Verlorene Siege: Barbarossa!

On 22 June 1941, Germany launched Barbarossa, the greatest offensive up to that moment in History, in a fatal but unavoidable attempt to deal with the USSR before the Soviets were fully prepared for war.

Despite many warnings, including detailed reports by the greatest spy of all times, Richard Sorge, who worked for the Soviets, surprise was complete.

The German Army at that point was far superior in training and material concentration than the Soviet Army.

"Artillerie am Front" (Artillery to the Front) by Eduard von Handel-Mazzetti, 1942

However, the vastness of the Soviet land made the timeline for the objectives wildly optimistic and the doggedness of the Soviet defenders (despite the huge initial collapse) wore the Wehrmacht down with irreplaceable loss of life and material (during the first week of Barbarossa the Germans lost more than they had lost during the whole two years of war before).

The offensive bogged down, neither Lerningrad nor Moscow were captured and by winter instead of a great victory the German Army faced a huge front, ill-supplied troops unprepared for the Great General Winter and a Soviet counteroffensive by the Siberian divisions that were relocated to the West when Richard Sorge affirmed that the Japanese would not attack from the East.

The Great Patriotic War had just began and would end with the utter defeat of the Germans.

"I swear to defeat the enemy!"

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Two videos. The first is colour footage from the early stages of the invasion (with rather lame music: the Last of the Mohicans theme) and the second one is pictures of the Soviets with the great patriotic song Svyashennaya Voina (Holy War) by Alaksandr Aleksandrov.

Священная война

For the Motherland!

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