Operation Barbarossa
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Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and several European Axis allies, beginning on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. More than 3.8 million Axis troops attacked the western Soviet Union along a 2,900-kilometer front, aiming to capture territory up to the Arkhangelsk–Astrakhan (A–A) line. It became the largest and costliest military offensive in human history, with around 10 million combatants in the opening phase and over 8 million casualties by the operation's end on 5 December 1941. It opened the Eastern Front and brought the Soviet Union into the Allied powers. Code-named after Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, the operation pursued Nazi goals of eradicating communism and conquering the western Soviet Union for German settlement under Generalplan Ost. Material targets included agricultural and mineral resources in Ukraine and Byelorussia and Caucasus oil fields. The Axis captured five million Red Army troops, deliberately starved or killed 3.3 million prisoners of war and millions of civilians, and murdered over a million Soviet Jews. After the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina in July 1940, Hitler approved invasion planning in December. Stalin did not mobilize despite intelligence. Axis forces captured Kiev, Kharkov, and Rostov-on-Don, besieged Leningrad, and stalled at Moscow's outskirts by 5 December, when the Soviets counterattacked. The failure reversed Nazi Germany's fortunes; later offensives such as Case Blue in 1942 and Operation Citadel in 1943 also failed.