Operation Barbarossa
In 1942, careworn Nazi Führer Adolf Hitler lamented to his military intimates at his Wolf’s Lair headquarters near Rastenburg in East Prussia, “If I had known that there were so many of them, I would have had second thoughts about invading!” Read more
Operation Barbarossa
World War II involved some of the most complex alliance systems in the history of warfare. Read more
Operation Barbarossa
Hitler was enraged as he stalked his way around the room during the waning months of World War II. Read more
Operation Barbarossa
Adolf Hitler was obsessed with Leningrad. When planning his invasion of the Soviet Union, the Führer demanded that the capture of the city, which he regarded as the cradle of Bolshevism, be one of the top priorities of the campaign, giving it precedence over the capture of Moscow. Read more
Operation Barbarossa
Promoted to full colonel in the German Army and an award of the prestigious Knight’s Cross were significant accomplishments, even in the waning days of World War II. Read more
Operation Barbarossa
The enemy of my enemy is my friend, so an old saying goes. Perhaps it was the grandest exercise in political pragmatism and expediency that the world has ever known. Read more
Operation Barbarossa
By 1939 the German Reich possessed 3,800,000 horses to be used in WWII German cavalry while 885,000 were initially called to the Wehrmacht as saddle, draft, and pack animals. Read more
Operation Barbarossa
After crushing the first-line Soviet armies in brutal three-week cauldron battles at the border, the steamroller of German Army Group Center continued deeper into Soviet territory during the opening days of Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, which began on June 22, 1941. Read more
Operation Barbarossa
“I’ve been old in all my ranks,” said Henri Philippe Pétain, created Marshal of France on December 8, 1918, at age 62. Read more
Operation Barbarossa
The war map gave Adolf Hitler every reason to be confident. Operation Barbarossa, Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union begun on June 22, 1941, had succeeded spectacularly on nearly every front. Read more
Operation Barbarossa
An estimated four million Red Army soldiers were captured by the Germans during the six months after the launching of Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, on June 22, 1941. Read more
Operation Barbarossa
In August 1942, with Operation Barbarossa at its height, the invader in coal shuttle helmet and field gray uniform crawled on his elbows through brush up the hillock, pistol in his right hand. Read more
Operation Barbarossa
In 1917, when America entered the First World War, the United States Army tasked Brigadier General John T. Read more
Operation Barbarossa
The Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe was inevitable as the tide of World War II turned against Germany. Read more
Operation Barbarossa
As Adolf Hitler began to formulate his grandiose plans for the conquest of the Soviet Union, he considered the far northern operation area little more than a sideshow. Read more
Operation Barbarossa
Letters home provide us with a glimpse into the daily lives of soldiers during the best and worst times. Read more
