80th anniversary of the Operation Barbarossa

[buritobr]

On June 22nd 1941, the Axis forces invaded the USSR. The eastern european front of the WW2 was the deadliest conflict in the history of the mankind.

This video is interesting. It explains the failure of the operation without using cliches like the cold, the millions of suicide soviet soldiers, the "crazy Hitler" who didn't listen to the "competent" generals. According to this video, the nazi underestimated the soviet forces both in numbers and technology, Hitler had a misleading view that Stalin's regime would colapse when the invasion starts, the lack of cooperation between Germany and Japan played a role https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_3R-Rkn_98

[buritobr]

Not just one of the most cruel and criminal actions in history, it was also the dumbest decision Hitler made in the course of the war. This moron thought he could fight the whole world and stand a chance of winning. And Stalin for his part was rather naive as well, by assuming Hitler would keep his word from the 1939 treaty, even when the warning signs were there. He also reacted slowly and caused more Soviet deaths.

Hitler easily tops the list of most evil in history of the world. However painting him as a moron at least for earlier decisions, arguably is part of the Clean Wehrmact myth with memoirs written by Nazi generals such as Guderian/Halder who didn't understand the strategic thinking of Hitler's desires for oil. After they survived they did tried to paint Hitler also as incompetent to show how they "opposed" him.Later on by say 1944 and 1945 Hitler did go borderline half insane but early on some of his most evil decisions actually had a degree of strategic thinking.

The generals wanted use all the forces to reach Moscow before the winter, while Hitler considered that taking Ukraine before was more important. Maybe, Hitler was correct. Controling Ukraine, a land rich of natural resources, could be more important than controlling Moscow. If the germans marched in a straight line to Moscow, the soviet troops in Ukraine would have survive, and they could conduct a counter strike in order to cut this line.