First Contact Russia

The German 297th Infantry Division probing forward during the opening day of Operation Barbarossa unexpectedly ran into the Soviet 41st Infantry Division. The Soviet 41st Infantry Division was surprisingly alert on June 22, and the German 297th was not expecting …

1942-06-22

KS03

The German 297th Infantry Division probing forward during the opening day of Operation Barbarossa unexpectedly ran into the Soviet 41st Infantry Division. The Soviet 41st Infantry Division was surprisingly alert on June 22, and the German 297th was not expecting to run into real opposition. Luckily the German artillery was ready to support them.

Stojanow, Poland

Operation Barbarossa was the code name for the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, which started on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. The operation put into action Nazi Germany's ideological goal of conquering the western Soviet Union so as to repopulate it with Germans. The German Generalplan Ost aimed to use some of the conquered people as slave labour for the Axis war effort while acquiring the oil reserves of the Caucasus as well as the agricultural resources of various Soviet territories. Their ultimate goal included the eventual extermination, enslavement, Germanization and mass deportation to Siberia of the Slavic peoples, and to create more Lebensraum for Germany.

Wikipedia: Operation Barbarossa

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