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Kate Nicholls

Why did Hitler order the German invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 nd June
1941?
In 1939 Hitler had signed the Nazi- Soviet pact with Stalin but he had always planned to invade
Russia
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Secondly, there was a
lot of land that Germany could benefit from; he called it Lebensraum (German living space)
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The
romance of conquering the Soviets also made up a large part of Hitler’s determination to conquer
the USSR as had not been invaded since 1812 by Napoleon Bonaparte
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However he specifies Russian
inferiority in his book, Mien Kampf
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Hitler and the Nazis
were extreme fascists which puts the two countries on opposite ends of a political spectrum
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By conquering Russia, Hitler
would essentially be killing two birds with one stone, that’s getting rid of substandard races and
communism
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Russia consists of 17,075,400 square kilometers of land, making it the largest country in the world
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Hitler saw all of this as lebensraum for the German people
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Because Russia is so large it is home to enormous amounts of natural resources; including oil, coal,
lumber, steel, copper, lead and medicinal plants and herbs like opium
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Industry in materials such as coal and oil had more than tripled what it
had been at the start of the revolution and Hitler saw this as a gold mine
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This made invasion almost
impossible to resist
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It had been a huge defeat and this made Hitler determined to prove how
powerful he was by defeating what 1000,000 soldiers had failed to
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So we know why he invaded (because he hoped to gain land, resources and support and to wipe out
communism) but why did he choose to invade on 22nd June 1941?
During the industrial revolution Stalin had built up a reputation for himself
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This contributed to both the justification of the Nazi attack but also their belief that they
would succeed
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In this propaganda he claimed that
the Red Army was preparing to attack them, and their own invasion was necessary as a pre-emptive
strike to give them the upper hand
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Right?
In autumn 1940 German officials warned Hitler of the dangers of an invasion on the USSR and
advised him to put the invasion off
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However, other officials argued that Russia was harmless in its current
state and so they should seize the opportunity
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However, the Nazis worked out that if they were to invade at that time then they would
completely drain the economy
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He expected victory within a few months and therefore did not prepare for a war
lasting into the winter
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Hitler was an impatient man and there for, even with all delays and warnings
the invasion went forward on the 22nd June 1941
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He did this on the 22nd of June 1941 because
he had a plan, justification and was impatient but suffered from financial delays

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