Skip to main content
Remembering Operation Barbarossa
Many in the West expected a swift and easy victory over the USSR for Hitler — including the Fuhrer himself. They didn't count on the iron will and enormous capacity for sacrifice of the world's first socialist state, writes JOHN ELLISON
Hitler speaks in the Reichstag in 1941

80 YEARS AGO on June 22, 1941, the armies of Nazi Germany swept across the frontier of what was then the Soviet Union along a front exceeding a thousand miles.

Over three million soldiers, including Finnish troops to the north and Romanian troops to the south, with thousands of tanks and aircraft to the fore and fortified by the war industries of already occupied countries, constituted the Nazi attacking force.

Brutality against civilians was to be unconfined. Hitler’s hopes were high given his low opinion of the Soviet peoples’ ability to resist. The invasion followed a series of devastating blitzkrieg strategies beginning with that against Poland in September 1939.

Liberation webinar, 30 November2024, 6pm (UK)
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
MT
Features / 15 November 2024
15 November 2024
JOHN ELLISON looks back to the 1974 general election in Greece which freed the people from the oppressive military junta
Harold Wilson arrives in Downing St 1974
Features / 31 July 2024
31 July 2024
JOHN ELLISON looks back at the Wilson government’s early months, detailing how left-wing manifesto commitments were diluted, and the challenges faced by Tony Benn in implementing socialist policies
An injured Palestinian boy is carried from the ground follow
Features / 11 January 2024
11 January 2024
Robert Fisk and John Pilger knew that the legacy of the aggression of the US and its allies against the Middle East was crucial to understanding that crimes like the war on Gaza will only lead to more violence, writes JOHN ELLISON
MAN WITH A BOAT: Tory leader Edward Heath poses for the came
Features / 4 December 2023
4 December 2023
JOHN ELLISON looks at the miners' strike and Shrewsbury 3 case that led Edward Heath to ask ‘Who governs Britain?’ and the electorate to answer: not you