Why did the German invasion of the USSR succeed at first?

Comments ( 5 )

1. Leo de Grump says

   Military intelligencve blunder coz the early German successes. The Soviets had intelligence of the the German buildup at the Polish borders which Stalin rejected and thus no Soviet mobilisation to meet the invasion.

   The Soviets moved most of their factories eastward which was out of reach to axis bombers, mass produced and won agasint the Germans by sheer weight and numbers who by then were over-extended from thier supplies and reinforcements.

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2. efw says

   1. The Germans used tanks in massed formations at the point of attack, while the Soviets used theirs in ‘penny packets’ supporting the infantry, just as the French and British did in 1940.

   2. The Red Army was ‘beheaded’ so to speak, the purges of the 30s left the army without generals, from the division level on up.

   3. Joe Stalin did not believe his spies or warnings from Churchill and FDR about the impending German invasions…he even slowed down the building of frontier defences so as not to provoke the Fuhrer, since he was cognizant of the fact that the mobilization in WWI had caused the Kaiser to attack Russia.

   4. The largest airforce in the world was well nigh eradicated during the initial stages of the surprise attack.

   The Soviets eventually won due to:

   1. The harshest winter of the century hit, bringing the vaunted Werhmact to a standstill at the gates to Moscow. While the oil in German tanks and lorries solidified, the T-34s were still able to function in sub-zero weather.

   2. The 40 divisions of the Siberian Front were free to drive the Germans from Moscow, as Stalin finally believed his spies. They had been tied down expecting a Japanese invasion, instead Japan’s eyes were elsewhere.

   3. The Russians were able to trade space for time, the immensity of Mother Russia outstretched the German supply lines and allowed the Red Army room to retreat.

   4. The Hitlerites committed a fatal error in stopping their blitzkrieg tactics to fight an urban static war in the streets of Stalingrad. The stubborness of Hitler caused the debacle of the 6th Army.

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3. mklee05091953 says

   Operation Barbarrosa was a violation of the Nonaggression Pact between Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. It was a suprise invasion. Thirty nine divisions made a broad scale invasion via blitzkrieg, ie., a co-ordinated strike between the Wehrmacht, Panzer and Luftwaffe. The Red Army eventually succeeded as the Germans outdistanced their supply lines, the Russian war industry operating in an area the Luftwaffe could not reach or discover (many war factories were hidden within the Urals) the harshness of the winter of 1943, and Hitler’s refusal to allow a coordinated retreat and the inability of the separate German armies to link up to form a defensive front. You haven’t been able to find this in books or on line?

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4. lightessnc says

   The reason is because Stalin did not think that the Germans would invade because of the pact they had, which stated that if Germany country was to get into a war with another country then Russia would remain neutral and vice versa. Stalin basically ignore Hitler (Stalin had a parade that was 20 miles away from where the invasion was taking place) until the invasion but it was to late because the great purges had wiped out most of the great military leaders they had. The fact that the Germans were not able to survive in the Russian winter was a main factor in the defeat of the Germans.

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5. Shaz says

   1) they were supplied at 1st
   2) it was a surprise attack
   3) the soviets pulled back and burned everything behind them to starve the germans

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