Kremlin Armory Moscow

Posted on November 08, 2011 by Admin
Kremlin Armory Moscow

Kremlin Armory Moscow

On June 22nd 1941, the forces of Nazi Germany began the largest land campaign in the history of mankind. It would turn into the world's largest conflict, both in terms of men/material displaced, and the number of casualties inflicted. This massive land war would last a little over three years, and would decide the fate of the world. During this time, there were two battles that decided the course of Barbarossa, and the fate of the war. One of these, the Battle of Moscow, began and ended before the Americans had entered the war in full.

However, to say that the war was a surprise to either side of the conflict is definitely a mis-statement. Hitler had made clear in his half-memoir, half-manifesto Mein Kampf, that the communists in Germany (and thereby the international communist community), was to blame for Germany's loss during the First World War. The Germans saw Russia as a necessary source of raw materials and expansionary space. The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact had been meant by both sides as a temporary stop-gap, and both were keeping a close eye on one another. In 1940, it was only a matter of who would invade and when, and by May of 1941, Stalin went so far as to address graduates of the Soviet Military Academy, telling them that war with Germany would be their future.

More than this practical realization, the ideological differences between the two totalitarian states would always be a major point of contention. No amount of diplomatic agreements could change the fact that Hitler saw all Bolsheviks as the enemy (Mein Kampf), and that the Soviets, had tried to intervene directly in the outcome of the Friekorps movement in Germany. Both sides advocated the supremacy of the state, but one side advocated a class-based and racist ideology, while the other advocated a class-less society, although it apparently enfranchised a new class. In the end, war was inevitable.