What was Barbarossa's plan briefly? The German plan Barbarossa in brief

The operation was supposed to ensure a quick and unconditional victory of Nazi Germany over the USSR thanks to the surprise factor. However, despite preparations in secrecy, the Barbarossa plan failed, and the war between the Germans and domestic troops dragged on and lasted from 1941 to 1945, after which it ended in the defeat of Germany.

The Barbarossa plan got its name in honor of the medieval King of Germany, Frederick 1, who was a glorious commander and, as was previously believed, planned raids on Rus' in the 12th century. Later, this myth was debunked.

Contents of the Barbarossa plan and its significance

The attack on the USSR was supposed to be Germany's next step towards world domination. The victory over Russia and the conquest of its territories should have opened up the opportunity for Hitler to enter into an open conflict with the United States for the right to redistribute the world. Having managed to conquer almost all of Europe, Hitler was confident of his unconditional victory over the USSR.

In order for the attack to go smoothly, it was necessary to develop a plan for a military attack. This plan became Barbarossa. Before planning the attack, Hitler ordered his intelligence officers to collect detailed information about the Soviet army and its weapons. After analyzing the information received, Hitler decided that the German army was significantly superior to the Red Army of the USSR - based on this, they began to plan the attack.

The essence of the Barbarossa plan was to strike the Red Army suddenly, on its own territory and, taking advantage of the unpreparedness of the troops and the technical superiority of the German army, to conquer the USSR within two and a half months.

At first it was planned to conquer the front line located on the territory of Belarus by wedging German troops from different sides of the Soviet army. The disunited and unprepared Red Army had to quickly surrender. Then Hitler was going to move towards Kyiv in order to conquer the territory of Ukraine and, most importantly, its sea routes and cut off the paths of Soviet troops. Thus, he could give his troops the opportunity to further attack the USSR from the south and north. In parallel, Hitler's army was supposed to launch an offensive from Norway. Having surrounded the USSR on all sides, Hitler planned to move towards Moscow.

However, already at the very beginning of the war, the German command realized that the plans began to collapse.

Conducting Operation Barbarossa and its results

Hitler's first and main mistake was that he underestimated the strength and weapons of the Soviet army, which, according to historians, was superior to the German in some areas. In addition, the war took place on the territory of the Russian army, so the fighters easily navigated the terrain and could fight in different natural conditions, which was not so easy for the Germans. Another distinctive feature of the Russian army, which greatly influenced the failure of Operation Barbarossa, was the ability of Russian soldiers to mobilize in the shortest possible time to fight back, which did not allow the army to be divided into disparate units.

Hitler set the task for his troops to quickly penetrate deep into the Soviet army and divide it, not allowing Russian soldiers to carry out large operations, as this could be dangerous. The plan was to split the Soviet army and force it to flee. However, everything turned out the other way around. Hitler's troops quickly penetrated deep into the Russian troops, but they were unable to conquer the flanks and defeat the army either. The Germans tried to follow the plan and encircled the Russian detachments, but this did not lead to any results - the Russians quickly emerged from the encirclement thanks to the surprisingly clear and competent leadership of their military leaders. As a result, despite the fact that Hitler’s army still won, it happened very slowly, which ruined the entire plan of rapid conquest.

On the approaches to Moscow, Hitler's army was no longer so strong. Exhausted by endless battles that dragged on for a long time, the army could not go on to conquer the capital, in addition, the bombing of Moscow never began, although according to Hitler’s plans, by that time the city should no longer be on the map. The same thing happened with Leningrad, which was besieged, but never surrendered and was not destroyed from the air.

The operation, which was planned as a swift, victorious attack, turned into a protracted war and stretched from two months to several years.

Reasons for the failure of Plan Barbarossa

The main reasons for the failure of the operation can be considered:

• Lack of accurate data on the combat power of the Russian army. Hitler and his command underestimated the capabilities of Soviet soldiers, which led to the creation of an incorrect offensive and battle plan. The Russians gave a strong resistance, which the Germans did not count on;
• Excellent counterintelligence. Unlike the Germans, the Russians were able to establish good reconnaissance, thanks to which the command was almost always aware of the enemy’s next move and could respond adequately to it. The Germans failed to exploit the effect of surprise;
• Difficult territories. It was difficult for Hitler's troops to get maps of the Soviet terrain, in addition, they were not used to fighting in such conditions (unlike the Russians), so very often impenetrable forests and swamps helped the Soviet army escape and deceive the enemy;
• Lack of control over the course of the war. The German command already in the first few months lost control over the course of military operations, the Barbarossa plan turned out to be impracticable, and the Red Army led a skillful counter-offensive.

Plan Barbarossa is a program developed by Hitler for the conquest of the USSR.

It is considered the Fuhrer’s most important miscalculation, which four years after the start of the plan led Germany to defeat.

Prerequisites

From the moment they came to power in 1933, the Nazis promoted a policy of occupying the eastern territories. Such propaganda was very convenient: it allowed the Nazis to gain the support of the people, who were convinced that all of Germany's problems arose as a result of the loss in the First World War and the loss of territories.

Germany must regain its former power, the Nazis declared, and be reborn as a great empire. In turn, the promise of imperial greatness allowed the oligarchs, whose proteges were the Nazis, not to deal with the solution of social and economic problems in the country and to keep their capital for themselves.

The plan to attack the USSR was given the code name "Barbarossa" in honor of Frederick I Barbarossa, the 12th-century German ruler who also tried to revive the empire of Charlemagne. The authors of the concept seemed to hint that what Friedrich could not do to the end, Adolf Hitler would do. At the same time, the inevitability of war with the Soviet Union was also promoted.

In 1939, Germany concluded a non-aggression pact with the USSR in order to protect itself from the east, and in September of the same year, both countries almost simultaneously attacked Poland: the USSR appropriated the eastern regions (Western Ukraine and Western Belarus), and the rest went to the Germans, establishing the Polish General Government.

Why was it necessary to attack the USSR?

In achieving world domination, Hitler's Germany had a serious rival - Great Britain. And she hoped for help from two other superpowers - the USSR and the USA. To overcome their main enemy, the Nazis developed a plan for a phased takeover of the world:

• The defeat of the USSR will lead to the strengthening of the Nazi ally - Japan;
• Japan, with German support, will defeat the United States.
• Having lost both allies, England will leave Europe and Germany will remain dominant in it.

Before arriving at this plan, the Nazi government held a series of negotiations with several countries, including the Soviet Union. In 1940, the Berlin Pact was initiated to rally new allies around Germany against England. The USSR responded that it was ready to join the treaty only under a number of certain conditions, which the German side could not accept.

Thus, the USSR was declared a serious enemy of Germany and the “last frontier” on the Nazis’ path to domination in Europe.

Hit from multiple sides

The German government was confident that “Russia” (as they called the Soviet Union) could be conquered with one lightning attack. To do this, the attack had to be carried out from several sides:

• North - from the Baltic side;
• South - from the Ukrainian side;
• Later, a separate operation was planned to attack Baku.

The Nazis set a tough task - to conquer the Soviet Union by the spring of 1941. Moscow was considered an important point - the largest and most developed city in the country, its capital and most important railway junction. The Nazi government believed that the Red Army would throw all its forces into defending Moscow, weakening other strategically important areas.

Plans were also prepared for the division of the USSR. The European part of the country was planned to be decentralized and divided into several economic zones, which were to become an agricultural and raw materials appendage of the Reich. Modern industrial equipment had to be taken to the Reich. In the future, these zones were planned to be reorganized into separate states controlled by Germany.

Hitler's Miscalculations

Barbarossa's plan was only good on paper. The Nazis underestimated the capabilities of Soviet defense and clearly overestimated their own strength. Instead of a lightning strike, they received a many-year protracted war, which ended with the capture of Berlin by Soviet troops and the fall of the fascist regime.

Meanwhile, at first this was not noticeable: Soviet troops suffered defeats in border battles, as well as at the first stage of the Great Patriotic War, when Germany quite quickly conquered the territories of Ukraine and Belarus.

The defeats of the Soviet army were due to several reasons, including:

• Massive Stalinist repressions, including against the high command;
• The new commanders who took their posts in place of those repressed were not distinguished by their professionalism and proper training;
• Insufficient interaction between different types of troops, their poor preparation for a major war;
• The Soviet army leadership hoped for an offensive nature of the war and did not do enough defensive operations.

The USSR began to be developed under the leadership of General Paulus on July 21, 1940, i.e. at a time when Germany managed to occupy France and achieve its surrender. The plan was finally approved on December 18. It was assumed that victory over the USSR would be won in the shortest possible time - even before defeat was suffered. To achieve this, Hitler ordered tanks to be sent to the main enemy forces in order to quickly destroy the ground forces and prevent the troops from retreating deeper.

It was assumed that this would be quite enough for victory, and in the shortest possible time the USSR would be forced to capitulate. According to calculations, the implementation of the plan should have taken no more than 5 months. Thus, the Wehrmacht assumed that even before the onset of winter the enemy would be defeated, and the Germans would not have to face the harsh Russian cold.

In the very first days of the invasion, the troops of the Third Reich had to advance so far that the USSR soldiers could not attack objects located in the previously captured territories. Next, it was planned to cut off the Asian part of the country from the European one, destroy industrial centers with the help of Luftwaffe forces and bomb the Baltic Fleet, launching several powerful raids on bases. So that the USSR air forces could not interfere with the implementation of the plan, they were also supposed to be quickly destroyed.

The subtleties of the Barbarossa plan

According to the plan, not only the Germans were to participate in the operation. It was assumed that soldiers from Finland and Romania would also fight, with the former destroying the enemy on the Hanko Peninsula and covering the advance of German troops from Norway, while the latter would be in the rear. Of course, both the Finns and the Romanians had to act under the Germans and carry out all the orders given to them.

The task was to attack the territory of Belarus, destroy the enemy in the Leningrad direction and in the Baltic states. Then the soldiers had to capture Leningrad and Kronstadt and, in the shortest possible time, destroy all enemy defensive forces located on the way to Moscow. The Air Force at this time was supposed to capture or destroy stations, railway stations and bridges, as well as carry out several powerful raids on enemy military bases.

Thus, in the very first weeks, the Germans were supposed to capture the largest and destroy communication centers, after which victory over the USSR, according to the plan, became only a matter of time and did not require large sacrifices.

The collapse of Plan Barbarossa. Volume II [Thwarted Blitzkrieg] Glanz David M

Objectives of Operation Barbarossa

Objectives of Operation Barbarossa

According to the plans of Hitler and his generals, during the implementation of their “Barbarossa” plan, Smolensk was by no means assigned the role of an army cemetery; the ancient Russian city of Smolensk was to become only a milestone on the path to Moscow and a quick victory. The German Plan Barbarossa called for an invasion of the Soviet Union with three army groups of over 3 million men, led by an armada of four tank groups consisting of 19 tank and 15 motorized divisions and approximately 3,350 tanks. Having suddenly attacked with the support of the Luftwaffe, consisting of 2,770 fighters and bombers, these forces were to “destroy the main forces of the Russian ground forces in Western Russia with the bold actions of tank wedges penetrating far into enemy territory, preventing the withdrawal of combat-ready enemy troops into the interior of the country” 1 . In other words, defeat most of the Red Army west of the Western Dvina and Dnieper rivers.

After completing this task, the Wehrmacht had to, in the course of a rapid advance, destroy the remnants of the Red Army, capture cities such as Leningrad and Kiev, the breadbasket of the Soviet Union, Ukraine, as well as the capital of the Stalinist Soviet Union, Moscow. The Barbarossa plan did not contain a schedule for the advance of troops, but it prescribed reaching a line “due to which the Russian Air Force would not be able to carry out raids on targets on the territory of the German Reich,” that is, to the foothills of the Urals east of Moscow. Although the completed plan allowed the tank forces to turn north (“Thus, conditions must be created for strong mobile units to turn north”), if necessary, and capture Moscow, the version of the operation presented by Hitler to the generals on December 5, 1940, provided that “ the decision whether or not to advance on Moscow or to the territories east of Moscow cannot be made until the final defeat of the Soviet forces trapped in the supposed Northern and Southern pockets.” Hitler also emphasized that “the Russians cannot be allowed to create a line of defense” 2.

Thus, the key premises on which the Barbarossa plan was built were the following:

– the main forces of the Russian ground forces should be defeated west of the Western Dvina and Dnieper rivers;

– the Luftwaffe destroys the Red Air Force with surprise attacks on the ground or in the air in the first days after the start of the operation;

– do not allow Russian troops to retreat and create rear lines of defense;

- the Wehrmacht does not launch an attack on Moscow until the Russian forces in the supposed Northern and Southern Pockets are completely defeated [but in the final version of Hitler’s plan, only the Northern Pocket was discussed].

Other important prerequisites that are not clearly stated in the plan:

– judging by the failures of the Soviet-Finnish war and the actions during the occupation of Eastern Poland, the Red Army, although numerous, is extremely slow;

– due to Stalin’s purges of 1937–1938. the command cadres of the Red Army are inexperienced, highly “politicized” and lack initiative;

– The Red Army consists of 190 divisions and numerous tank brigades capable of conducting active combat operations and, in the event of general mobilization, is capable of calling into its ranks the human potential that allows the staffing of over 300 more divisions;

– the undeveloped communications network of the Soviet Union does not allow for rapid mobilization, therefore the regular army must be destroyed even before, as a result of mobilization, the enemy has the opportunity to bring the army to the previous level or increase the size of the army;

– the Slavs, unlike the Germans, are in principle incapable of conducting effective combat operations;

– the national minorities of the Soviet Union (Ukrainians, Belarusians, peoples of the Caucasus and Central Asia) were and remain disloyal to the existing government system and will not fight for Stalin’s communist regime.

Thus, Germany, having invaded the Soviet Union, was unshakably confident of an early victory. And in accordance with the plan, on June 22, the German Luftwaffe actually destroyed most of the Red Army Air Force on the ground, and its armies and tank groups, breaking through the Russian defenses, rushed into the depths of the Soviet Union. Although the Germans were very surprised that the Russians had a large number of tanks and armored vehicles, in no way inferior to modern German vehicles and even superior to the German ones (for example, KV and T-34 tanks), German troops were able to destroy and encircle many of the Soviet armies defending border areas. Except in Ukraine, where huge Soviet tank and mechanized forces did slow the advance of Army Group South. As for the armies and tank groups of Army Group Center and Army Group North, they managed to defeat three Soviet armies in Belarus and two in the Baltic states, forcing them into a disorderly retreat.