Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and several of its European Axis allies starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. More than 3.8 million Axis troo
Clockwise from top-left: German soldiers advance through northern Russia German flamethrower crew burns down a house in the background German Panzer IV stuck in the snow with white camouflage paint Soviet Ilyushin Il-2s over German positions near Moscow Soviet POWs on the way to prison camps Soviet soldiers fire artillery
1939 German Diplomatic passport with its holder returning after the outbreak of war two years later and being evacuated on a special train out of the USSR.
Semyon Timoshenko and Georgy Zhukov in 1940
Army general (later Marshal) Zhukov speaking at a military conference in Moscow, September 1941
The Eastern Front, also known as the Great Patriotic War, or the German–Soviet War, was a theatre of World War II fought between the European Axis powers and Allies, including the Soviet Union and Pol
Operation Barbarossa
…opening phase and over 8 million casualties by the end of the operation on 5 December 1941. It marked a major escalation of World War II, opened the Eastern Front—the largest and deadliest land war in history—and brought the Soviet Union into the Allied powers. The operation, code-named after the Holy Roman Emperor…
German soldiers in a Panzer III tank; Kalmyk steppe north of Stalingrad, September 1942
German infantry in Russia, June 1943
The South Western Front (Ukrainian) on 22 June 1941