During World War II, did Russia have an offensive plan similar to the German's operation Barbarossa?

Operation Barbarossa, or Case Barbarossa (German: Unternehmen Barbarossa), was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during the Second World War. 1415 Beginning on 22 June 1941, over 4 million soldiers of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a 2,900 km (1,800 mi) front,16 the largest invasion in the history of warfare. In addition to troops, Barbarossa used 600,000 motor vehicles and 750,000 horses.

17 The ambitious operation was driven by Adolf Hitler's persistent desire to conquer the Soviet territories (as embodied in Generalplan Ost). It marked the beginning of the pivotal phase in deciding the victors of the war. The German invasion of the Soviet Union suffered and caused a high rate of fatalities: 95% of all German Army casualties that occurred from 1941 to 1944, and 65% of all Allied military casualties from the entire war.

Operation Barbarossa was named after Frederick Barbarossa, the medieval Holy Roman Emperor. Planning started on 22 June8 1940; the secret preparations and the military operation itself lasted from June to 22 June8. The Red Army repelled the Wehrmacht's strongest blow, and Adolf Hitler did not achieve the expected victory, but the Soviet Union's situation remained dire.

Tactically, the Germans won resounding victories and occupied some of the most important economic areas of the Soviet Union, mainly in Ukraine. 18 Despite these successes, the Germans were pushed back from Moscow and could never again mount a simultaneous offensive along the entire strategic Soviet–German front. Operation Barbarossa's failure led to Hitler's demands for further operations inside the USSR, all of which eventually failed, such as continuing the Siege of Leningrad,2021 Operation Nordlicht, and the Battle of Stalingrad, among other battles on occupied Soviet territory.

Operation Barbarossa was the largest military operation in human history in both manpower and casualties. 27 Its failure was a turning point in the Third Reich's fortunes. Most importantly, Operation Barbarossa opened up the Eastern Front, to which more forces were committed than in any other theater of war in world history.

Regions covered by the operation became the site of some of the largest battles, deadliest atrocities, highest casualties, and most horrific conditions for Soviets and Germans alike — all of which influenced the course of both World War II and 20th century history. The German forces captured 3 million Soviet POWs, who did not enjoy the protection stipulated in the Geneva Conventions. 28 Most of them never returned alive.

29 Germany deliberately starved the prisoners to death as part of its Hunger Plan, i.e. , the program to reduce the Eastern European population. As early as 1925, Hitler suggested in Mein Kampf that he would invade the Soviet Union, asserting that the German people needed Lebensraum ("living space", i.e.

Land and raw materials) and that these should be sought in the East. National-socialist racial ideology cast the Soviet Union as populated by "Untermenschen," ethnic Slavs ruled by their "Jewish Bolshevik" masters. 3132 Mein Kampf said Germany's destiny was to turn "to the East" as it did "six hundred years ago" and "the end of the Jewish domination in Russia will also be the end of Russia as a State."33 Thereafter, Hitler spoke of an inescapable battle against "pan-Slav ideals", in which victory would lead to "permanent mastery of the world", though he said they would "walk part of the road with the Russians, if that will help us."34 Accordingly, it was Nazi stated policy to kill, deport, or enslave the Russian and other Slavic populations and repopulate the land with Germanic peoples (see Generalplan Ost).

Before World War II, observers believed that in a war with the Soviet Union, Germany would attack through the Baltic states while the Kriegsmarine would seize Leningrad by sea. They assumed that possessing the entire Baltic basin would satisfy Hitler, who would not repeat Napoleon's mistake of attacking Moscow. The Soviet Union and Germany signed a non-aggression pact, the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, shortly before the German invasion of Poland that triggered the Second World War in 1939, and which was followed by the Soviet invasion of Poland.

A secret protocol to the pact outlined an agreement between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union on the division of the border states between their respective "spheres of influence". The Soviet Union and Germany would split Poland if an invasion were to occur, and Latvia, Estonia and Finland were defined as falling within the Soviet sphere of influence. 3637 The pact surprised the world38 because of the parties' mutual hostility and their conflicting ideologies.

As a result of the pact, Germany and the Soviet Union had reasonably strong diplomatic relations and an important economic relationship. The countries entered a trade pact in 1940, in which the Soviets received German military and industrial equipment in exchange for raw materials, such as oil or wheat, to help Germany circumvent a British blockade. Despite the parties' ongoing relations, each side was strongly suspicious of the other's intentions.

After Germany entered the Axis Pact with Japan and Italy, it began negotiations about a potential Soviet entry into the pact. 40 After two days of negotiations in Berlin from 12–22 June8, Germany presented a proposed written agreement for Soviet entry into the Axis. The Soviet Union offered a written counterproposal agreement on 22 June7 1940, to which Germany did not respond.

4142 As both sides began colliding with each other in Eastern Europe, conflict appeared more likely, though they signed a border and commercial agreement addressing several open issues in 22 June9. Germany broke the pact by starting Operation Barbarossa: arguably this decision led to Germany's losing the war. Joseph Stalin's reputation contributed both to the Nazis' justification of their assault and their faith in success.

In the late 1930s, many competent and experienced military officers were killed in the Great Purge, leaving the Red Army weakened and leaderless. The Nazis often emphasized the Soviet regime's brutality when targeting the Slavs with propaganda. German propaganda claimed the Red Army was preparing to attack them, and their own invasion was thus presented as pre-emptive.

In the summer of 1940, when German raw materials crises and a potential collision with the Soviet Union over territory in the Balkans arose, an eventual invasion of the Soviet Union looked increasingly like Hitler's only solution. When the Soviet Union was defeated, the labor shortage in German industry could be relieved by demobilization of many soldiers. Ukraine would be a reliable source of agricultural products.

Having the Soviet Union as a source of forced labor under German rule would vastly improve Germany's geostrategic position. Defeat of the Soviet Union would further isolate the Allies, especially the United Kingdom. The German economy needed more oil and controlling the Baku Oilfields would achieve this; as Albert Speer, the German Minister for Armaments and War Production, later said in his interrogation, "the need for oil certainly was a prime motive" in the decision to invade.

On 22 June8 1940, Hitler received military plans for the invasion, and approved them all, with the start scheduled for 22 June9. 48 On 22 June8, Hitler signed War Directive No. 21 to the German High Command for an operation now codenamed "Operation Barbarossa" stating: "The German Wehrmacht must be prepared to crush Soviet Russia in a quick campaign."4849 The operation was named after Emperor Frederick Barbarossa of the Holy Roman Empire, a leader of the Third Crusade in the 12th century.

The invasion was set for 22 June9 1941. 49 In a 1978 essay "Das Russlandbild der führenden deutschen Militärs" ("The Picture of Russia held by the Leadership of the German Military"), the German historian Andreas Hillgruber examined the views about the Soviet Union held by the German military elite in the period June 1940 to June 1941. The Wehrmacht was ill-informed about the Soviet Union, especially the military and the economy.

Because of the paucity of information, Wehrmacht thinking about the Soviet Union were based upon traditional German stereotypes of Russia as a primitive, backward "Asiatic" country, a "colossus with feet of clay" that lacked the strength to stand up to a superior opponent. The leadership of the Wehrmacht viewed war with the Soviet Union from an extremely narrow military viewpoint with little consideration given to politics, the economy or culture. 51 The industrial capacity of the Soviet Union was not considered at all as a factor that might influence the outcome of a German-Soviet war.

The average soldier of the Red Army was considered brave and tough, but the Red Army officer corps were held in contempt. The Wehrmacht leadership after the victory over France was in a state of hubris with the Wehrmacht being seen as more or less invincible. As such, it was assumed that the Soviet Union was destined to be defeated, and that it would take Germany between six to eight weeks to destroy the Soviet Union.

Hillgruber argued that these assumptions about the Soviet Union shared by the entire miliary elite allowed Hitler to push through a "war of annihilation" against the Soviet Union with the assistance of "several military leaders", even though it was quite clear to the military that such a war would violate all standards of civilized warfare and would be waged in the most inhumane fashion possible. In the Soviet Union, speaking to his generals in December, Stalin mentioned Hitler's references to an attack on the Soviet Union in Mein Kampf, and said they must always be ready to repulse a German attack, and that Hitler thought the Red Army would need four years to ready itself. In autumn 1940, high-ranking German officials drafted a memorandum on the dangers of an invasion of the Soviet Union.

They said Ukraine, Belorussia and the Baltic States would end up as only a further economic burden for Germany. Hitler ignored German economic naysayers, and told Hermann Göring that "everyone on all sides was always raising economic misgivings against a threatening war with Russia. From now onwards he wasn't going to listen to any more of that kind of talk and from now on he was going to stop up his ears in order to get his peace of mind."54 This was passed on to General Georg Thomas, who had been preparing reports on the negative economic consequences of an invasion of the Soviet Union — that it would be a net economic drain unless it was captured intact.

Beginning in March 1941, Göring's Green Folder laid out details of the Soviet Union's proposed economic disposal after the invasion. The entire urban population of the invaded land was to be starved to death, thus creating an agricultural surplus to feed Germany and allowing the urban population's replacement by a German upper class. Nazi policy aimed to destroy the Soviet Union as a political entity in accordance with the geopolitical Lebensraum idea ("Drang nach Osten") for the benefit of future generations of the "Nordic Aryan master race" .

Operation Barbarossa was to combine a northern assault towards Leningrad, a symbolic capturing of Moscow, and an economic strategy of seizing oil fields in the south beyond Ukraine. Hitler and his generals disagreed on which of these aspects should take priority and where Germany should focus its energies; deciding on priorities required a compromise. While planning Barbarossa in 1940–1941, in many discussions with his generals, Hitler repeated his order: "Leningrad first, the Donetsk Basin second, Moscow third."1455 Hitler was impatient to get on with his long-desired invasion of the east.

He was convinced Britain would sue for peace, once the Germans triumphed in the Soviet Union, the real area of Germany's interests. General Franz Halder noted in his diaries that, by destroying the Soviet Union, Germany would destroy Britain's hope of victory. Hitler had grown overconfident from his rapid success in Western Europe and the Red Army's ineptitude in the Winter War against Finland in 1939–1940.

He expected victory within a few months and therefore did not prepare for a war lasting into the winter. This meant his troops lacked adequate warm clothing and preparations for a longer campaign when they began their attack. The assumption that the Soviet Union would quickly capitulate would prove to be his undoing.

The Germans had begun massing troops near the Soviet border even before the campaign in the Balkans had finished. By the third week in February 1941, 680,000 German troops were stationed on the Romanian-Soviet border. 39 In preparation for the attack, Hitler moved 3.2 million German and about 500,000 Axis soldiers to the Soviet border, launched many aerial surveillance missions over Soviet territory, and stockpiled materiel in the East.

The Soviets were still taken by surprise, mostly due to Stalin's belief that the Third Reich was unlikely to attack only two years after signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The Soviet leader also believed the Nazis would be likely to finish their war with Britain before opening a new front. He refused to believe repeated warnings from his intelligence services on the Nazi buildup, fearing the reports to be British misinformation designed to spark a war between Germany and the USSR.

Spy Dr. Richard Sorge gave Stalin the exact German launch date; Swedish cryptanalysts led by Arne Beurling also knew the date beforehand, but Sorge and other informers (e.g. From Berlin Police dept.) had previously given different invasion dates which passed peacefully before the actual invasion. In addition, British intelligence gathering information through Ultra warned the Soviet Union of impending invasion several months prior to 22 June 1941. The Germans set up deception operations, from 22 June7, to add substance to their claims that Britain was the real target: Operations Haifisch and Harpune.

These simulated preparations in Norway, the Channel coast and Britain. There were supporting activities such as ship concentrations, reconnaissance flights and training exercises. Some details of these bogus invasion plans were deliberately leaked.

German military planners also researched Napoleon's failed invasion of Russia. In their calculations they concluded that there was little danger of a large-scale retreat of the Soviet army into the Russian interior, as it could not afford to give up the Baltic states, Ukraine, or the Moscow and Leningrad regions, all of which were vital to the Red Army for supply reasons and would thus have to be defended. The strategy Hitler and his generals agreed on involved three separate army groups assigned to capture specific regions and cities of the Soviet Union.

The main German thrusts were conducted along historical invasion routes. Army Group North was to march through the Baltics into northern Russia, and either take or destroy the city of Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg). Army Group Center would advance to Smolensk and then Moscow, marching through what is now Belarus and the west-central regions of Russia proper.

Army Group South was to strike the heavily populated and agricultural heartland of Ukraine, taking Kiev before continuing eastward over the steppes of the southern USSR to the Volga with the aim of controlling the oil-rich Caucasus. Hitler, the OKW and the various high commands disagreed about what the main objectives should be. In preparing for Barbarossa, most of the OKW argued for a straight thrust to Moscow, but Hitler kept asserting his intention to seize the resource-rich Ukraine and Baltics before concentrating on the Soviet capital.

An initial delay, which postponed the start of Barbarossa from mid-May to the end of June 1941, may have been insignificant, especially since the Russian muddy season came late that year. However, more time was lost at various critical moments as Hitler and the OKW suspended operations in order to argue about strategic objectives. The Germans also decided to bring rear forces (mostly Waffen-SS units and Einsatzgruppen) into the conquered territories to counter any partisan activity in areas they controlled.

Despite the estimations held by Hitler and others in the German high command, the Soviet Union was by no means weak. Rapid industrialization in the 1930s had led to industrial output second only to that of the United States, and equal to Germany. Production of military equipment grew steadily, and in the pre-war years the economy became progressively more oriented toward military production.

In the early 1930s, a very modern operational doctrine for the Red Army was developed and promulgated in the 1936 field regulations. On 22 June8 1941, Stalin gave a speech to graduates of military academies in Moscow declaring: "War with Germany is inevitable. If comrade Molotov can manage to postpone the war for two or three months that will be our good fortune, but you yourselves must go off and take measures to raise the combat readiness of our forces".

According to Taylor and Proektor (1974), the Soviet armed forces in the western districts were outnumbered, with 2.6 million Soviet soldiers vs. 3.9 million for the Axis. The overall size of the Soviet armed forces in early 22 June7, though, amounted to a little more than 5 million men, 2.6 million in the west, 1.8 million in the far east, with the rest being deployed or training elsewhere. 62 These figures, however, can be misleading.

Citation needed The figure for Soviet strength in the western districts of the Soviet Union counts only the First Strategic Echelon, which was stationed on and behind the Soviet western frontier to a depth of 400 kilometers; it also underestimates the size of the First Strategic Echelon, which was actually 2.9 million strong. Citation needed The figure does not include the smaller Second Strategic Echelon, which as of 22 June 1941 was in process of moving toward the frontier; according to the Soviet strategic plan, it was scheduled to be in position reinforcing the First Strategic Echelon by early July. The total Axis strength is also exaggerated; 3.3 million German troops were earmarked for participation in Barbarossa, but that figure includes reserves which did not take part in the initial assault.

A further 600,000 troops provided by Germany's allies also participated, but mostly after the initial assault. Total Axis forces available for Barbarossa were therefore in the order of 3.9 million. On 22 June, the German Wehrmacht achieved a local superiority in its initial assault (98 German divisions), including 29 armoured and motorized divisions, some 90% of its mobile forces, attacking on a front of 1,200 km (750 mi) between the Baltic Sea and the Carpathian Mountains, against NKVD border troops and the divisions of the Soviet First Operational Echelon (the part of the First Strategic Echelon stationed immediately behind the frontier in the three western Special Military Districts) because it had completed its deployment and was ready to attack about two weeks before the Red Army was scheduled to have finished its own deployment with the Second Strategic Echelon in place.

At the time, 41% of stationary Soviet bases were located in the near-boundary districts, many of them in the 200 km (120 mi) strip around the border; according to Red Army directive, fuel, equipment, railroad cars, etc. were similarly concentrated there. Moreover, on mobilization, as the war went on, the Red Army gained steadily in strength. While the strength of both sides varied, in general the 1941 campaign was fought with a slight Axis numerical superiority in manpower at the front.

According to Mikhail Meltyukhov (2000:477), by the start of war, the Red Army numbered altogether 5,774,211 troops: 4,605,321 in ground forces, 475,656 in air forces, 353,752 in the navy, 167,582 as border guards and 171,900 in internal troops of the NKVD. In some key weapons systems, however, the Soviet numerical advantage was considerable. In tanks, for example, the Red Army had a large quantitative superiority.

It possessed 23,106 tanks,64 of which about 12,782 were in the five Western Military Districts (three of which directly faced the German invasion front). However, maintenance and readiness standards were very poor; ammunition and radios were in short supply, and many units lacked the trucks needed to carry supplies. Also, from 1938, the Soviets had partly dispersed their tanks to infantry divisions for infantry support, but after their experiences in the Winter War and their observation of the German campaign against France, had begun to emulate the Germans and organize most of their armored assets into large armour divisions and corps.

This reorganization was only partially implemented at the dawn of Barbarossa,65 as not enough tanks were available to bring the mechanized corps up to organic strength. The German Wehrmacht had about 5,200 tanks overall, of which 3,350 were committed to the invasion. This yields a balance of immediately available tanks of about 4:1 in the Red Army's favor.

The most advanced Soviet tank models, however, the T-34 and KV-1, were not available in large numbers early in the war, and only accounted for 7.2% of the total Soviet tank force. The Soviet numerical advantage in heavy equipment was also more than offset by the greatly superior training and readiness of German forces. The Soviet officer corps and high command had been massacred in Stalin's Great Purge (1936–1938).

Of 90 generals arrested, only six survived the purges, as did only 36 of 180 divisional commanders, and just seven out of 57 army corps commanders. In total, some 30,000 Red Army personnel were executed,66 while more were deported to Siberia and replaced with officers deemed more "politically reliable." Three of the five pre-war marshals and about two thirds of the corps and division commanders were shot.

This often left younger, less experienced officers in their places; for example, in 1941, 75% of Red Army officers had held their posts for less than one year. The average Soviet corps commander was 12 years younger than the average German division commander. These officers tended to be very reluctant to take the initiative and often lacked the training necessary for their jobs.

The number of aircraft was also heavily in the Soviets' favor. However, Soviet aircraft were largely obsolete, and Soviet artillery lacked modern fire control techniques. 67 Most Soviet units were on a peacetime footing, explaining why aviation units had their aircraft parked in closely bunched neat rows, rather than dispersed, making easy targets for the Luftwaffe in the first days of the conflict.

Prior to the invasion the VVS (Voenno-Vozdushnye Sily, Soviet Air Force) was forbidden to shoot down Luftwaffe reconnaissance aircraft, despite hundreds of prewar incursions into Soviet airspace. The Soviet war effort in the first phase of the Eastern front war was severely hampered by a shortage of modern aircraft. The Soviet fighter force was equipped with large numbers of obsolete aircraft, such as the I-15 biplane and the I-16.

In 1941, the MiG-3, LaGG-3 and Yak-1 were just starting to roll off the production lines, but were far inferior in all-round performance to the Messerschmitt Bf 109 or later, the Fw 190, when it entered operations in September 1941. Few aircraft had radios and those that were available were unencrypted and did not work reliably. The poor performance of the VVS during the Winter War with Finland had increased the Luftwaffe's confidence that the Soviets could be mastered.

The standard of flight training had been accelerated in preparation for a German attack that was expected to come in 1942 or later. But Soviet pilot training was extremely poor. Order No 0362 of the People's Commissar of Defense, dated 22 June7 1940, ordered flight training to be accelerated and shortened.

Incredibly, while the Soviets had 201 MiG-3s and 37 MiG-1s combat ready on 22 June 1941, only four pilots had been trained to handle these machines. The Red Army was dispersed and unprepared, and units were often separated and without transportation to concentrate prior to combat. Although the Red Army had numerous, well-designed artillery pieces, some of the guns had no ammunition.

Artillery units often lacked transportation to move their guns. Tank units were rarely well-equipped, and also lacked training and logistical support. Maintenance standards were very poor.

Units were sent into combat with no arrangements for refueling, ammunition resupply, or personnel replacement. Often, after a single engagement, units were destroyed or rendered ineffective. The army was in the midst of reorganizing the armor units into large tank corps, adding to the disorganization.

As a result, although on paper the Red Army in 1941 seemed at least the equal of the German army, the reality in the field was far different; incompetent officers, as well as partial lack of equipment, insufficient motorized logistical support, and poor training placed the Red Army at a severe disadvantage. In August 1940 British intelligence had received hints of German plans to attack the Soviets only a week after Hitler informally approved the plans for Barbarossa. 58 Stalin's distrust of the British led to his ignoring the warnings, believing it to be a trick designed to bring the Soviet Union into the war.

5869 In the spring of 1941, Stalin's own intelligence services and American intelligence made regular and repeated warnings of an impending German attack. 70 However, Stalin chose to ignore these warnings. Although acknowledging the possibility of an attack in general and making significant preparations, he decided not to run the risk of provoking Hitler.

71 He also had an ill-founded confidence in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which had been signed just two years before. Last, he also suspected the British of trying to spread false rumours in order to trigger a war between Germany and the USSR. 7273 Consequently, the Soviet border troops were not put on full alert and were sometimes even forbidden to fire back without permission when attacked — though a partial alert was implemented on 22 June7 — they were simply not ready when the German attack came.

Enormous Soviet forces were massed behind the western border in case the Germans did attack. However, these forces were very vulnerable due to changes in the tactical doctrine of the Red Army. In 1938, it had adopted, on the instigation of General Pavlov, a standard linear defence tactic on a line with other nations.

Infantry divisions, reinforced by an organic tank component, would be dug in to form heavily fortified zones. Then came the shock of the Fall of France. The French Army, considered the strongest in the world,citation needed was defeated in a mere six weeks.

Soviet analysis of events, based on incomplete information, concluded that the collapse of the French was caused by a reliance on linear defence and a lack of armored reserves. The Soviets decided not to repeat these mistakes. Instead of digging in for linear defence, the infantry divisions would henceforth be concentrated in large formations.

74 Most tanks would also be concentrated into 29 mechanized corps, each with over 1031 tanks. 75 Should the Germans attack, their armoured spearheads would be cut off and wiped out by the mechanized corps. Citation needed These would then cooperate with the infantry armies to drive back the German infantry, vulnerable in its approach march.

The Soviet left wing, in Ukraine, was to be enormously reinforced to be able to execute a strategic envelopment: after destroying German Army Group South, it would swing north through Poland in the back of Army Groups Centre and North. With the complete annihilation of the encircled German Army thus made inevitable, a Red Army offensive into the rest of Europe would follow. Immediately after the German invasion of the USSR, Adolf Hitler put forward a thesis that the Red Army made extensive preparations for an offensive war in Europe, thus justifying the German invasion as a pre-emptive strike.

78 After the war this view was brought forward by some Wehrmacht leaders, like Wilhelm Keitel. This thesis was reiterated in the 1980s78 based on the analysis of circumstantial evidence. 80 Thus, it has been found that a proposal was drawn up by Zhukov and signed by Vasilevsky and Vatutin suggesting secret mobilization and deploying Red Army troops on the Western border, under the cover of training.

The proposed operation's objective was to cut Germany off from its allies, and especially Romania with its oilfields that Germany needed to conduct the war. According to Viktor Suvorov, Stalin planned to use Germany as a proxy (the "Icebreaker") against the West. Stalin's idea was to fuel Hitler's aggressive plans against Europe, and only after the countries had fought each other—and exhausted themselves to some extent—would the USSR make their strike.

For this reason Stalin provided significant material and political support to Adolf Hitler, while at the same time preparing the Red Army to "liberate" the whole of Europe from Nazi occupation. Suvorov argued that German Barbarossa actually was a pre-emptive strike that capitalized on the Soviet troop concentrations immediately on the 1941 borders. Some others who support the idea that Stalin prepared to attack, like Mikhail Meltyukhov, reject this part of Suvorov's theory, arguing that both sides prepared for attack on their own, not in response to the other side's preparations.

Although this thesis has drawn the attention of the general public in some countries,78 and has been supported by some historians (examples include Vladimir Nevezhin, Boris Sokolov, Valeri Danilov, Joachim Hoffmann and Mark Solonin), it has not been accepted by the majority of western historians. 16th Army (16. 18th Army (18.