Editing Operation Barbarossa (section)

==German preparations==
[[File:Wehrmacht Panzergruppe 3 пад Пружанай 1941.gif|thumb|left|Elements of the German [[3rd Panzer Army]] on the road near [[Pruzhany]], June 1941]]

The Germans had begun massing troops near the Soviet border even before the [[Balkans Campaign (World War II)|campaign in the Balkans]] had finished. By the third week of February 1941, 680,000 German soldiers were gathered in assembly areas on the Romanian-Soviet border.{{sfn|Shirer|1990|p=822}} In preparation for the attack, Hitler had secretly moved upwards of 3 million German troops and approximately 690,000 Axis soldiers to the Soviet border regions.{{sfn|Müller|2016|p=175}} Additional ''Luftwaffe'' operations included numerous [[Reconnaissance|aerial surveillance]] missions over Soviet territory many months before the attack.{{sfn|Bergström|2007|p=12}}

Although the Soviet High Command was alarmed by this, Stalin's belief that Nazi Germany was unlikely to attack only two years after signing the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact resulted in slow Soviet preparation.{{sfn|Hastings|2012|p=141}} This fact aside, the Soviets did not entirely overlook the threat of their German neighbor. Well before the German invasion, Marshal [[Semyon Timoshenko]] referred to the Germans as the Soviet Union's "most important and strongest enemy," and as early as July 1940, the Red Army Chief of Staff, [[Boris Shaposhnikov]], produced a preliminary three-pronged plan of attack for what a German invasion might look like, remarkably similar to the actual attack.{{sfn|Overy|2006|pp=490–491}} Since April 1941, the Germans had begun setting up [[Operation Haifisch]] and [[Operation Harpune]] to substantiate their claims that Britain was the real target. These simulated preparations in [[Norway]] and the [[English Channel]] coast included activities such as ship concentrations, reconnaissance flights and training exercises.{{sfn|Ziemke|1959|p=138}}

{{anchor|Reasons for delay}}The reasons for the postponement of Barbarossa from the initially planned date of 15 May to the actual invasion date of 22 June 1941 (a 38-day delay) are debated. The reason most commonly cited is the unforeseen contingency of [[Invasion of Yugoslavia|invading Yugoslavia]] and [[Battle of Greece|Greece]] on 6 April 1941 until June 1941.{{sfn|Middleton|1981}} Historian Thomas B. Buell indicates that Finland and Romania, which weren't involved in initial German planning, needed additional time to prepare to participate in the invasion. Buell adds that an unusually wet winter kept rivers at full flood until late spring.{{sfn|Bradley|Buell|2002|p=page 101}}{{Efn|Flooding was so bad that Guderian wrote: "The Balkans Campaign had been concluded with all the speed desired, and the troops there engaged which were now needed for Russia were withdrawn according to plan and very fast. But all the same there was a definite delay in the opening of our Russian Campaign. Furthermore we had had a very wet spring; the Bug and its tributaries were at flood level until well into May and the nearby ground was swampy and almost impassable."{{sfn|Guderian|2002|p=145}} }} The floods may have discouraged an earlier attack, even if they occurred before the end of the Balkans Campaign.<ref>{{harvnb|Bradley|Buell|2002|pp=35–40}}; {{harvnb|Hillgruber|1965|pp=506–507}}; {{harvnb|Vogel|1995|p=483}}; {{harvnb|Stahel|2009|p=140}}</ref>{{Efn|Guderian wrote: "A delay was almost certainly inevitable given that the late spring thaw had swelled and in some cases flooded the major waterways, impeding mobile operations over the sodden ground."{{sfn|Guderian|2002|p=145}} Blumentritt: "...&nbsp;the ground was soft and boggy and the roads were covered with mud. Normally May brought a change of conditions; the water receded and movement was less hampered. But 1941 was an exceptional year, and at the end of June the Bug, a Polish river near Brest-Litovsk, was still overflowing its banks."{{sfn|Blumentritt|1952|p=101}}}}

[[File:Hitler and von Brauchitsch 1941.jpg|thumb|upright|[[OKH]] commander, Field Marshal [[Walther von Brauchitsch]], and Hitler study maps during the early days of Hitler's Soviet campaign]]

The importance of the delay is still debated. [[William Shirer]] argued that Hitler's Balkan Campaign had delayed the commencement of Barbarossa by several weeks and thereby jeopardised it.{{sfn|Shirer|1990|pp=829–830}} Many later historians argue that the 22 June start date was sufficient for the German offensive to reach Moscow by September.{{sfn|Bradley|Buell|2002|pp=35–40}}{{sfn|Forczyk|2006|p=44}}{{sfn|Stockings|Hancock|2013|pp=581–84}}{{sfn|Hooker|1999}} [[Antony Beevor]] wrote in 2012 about the delay caused by German attacks in the Balkans that "most [historians] accept that it made little difference" to the eventual outcome of Barbarossa.{{sfn|Beevor|2012|p=158}}

The Germans deployed one independent regiment, one separate motorised training brigade and 153 divisions for Barbarossa, which included 104 infantry, 19 [[panzer]] and 15 [[motorised infantry]] divisions in three army groups, nine [[Security Division (Wehrmacht)|security divisions]] to operate in conquered territories, four divisions in Finland{{Efn|For the Finnish President, [[Risto Ryti]], the attack against the Soviet Union was part of the struggle against Bolshevism and one of Finland's "traditional enemies".{{sfn|Menger|1997|p=532}} }} and two divisions as reserve under the direct control of [[OKH]].{{sfn|Glantz|2010a|pp=20, 34}} These were equipped with 6,867 armoured vehicles, of which 3,350–3,795 were tanks, 2,770–4,389 aircraft (that amounted to 65 percent of the ''Luftwaffe''), 7,200–23,435 artillery pieces, 17,081 mortars, about 600,000 motor vehicles and 625,000–700,000 horses.{{sfn|Glantz|2010a|pp=20, 25}}{{sfn|Clark|2012|pp=73–74}}{{sfn|Liedtke|2016|p=220}}{{sfn|Bergström|2007|p=129}}{{sfn|Askey|2014|p=80}} Finland slated 14 divisions for the invasion, and Romania offered 13 divisions and eight brigades over the course of Barbarossa.{{sfn|Glantz|2010a|p=20}} The entire Axis forces, 3.8&nbsp;million personnel,{{sfn|Glantz|2001|p=9}} deployed across a front extending from the Arctic Ocean southward to the [[Black Sea]],{{sfn|Glantz|2010a|p=18}} were all controlled by the OKH and organised into [[Army Norway (Wehrmacht)|Army Norway]], [[Army Group North]], [[Army Group Centre]] and [[Army Group South]], alongside three [[luftflotte|''Luftflotten'']] (air fleets, the air force equivalent of army groups) that supported the army groups: [[Luftflotte 1]] for North, [[Luftflotte 2]] for Centre and [[Luftflotte 4]] for South.{{sfn|Glantz|2010a|p=20}}

Army Norway was to operate in far northern [[Scandinavia]] and [[Northwest Russia|bordering Soviet territories]].{{sfn|Glantz|2010a|p=20}} Army Group North was to march through Latvia and Estonia into northern Russia, then either take or destroy the city of [[Leningrad]], and link up with Finnish forces.{{sfn|Glantz|2011|p=36}}{{sfn|Higgins|1966|pp=11–59}} Army Group Centre, the army group equipped with the most armour and air power,{{sfn|Glantz|2011|p=14}} was to strike from Poland into [[Belorussia]] and the west-central regions of Russia proper, and advance to [[Smolensk]] and then Moscow.{{sfn|Higgins|1966|pp=11–59}} Army Group South was to strike the heavily populated and agricultural heartland of Ukraine, taking [[Kiev]] before continuing eastward over the [[steppe]]s of southern USSR to the Volga with the aim of controlling the oil-rich [[Caucasus]].{{sfn|Higgins|1966|pp=11–59}} Army Group South was deployed in two sections separated by a {{convert|198|mi|km|adj=on}} gap. The northern section, which contained the army group's only panzer group, was in southern Poland right next to Army Group Centre, and the southern section was in Romania.{{sfn|Glantz|2011|p=40}}

The German forces in the rear (mostly {{lang|de|[[Waffen-SS]]}} and {{lang|de|Einsatzgruppen}} units) were to operate in conquered territories to counter any [[Soviet partisans|partisan]] activity in areas they controlled, as well as to [[Commissar Order|execute captured Soviet political commissars]] and Jews.{{sfn|Hartmann|2013|pp=9–24}}{{efn|By the summer of 1941, formations of the ''Kommandostab Reichsführer-SS'', comprising Waffen-SS brigades, were deployed alongside the Wehrmacht in the occupied Soviet territories. These units were not merely security forces but actively participated in early Holocaust massacres, including mass shootings of Jews and other targeted groups. Their operations were part of a broader SS strategy to cleanse occupied regions, revealing the Waffen-SS's deep entanglement with the machinery of genocide.{{sfn|Cüppers|2014|pp=286–301}} Far from being a purely military organization, the Waffen-SS maintained deep institutional and personnel ties to the broader SS apparatus, including the concentration camp system. Many members rotated between front-line service and roles in the administration or guarding of camps, especially from 1942 onward. This undermines the myth of a strict separation between the Waffen-SS and the perpetration of Nazi atrocities.{{sfn|Schulte|Lieb|Wegner|2014|pp=15–16}} }} On 17 June, [[Reich Security Main Office]] (RSHA) chief [[Reinhard Heydrich]] briefed around thirty to fifty {{lang|de|Einsatzgruppen}} commanders on "the policy of eliminating Jews in Soviet territories, at least in general terms".{{sfn|Breitman|1991|p=434}} While the {{lang|de|Einsatzgruppen}} were assigned to the ''Wehrmacht''{{'}}s units, which provided them with supplies such as gasoline and food, they were controlled by the RSHA.{{sfn|Hilberg|1961|pp=177–183}} The official plan for Barbarossa assumed that the army groups would be able to advance freely to their primary objectives simultaneously, without spreading thin, once they had won the border battles and destroyed the Red Army's forces in the border area.{{sfn|Glantz|2010a|p=21}}