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Operation “Barbarossa”• June 22, 1941
• German army invades USSR with 3 million men
• Soviet resistance almost collapses – Germans occupy huge areas of Eastern Russia
• Germans capture millions of Soviet POW’s
Battle of Moscow
• German offensive slows down near Moscow by October rains, mud
• Attacks halted by arrival of “General” Winter (-50oC !) and Soviet counter-attack
• Germans driven backwards 150-200 km
before front stabilizes
Battle of Stalingrad
• Germans attempt to take city – Soviets resist fanatically – city mostly destroyed
• Nov. Soviets counter-attack and encircle German 6th Army (200 000 men) inside Stalingrad
• Jan. 1943 – 6th Army surrenders – major defeat for Germany
Summer 1943: Battle of Kursk
Largest tank battle in history
German attacks fail – huge numbers of tanks lost
Germans can now only retreat
The Final Act...
• Hitler spends final days in underground bunker
• April 30: Hitler & Eva Braun commit suicide
What About Il Duce ?
• 1945: Mussolini captured by partisans and killed
• Body is hung up by heels and ridiculed by Italians