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Anger over the failed German offensives caused Hitler to relieve Brauchitsch of command and in his place, Hitler assumed personal control of the German Army on 19 December 1941, a decision that would progressively prove fatal to Germany's war effort and contribute to its eventual defeat. [328] The Soviet Union had suffered heavily from the ...
The Soviet defensive effort frustrated Hitler's attack on Moscow, the capital and largest city of the Soviet Union. Moscow was one of the primary military and political objectives for Axis forces in their invasion of the Soviet Union.
Bauer writes "the war that Hitler wanted"—to ally with Poland in an invasion of the Soviet Union—"was not the one he got in September 1939". Even after concluding the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact , Hitler attempted to avoid a two-front war by keeping the United Kingdom, United States, and possibly France out of the war. [ 212 ]
Predictions of an expected Soviet defeat had an important impact on President Roosevelt; while the United States was not at the time at war, Roosevelt favored the Allies (represented primarily at that time by the British Empire and the Soviet Union), and decided to try to avert the collapse of the USSR by extending to the Soviets (October 1941 ...
Russia's president told massed ranks of service personnel on Moscow's Red Square: "You are fighting for the Motherland, for its future, so that no one forgets the lessons of World War 2."
The forces mobilized in the Soviet Union were not positioned for defensive, but for offensive aims". He concluded, "Hitler's invasion forces didn't outnumber [the Soviets], but were rather outnumbered themselves. The Soviets were unable to organize defenses. The troops were provided with maps that covered territories outside the Soviet Union". [73]
There was an overwhelming surge in confidence and belief in victory. A common saying was: "You cannot stop an army which has done Stalingrad." Stalin was feted as the hero of the hour and made a Marshal of the Soviet Union. [339] The news of the battle echoed round the world, with many people now believing that Hitler's defeat was inevitable. [321]
Antisemitism and anti-Slavism were central components in Adolf Hitler's Lebensraum settler-colonial programme, and constituted the ideological basis of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. Hitler's push for eastward expansion ("Drang nach Osten") of German territories, outlined in "Mein Kampf", was driven significantly by his hatred and ...