DK - World War II Map by Map

88 GERMANY TRIUMPHANT 1939–1941

Feb 11, 1940

Trade pact agreed

between Soviets

and Nazis

Jun 1940

Soviet Union occupies

Baltic states: Estonia,

Latvia, and Lithuania

JAN 1940 APR JUL OCT

SOVIET UNION

GERMANY

Apr–May 1940 Katyn

Forest Soviet massacre

of Polish officers

GERMANY INVADES

THE EAST

Invading the Soviet Union, Hitler’s

armies sought to destroy Stalin’s

Red Army in a series of massive

encirclements. But German

victories at Smolensk and Kiev,

in which hundreds of thousands

of Soviet soldiers were taken

prisoner, failed to end Soviet

resistance. Stopped outside

Moscow in December, the

Germans were driven back by

a Soviet counteroffensive, but

they were still in control of a vast

area of Soviet territory, from the

gates of Leningrad to the Crimea.

In August 1939, Stalin made a nonaggression pact

with Hitler. This allowed the Soviets to extend their

territory westward—through the partition of Poland with

Nazi Germany, and the occupation of Estonia, Lithuania,

Latvia, and Bukovina, taken from Germany’s ally Romania.

Although Stalin behaved as a friendly neutral to Germany,

providing vital supplies that sustained the German war

effort, the Soviet economy and the Red Army were

meanwhile being mobilized for war.

Planning Operation Barbarossa

For Hitler, no agreement with the Soviet Union could ever

be other than temporary. His enduring hostility to Marxism,

his belief in the racial inferiority of Slavs, and his aspiration

to find Lebensraum (“room to live”) for German settlers in

the East made the Soviet Union a target for aggression.

In December 1940, despite still being at war with Britain,

Hitler decided to invade the Soviet Union, in a campaign

known as Operation Barbarossa. The planning made plain

the Nazis’ intention to carry out mass murder of civilians,

through killing squads and deliberate starvation. Joining

the German forces were the armies of its allies, such

as Romania, Hungary, and Italy, as well as ideologically

motivated anticommunist volunteers from other countries,

including France, Spain, and Portugal.

GERMANY’S WAR

WITH THE USSR

Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 transformed the scale

of the war in Europe. Despite putting almost four million soldiers into battle,

the Germans failed to achieve the rapid victory they had hoped for.

◁ Ruthless warfare

German infantry employ a flamethrower to clear a bunker during

the invasion of the USSR in 1941. German soldiers had orders to

fight especially fiercely against the Red Army.

△ Soviet armor

First deployed in 1941, the Soviet T-34 tank proved possibly

the most effective armored vehicle of World War II. Over

60,000 were manufactured during the war.

Jul 31, 1940

At military conference,

Hitler states his intention

to invade USSR

Oct 4,1940

Hitler meets Mussolini

but does not reveal his

plan to attack USSR

US_088-089_N_Germanys_war_with_USSR.indd 88 05/03/19 2:33 PM