Why Was Operation Barbarosa A Failure Essay

, Research Paper

The historical impact of Operation Barbarosa cannot be denied. The Soviet victory over the Nazi German invaders set up the Soviets as a world superpower and set the stage for the Cold War. Had the Germans not attacked, the Russians may not have gained their dominance in Eastern Europe, and the Warsaw Pact may not have ever been. The war effort forced the Soviets to industrialize faster than ever, particularly in Siberia. Additionally, defeating the Nazis let all the countries of the world know that the Russian military under the Soviets was not the ragtag, ill-equipped, archaic fighting force of the Czarist system; it had become well-organized under Stalin.

The purpose of this paper, though, is not to discuss the historical implications of the Soviet victory in World War II. I intend to explain why the Soviets were victorious, and, similarly, why the Nazis were defeated. I believe that in this process it will become evident that the tremendous power wielded by the Soviets during the Cold War age was predicated on the very things that made them successful in World War II.

Before going into an explanation of why the Soviets were successful, I think it is important to give an overview of the actual events of the Barbarosa attack and an outline of the diplomacy involved beforehand.

After World War I, the Germans and Russians were seen as the outcasts of Europe. The German government of the Weimar Republic was in tremendous debt making war reparations while Capitalist European governments that were fearful of their rhetoric of world revolution despised the newly Communist Russians. It was only natural that they turned to each other. The Rapollo Pact in 1922 and the Friendship Pact shortly thereafter established formal diplomatic and trade relations between the two countries, allowed the German military to train in Russia, and gave the Soviets access to superior German military technology. The new relationship was mutually beneficial until 1933, the year Adolph Hitler took power.

Underestimating the severity of Hitler.s anti-Communism, the Soviets had actually helped him to take power. After Hitler had used the threat of Communism as an excuse for creating a totalitarian state, destroyed the German Communist Party, and began to gain popularity in other countries, Stalin and the rest of the Soviet government became understandably nervous. With their one time friend turned against them, they sought refuge with another Continental land power, France, in the form of the Franco-Soviet Mutual Assistance Pact. Furthermore, an agreement was made with Czechoslovakia where the Soviets agreed to help if Germany attacked the Czechs and France also helped.

Several things led the Soviets to question their relationship with France. The Spanish Civil War, starting in 1936, saw the Fascist forces of Francisco Franco backed by the Germans and Italians defeat a coalition of all the anti-Fascist parties. The defeated group had been aided by the Soviets, but the Capitalist powers had not helped. The last straw came at the Munich Conference in 1938 when Britain and France essentially sold out Czechoslovakia to the Nazis without consulting the Czechs. When France and Britain formed an alliance promising Poland assistance in the event of a German invasion and asked the Soviets to cooperate, Stalin opted to deal with the Germans.

The Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, signed in Berlin, was a two-pronged agreement, one public, and one private. The two countries openly agreed to be friends, vowing to trade and not to fight. In private they decided to divide Poland; the Germans would invade the western two-thirds, leaving the eastern third to the Soviets. Additionally, the Russians were given discretion in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland. Stalin had hoped the agreement would give him more time to prepare for a fight with the Nazis that he may have known was inevitable. Unfortunately for him, that break was much shorter than expected.

Hitler made the decision in secret to attack the USSR in July of 1940. The attack, under the codename .Operation Barbarosa,. was scheduled to begin in May of 1941; however, due to difficulties in the Balkans, it did not begin until June. Hitler.s objective was .to crush Soviet Russia in a quick campaign before the end of the war against England.(Treadgold, p.338). When the attack came the Soviets were unprepared: their military, especially the leadership, had been weakened by the purges, their equipment was out of date, and they had not paid attention to the Nazi Blitzkrieg in France. On top of this, most of the Red Air Force had been wiped out on the ground by bombing.

The German invasion was divided into three groups: the northern front, headed by Field Marshall Von Leeb, moved toward Leningrad; the central front, under Field Marshall Von Bock, moved toward Moscow; and the southern front, led by Field Marshall Von Rundstedt, moved toward Kiev.

Within two weeks the central group had surrounded nearly 300,000 Soviet troops near Minsk (Treadgold, p.340). Ten days later, they were through Belarus. Although Von Bock wanted to continue moving forward, Hitler decided to keep the flanks moving. To do this he reinforced the northern and southern groups with armor sent from the center.

The northern group reached Leningrad in the middle of September but was unable to capture t