'OPERATION BARBAROSSA': HITLER'S SURPRISE ASSAULT ON STALIN'S RUSSIA - 22.JUNE.1941

'OPERATION BARBAROSSA':  HITLER'S SURPRISE ASSAULT ON STALIN'S RUSSIA - SUMMER OF 1941

Joseph Goebbels announces Germany's invasion of Russia - June 22, 1941
Süddeutscher Verlag -Bilderdienst, Munich

Operation Barbarossa: the German invasion of the Soviet Union, 21 June 1941 to 5 December 1941
Wikipedia - "Eastern Front (World War II)"

'Operation Barbarossa' - the German surprise invasion of Russia’s Polish holdings: June 22, 1941


German troops attacking the Russians 1941
National Archives 242-GAP-286B-4

At first, many Ukrainians - having suffered so much at the hands of Stalin - viewed the Germans as liberators
But Hitler ordered his troops to cease their fraternizing with the locals.  The mood soon turned sour.

A German soldier inspecting the remains of destroyed Soviet forces in June 1941
Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive)
Wikipedia - "World War II"

Soviet soldiers taken prisoners at Minsk - July 1941
Deutsches Bundesarchiv
Wikipedia - "Operation Barbarossa"

Russian POW's on the way to German prison camps
Some 2.8 million Soviet prisoners died of exposure, hunger, disease, or brutality in just eight months of 1941–1942
Armia Krajowa
Wikipedia - "Operation Barbarossa"

German infantry and armoured vehicles battle the Soviet defenders on the streets of Kharkov, October 1941.
Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive)
Wikipedia - "World War II"

Russian civilians digging anti-trench ditches outside Moscow


Soviet troops charging German lines southeast of Moscow - December 1941


Soviet troops at the Battle of Moscow - December 1941

The search for dead relatives outside of Kerch, on the Crimean peninsula (Ukraine) - February 1942

The Axis controlled territory in Europe at the time of its maximal expansion (1941–42).
Wikipedia - "World War II"

NOW IN POSSESSION OF MOST OF EASTERN EUROPE, HITLER'S GERMAN FORCES CAN BE MORE THOROUGH IN THEIR HUNT FOR JEWISH 'UNDESIRABLES'

Jews arrested in Warsaw
National Archives

Jewish men arrested (prior to execution) in Czestochowa
Jewish prisoners stand before Jews executed in Czestochowa

A Lithuanian convict released by the Germans beating Jews to death with a lead pipe


A Jewish rape victim in the city of Lvov --
one of 1000 Jews rounded up and turned over to the Germans by local citizens

A Polish Jews about to be executed by an SS officer
and dumped into a pit with other dead Jews

Polish Jews blindfolded and about to be executed


Terrified Polish peasants digging a grave in anticipation of a Jewish woman and child
about to be shot by an SS Einsatzgruppen officer - 1944
National Archives


Latvian Jewish women and children near the town of Lijepaja
prior to being shot by SS Einsatzgruppen
A German police officer shootsJewish women still alive
after a mass execution of Jews from the Mizocz ghetto, Poland, October 14, 1942

Polish Jews stripped and about to be executed

German soldiers executing 'undesireables'