Perhaps it wasn’t Operation Overlord that defeated Hitler, but the failure of Operation Barbarossa
9 April 2021 • 5:00am
Jonathan Dimbleby: Like many of my generation, I was brought up to assume that it was the British, supported by the Americans, who beat Hitler
Credit: Getty
Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 was the biggest, bloodiest and most barbarous military enterprise in the history of warfare. The purpose of Operation Barbarossa, as the Führer codenamed it, was also the most decisive campaign of the Second World War. Had he achieved its objective – the annihilation of the Soviet Union – he would have been the master of Europe’s destiny. As it was, by the time his armies had reached the gates of Moscow less than six months later, any prospect he might once have had of realising his delusional vision of a Thousand Year Reich had already vanished.