From German Invasion to Soviet Victory

Abstract

Within three months of Germany’s invasion of the USSR on 22 June 1941, Leningrad was blockaded, Kiev occupied, and the Battle of Moscow impending.¹ Although over the previous few months the Soviet government had come to expect war, the imminence of it had been much underestimated. The speed of the German advance prompted reactions varying from surprise to panic. Imbued with the belief that it was invincible, the Red Army had to contend with the reality of its command weakened by Stalin’s purges, its training and strategic plans ideologically dismissive of defensive warfare, and its equipment often in need of modernisation.