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95-711: Originally built as part of a system of drainage channels and canals, the Swan Canal replaced a shallow river that flowed between the Summer Garden and the area that became known as the Field of Mars . The canal was dug between 1711 and 1719, and was known as the Summer Canal or Summer Garden Canal. In later years it became a popular habitat for swans, from which it eventually took its name. The canal has undergone repairs and reconstruction over its existence, deepening

190-657: A border and commercial agreement addressing several open issues in January 1941. According to historian Robert Service , Joseph Stalin was convinced that the overall military strength of the Soviet Union was such that he had nothing to fear and anticipated an easy victory should Germany attack; moreover, Stalin believed that since the Germans were still fighting the British in the west, Hitler would be unlikely to open up

285-606: A 12th-century Holy Roman Emperor and Crusader , put into action Nazi Germany's ideological goals of eradicating communism and conquering the western Soviet Union to repopulate it with Germans . The German Generalplan Ost aimed to use some of the conquered people as forced labour for the Axis war effort while acquiring the oil reserves of the Caucasus as well as the agricultural resources of various Soviet territories, including Ukraine and Byelorussia . Their ultimate goal

380-468: A German military attaché and sent word to Zhou Enlai . The Chinese maintain the tipoff helped Stalin make preparations, though little exists to confirm the Soviets made any real changes upon receiving the intelligence. In early 1941, Stalin's own intelligence services and American intelligence gave regular and repeated warnings of an impending German attack. Soviet spy Richard Sorge also gave Stalin

475-470: A Soviet counteroffensive along with the remaining forces of the first echelon. But on 22 June 1941 the first echelon contained 171 divisions, numbering 2.6–2.9 million; and the second strategic echelon contained 57 divisions that were still mobilising, most of which were still understrength. The second echelon was undetected by German intelligence until days after the invasion commenced, in most cases only when German ground forces encountered them. At

570-671: A cast-iron openwork grille. Expansion across the meadow's Neva frontage continued in the 1780s with the construction of the service wing of the Marble Palace , and the Betskoy  [ ru ] and the Saltykov Mansions . The Betskoy Mansion, now the home of the Saint Petersburg State Institute of Culture , was built between 1784 and 1787 by Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe , stands on

665-541: A figure greater than the number of Red Army soldiers killed in battle by then. German army commanders cast Jews as the major cause behind the " partisan struggle." The main guideline for German troops was "Where there's a partisan, there's a Jew, and where there's a Jew, there's a partisan" or "The partisan is where the Jew is." Many German troops viewed the war in Nazi terms and regarded their Soviet enemies as sub-human. After

760-580: A front extending from the Arctic Ocean southward to the Black Sea , were all controlled by the OKH and organised into Army Norway , Army Group North , Army Group Centre and Army Group South , alongside three Luftflotten (air fleets, the air force equivalent of army groups) that supported the army groups: Luftflotte 1 for North, Luftflotte 2 for Centre and Luftflotte 4 for South. Army Norway

855-467: A key role in planning for Operation Barbarossa since both Jews and communists were considered equivalent enemies of the Nazi state. Nazi imperialist ambitions rejected the common humanity of both groups, declaring the supreme struggle for Lebensraum to be a Vernichtungskrieg ('war of annihilation'). On August 23, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact in Moscow known as

950-682: A major escalation of World War II, both geographically and with the Anglo-Soviet Agreement , which brought the USSR into the Allied coalition . The operation opened up the Eastern Front , in which more forces were committed than in any other theatre of war in human history. The area saw some of history's largest battles, most horrific atrocities , and highest casualties (for Soviet and Axis forces alike), all of which influenced

1045-784: A memorandum to Hitler on the dangers of an invasion of the Soviet Union. They argued that the eastern territories ( Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic , the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic , the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic , the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic , and the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic ) would only end up as a further economic burden for Germany. It was further argued that

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1140-575: A million Soviet Jews as part of the Holocaust . The failure of Operation Barbarossa reversed the fortunes of Nazi Germany. Operationally, German forces achieved significant victories and occupied some of the most important economic areas of the Soviet Union (mainly in Ukraine) and inflicted, as well as sustained, heavy casualties. The German offensive came to an end during the Battle of Moscow near

1235-625: A number far greater than the Germans had at their disposal. The Soviet Union had around 23,000 tanks available of which 14,700 were combat-ready. Around 11,000 tanks were in the western military districts that faced the German invasion force. Hitler later declared to some of his generals, "If I had known about the Russian tank strength in 1941 I would not have attacked". However, maintenance and readiness standards were very poor; ammunition and radios were in short supply, and many armoured units lacked

1330-460: A potential Soviet entry into the pact . After two days of negotiations in Berlin from 12 to 14 November 1940, Ribbentrop presented a draft treaty for a Soviet entry into the Axis. However, Hitler had no intention of allowing the Soviet Union into the Axis and in an order stated, "Political conversations designed to clarify the attitude of Russia in the immediate future have been started. Regardless of

1425-673: A racial war between the disciplined Germans and the Jewish, Romani and Slavic Untermenschen . An 'order from the Führer' stated that the paramilitary SS Einsatzgruppen , which closely followed the Wehrmacht ' s advance, were to execute all Soviet functionaries who were "less valuable Asiatics, Gypsies and Jews." Six months into the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Einsatzgruppen had murdered more than 500,000 Soviet Jews,

1520-626: A two-front war and subsequently delayed the reconstruction of defensive fortifications in the border regions. When German soldiers swam across the Bug River to warn the Red Army of an impending attack, they were shot as enemy agents. Some historians believe that Stalin, despite providing an amicable front to Hitler, did not wish to remain allies with Germany. Rather, Stalin might have had intentions to break off from Germany and proceed with his own campaign against Germany to be followed by one against

1615-467: A very narrow military view. Hillgruber argued that because these assumptions were shared by the entire military elite, Hitler was able to push through with a "war of annihilation" that would be waged in the most inhumane fashion possible with the complicity of "several military leaders," even though it was quite clear that this would be in violation of all accepted norms of warfare. Even so, in autumn 1940, some high-ranking German military officials drafted

1710-583: A war of Weltanschauungen ['worldviews']... totally a people's war, a racial war ". On 23 November, once World War II had already started, Hitler declared that "racial war has broken out and this war shall determine who shall govern Europe, and with it, the world". The racial policy of Nazi Germany portrayed the Soviet Union (and all of Eastern Europe) as populated by non-Aryan Untermenschen ('sub-humans'), ruled by Jewish Bolshevik conspirators. Hitler claimed in Mein Kampf that Germany's destiny

1805-724: Is one of the oldest stone bridges in the city. A wooden drawbridge to the design of engineer Harmen van Bol'es was built between 1720 and 1733 at the confluence with the Moyka river, and named the First Tsaritsyn Bridge, after the Tsaritsyn Meadow, now the Field of Mars. It was replaced by a single-span stone bridge built between 1835 and 1837, named the Lower Swan Bridge, as part of the redevelopment of

1900-512: The Einsatzgruppen were assigned to the Wehrmacht ' s units, which provided them with supplies such as gasoline and food, they were controlled by the RSHA. The official plan for Barbarossa assumed that the army groups would be able to advance freely to their primary objectives simultaneously, without spreading thin, once they had won the border battles and destroyed the Red Army's forces in

1995-533: The Donbas second, Moscow third;" but he consistently emphasized the destruction of the Red Army over the achievement of specific terrain objectives. Hitler believed Moscow to be of "no great importance" in the defeat of the Soviet Union and instead believed victory would come with the destruction of the Red Army west of the capital, especially west of the Western Dvina and Dnieper rivers, and this pervaded

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2090-562: The German High Command began planning an invasion of the Soviet Union in July 1940 (under the code-name Operation Otto ). Over the course of the operation, over 3.8 million personnel of the Axis powers—the largest invasion force in the history of warfare —invaded the western Soviet Union, along a 2,900-kilometer (1,800 mi) front, with 600,000 motor vehicles and over 600,000 horses for non-combat operations. The offensive marked

2185-761: The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa —who drowned in Asia Minor while leading the Third Crusade —was not dead but asleep, along with his knights, in a cave in the Kyffhäuser mountains in Thuringia , and would awaken in the hour of Germany's greatest need and restore the nation to its former glory. Originally, the invasion of the Soviet Union was codenamed Operation Otto (alluding to Holy Roman Emperor Otto

2280-506: The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact . A secret protocol to the pact outlined an agreement between Germany and the Soviet Union on the division of the eastern European border states between their respective " spheres of influence ," Soviet Union and Germany would partition Poland in the event of an invasion by Germany, and the Soviets would be allowed to overrun Finland , Estonia , Latvia and the region of Bessarabia . On 23 August 1939

2375-595: The Summer Garden to the east from the Field of Mars to the west. It is 648 m (2,126 ft) long, 8 m (26 ft) wide and 1 m (3.3 ft) deep. Two bridges span the canal, the Upper Swan Bridge , at the northern end of the canal at its confluence with the Neva, and the Lower Swan Bridge at the southern end, where it branches from the Moyka. Today it is one of the oldest canals in

2470-420: The Summer Garden , which lies alongside the canal's eastern bank. The Red Canal was dug to the west of the Field of Mars, also with the purpose of draining the land. The sides of the canal were reinforced with wooden piles, and possibly also lined with wooden railings about this time, as a 1761 document refers to their repair. Sometime after this, the Summer Canal was settled and became a habitat for swans from

2565-629: The Winter War against Finland in 1939–40 also convinced Hitler of a quick victory within a few months. Neither Hitler nor the General Staff anticipated a long campaign lasting into the winter and therefore, adequate preparations such as the distribution of warm clothing and winterisation of important military equipment like tanks and artillery, were not made. Further to Hitler's Directive, Göring's Green Folder , issued in March 1941, laid out

2660-503: The myth of the "clean Wehrmacht, " upholding its honor in the face of Hitler's fanaticism, the historian Jürgen Förster notes that "In fact, the military commanders were caught up in the ideological character of the conflict, and involved in its implementation as willing participants". Before and during the invasion of the Soviet Union, German troops were indoctrinated with anti-Bolshevik , anti-Semitic and anti-Slavic ideology via movies, radio, lectures, books, and leaflets. Likening

2755-744: The 22 June start date was sufficient for the German offensive to reach Moscow by September. Antony Beevor wrote in 2012 about the delay caused by German attacks in the Balkans that "most [historians] accept that it made little difference" to the eventual outcome of Barbarossa. The Germans deployed one independent regiment, one separate motorised training brigade and 153 divisions for Barbarossa, which included 104 infantry, 19 panzer and 15 motorised infantry divisions in three army groups, nine security divisions to operate in conquered territories, four divisions in Finland and two divisions as reserve under

2850-561: The German war effort by circumventing the British blockade of Germany . Despite the parties' ostensibly cordial relations, each side was highly suspicious of the other's intentions. For instance, the Soviet invasion of Bukovina in June 1940 went beyond their sphere of influence as agreed with Germany. After Germany entered the Axis Pact with Japan and Italy, it began negotiations about

2945-718: The German campaign in France, in late 1940 they began to reorganise most of their armoured assets back into mechanised corps with a target strength of 1,031 tanks each. But these large armoured formations were unwieldy, and moreover they were spread out in scattered garrisons, with their subordinate divisions up to 100 kilometres (62 miles) apart. The reorganisation was still in progress and incomplete when Barbarossa commenced. Soviet tank units were rarely well equipped, and they lacked training and logistical support. Units were sent into combat with no arrangements in place for refuelling, ammunition resupply, or personnel replacement. Often, after

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3040-454: The Germans were fighting for "the defence of European culture against Moscovite–Asiatic inundation, and the repulse of Jewish Bolshevism ... No adherents of the present Russian-Bolshevik system are to be spared." Walther von Brauchitsch also told his subordinates that troops should view the war as a "struggle between two different races and [should] act with the necessary severity." Racial motivations were central to Nazi ideology and played

3135-496: The Germans were unprepared. Following the heavy losses and logistical strain of Barbarossa, the Wehrmacht ' s diminished forces could no longer attack along the entire Eastern Front, and subsequent operations to retake the initiative and drive deep into Soviet territory—such as Case Blue in 1942 and Operation Citadel in 1943—were weaker and eventually failed, which resulted in the Wehrmacht ' s defeat. These Soviet victories ended Germany's territorial expansion and presaged

3230-579: The Great 's expansive campaigns in Eastern Europe), but Hitler had the name changed to Operation Barbarossa in December 1940. Hitler had in July 1937 praised Barbarossa as the emperor who first expressed Germanic cultural ideas and carried them to the outside world through his imperial mission. For Hitler, the name Barbarossa signified his belief that the conquest of the Soviet Union would usher in

3325-523: The Mobilisation Plan 1941 (MP-41), called for the deployment of 186 divisions, as the first strategic echelon, in the four military districts of the western Soviet Union that faced the Axis territories; and the deployment of another 51 divisions along the Dvina and Dnieper Rivers as the second strategic echelon under Stavka control, which in the case of a German invasion was tasked to spearhead

3420-532: The Nazi " Thousand-Year Reich ". As early as 1925, Adolf Hitler vaguely declared in his political manifesto and autobiography Mein Kampf that he would invade the Soviet Union , asserting that the German people needed to secure Lebensraum ('living space') to ensure the survival of Germany for generations to come. On 10 February 1939, Hitler told his army commanders that the next war would be "purely

3515-477: The Red Army was developed and promulgated in the 1936 Field Regulations in the form of the Deep Battle Concept . Defence expenditure also grew rapidly from just 12 percent of the gross national product in 1933 to 18 percent by 1940. During Joseph Stalin's Great Purge in the late 1930s, which had not ended by the time of the German invasion on 22 June 1941, much of the officer corps of the Red Army

3610-455: The Soviet Union in Mein Kampf and Hitler's belief that the Red Army would need four years to ready itself. Stalin declared "we must be ready much earlier" and "we will try to delay the war for another two years". As early as August 1940, British intelligence had received hints of German plans to attack the Soviets a week after Hitler informally approved the plans for Barbarossa and warned the Soviet Union accordingly. Some of this intelligence

3705-474: The Soviet Union's "most important and strongest enemy," and as early as July 1940, the Red Army Chief of Staff, Boris Shaposhnikov , produced a preliminary three-pronged plan of attack for what a German invasion might look like, remarkably similar to the actual attack. Since April 1941, the Germans had begun setting up Operation Haifisch and Operation Harpune to substantiate their claims that Britain

3800-549: The Soviet border even before the campaign in the Balkans had finished. By the third week of February 1941, 680,000 German soldiers were gathered in assembly areas on the Romanian-Soviet border. In preparation for the attack, Hitler had secretly moved upwards of 3 million German troops and approximately 690,000 Axis soldiers to the Soviet border regions. Additional Luftwaffe operations included numerous aerial surveillance missions over Soviet territory many months before

3895-515: The Soviet regime's brutality when targeting the Slavs with propaganda. They also claimed that the Red Army was preparing to attack the Germans , and their own invasion was thus presented as a pre-emptive strike. Hitler also utilised the rising tension between the Soviet Union and Germany over territories in the Balkans as one of the pretexts for the invasion. While no concrete plans had yet been made, Hitler told one of his generals in June 1940 that

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3990-550: The Soviets to the forces of Genghis Khan , Hitler told the Croatian military leader Slavko Kvaternik that the "Mongolian race" threatened Europe. Following the invasion, many Wehrmacht officers told their soldiers to target people who were described as "Jewish Bolshevik subhumans," the "Mongol hordes," the "Asiatic flood" and the "Red beast." Nazi propaganda portrayed the war against the Soviet Union as an ideological war between German National Socialism and Jewish Bolshevism and

4085-461: The Soviets, in their current bureaucratic form, were harmless and that the occupation would not benefit Germany politically either. Hitler, solely focused on his ultimate ideological goal of eliminating the Soviet Union and Communism, disagreed with economists about the risks and told his right-hand man Hermann Göring , the chief of the Luftwaffe , that he would no longer listen to misgivings about

4180-428: The agenda for the next step after the anticipated quick conquest of the Soviet Union. The Hunger Plan outlined how entire urban populations of conquered territories were to be starved to death, thus creating an agricultural surplus to feed Germany and urban space for the German upper class. Nazi policy aimed to destroy the Soviet Union as a political entity in accordance with the geopolitical Lebensraum ideals for

4275-399: The annexation of the eastern part of the country. As a result of the pact, Germany and the Soviet Union maintained reasonably strong diplomatic relations for two years and fostered an important economic relationship . The countries entered a trade pact in 1940 by which the Soviets received German military equipment and trade goods in exchange for raw materials, such as oil and wheat, to help

4370-1013: The area around the Mikhailovsky Castle . It was repaired in 1849, and further reconstructed between 1925 and 1926. Summer Garden Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.132 via cp1112 cp1112, Varnish XID 945936007 Upstream caches: cp1112 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 08:29:04 GMT Operation Barbarossa Frontline strength (22 June 1941) Frontline strength (22 June 1941) Total military casualties: 1,000,000+ According to German Army medical reports (including Army Norway ): Other involved country losses Total military casualties: 4,500,000 Based on Soviet archives: Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Air war Operation Barbarossa

4465-537: The attack. Although the Soviet High Command was alarmed by this, Stalin's belief that Nazi Germany was unlikely to attack only two years after signing the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact resulted in slow Soviet preparation. This fact aside, the Soviets did not entirely overlook the threat of their German neighbor. Well before the German invasion, Marshal Semyon Timoshenko referred to the Germans as

4560-528: The benefit of future generations of the " Nordic master race ". In 1941, Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg —later appointed Reich Minister of the Occupied Eastern Territories—suggested that conquered Soviet territory should be administered in the following Reichskommissariate ('Reich Commissionerships'): German military planners also researched Napoleon's failed invasion of Russia . In their calculations, they concluded that there

4655-467: The border area. In 1930, Mikhail Tukhachevsky , a prominent military theorist in tank warfare in the interwar period and later Marshal of the Soviet Union , forwarded a memo to the Kremlin that lobbied for colossal investment in the resources required for the mass production of weapons, pressing the case for "40,000 aircraft and 50,000 tanks." In the early 1930s, a modern operational doctrine for

4750-692: The channel, and replacing wooden banks with granite. Today it is used by small pleasure boats, and is crossed by two bridges, one of which, the Upper Swan Bridge , is one of the city's oldest stone bridges. The Swan Canal is in Dvortsovy Municipal Okrug , part of the Tsentralny District of the city. It connects the Moyka River to the south, carrying water north to the Neva River , into which it empties. It divides

4845-698: The city, and is used by small pleasure boats. The site of the canal was previously occupied by a shallow swampy river, the Lebedinka ( Russian : Лебединка ), flowing between the Moyka and the Neva Rivers . Between 1711 and 1719, as part of measures to drain the land now occupied by the Field of Mars , it was cleaned, deepened and renamed the Summer Canal ( Russian : Летний канал ) or the Summer Garden Canal ( Russian : канал Летнего сада ), after

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4940-570: The course of World War II and the subsequent history of the 20th century . The German armies eventually captured five million Soviet Red Army troops and deliberately starved to death or otherwise killed 3.3 million Soviet prisoners of war, and millions of civilians, as the " Hunger Plan " worked to solve German food shortages and exterminate the Slavic population through starvation. Mass shootings and gassing operations , carried out by German death squads or willing collaborators, murdered over

5035-624: The creation of military units. Beginning in July 1940, the Red Army General Staff developed war plans that identified the Wehrmacht as the most dangerous threat to the Soviet Union, and that in the case of a war with Germany, the Wehrmacht ' s main attack would come through the region north of the Pripyat Marshes into Belorussia, which later proved to be correct. Stalin disagreed, and in October, he authorised

5130-419: The development of new plans that assumed a German attack would focus on the region south of Pripyat Marshes towards the economically vital regions in Ukraine. This became the basis for all subsequent Soviet war plans and the deployment of their armed forces in preparation for the German invasion. In the Soviet Union, speaking to his generals in December 1940, Stalin mentioned Hitler's references to an attack on

5225-491: The direct control of OKH . These were equipped with 6,867 armoured vehicles, of which 3,350–3,795 were tanks, 2,770–4,389 aircraft (that amounted to 65 percent of the Luftwaffe ), 7,200–23,435 artillery pieces, 17,081 mortars, about 600,000 motor vehicles and 625,000–700,000 horses. Finland slated 14 divisions for the invasion, and Romania offered 13 divisions and eight brigades over the course of Barbarossa. The entire Axis forces, 3.8 million personnel, deployed across

5320-457: The dissemination of the Nazi racial plan, as he informed the 4th Panzer Group that the war against the Soviet Union was "an essential part of the German people's struggle for existence" ( Daseinskampf ), also referring to the imminent battle as the "old struggle of Germans against Slavs" and even stated, "the struggle must aim at the annihilation of today's Russia and must, therefore, be waged with unparalleled harshness." Hoepner also added that

5415-413: The economic dangers of a war with the USSR. It is speculated that this was passed on to General Georg Thomas , who had produced reports that predicted a net economic drain for Germany in the event of an invasion of the Soviet Union unless its economy was captured intact and the Caucasus oilfields seized in the first blow; Thomas revised his future report to fit Hitler's wishes. The Red Army's ineptitude in

5510-423: The end of 1941, and the subsequent Soviet winter counteroffensive pushed the Germans about 250 km (160 mi) back. German high command anticipated a quick collapse of Soviet resistance as in the invasion of Poland , analogous to the reaction Russia had during World War I, but instead the Red Army absorbed the German Wehrmacht ' s strongest blows and bogged it down in a war of attrition for which

5605-414: The eventual defeat and collapse of Nazi Germany in 1945. The theme of Barbarossa had long been used by the Nazi Party as part of their political imagery, though this was really a continuation of the glorification of the famous Crusader king by German nationalists since the 19th century. According to a Germanic medieval legend, revived in the 19th century by the nationalistic tropes of German Romanticism ,

5700-406: The exact German launch date, but Sorge and other informers had previously given different invasion dates that passed peacefully before the actual invasion. Stalin acknowledged the possibility of an attack in general and therefore made significant preparations, but decided not to run the risk of provoking Hitler. In early 1941, Stalin authorised the State Defence Plan 1941 (DP-41), which along with

5795-439: The invasion. Buell adds that an unusually wet winter kept rivers at full flood until late spring. The floods may have discouraged an earlier attack, even if they occurred before the end of the Balkans Campaign. The importance of the delay is still debated. William Shirer argued that Hitler's Balkan Campaign had delayed the commencement of Barbarossa by several weeks and thereby jeopardised it. Many later historians argue that

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5890-449: The nearby Summer Garden, and the canal became known as the Swan Canal. By the 1730s the canal was crossed by at least four wooden bridges, and in 1733 its banks were reinforced with wood. In 1799 the eastern bank, alongside the Summer Garden, was strengthened with a stone terrace to the design of Grigory Pilnikov  [ ru ] , and a pier was also constructed, decorated with iron vases by architect Carlo Rossi . In 1823, as part of

5985-505: The negotiations differently and were willing to make huge economic concessions to secure a relationship under general terms acceptable to the Germans just a year before. On 25 November 1940, the Soviet Union offered a written counter-proposal to join the Axis if Germany would agree to refrain from interference in the Soviet Union's sphere of influence, but Germany did not respond. As both sides began colliding with each other in Eastern Europe, conflict appeared more likely, although they did sign

6080-455: The non-German populations in the East. Himmler believed the Germanisation process in Eastern Europe would be complete when "in the East dwell only men with truly German, Germanic blood." The Nazi secret plan Generalplan Ost , prepared in 1941 and confirmed in 1942, called for a "new order of ethnographical relations" in the territories occupied by Nazi Germany in Eastern Europe. It envisaged ethnic cleansing , executions and enslavement of

6175-399: The officers dismissed during the Great Purge were reinstated by 1941. Also, between January 1939 and May 1941, 161 new divisions were activated. Therefore, although about 75 percent of all the officers had been in their position for less than one year at the start of the German invasion of 1941, many of the short tenures can be attributed not only to the purge but also to the rapid increase in

6270-506: The operation was to be carried out. Hitler also renamed the operation to Barbarossa in honor of medieval Emperor Friedrich I of the Holy Roman Empire, a leader of the Third Crusade in the 12th century. The Barbarossa Decree , issued by Hitler on 30 March 1941, supplemented the Directive by decreeing that the war against the Soviet Union would be one of annihilation and legally sanctioned the eradication of all Communist political leaders and intellectual elites in Eastern Europe. The invasion

6365-410: The operational objective of any invasion of the Soviet Union. This assault would extend from the northern city of Arkhangelsk on the Arctic Sea through Gorky and Rostov to the port city of Astrakhan at the mouth of the Volga on the Caspian Sea . The report concluded that—once established—this military border would reduce the threat to Germany from attacks by enemy bombers . Although Hitler

6460-401: The outcome of these conversations, all preparations for the East previously ordered orally are to be continued. [Written] directives on that will follow as soon as the basic elements of the army's plan for the operation have been submitted to me and approved by me." There would be no "long-term agreement with Russia" given that the Nazis intended to go to war with them; but the Soviets approached

6555-452: The plan for Barbarossa. This belief later led to disputes between Hitler and several German senior officers, including Heinz Guderian , Gerhard Engel , Fedor von Bock and Franz Halder , who believed the decisive victory could only be delivered at Moscow. They were unable to sway Hitler, who had grown overconfident in his own military judgment as a result of the rapid successes in Western Europe. The Germans had begun massing troops near

6650-511: The populations of conquered countries, with very small percentages undergoing Germanisation, expulsion into the depths of Russia or other fates, while the conquered territories would be Germanised. The plan had two parts, the Kleine Planung ('small plan'), which covered actions to be taken during the war and the Große Planung ('large plan'), which covered policies after the war was won, to be implemented gradually over 25 to 30 years. A speech given by General Erich Hoepner demonstrates

6745-412: The rapid defeat of France at the hands of the "invincible" Wehrmacht and by traditional German stereotypes of Russia as a primitive, backward "Asiatic" country. Red Army soldiers were considered brave and tough, but the officer corps was held in contempt. The leadership of the Wehrmacht paid little attention to politics, culture, and the considerable industrial capacity of the Soviet Union, in favour of

6840-481: The redevelopment of the land around the Field of Mars and the Mikhailovsky Palace , Sadovaya Street was extended up to the eastern edge of the Field of Mars, joining the pathway running parallel to the Swan Canal, and connecting with Millionnaya Street , which crossed the field's northern boundary. In 1824 the terrace was destroyed in a flood, and had to be restored, with stone balusters replaced with

6935-561: The rest of Europe. Other historians contend that Stalin did not plan for such an attack in June 1941, given the parlous state of the Red Army at the time of the invasion. Stalin's reputation as a brutal dictator contributed both to the Nazis' justification of their assault and to their expectations of success, as Stalin's Great Purge of the 1930s had executed many competent and experienced military officers, leaving Red Army leadership weaker than their German adversary. The Nazis often emphasized

7030-566: The rest of the world learned of this pact but were unaware of the provisions to partition Poland. The pact stunned the world because of the parties' earlier mutual hostility and their conflicting ideologies . The conclusion of this pact was followed by the German invasion of Poland on 1 September that triggered the outbreak of World War II in Europe , then the Soviet invasion of Poland that led to

7125-515: The role of political commissars at the divisional level and below to oversee the political loyalty of the army to the regime. The commissars held a position equal to that of the commander of the unit they were overseeing. But in spite of efforts to ensure the political subservience of the armed forces, in the wake of Red Army's poor performance in Poland and in the Winter War, about 80 percent of

7220-636: The southern section was in Romania. The German forces in the rear (mostly Waffen-SS and Einsatzgruppen units) were to operate in conquered territories to counter any partisan activity in areas they controlled, as well as to execute captured Soviet political commissars and Jews. On 17 June, Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) chief Reinhard Heydrich briefed around thirty to fifty Einsatzgruppen commanders on "the policy of eliminating Jews in Soviet territories, at least in general terms". While

7315-553: The start of the invasion, the manpower of the Soviet military force that had been mobilised was 5.3–5.5 million, and it was still increasing as the Soviet reserve force of 14 million, with at least basic military training, continued to mobilise. The Red Army was dispersed and still preparing when the invasion commenced. Their units were often separated and lacked adequate transportation. While transportation remained insufficient for Red Army forces, when Operation Barbarossa kicked off, they possessed some 33,000 pieces of artillery,

7410-500: The trucks for supplies. The most advanced Soviet tank models—the KV-1 and T-34 —which were superior to all current German tanks, as well as all designs still in development as of the summer 1941, were not available in large numbers at the time the invasion commenced. Furthermore, in the autumn of 1939, the Soviets disbanded their mechanised corps and partly dispersed their tanks to infantry divisions; but following their observation of

7505-585: The use of forced labour to stimulate Germany's overall economy and the expansion of territory to improve Germany's efforts to isolate the United Kingdom. Hitler was further convinced that Britain would sue for peace once the Germans triumphed in the Soviet Union, and if they did not, he would use the resources gained in the East to defeat the British Empire . We only have to kick in the door and

7600-570: The victories in Western Europe finally freed his hands for a "final showdown" with Bolshevism. With the successful end to the campaign in France , General Erich Marcks was assigned the task of drawing up the initial invasion plans of the Soviet Union. The first battle plans were entitled Operation Draft East (colloquially known as the Marcks Plan ). His report advocated the A-A line as

7695-502: The walkway beside the canal embankment was repaired, trees planted, and new fences installed. The Upper Swan Bridge began as a wooden bridge across the Lebedinka at the point it enters the Neva. It was built between 1711 and 1715, and was named the Swan Bridge. It was replaced in 1768 by a single-span stone bridge designed by Yury Felten . It underwent repairs between 1927 and 1928, and again in 1931 and in 2003. The Upper Swan Bridge

7790-526: The war began, the Nazis issued a ban on sexual relations between Germans and foreign slaves . There were regulations enacted against the Ost-Arbeiter ('Eastern workers') that included the death penalty for sexual relations with a German. Heinrich Himmler , in his secret memorandum, Reflections on the Treatment of Peoples of Alien Races in the East (dated 25 May 1940), outlined the Nazi plans for

7885-527: The west bank of the canal, close to the Upper Swan Bridge. The canal's banks were reinforced in 1934, though a similar strengthening project planned for 1941 had to be cancelled after the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union . Further work on the structure of the canal was carried out between 1953 and 1956, involving deepening it, facing the banks with granite, and landscaping the slopes with earth. In 1997

7980-419: The whole rotten structure will come crashing down. Hitler received the final military plans for the invasion on 5 December 1940, which the German High Command had been working on since July 1940, under the codename "Operation Otto." Upon reviewing the plans, Hitler formally committed Germany to the invasion when he issued Führer Directive 21 on 18 December 1940, where he outlined the precise manner in which

8075-405: Was based on Ultra information obtained from broken Enigma traffic. But Stalin's distrust of the British led him to ignore their warnings in the belief that they were a trick designed to bring the Soviet Union into the war on their side. Soviet intelligence also received word of an invasion around 20 June from Mao Zedong whose spy, Yan Baohang, had overheard talk of the plans at a dinner with

8170-585: Was executed or imprisoned. Many of their replacements, appointed by Stalin for political reasons, lacked military competence. Of the five Marshals of the Soviet Union appointed in 1935, only Kliment Voroshilov and Semyon Budyonny survived Stalin's purge. Tukhachevsky was killed in 1937. Fifteen of 16 army commanders, 50 of the 57 corps commanders, 154 of the 186 divisional commanders, and 401 of 456 colonels were killed, and many other officers were dismissed. In total, about 30,000 Red Army personnel were executed. Stalin further underscored his control by reasserting

8265-502: Was little danger of a large-scale retreat of the Red Army into the Russian interior, as it could not afford to give up the Baltic countries, Ukraine, or the Moscow and Leningrad regions, all of which were vital to the Red Army for supply reasons and would thus, have to be defended. Hitler and his generals disagreed on where Germany should focus its energy. Hitler, in many discussions with his generals, repeated his order of "Leningrad first,

8360-471: Was tentatively set for May 1941, but it was delayed for over a month to allow for further preparations and possibly better weather. the purpose of the Russian campaign [is] the decimation of the Slavic population by thirty million. According to a 1978 essay by German historian Andreas Hillgruber , the invasion plans drawn up by the German military elite were substantially coloured by hubris, stemming from

8455-399: Was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies , starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II . It was the largest and costliest land offensive in human history, with around 10 million combatants taking part, and over 8 million casualties by the end of the operation. The operation, code-named after Frederick I "Barbarossa" ("red beard"),

8550-770: Was the real target. These simulated preparations in Norway and the English Channel coast included activities such as ship concentrations, reconnaissance flights and training exercises. The reasons for the postponement of Barbarossa from the initially planned date of 15 May to the actual invasion date of 22 June 1941 (a 38-day delay) are debated. The reason most commonly cited is the unforeseen contingency of invading Yugoslavia and Greece on 6 April 1941 until June 1941. Historian Thomas B. Buell indicates that Finland and Romania, which weren't involved in initial German planning, needed additional time to prepare to participate in

8645-424: Was to create more Lebensraum (living space) for Germany, and the eventual extermination of the native Slavic peoples by mass deportation to Siberia , Germanisation , enslavement, and genocide . In the two years leading up to the invasion, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed political and economic pacts for strategic purposes. Following the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina ,

8740-770: Was to follow the Drang nach Osten ('turn to the East') as it did "600 years ago" (see Ostsiedlung ). Accordingly, it was a partially secret but well-documented Nazi policy to kill, deport, or enslave the majority of Russian and other Slavic populations and repopulate the land west of the Urals with Germanic peoples, under Generalplan Ost (General Plan for the East). The Nazis' belief in their ethnic superiority pervades official records and pseudoscientific articles in German periodicals, on topics such as "how to deal with alien populations." While older histories tended to emphasize

8835-480: Was to operate in far northern Scandinavia and bordering Soviet territories . Army Group North was to march through Latvia and Estonia into northern Russia, then either take or destroy the city of Leningrad , and link up with Finnish forces. Army Group Centre, the army group equipped with the most armour and air power, was to strike from Poland into Belorussia and the west-central regions of Russia proper, and advance to Smolensk and then Moscow. Army Group South

8930-493: Was to strike the heavily populated and agricultural heartland of Ukraine, taking Kiev before continuing eastward over the steppes of southern USSR to the Volga with the aim of controlling the oil-rich Caucasus . Army Group South was deployed in two sections separated by a 198-mile (319 km) gap. The northern section, which contained the army group's only panzer group, was in southern Poland right next to Army Group Centre, and

9025-421: Was warned by many high-ranking military officers, such as Friedrich Paulus , that occupying Western Russia would create "more of a drain than a relief for Germany's economic situation," he anticipated compensatory benefits such as the demobilisation of entire divisions to relieve the acute labour shortage in German industry, the exploitation of Ukraine as a reliable and immense source of agricultural products,

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