Jun+1941+Germany+Invades+the+Soviet+Union


 * __ [[image:highres_30018917_copy.jpg width="472" height="324" align="right"]]The Beginning of the Invasion. __**

The beginning of the Blitzkrieg invasion was when Hitler had broken the Nonaggression Pact with Stalin. Hitler has said that the Pact was a stain on Germany's record. And with that, Hitler sent three million German troops, supported by 650,000 troops from Germany Allies, to the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. The sound of German tanks and aircrafts announced the invasion with a codename of “Barbarossa”.


 * __ The Red Army. __**

The Soviet Union had one of the largest armies in the world, so when the Germans had attack, they had a army to fight back with. But the Red Army had been poorly trained and also poorly equipped. So therefore, the Red Army was not match fro the fully equipped German army who had training and everything more that the Red Army may or may not have had.


 * __ What had happened in the invasion. __**

In this invasion, German troops pushed 500 miles into the Soviet territory. The Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin was taken by complete surprise. But in autumn, Germans had not made it to their goal of reaching Leningrad and Moscow. Moscow was the capital of the Soviet Union. When the terrible Soviet winter came, the Germans were not ready for it. The German soldiers still had their summer clothing and the winter made their process slow completely. During that time, the Soviets started recovering from the many casualties that they had suffered in the early fighting. But when the temperatures fell, the Germans left.


 * __ Leningrad & Mos[[image:KIELCE2-2.jpg width="339" height="371" align="left"]] __**__ cow  __

The Germans had had a goal to capture/invade Leningrad. On September 8, Germans had surrounded Leningrad completely and started to isolate that city from the rest of the world. Hitler started to starve 2.5 million people and bombed warehouses full of any type of food. With a hungry stomach, desperate people started eating family pets, horse and cattle feed, crows, and rats. More than 1 million people had died in the terrible soviet winter that came around. But even after that, the city had refused to fail or be broken down. So, Hitler started to look at Moscow, which is the capital of the Soviet Union. A Nazi drive on the capital had began on October 2, 1941. By December, Germans were on the outside of Moscow, but when the temperatures fell to a low, the Germans retreated. After that, 500,000 German lives were taken.

__Works Cited:__
 * 1) __Ramirez, Susan, Peter Stearns, and Sam Wineburg.//World History; Human Legacy//. Holt, RIneheart, and Winston, 2008. 442-443. Print. __
 * 2) Beck, Roger, Linda Black, Larry Krieger, Phillip Naylor, and Dahia Shabaka. //Modern World History//. McDougal Littel, 2003. 445-446. Print.
 * 3) http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005164
 * 4) http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/22/newsid_3526000/3526691.stm