Operation Barbarossa (jun 22, 1941 – dec 5, 1941)

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Operation Barbarossa was a massive military offensive by Nazi Germany and its European Axis allies, starting on 22 June 1941. The operation aimed to capture territory up to the A-A line between Arkhangelsk and Astrakhan, marking a major escalation of World War II and opening the Eastern Front, the largest and deadliest land theatre of war in history. The invasion, codenamed after the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa ("red beard"), put into action Nazi Germany's ideological goals of eradicating communism and conquering the western Soviet Union to repopulate it with Germans under Generalplan Ost. The material targets of the invasion were the agricultural and mineral resources of territories such as Ukraine and Byelorussia and oil fields in the Caucasus.

The Axis eventually captured five million Soviet Red Army troops on the Eastern Front and deliberately starved to death or killed 3.3 million prisoners of war, as well as millions of civilians. Mass shootings and gassing operations carried out by German paramilitary death squads and collaborators murdered over a million Soviet Jews as part of the Holocaust. In the two years leading up to the invasion, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed political and economic pacts for strategic purposes.

The invasion began on 22 June 1941 with a massive ground and air assault, resulting in large territorial gains for the Nazis and their allies. The main part of Army Group South invaded from occupied Poland on 22 June, followed by the captures of Kiev, Kharkov, Rostov-on-Don, Leningrad, and Smolensk. However, Army Group Center's offensive stalled at the city's outskirts by 5 December, at which point the Soviets began a major counteroffensive.

The failure of Operation Barbarossa reversed the fortunes of Nazi Germany, as it achieved significant victories, occupied some of the most important economic regions of the Soviet Union, captured millions of prisoners, and inflicted heavy casualties. The German high command anticipated a quick collapse of resistance, but instead, the Red Army absorbed the German Wehrmacht's strongest blows and bogged down in a war of attrition. Following the heavy losses and logistical strain of Operation Barbarossa, German forces could no longer attack along the entire front, and subsequent operations ultimately failed.

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