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Historical memory matters – 80 years on from Operation Barbarossa
A growing revisionism that equates Nazism and communism is a genuine danger that must be countered, says JONATHAN WHITE

ON THIS day 80 years ago, over three-and-a-half million German and other Axis troops attacked the Soviet Union along a 1,800-mile front. 

Some 148 divisions, representing 80 per cent of the German army, were supported by Romanian, Italian, Hungarian, Slovak and Finnish forces.

For the Nazis, in particular, this was the highest point yet of their project for fascist expansion and it was underpinned by a racist ideology toward the Jews, but also toward the Slavs living in the Soviet territories. 

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