Operation Barbarossa: Hitler's 1941 USSR Invasion

Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Adolf Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union. Beginning in June 1941, this blitzkrieg attack the USSR and its leader Joseph Stalin would ultimately decide the Second World War.

Despite early success against an unprepared Soviet army, the invasion began to slow down and eventually ground to a halt in December just 20km short of Moscow. At that moment the Russians struck back with a surprise winter counter-attack, bringing the offensive to an end.

In this episode of IWM Stories, John Delaney takes a look at why Operation Barbarossa failed with the help of archive film, photographs and battle maps.

Find out more below:

Why did Barbarossa Fail? https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/operation-barbarossa-and-germanys-failure-in-the-soviet-union

What was Operation Barbarossa? https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/what-was-operation-barbarossa

What is Blitzkrieg? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yOPih9zRNs&t=7s

Order and license the HD clips used in this video on IWM Film’s website:
https://film.iwmcollections.org.uk/c/1201

Explore these stories with a visit to an IWM site: https://www.iwm.org.uk

0:00 Intro
1:13 Invasion plans
3:01 Phase 1
4:02 German halt
5:45 Phase 2
7:18 Furthest German advance
7:43 Soviet counterattack
8:30 Conclusion

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Creative Commons Attributions:

Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-140-1220-17A / Cusian, Albert / CC-BY-SA 3.0
Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-140-1210-26A / Götze / CC-BY-SA 3.0
Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1982-184-32 / CC-BY-SA 3.0
RIA Novosti archive, image 284 / Knorring / CC-BY-SA 3.0
RIA Novosti archive, image 641 / Knorring / CC-BY-SA 3.0
RIA Novosti archive, image 62364 / Boris Kudoyarov / CC-BY-SA 3.0
Soldiers on guard in December 1941 to the west of Moscow / Wilhelm Gierse / CC-BY-3.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en