Christian Hartmann's Operation Barbarossa

Christian Hartmann’s novel, Operation Barbarossa is about the battle of the same name between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia from 1941 to 1942. In his novel, Hartmann writes not only about the battle, but of the cultural, political, and economic effects WWII had on Nazi Germany, and other European countries after the events of WWI. Hartmann is a German historian, so naturally he writes from the perspective of the Germans and explains Hitler’s motive as the war progresses. Although he named his book after the battle, Hartmann does not go in depth about the gruesome statistics, bloody imagery, or action-filled narratives like other books dedicated to the war or certain battles. Rather, he tells the readers how the ideology of Germany and Hitler

He believed that they were a threat to his world domination and that Josef Stalin isn’t someone to trust. Relationship between each country was peaceful at the start of the war as Hartmann describes. On August 23, 1939, a few days before Germany’s invasion of Gdansk, Poland, Germany, and the Soviet Union signs the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. It was a neutrality pact that declared neither government to be an ally or enemy of the other party. This treaty according to the Germans, would keep Russian influence and invasion away from Western Europe as the Germans were preparing an all-out war. Adolf Hitler was afraid of the Soviet Union not only for its size and numbers but its authority of Eastern Europe and other countries along its borders such as Ukraine and Bulgaria. He knew that if his plans were to be successful, he must seize Moscow

He and his generals come up with the plan to take over Moscow, which was called Operation Barbarossa. Unlike other operations, this plan took place between the summer and ended almost at the beginning of winter. Hitler would take the war onto the Eastern Front with his army of 4 million Axis personnel, consisting of Wehrmacht, Russians, volunteers, and mechanized units. All was going according to plan as within a few weeks of the invasion, the German Army had seized land about 500km from the border. The motivation for Hitler to invade the Soviet Union was to have control of the country’s oil fields and industrial regions in order to expand the war outside of Europe. All was good until the Soviet’s Red Army stopped the German’s at Moscow, forcing them to retreat back home as the bitter winter was taking hold. The main reason for Russia’s comeback was due to the United States’ Land Lease policy, which supplied its allies such as France and the Soviet Union with food, oil, and materiel. The invasion would eventually end as the Germans were losing the war of attrition with the