Operation Barbarossa, launched 85 years ago by the Third Reich against the USSR, initiated one of history's most destructive conflicts, ultimately leading to the mutual near-destruction of Europe's mightiest powers. The attack involved 3 million men, 600,000 vehicles, and 500,000 horses, but its optimistic assumptions and Hitler's deviation from military maxims, like dividing forces and ignoring the culmination point, proved fatal.
Specifically, weakening Army Group Center in September 1941 to encircle a Soviet force near Kiev, which posed no threat to Moscow, prevented the German army from reaching the capital before winter. This decision, contrary to generals' advice, resulted in over 600,000 prisoners but led to a logistical collapse at Moscow's gates by December 1941, costing Germany the battle and ultimately the war in 1945. The article debunks the "preventive war" thesis, asserting the USSR did not plan a preemptive attack in 1941, instead seeking to delay war to rearm and replace officers decimated by the Great Purge. Soviet plans for counterattacks were retaliatory, not pre-emptive. Hitler's Führer Directive 21 was signed December 18, 1940, before any Soviet proactive defense plans were developed.
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