On this day...

... in 1941, Nazi Germany initiated the largest overland operation of World War II with the invasion of the Soviet Union, code named "Barbarossa". Nearly 5 million men moving across an 1,800 mile front ended both the lie that was the Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty and any prospects for German victory in WWII.

I think Barbarossa failed because the goals of the operation were not clearly defined, and the scope of the effort was simply too grand. Hitler wanted a decisive conquest of the Soviet Union and insisted on a drive north that would A) capture and destroy Leningrad and B) capture Moscow and force Stalin into a general surrender of all Soviet forces. The OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, or Supreme Command of Armed Forces, Germany) wanted a strategic drive into the heart of Soviet production by taking the Ukraine and the Baku oilfields, and dealing the Red Army such a defeat that a counter attack was unthinkable. Operation Barbarossa was a compromise of those two views, and because of this... it was destined to fail from the start. Had the OKW won the planning argument, and the effort to the north been abandoned in favor of taking the arable land and industrial cities of the Ukraine along with the oilfields, things might have turned out much different for the Allies. Cutting off Moscow from the south and east would have made Stalin's job about a thousand times harder, wouldn't you agree?

Anyway, just got to thinking about this as I listened to satellite radio on the hour-long trip home from the joint today. A definite turning point in the war, if you ask me.