Five Brothers and a War

Operation Barbarossa

There were hundreds of errors in judgment made by Hitler, certainly including the heart of Nazism. But once the war actually started, there were two colossal errors committed by the Axis Powers just in 1941 that would ensure their defeat. The first occurred just days after the funeral of Wilhelm II, when on June 22, the Germans invaded Russia in the campaign known as Operation Barbarossa. With Russia on the sidelines, there was very little necessity to attack, yet the Wehrmacht committed massive resources to its invasion—more than 3,000,000 troops were involved. Hitler even gave up on his attack on England to concentrate on Russia. He envied England and wanted to conquer it, but he hated the Russians, and desperately wanted their vast natural resources.

the war

While Hitler came close to a conquest of Russia, the tactical errors in timing led to the Germans getting bogged down in a Russian winter, where they were profoundly unprepared, and became targets of an unrelenting Russian counterattack and an equally unrelentingly harsh winter. Hitler gave orders that no retreat was ever authorized, and the army was expected to fight until the last man died. While some finally did retreat, most did not, and paid the price. Operation Barbarossa resulted in massive losses on both sides. Germans killed, wounded or missing totaled over 800,000, while Russian numbers were about four times that. Russian civilian casualties were far worse though, ultimately accounting for more than 13 million people—though not just from Operation Barbarossa. In all, Germany suffered almost half of its wartime deaths on its Eastern Front. The second error was committed by the Japanese when they attacked Pearl Harbor. Similar to Hitler’s move against a sleeping Russia, Japan’s was against a sleeping America. Ultimately these two moves would bring the two world superpowers into the fray—front and center.

Five Brothers and a War

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