Failure Of Adolf Hitler's Operation Barbarossa

Short Paper 1
During the beginning of the second world war, the Soviet Union was fighting alongside the axis powers. Both the soviets and Nazi Germany were forces to be reckoned with, and together they were nearly unstoppable. Stalin and Hitler both knew that the alliance between their great nations would only be temporary and wouldn’t hold out. The Nazis party could never coexist with the Communist party, but this was something that was put aside at first. Hitler pulled the trigger first on June 22, 1941 when he initiated Operation Barbarossa. This was the complete invasion and annihilation of the USSR. Most people are confused even today of why Hitler decided to betray the Soviets before the war was over, inevitably causing a war on two fronts. Hitler knew it was only a matter of time before Stalin commanded his forces to turn on Germany; and the war was leaning in favor of the Axis powers at that time. He saw an opportunity and took it, expecting a very swift defeat as in the
The Operation was set up for failure because of this. The Soviet troops were prepared for the unforgiving winter and were able to fight hard during it. The German troops starved and froze so they were unable to keep on advancing. Merely months after the invasion the German forces were exhausted and simply would not fight as they were expected to. This gave a great opportunity to the Soviet troops fight back. In December of 1941 the Soviet troops launched a powerful counterattack on the invading Nazi forces. The tipping point for the war between the Soviets and Nazis was at the battle of Stalingrad and Leningrad. These both were heavily fortified Soviet cities that had the ability to withstand a heavy German attack. Hitler’s ego forced him to order that attack on the cities and was easily defeated. By 1942 the Soviet forces began to push the German army back to the Eastern boarder which began the downfall of Nazi