By 28 June Panzer Group 2, led by General Heinz Guderian, and General Hermann Hoth's Panzer Group 3 had encircled three Russian armies and captured over 320,000 men in the Bialystok-Minsk pockets. By mid-July they were only 60 miles (96 km) from their objective.ДЄrmy Group Centre, under Field Marshal Fedor von Bock, also made rapid progress. Russian forces in this sector were thinly spread and the panzers covered 500 miles (804 km) in three weeks. Army Group North, under Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb, plunged towards Leningrad, with General Erich Hoepner's Panzer Group 4 in the lead. On the first day alone 1,800 Soviet aircraft were destroyed, most of them on the ground. The Germans quickly established air superiority.

They were greatly helped by the Luftwaffe's bombing of Soviet airfields, artillery positions and troop concentrations. The Germans got off to a good start, with the panzer groups quickly pushing towards their objectives and Russian forces falling apart in confusion. He had some 5 million men available immediately and a total of 23,000 tanks, but the Red Army was still unprepared when the Germans struck. Although mistrustful of Hitler, Stalin did not believe that he would attack so soon, despite the ominous German build-up and a stream of intelligence warnings. The Soviets had massed large forces on their western frontier, but they were under orders not to provoke the Germans. Hitler expected these all to be attained in approximately ten weeks. Between them, Army Group Centre's objective was Minsk, Smolensk and then Moscow itself. Army Group South would attack into the Ukraine towards Kiev and the Donbas (Donets Basin) industrial region. Army Group North was to head through the Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia and take Leningrad. The German forces were split into three army groups, each with a specific objective. It was the largest invasion force to date. They were supported by 2,700 aircraft of the Luftwaffe. Seventeen panzer divisions, formed into four Panzer Groups, formed the vanguard with 3,400 tanks. A total of 148 divisions - 80 per cent of the German Army - were committed to the enterprise. Over three and a half million German and other Axis troops attacked along a 1,800-mile front. This would bring the bulk of the Soviet population and its economic potential under German control.ДЄfter a five week delay while operations in Greece and Yugoslavia were completed, Operation 'Barbarossa' - named after the all-conquering Medieval Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I - was launched on 22 June 1941. The German military plan called for an advance up to a hypothetical line running from the port of ArchangelВ in northern Russia to the port of AstrakhanВ on the Caspian Sea вЂ“ the so-called 'A-A line'. On 18 December 1940 Hitler issued FГјhrer Directive 21, an order for the invasion of the Soviet Union. Regardless of recent economic and political co-operation, the Soviet Union was regarded as the natural enemy of Nazi Germany and a key strategic objective. The conquest and enslavement of the Soviet Union's racially 'inferior' Slavic populations would be part of a grand plan of 'Germanisation' and economic exploitation lasting well beyond the expected military victory. He intended to destroy what he saw as Stalin's 'Jewish Bolshevist' regime and establish Nazi hegemony. Hitler had always wanted to see Germany expand eastwards to gain LebensraumВ or 'living space' for its people.ДЄfter the fall of France Hitler ordered plans to be drawn up for an invasion of the Soviet Union. In May 1940 the Blitzkrieg rolled westwards and France was conquered in six weeks. Soviet cooperation allowed Hitler to expand his plans for European domination. For the next year and a half Germany also benefitted economically from the arrangement, with Russia exporting grain and oil in return for manufactured goods. Stalin's forces then attacked from the west and completed the subjugation and partition of the Polish state. It ushered in a period of military co-operation which allowed Hitler to ignore western diplomatic moves and invade Poland. The Nazi-Soviet Pact came as a complete surprise to other nations, given the ideological differences between the two countries. In August 1939, as Europe slid towards another world war, Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression treaty.

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