Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. It was the largest and costliest land offensive in human history, with around 10 million combatants taking part, and over 8 million casualties by the end of the operation.
Clockwise from top left: German soldiers advance through northern Russia German flamethrower team Soviet Ilyushin Il-2s over German positions near Moscow Soviet POWs on the way to prison camps Soviet soldiers fire artillery
The Marcks Plan was the original German plan of attack for Operation Barbarossa, as depicted in a US Government study (March 1955).
Semyon Timoshenko and Georgy Zhukov in 1940
Army general (later Marshal) Zhukov speaking at a military conference in Moscow, September 1941
The German Army was the land forces component of the Wehrmacht, the regular armed forces of Nazi Germany, from 1935 until it effectively ceased to exist in 1945 and then was formally dissolved in August 1946. During World War II, a total of about 13.6 million soldiers served in the German Army. Army personnel were made up of volunteers and conscripts.
Adolf Hitler with Wilhelm Keitel, Friedrich Paulus, and Walther von Brauchitsch, October 1941
German soldiers in Greece, April 1941
Soldiers of the Großdeutschland Division during Operation Barbarossa, 1941
"Above All Stands the German Infantry" — Nazi propaganda poster
