning, the radios of command and headquarter units all along the line crackled to life. Officers and generals heard a single code word: “Dortmund” for Army Group North, and “Wotan,” the name of the one-eyed pre-Christian god of knowledge, war, and runes, for Army Group South. In answer to shouted orders and tactical-level radio transmissions, men threw aside camouflage nets, truck, halftrack, and panzer engines started with a throbbing rumble, and artillerists prepared their weaponry for the terrific barrage generally preceding a Wehrmacht assault. Soldiers swarmed onto trains, and the propellers of thousands of German aircraft, including the still-formidable Stuka dive-bombers, roared amid the nighttime stillness on dozens of airfields throughout Eastern Europe.
*Includes soldiers' accounts of the fighting
*Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading
*Includes a table of contents
In the warm predawn darkness of June 22, 1941, 3 million men waited along a front hundreds of miles long, stretching from the Baltic coast of Poland to the Balkans. Ahead of them in the darkness lay the Soviet Union, its border guarded by millions of Red Army troops echeloned deep throughout the huge spaces of Russia. This massive gathering of Wehrmacht soldiers from Adolf Hitler's Third Reich and his allied states – notably Hungary and Romania – stood poised to carry out Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's surprise attack against the country of his putative ally, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
At precisely 1:00 a.m. that morning, the radios of command and headquarter units all along the line crackled to life. Officers and generals heard a single code word: “Dortmund” for Army Group North, and “Wotan,” the name of the one-eyed pre-Christian god of knowledge, war, and runes, for Army Group South. In answer to shouted orders and tactical-level radio transmissions, men threw aside camouflage nets, truck, halftrack, and panzer engines started with a throbbing rumble, and artillerists prepared their weaponry for the terrific barrage generally preceding a Wehrmacht assault. Soldiers swarmed onto trains, and the propellers of thousands of German aircraft, including the still-formidable Stuka dive-bombers, roared amid the nighttime stillness on dozens of airfields throughout Eastern Europe.